A World of Speculation

Abstractions and Perpetual Possibilities

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In which I Substitute Writing for Sleeping Meditation

December 24, 2018 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Meditating Gnome

Meditation comes hard for me — or maybe too easy. I always fall asleep. So I tried something different. Writing. Read more at Unorthodox and Orthodox. Photo by dorota dylka on Unsplash … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Unorthodox and Orthodox

Writing Days: Good and Bad

August 17, 2017 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Romancing the Stone

At the beginning of the 1984 movie, Romancing the Stone, we find romance author Joan Wilder, played by Kathleen Turner, finishing her new novel. As the heroine and hero ride off into the sunset, the camera turns to Joan behind her typewriter, with her face transfigured by the story. She’s been crying, and she gets up and walks around the house looking for something to blow her nose on. No Kleenex, no toilet tissue, no paper towels. All used up. At last she takes a note off the bulletin board and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Craft of Writing Tagged With: Romancing the Stone

The Villain’s Journey

May 20, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

The Villain

In some stories (my own included, sadly), the villain moves through the plot like a chess piece in a rigged game. These stories may have action, but they lack depth.In a great story, the hero and the villain engage in a kind of dance, each illuminating the other’s options and choices. There’s a sense that the story could be told from the villain’s viewpoint, inside-out and backwards, but still with desire, motivation, rising and falling action, and a satisfying ending.It’s like the two essential … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Craft of Writing

Inner Life, Inner Work

May 11, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Dream on a train

Whether you’re a fiction writer trying to add depth to your characters or someone wanting to explore the mysteries of your own inner life, Inner Work, by Robert Johnson will be a valuable resource for you.Johnson, a Jungian analyst and author of 17 books, wrote the book as a means to interpret dreams, avoiding the trap of "you’ll meet a handsome stranger” that so many dream manuals fall into.Instead, his approach gives insights to understand how the symbols resonate uniquely with the dreamer, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review

Mansfield Park vs. Mansfield Park

January 25, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Mansfield Park

I recently watched the Mansfield Park movie, made in 1999. As standalone entertainment, it was OK: entertaining and emotionally moving with a dollop of social consciousness.But it had been a long time since I had read the book by Jane Austen, and there were a few things that surprised me about Austen. A hardness, a coarseness, that fit our century more than hers.Mansfield Park is the story of a quiet, shy, and sensitive young girl named Fanny, raised above the the poverty she was born in to grow … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review, Jane Austen, Katherine Hyde, Movie Review

Asphalt Asylum, Steve Theme

January 18, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Asphalt Asylum, by Steve Theme

Steve Theme’s memoir, Asphalt Asylum: The Dark Roads to Light is a moving and thoughtful adventure story about a young man who leaves home to fight the darkness he sees growing in himself.As a 19-year-old in 1978, Steve struck out from Seattle, Washington, heading south on a hitchhiking journey that eventually took him to Key West, Florida, and back. He rides with a gangster, a mortician, a young Idaho farmer, an amazing variety of people, who carry him not only across seven thousand miles but … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Steve Theme

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

August 30, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a mystical portal where folk stories and mythology come pouring into our present literature. Everything from Norse (and other) mythologies (American Gods) to the land of nightmares (Coraline) flows through his rich imagination. In Anansi Boys he goes to the African spider-trickster for his source and brings him into a dysfunctional American and British family. "Fat" Charlie (he's not really fat, just soft around the edges, really) is living a fairly nice life in England, far … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Neil Gaiman

Log’s Eye View

August 9, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Gleneden Beach, Oregon, through the eye of a log

A week at the beach has been a good time for learning to create a zone for writing. In the psychological fantasy I'm working on, I find that the sound track is the David Lynch station on Pandora. Why David Lynch? What attracted me most to Twin Peaks was not the story, which was a series of loosely related events that didn't build in any direction. What gave the thin events texture and richness -- what continued to affect me after the credits -- was the soundtrack. Exploring the sources of that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Craft of Writing

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

May 26, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Three Men in a Boat: The Luggage

I've wanted to read Three Men in a Boat ever since I first read Connie Willis' funny time-travel novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is the subtitle of this book. Three Men in a Boat is an episodic journey of three men in flannel and boaters traveling up the Thames River in Victorian England. They sleep in the open air, wander off to town for roast mutton or something, and offer the occasional improving diversion into English history. It's a lightweight read, told in a droll style, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Jerome K. Jerome

The Maze by Jason Bannon

May 26, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

The Maze, Jason Brannon

In The Maze, a man’s near-death experience throws him into a psychological-spiritual-symbolic labyrinth that calls into question everything he’s been and whether it’s worth it to him to be something different. Jamie Burroughs is a man whose moral needle points to the yellow, “pretty good” region of the dial. He’s never killed anyone, he would argue, or robbed a bank, and the things he’s done wrong don’t hurt anybody. Until a beautiful former girlfriend shows up, presenting a new vision for how … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Jason Bannon

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