Monthly Archives: May 2014
Balticon 2014: Perspectives
Posted by ktbryski
“I think the word this year,” quoth Tee Morris at the Shared Desk live cast this past Balticon, “is perspective.”
Sitting in the audience, I couldn’t help agreeing. “Perspective” fits this year’s convention on many levels, both in terms of my professional path and in terms of the people walking that path with me. Cons always function as creative pressure cooker and reset point for me: a place to get fired up, but also to take a sober look around and ask, “Whither hence?”
So let’s look at the community first. At any con, there are always “I love you, man,” moments. This Balticon felt like those moments lasted for four days straight. This was one of the first cons I’ve been to where I could walk into a room and know more people than not. More than that: I could walk into a room and have more friends than acquaintances.
That’s growth. And I felt calmer and more confident than at any other con. Lauren “Scribe” Harris put it well, remarking that this crowd has become like family; we don’t need to be ON around each other all the time.
So, perspective: I am very, very lucky. I have always said this, but it’s good to be reminded of it. One of the strengths of the writing community is that it is a true community. We come from all different walks of life, all different parts of the world, we are all different ages. As such, we can teach and support each other in so many diverse ways. Sometimes – especially with social media, where mini-scandals erupt like bushfires – it’s easy to forget the fact that really, the broader community is driven and united by the same passion: for good stories, good writing, and dragons and starships and suchlike.
Seriously. I love you, guys.
The flip side of all the hugging and socializing is the cold, hard look at the professional path. 2013 was a lost year, but 2014 is almost half-over. Where am I going? What are my goals: short, medium, and long-term? How can I get there?
One simple thing for starters: I need to be producing more. Yes, yes, dayjob and schooling, we’ve all heard that before. When I put my mind to it, I can write a LOT. Like, a LOT. Part of the problem has been working harder, not smarter…I say yes to ALL THE THINGS, relying on youthful energy to bull through. That works, but then I’m too drained for MY projects.
It’s partly a matter of prioritizing, partly of allocating my energy better. And I do mean energy – I have the time, I’m just too exhausted to do anything with it. Thinking of this along the lines of an energy budget might help. As might…you know…actually getting sufficient sleep and iron.
Perspective: this was the sickest I’ve ever been after a con. Probably coincidence, but maybe also indicative of the fact that I was running on empty beforehand; I just didn’t have the reserves this time around.
The other perspective gained dovetails with some advice from Stonecoast. Here’s the thing: I write often and well. On a purely technical side, my prose is already pretty clean. That got me a head start, but relying on technique isn’t really enough. Diving into analogy, I could put out table beers that taste fine and ferment in 24 hours…but I want to put out really complex, aged porters. Lagers. Heck, let’s say some 16-year-old scotch. It’s remembering to focus on art as well.
But the only way to get there is to keep writing: well and often. Refine those techniques. Use that head start like a springboard. Depth will come with time – but only if I keep writing, learning, and growing.
Perspectives, man. Perspectives.
KT
COOL THING OF THE WEEK
EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON premiered last night. The kids have SO much to be proud of – they did a great job with a very challenging score and libretto (Norbert and I did not pull punches). Also, I truly do have amazing family and friends… š
Posted in Writing
Tags: awesome, Beer, Black Creek, Community, Cons, creativity, Edits, fantasy, geek, History, Interpretive rants, KT Bryski, Personal, Plans, Podcasting, Podcasts, science fiction, steampunk, stories, Travel, writer, Writing, Writing life
Balticon 2014 Schedule
Posted by ktbryski
Balticon approaches!
Just like the unfurling leaves and May 2-4 Weekend, Balticon is a sure sign that summer is coming. This is my favourite con: relatively accessible from Toronto, just the right size, heaps of wonderful people, and great programming. Between bringing the nice young man, some really cool panels, and the chance to see some dear friends, Iām SO EXCITED for this year.
Of course, because itās a con, I totally havenāt packed yet and Iām awaiting the appearance of my usual outbreak of convention hives. Plus, I feel barely organized enough to get the nice young man and I safely on the plane, but heyāit always works out in the end.
Want to find me during the con?
Friday
Beyond Medieval History (panelist), 4:00 pm – 4:50 pm, Chase
Reading (with Veronica Giguere and Val Griswold-Ford SQUEE), 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm, Pimlico
SundayĀ
The Fantasy Authorās Guide to Beer (presenting), 5:00 pm ā 5:50 pm, Derby
Writing Real Children (panelist), 7:00 pm ā 7:50 pm, Salon B
Monday
Skool Daze: Pursuing a Writing Career While Still in School (panelist), 11:00 am ā 11:50 am. Parlour 1041
How Hard Can It Be? Jumping out of Genre (moderator), 1:00 pm -1:50 pm (Chase)
When Iām not doing panels, Iāll be roaming. You can probably find me hanging around the New Media/Literary side of things, or drooling over steampunk things in the dealersā room (Iāve somehow acquired a tendency to accumulate stuff for the dayjobā¦). Come say hi, if youāre aroundāI wear a pounamu necklace and I am bespectacled.
I am so looking forward to this. Canāt wait to see everyone!
-KT
Cool Thing of the Week
Um. Balticon. ‘Nuff said.
Posted in Writing
Tags: Administrivia, awesome, Beer, Community, Cons, creativity, fantasy, geek, History, Interpretive rants, KT Bryski, musings, Personal, Plans, Podcasting, Podcasts, science fiction, steampunk, Travel, Victoriana, writer, Writing, Writing life
It’s Gonna Be Okay: Three Months of Free-Writing
Posted by ktbryski
For the past few months, Iāve been doing an experiment. See, after my return from Virginia, my friend Blythe came overā¦and she had something for me.
āIāve been meaning to give you this for forever,ā she said. āBut I forgot, and then you were at Stonecoast, and then you were away…ā
It was a journal. āItās Gonna Be Okay: A journal to reassure myself when Iām overwhelmed by the creeping sense of impending disaster and the all-encompassing fears both specified and vague that colonize my mind, body, and soul, all of which, from the completely far-fetched to the sometimes probable, do me no good to contemplate and in fact make me miserable, and even though optimism may be unself-aware and ill-placed, I know Iāll be happier as a blind fool than as a clairvoyant apocalyptic.ā
I immediately burst out laughing, becoming increasingly amused as I read the subtitle.
She knows me far too well.
The journal contains a reassuring quotation on the left-hand page, while the right hand side has space for the date, a section for writing, and a āprevailing outlookā for the day. As it happened, Iād just read Ray Bradburyās Zen in the Art of Writing. As previously mentioned, Iād been struck by his habit of writing prose poems on whatever subject tickled his fancy and diving into his memories like a pearl fisher hunting oysters.
So I decided not to use this journal strictly for its intended purpose. I decided to use it for free-writing instead: unedited, rambling meditations. Okay, maybe there were a few times when I did free-write on something that was making me anxious, but for the most part, I turned to my past. I sought out those details that made me exclaim, āOh! I havenāt thought of that in years!ā
I set myself a few rules. Free-write every day. Fill the page. Tick the appropriate āprevailing outlookā box.
From February 28th to May 16th, I only missed one day. Over the past three months, Iāve stumbled across memories and details long buried, holding them up and examining them.
I had a rainbow-coloured basketball that I won in a Read-a-Thon when I was in grade two. I loved that thing. There was a shared driveway behind our house that I dubbed āthe alley,ā on which I bounced that basketball until its little bumps were worn smooth. Iād forgotten all about it, until now.
Something that I remember very vividly: three days after my dad died, I went to Black Creek. Not to work, just to escape. I remember when my mom dropped me off, I practically threw myself from the car before sheād even really come to a full stop. I remember that weird crouching run to the front doors, fighting to keep my balance.
Fijiās reddish-brown dirt. The pixelated neon-green frog in a kindergarten computer game. The sense of unbridled freedom when we āwent out for lunchā in grade six. The scent of pines that permeated the fort I made for myself (aged nine) in our garden.
These written meditations have unearthed a treasure trove of details. Maybe some of them will emerge in my fiction, maybe not.
But thereās been another benefit, too. I usually wrote in my journal over breakfast. First it became habit. Then it became necessary: a way to collect myself before facing the day ahead. It usually only took ten minutes to fill the page, but they were ten minutes of peace and stillness, ten minutes when my brain shut up and got out of its own way.
The other cool thing? I just flipped through the entire journal, looking at the āprevailing outlooks.ā
Theyāre almost all positive. There are a few āfingers crossedā ones, but mostly, itās thumbs-up or a-okay. The only thumbs-down I could find was also the only day I ticked two boxes. That day, I was a-okay in general, but also stressing about something very specific.
That means three months of feeling good. There is definitive proof that for three months, Iāve felt good about life almost every single day. Seeing it concretely like thatā¦well, itās an eye-opener. In a good way.
Iāve filled the journal now. Iāll keep free-writing anyway, in a new notebook. Itās become a game: what can I remember? What can I dredge up? How specific can I get, how far back can I go? Itās a chance to relive and revisit, to keep myself on track.
And to remind myself: itās gonna be okay. š
– KT
Cool Thing of the Week
After prolonged despair that we were trapped in perpetual winter, the unfurling leaves became really noticeable this week. On my walk to the subway each morning, I go up a tree-lined street. The leaves are delicate and fuzzy still, but the street is suddenly green, not the barren, spiky brown it’s been for the last six months.
Give it a few more weeks. It’s only going to get better.
Posted in Writing
Tags: awesome, Black Creek, creativity, fantasy, geek, musings, New Zealand, Nostalgia, Personal, Plans, Podcasts, science fiction, steampunk, stories, Wordiness, writer, Writing, Writing life
“We Made This” – Why I Write for Theatre
Posted by ktbryski
Last night was the first time I got to hear scenes from East oā the Sun and West oā the Moon performed by the kids.
āUh, so Iām a really late addition,ā I told the ticket-takers. āI hope I have tickets? Katie Bryski?ā
One rifled through envelopes. āWhoās your chorister?ā
āOh, um, I don’tā¦ā I awkwardly pointed to the giant sign a few metres away. āI wrote that.ā
Thank goodness I made it out in the end. My synthesized score gives some idea of the music, but really, it has nothing on the human voice.
The piano thrummed the opening chords. I heard Norbertās winds, the beautiful, aching yearning that characterizes this opera. I clutched my companionās hand as the kids took their collective breaths, opened their mouthsā¦
And sang.
Those were my words. Those were my words, brought to life right in front of me. Iād been joking all evening about feeling like this:
Except it wasnāt just me. Thatās the beautiful thing about writing for theatre. Itās never just you. We made this. My collaborator, Norbert Palej, is a stunningly talented composer. From a gorgeous wind motif, to witty (and biting) musical jokes, to incredibly complex duets and trios, I hear something new every time I listen to it.
And the kids. Man, those kids. They did it. They nailed it. Sure, this was only a few excerptsābut they got it. With accompaniment, with Norbertās music, with the kidsā voicesā¦it actually sounded like a real opera. Because somehow, it wasn’t real yet before. Not when I was tapping out meters on my desk whileĀ eatingĀ Jamaican patties.Ā My own words hit me in a totally different way than they ever have before.
I havenāt even seen staging, set, or costumes yet, and each of those things represents another talent. Plus thereās the direction. Plus thereās the chamber orchestra.
So many different aspects, so many different people putting their work and creativity. Theatre is greater than the sum of its partsāits magic comes from this synthesis. And for me, experiencing my words brought to lifeāwhether through a straight play, a podcast, an operaāis a high unlike any other. Evenā¦and I almost hesitate to say thisā¦even a book launch, or seeing my stories in anthologies or magazines isnāt the same.
Theatre lives. Theatre breathes. Theatre does different things than printed words, unlocks and punches a different part of my brain.
Yes, I write novels and short stories. Those will likely comprise the bulk of my writing. But as long as that magic remains in the theatre, I suspect that I shall always write for the stage in some way. Thereās so much strength, potency, and love in collaboration; how could I not?
Now to prepare myself for that opening night energy. Just under three weeks until premiere.
-KT
Cool Thing of the WeekĀ
Obviously, this bear. This is one of 100 polar bears made by the CCOC. He is the polar bear from East oā the Sun and West oā the Moon, and heās wearing a t-shirt with the CCOC logo.
And he sings music from the opera. The kids recorded a short segment that plays when you squeeze his paw.
Let me say that again.
This bear freaking sings words that I wrote!
This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Iām still in shock, actually.
Oh man, oh man, oh manā¦
Posted in Writing
Tags: awesome, Canadian Children's Opera Company, CCOC, COC, Community, creativity, fantasy, geek, Interpretive rants, KT Bryski, librettist, libretto, musings, opera, Personal, playwriting, science fiction, stage, steampunk, stories, theatre, Wordiness, writer, Writing, Writing life
Writing with Love
Posted by ktbryski
Ā
The above quotation popped up in my feed this week. Usually, I donāt pay much attention to these sorts of quotes-and-images, but this one struck me. Maybe because Iām back at the dayjob.
As Iāve discussed many times, I steal places pretty shamelessly.Ā From the dayjob, our Second House shows up in my story āAfter the Windsā as the heroineās home; it reappears as the Braesā house in the Victorian Dark Fantasy. Burwick House also shows up in both stories; the Doctorās House is the main set piece in another. I fell in love with New Zealand, too. Its impossibly green hills roll through the ātext-based interactive online game.ā If you look closely, you can spot its caves and long white clouds in one of my Stonecoast workshop submissions.
Call it the historian in me, but I like this notion of things we love living on in stories. In fact, Iām writing a story on similar lines: an alternate Toronto, one which contains everything in this city that was lost, destroyed, or covered up and buried.
It all lives on.
Writers are like sponges that way. We absorb everything around us, often not even aware that weāre doing so, and even we donāt know when, where, or how things will rematerialize. Itās like catching partial reflections from shards of mirror. All of these memories and experiences get broken up and glued back together: rearranged, reimagined, and reversed.
Ray Bradbury wrote about this much more poignantly than I can. If you havenāt read Zen in the Art of Writing, go find it. Even if youāre not a writer, his insights can be applied to most creative processes.
In one of the essays, he asks, āWhat do you want more than anything else in the world? What do you love, or what do you hateā¦there is zest in hate as well as in love, [and it will] fire the landscape and raise the temperature of your typewriter thirty degrees.ā
So what do I love?
Well, specifically looking at how much Black Creek pops up in the Victorian Dark Fantasyā¦I love the way the sun sheens off the barn roof on crisp autumn mornings. I love the fallen leaves crunching under my boots, the sharp smell of smoke when the fires get lit. I love the steam that curls along the breweryās ceiling when we cool the wort. I love the way the loaf pans are all dented along one edge, because that is where the peel jams into them as we remove them from the bake-oven. I love the bleached-bone paleness of the bricks inside the bake ovens.
There is joy in these small details, the little things which, as Bradbury says, āā¦at one time when we were children, were invested with magic for us.ā Itās this notion of ālooking and re-looking.ā What makes this inn, this farmhouse, this hearth different from all the others?
As writers, itās our job to find out and explain. If weāre writers in love, then part of us already knows.
-KT
Cool Thing of the Week!
At last, I have obtained my own teapot and kerosene lamps. My church does an attic sale every May, which means that every April, I volunteer to haul the goods up from the basement. I salivated over the lamps the moment I saw them two weeks ago, so I was very disappointed when I arrived at the sale and couldnāt find them anywhereā¦but then, one of the sales volunteers exclaimed, āOh! Youāre the girl! We have your lamps!ā
My lovely church ladies had stashed them safely away for me, to prevent anyone else from making off with them. My ladies are awesome.
Posted in Writing
Tags: awesome, Black Creek, Community, creativity, Edits, fantasy, geek, History, Interpretive rants, KT Bryski, musings, New Zealand, Nostalgia, Personal, science fiction, steampunk, stories, writer, Writing, Writing life