(Not Quite) Medieval France: The Catacombs of Paris

The Paris Catacombs are not medieval, but I’m considering setting the third of Christine’s mysteries underground, and the Catacombs provide the largest underground available to tourists today. To get to the ossuaries themselves, you walk through long underground tunnels, slick with moisture and smelling of earth and damp.

The fact that this particular underground houses the bones of 6 million of Paris’s dead didn’t deter me.  I tried the catacombs at three different times.  At lunch, the line rounded the block.  At 3:30, they informed me that I could wait but was unlikely to get in. So I showed up the next day at 9:30 for the 10:00 opening.  And waited.  I finally got in to the catacombs a little after noon. Though I had been within the first 200 in line (they only allow 200 in at a time), it didn’t matter.  They let the tour groups in as they arrive and since tour groups have 20 people in them, it doesn’t take too many tour groups to slow the line to a crawl. 

When I finally got into the catacombs, I was fortunate to have been allowed to hop in front of a group, so that there wasn’t anyone in front of me for a while in the long halls that led to the ossuaries.  When other people finally caught up to me, I was a bit amazed by their callousness.  Facing death can make people uncomfortable, and the people in the catacombs with me worked through their discomfort in numerous ways--loud jokes, complaints, feigned ennui. 

But the catacombs is a cemetery, and the dead, indeed death itself, deserves our respect.  There are many quotes in French and Latin throughout the catacombs to remind the visitor of this fact, but since the beautiful poems--calling the readers attention to remember the dead, to respect the fact that we all die, to attend to our short life on earth with care--aren’t translated into any other languge, the message is lost. Tourists wander the catacombs unaware that its an opportunity for reflection and inward seeking.

As I exited the Catacombs, I was struck by the number of people who had scratched or written their names on the walls.  As if to say, I too have been here, remember me, a scratching against the fear that we might live and after our short time be consigned to shared oblivion. To battle that, we talk too loud and scratch our name on some lasting surface, claiming I was here, I lived, I existed, read my name, remember me.  Those of us who don't take to graffitti write a blog.

To find out more about the Catacombs and to plan your visit.  Visit the website here. 

http://www.catacombes.paris.fr/en/catacombs

Six Impossible Things

In January, I started a practice of keeping track of the "impossible" things I did/believed to advance my writing in the world.  Every month, at the end of the month, I send the list I've kept all month to my trusted writing partners.  

In work for someone else, there are always benchmarks, checklists, to-do lists.  But as a writer, I work for some as-yet-to-be-determined reader.  No one tells me what to do and when to do it. That's the joy of being a writer.  And, perhaps, also the pain. 

So, my six impossible things list, which included twenty-one impossible things one month and only six another, has helped me treat my work with the respect and attention it deserves. And it's always nice to have someone say, "Keep up the good work." 

I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I did come up with it on my own.  You can find Six Impossible Things groups, clubs, and gatherings online if you don't have your own wriitng group handy.  

As we move into summer, it seems to me that this practice would be useful even for young people embarking on summer vacation.  What impossible thing would you like to accomplish this summer? What impossible steps will you take to make it happen? Who might dream up impossible things with you?  Invite them along, before breakfast.  

Much Love, Lori

Contemplative Photography

Every day, I try to experience the world as it is.  That's harder than it sounds.  I have to slow down and see what's in front of me.  My IPhone 4S helps. And Instagram has given me an audience, a group of people to share my vision of the world with as it unfolds each day. 

I'm not trying to create great art with my photographs, I'm just trying to see the world, to, as John Berger says, "Hold everything dear."

Click on the camera link at the top of the page to find me (and perhaps like me) on Instagram @lorigravley. 

Pantone Prose and Pictures Project: 423

In the distance, the desert became blurry. The sky was big and gray and heavy with its own weight and beauty.

I was four. The slide was tall. But I climbed. The steps had sharp teeth. The hand rails were warm from the sun. I was climbing to the top of the slide. No one was there to help me or warn me or taunt me. I knew I could get to the top on my own. When I got to the top, the little perch of metal with hand holds at the right height, I didn’t sit down and slide. I stood and watched clouds hurry across the sky.

The clouds were coming to greet me. I stood there at the top of the slide. To show how brave I was, I lifted my arms, my palms facing up. I stood there, the way Superman did just before he leapt off the building.

I lifted my arms. The storm came.

It wasn’t just rain; little pellets of ice mixed in with the rain. It made its way across the desert in slow motion, plinking up the steel of the slide, the rat-a-tat of tap shoes. When the sound got to me, it stung, prickles on the tender undersides of my arms, surprising but not quite painful.

I stood there, letting the rain poke at my arms. I was enveloped by the clouds in the sky, by the rain that fell from it, by the aloneness, the feeling that I was the only one here and now. There was nothing else, not my dead cat or my absent father. Not my distant mother or the mean kids in the honeycomb apartments adjacent to mine. There was only me and the great big world made for wonder. The pricks on my arms should have hurt, but I didn’t feel any pain. I felt ease, I felt comfort, I felt surrounded by a loving universe made for my joy.

If my mother had looked in my mouth that afternoon, searching for stolen butter, she would have found the universe. Then the world crashed in. I worried that other kids would see, that my brother would tell, that my mother would be mad at me for getting wet. I worried I would catch a cold. I worried a thousand other little worries.

I grabbed the bars. They were cold in my hands. The little specks of ice that had felt gentle when I stood at the top of the slide, felt brutal as I slid down.

Originally published at The Pantone Prose and Pictures Project 

http://www.pantoneproject.com/#/color/76

Braids: A Writing and Revision Technique

Heather Seller’s wonderful book, Chapter by Chapter, discusses a technique called braiding. Now that I know the term, I see it everywhere. Even before I had a name for it, I’d been noticing it in books I enjoy. But I hadn’t found a way to keep track of the emotional, physical, psychological, and other sub plots and arcs that ran through my stories. I’d tried several paper models, but they hadn’t been effective in helping me see my novel clearly.

But, with my spreadsheet and a new understanding of braiding in hand, I thought, what if I make a new spreadsheet page to visualize the braids. Voila.

I used the information from my original spreadsheet to look at how the plot lines in Knowingintertwined. I could see when I left one plot for two long. I could see how plot lines and character arcs balanced and played off each other. I could see where there were holes and missing parts and I could make plans to fill them in.

In Knowing, Alex and Sophie have a cat named Ginger. While she isn’t a sub plot in herself, I found that I didn’t always use her well to reveal character and tension, so I gave Ginger her own small column in the Threads spreadsheet.

I’ve wondered if I might skip the plot-tracking step of the first spreadsheet and just make a threads spreadsheet. I might try that for later stories in the series where keeping track of what we know about each character might become less important, but for now, both the plot spreadsheet and the thread spreadsheet help me see my novel clearly so that I can make it an even better read.

Review: A Tangle of Knots

I picked up A Tangle of Knots, by Lisa Graff, because it had magic in it. A very specific magic. Some people in the novel have “talents” things like baking, spitting, and choosing just the right family for orphans, that set them apart from other people. Other people, those without talents, are called Fair. It was an appealing concept, and since my current novel also uses different talents in the characters, I wanted to see how Graff handled the everyday magic in her book.

I’m not a big fan of prologues, but since this one was followed by a recipe for Mrs. Mallory’s Peach Cake, I read on instead of putting Graff’s mid-grade novel in the bag of books to go back to the library.

I’m glad I kept reading.

And even though Graff also uses 3rd person limited shifting point of view, each new chapter is seen through the eyes of a different character, a POV type that I don’t normally enjoy, I loved this book. It might be because even though the POV shifted, the protagonist was very clearly Cadence, an orphan with a talent for baking just the right cake. I love her. She is charming and flawed and quirky and a little codependent. I can relate. So, I kept reading.

The knots in the title appear in the hands of a character who moves through the distinct threads of the book first in his hot air balloon, then on a bike, and then back in the balloon, a knotted rope dangling from his suit pocket.

The title also aptly describes the many threads that, seeming tangled, draw this diverse cast of characters together. In the end we realize the threads were braided intricately, not tangled at all.

Revision: A Spreadsheet? You're Kidding, Right?

With manuscript mini-me in hand, the next step I take is to jump over to Excel and type into the spreadsheet all the information I’ve intended to keep track of all along, but sometimes forget to update.

Mike Mullins was the first one to introduce me to the idea of using a spreadsheet to keep track of what’s going on in my novel. He shared his basic spreadsheet with me, and I’ve made changes to meet my own needs and issues. Thanks, Mike.

The categories change with each novel I’m working on, but in general I keep track of the following things for each scene. Each of the following categories are posted at the top of the sheet and locked in place

Chapter and Scene

Words

Characters

Setting

Scene Description

Scene Intention

Complication

Risk

Result

Timeline/Date

What do we learn about x (character, event, etc.)

What do we learn about y

What do we learn about z

Other

I could include other categories, but for me, these categories all fit within a single screen on my spreadsheet. They make it easier to see the parts I find it so hard to see once I’ve finished the novel.

In my dream of myself as a very organized writer (a somewhat fictional creation borne out of my own longing), I will update this spreadsheet every day as I’m drafting my next novel. We’ll see how that works out.

For now, I’m creating the spreadsheet from my mini manuscript. I don’t need the manuscript in mini form for this, but it helps. I’m unlikely to edit words that are so small on the page, so it makes the mini manuscript helps me focus on creating a spreadsheet.

I’ll often take some time once I’ve finished the novel to note the word count for each scene. I don’t see any need to track the word count for the whole novel since that changes so much, the scene word count will change, too, but seeing the words as I’m first beginning to revise calls my attention to areas that may be bloated or too thin.

It’s a full day or two’s work to create this spreadsheet, and when I was young and had a more consistent memory for details, I wouldn’t have needed it, but the spreadsheet gives me distance from my work that’s essential for the next steps.

Since the next steps also happen within a spreadsheet, it helps me to start a novel worksheet that I to as needed. The novel I just finished revising has these sheets: overview (the spreadsheet discussed above), braids, character quick sheet, and revision plans. The next novel I’m revising, an historical mystery, will likely add two sheets: clues and history.

Once I’ve created the spreadsheet, it helps me stay focused on the world in my novel. It also makes it easy to find specific scenes, to look at pacing, and to track the growth of each character. Perhaps most importantly, it helps to see the novel again, both as whole and in its parts. And it helps me take the next step, braiding the stories.