Today is 10/10/10.  When I searched for images based on today’s date, here’s what I got.  An explanation of chaos theory.  Kinda like writing.

Although, I’m not sure what the significance is. I thought I’d use it to announce that I haven’t found that ‘yes’ from an agent who will help bring my story to the world, yet.

But I’ve been told that I can’t force a tomato plant to grow by yelling at it, throwing money at it, or by giving it an ultimatum.

“Grow or I’ll send you to your room!”

The tomato will grow on its own with the right environment. Basically, dirt, water and sun. Dirt is pretty much free. Water is cheap. And so far no one is charging for sunshine.

Is getting published, breaking into Hollywood if you’re an actor, finding your soul mate, soul searching for your passions like growing a tomato?

I was talking to a fellow writer from work. He’s a rabid reader and especially loves fantasy. I’d talked to him at the beginning of summer about his book and he had finished writing chapter five. He asked me how long it took to write mine. I said about four years.

A few months later, I asked him about his progress. He said he was at about chapter five. So either he’s been doing some serious rewriting, or he hadn’t written much. We had gotten onto the subject of forcing art. He still loved the idea of his book, loved writing, but needed some balance in life. I asked if he used an outline, and he said he wanted to, maybe it would help the flow of his writing and story.

Steven King starts his books with an idea and writes until it’s finished. John Irving starts his book with a very detailed outline. He needs to know where the story is going before writing.

Who’s method is right?

Both.

I told my friend to find a method that works best for him and just go with it. He agreed but stated that he didn’t want to force the creative process. I totally agreed. But is knuckling down on your work forcing?

With any creative undertaking, the artist only has to provide the most minimal of ingredients. Just like the tomato plant, it just needs dirt, water and sun. Everything else happens by itself.

One of the challenging things about writing fantasy is the creation of things that doesn’t exist in our world. Many fantasy writers use Tolkienesque creatures, which is great. My story came to me outside of that, and I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what to call the different things in my world.

My process was simple: I ask the question. Like, what do I call this bug that my character eats? Then I wait. Sometimes it comes to me immediately. Sometimes it comes to me in a month. Nevertheless, it comes to me.

But it comes to me not just because I ask the question, but because I show up for the answer. I spend a lot of time each day fantasizing about my world. I imagine the feelings each character goes through. I think about the conversations they have, their goals, and their character arcs. Since the majority of my days are spent at work, I tend to find a lot of dead time that allows me to do this. Don’t tell my boss.

The point is show up. I show up to write. I show up to think. I show up and work. Forcing something would be like sticking strictly to my outline and not coloring outside the lines. Have an outline, but let the idea sprout. Let little surprises in. Let mistakes enter. For those are the things that can make any artistic project grow into something amazing like a tomato plant. Just watch out of the killer tomatoes.

Mr. Miyagi points to his head. “Karate heah.” He taps his heart. “Karate heah.” He grabs his belt. “Karate nevah heah.”

I was reading an article in one of those karate or kung fu magazines. It was written by a practitioner. He was discussing how spirituality was missing from MMA, specifically targetting UFC fighters. That all fighters wanted was to be champions, to have fame, fortune, and busty ladies swarming around them.

Hell…what man wouldn’t want that?

It’s obvious there’s a huge misunderstanding of how spirituality should be practiced, or that MMA fighters don’t practice it. And it was also obvious this practitioner didn’t watch MMA, read the forums, interviews, and watch post fight conferences like I do.

It’s one of my many vices.

The wise practitioner, the writer of this wise article, full of wisdom, full of research, and full of shit harped on the lack of inner peace. Through his wise words I knew this person never fought, or if he did, then he approached it without inner peace. As wise and full of wisdom as he ascertained.

I’m a huge MMA fan. Watched hundreds of hours of interviews. And one thing that all fighters strain to get is inner peace. One of the most popular UFC fighters is former light heavy weight champion Chuck “The Iceman” Lidell. His monicker indicates that his nerves are as cold as ice before, during and after a fight. Every fighter praises him for that. Because if a fighter gets too excited, they’ll waste energy, suffer from an adrenalin dump, or are prone to mistakes. And mistakes in a game where there are literally dozens upon dozens of ways to lose isn’t a good thing. Keeping your cool is essential. And the current dominant fighters of the UFC and Strikeforce exhibit this without a doubt.

I get more nervous watching them fight.

Back to this all wise practitioner. His practice of inner peace is through meditation. I’m surmising here. But it’s pretty common. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s pretty easy to reach inner peace when you’re peaceful.  It’s kinda like going into a room full of yellow balloons to look for a yellow balloon.

Now, if we place a fighter punching this all wise practitioner in the face, how well would he be able to keep inner peace? Not well. But MMA fighters do this every day. And their ability to keep this inner peace allows them to adapt to the fight. It’s very common to see one fighter losing the fight badly, and with a slight change of strategy he comes up with the win.

This can’t be done if the fighter panics because he isn’t present enough to analyze what’s going on.

MMA fighters also practice 6-8 hours a day. They have to love the process and love the journey to continue to learn and challenge themselves. Another principle of spiritualitism.

All fighters want to be champions. But as they climb the ladder to contention, they remain present and focus on their current opponent. They study tapes, go over strategy, hire fighters who can mimic their opponents, and rarely think pass them. The principle of being present is at work here.

MMA fighters practice inner peace, but they do it in an environment that doesn’t elicit it.  So who’s more skilled at inner peace?  Someone who practices in a peaceful environment?  Or someone who practices in a violent one?

I wrote this because it struck me as a huge misunderstanding of MMA fighters.  To be misunderstood is a sore subject for my main character in my book.  He’s continually misunderstood by the people he’s sworn to protect, but he pushes on because it is what he does.  What hero gives up?

One of my favorite things to do is read people.  I used to think that I had to be present, to be there next to the person, to feel their eyes.  And I don’t mean getting my grubby hands on people’s corneas.  To be there  wasn’t necessary.  But as instant messaging becomes a tool in corporations, it becomes a tool for me, and anyones else, to learn to read people through their IM.

People IM they way they talk.  Which is fine!  But it’s funny when people type “Uh…”  And they do type the … after the Uh.  Like they want you to know they’re thinking.  I’ve also seen my questions answered first with “er”.

Er?

Or what about the “Let me think about that.”  Why not just think about it, then respond once you’ve pondered, surmised, and worked through?

I also love the “Hmmm.”  I love it cause I do that when I don’t know how to respond.  Gives me time to think without typing let me think.

So what’s the point?

One thing that is true in our world, in our universe, is we’re all connected.  It’s the reason I can read people when they’re in my presence or not (something anyone can do).  There is an energy like the force in Star Wars that connects us all, connects us to the environment we live in.  We think of ourselves as separate beings, when we are really a single entity.  It’s the reason why when a person hurts someone, they in turn hurt themselves.  When people come back from war they’re forever changed and suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.  The death they see, the death they cause rips their souls.

Remember Harry Potter?  How Voldemort wanted to rip his soul into pieces by killing others?  There is truth in that.

I’ve had to think this about a lot.  The main character deals with this not only within himself, but with the families that are opposed to the erupting war.  A war that he’s partly responsible.

And of course this idea doesn’t just apply to death.  This applies to hurting someone emotionally.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued with my mom and felt guilty about it afterward.  Or the number of times I’ve fallen into severe arguments with my ex-girlfriends and felt horrible.  In the end, no one wins a fight.  Both sides are hurt, exhausted, and don’t want to connect with each other.

Is it better to be right, or to be happy?  Because isn’t the  meaning of life happiness?

In my quest of learning more about character, I’d found a tidbit about heroes and supporting characters that surprised me.  This came from a newsletter written by Chris Soth who created the mini-movie method.  I tend to use it rather than the three act structure.  You can check out his site at www.milliondollarscreenwriting.com.

With any hero there’s a character arc.  Whether he has to learn to be less selfish, or learn to believe in herself, I find that I connect with the hero when he or she must go through something and come out a better person.  Isn’t that our jobs?  To connect the reader to our hero?  And when they don’t the story is then called a tragedy.

There are supporting characters that are necessary.  Heroes tend to have a nemesis, possible love interest, straight man or woman, a sidekick, gap-inducing character, etc.  Chris suggests having at least two mirror characters.  One character that shows what the hero can and should become–giving, self-confidence–and another, maybe the bad guy, who shows the reader what would happen if the story was a tragedy.

I understand the purpose of mirrored characters, but I’d never heard of this before.  Have you?