@Angela: I am so very sorry to hear about your friend. I wish her all the best and hope, as I'm sure you do, for her complete recovery and a diagnosis of cancer in remission. (Where I work we have a beloved, super-intelligent, kind-hearted man in his mid-thirties who was diagnosed with stomach cancer barely six months ago and is now in hospice care. It was a shock to us all, especially as his wife just had another child.)

Your questions are important, wrenching ones. I can only answer with what I believe.

In the simplest and most direct language possible: The crafting of art should never be mistaken for a life entire. Rather, life-lived experiences (both physical and mental) inform and elucidate art. Life should support art, not the other way around.

If you are temporarily exhausted and need to step away from your practice (whatever that may be: word count produced, books read, discussions followed, etc.) step away. Your mental and physical health require it. Attempting to create art while exhausted and dispirited will only result in the creation of exhausted, dispiriting art. And though I enjoy a good gloomy existentialist novel as much as the next person we probably have enough of those to last us awhile . . .

As to the point of it all: On this question I have absolutely no doubt. Every word you ever struggled to write, every book you ever read, changed you irrevocably and unalterably—for the better. It deepened, enriched and energized your life. Right now that is impossible to believe because you are exhausted and sorrowing and that is at it must be: Mind, body and spirit are crying out, “Enough! We need to rest, re-fit, replenish.”

I am not speaking in airy-fairy spiritual terms and I do not use the pronoun “we” casually or lightly.

You—as do all of us—have, in fact, two brains. The left and the right hemispheres are united by a thick band of connective tissue called the corpus callosum; this is the part of the brain that transfers and integrates motor, sensory and cognitive information between the two hemispheres. This may sound very scientific and reductionist but it is the astounding truth: cut this band of connective tissue (like they do in lobotomies) and you cleave one person into two; the left hand literally does not know what the right hand is doing.

Here’s where the importance of writing and reading come in: they exercise and stimulate more parts of the brain than any other activity does. That sentence is so important that I’m tempted to type it again. Studies have shown that writers and constant readers, in particular, show thicker corpus callosums (in autopsies after death) than people who do not read and write in anything more than the most perfunctory, desultory fashion.

The spiritual enters into it for me right at this point: Written words are only so many black tick marks on a page. Yet when we read them our brains are stimulated and both hemispheres light up. Engrams are laid down, excited neurons fire and intangible thought  wreaks demonstrable, long-lasting effects on matter. If that isn’t magic—or the majesty of God working in mysterious, wondrous ways—or simple materialism at its most awe-inspiring and numinous—or (paradoxically and counter-intuitively) all three working together at once—I don’t know what is.

Related thought: During this necessary down time won’t you be listening to music, watching television and film, reading, etc.? All of these are art. Someone struggled—as you have struggled—to produce them so that they could be available to aid and comfort you now, in your time of need. Perhaps each one of these artists experienced poignant, searing moments of doubt and existential pain during the creation of their art, moments when they said to themselves:  “What am I doing this for? Who am I doing this for? What’s the point?”

If only they had known: The point was Angela Martello. And your unnamed friend.

I am certain that every Book Country member who reads your post will reach out to you with the warmest regards and earnest, heartfelt prayers (from the religious) for the full and speedy recovery of your friend.

I am one of them. Be well, dearest Angela.

Carl, LeeAnna, Jessica, Laura – Thanks. Book Country is so much more than a web site, a community of writers – it is an extended family.

I’ve known my friend Cyndi for 30 years. We met in graduate school – we lived across the hall from each other in the grad dorm. UConn starts its fall semester before Labor Day. That first year, Cyndi – who I knew for all of 3 days – asked me if I was going home back to Philadelphia for the weekend. I told her no, and that I would just be hanging out on campus. She said, “Nonsense! You’re coming home with me!” So off we went to Massachusetts. I had a blast and we’ve been friends since. We only see each once a year – over Labor Day weekend – when I fly up to where she lives. Sometimes, she or her husband will stay with me if their jobs require a visit to Philadelphia.  (She asked me on Sunday if I was planning on coming up this year. You know I am!)

The distance is one reason I’ve been in a funk. I can’t walk over and sit and have a cup of tea with her and chat. The other reason is that she has so much going for her (CEO of a large, national society dedicated to a research, advocacy, and fund raising for a major disease [not cancer]; wife [married her college sweetheart]; and mother of two great sons) and she has always wholeheartedly lived her life. Cancer has no business intruding on her life.

But I contacted another friend of my who is a research nurse who had some encouraging words and my work in medical publishing does allow me to read up on various diseases and understand a fair amount of the material. Cyndi’s cancer was stage 1c; the tumor was contained – both very good things. The downside is that it was a rather aggressive type of cancer with a 30% to 50% chance of recurrence. But that means there is a 50% to 70% chance of it not recurring, and that’s what I need to keep in mind. (That and cancer has no business intruding on her life.)

So, I worked with clay Monday night (made about 100 miniature tiles), watched some bad television (and some decent television), did some brooding, even roughed out a section in one of my books that has been giving me trouble, and ordered a large flower arrangement (with lots of yellow – Cyndi’s favorite color) and sent it off to her with some words of hope.

My friend’s cancer and some other things that have been happening emphasize just how fragile and fleeting and full of uncertainty our lives are. As Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” For me, I know I have to spend a portion of the time given to me doing something creative – whether that be writing, tile-making, jewelry-making, or arranging flowers in my garden.

So, to spin this thread into another direction, one of my daily joys is an e-mail from the Storypeople.com web site – the Story of the Day (by Brian Andreas). Some of them are silly, some very thought-provoking, and each is accompanied by a little line drawing. Here’s an example: “How can you be sure it has a soul? she said. You can’t, I said, unless you’ve got one yourself.”

I thought I’d give it a try: I told him once that I dance through life looking for miracles and he said, what if you don’t find any? I said that it would be better to dance through life looking for miracles and not find any than it would be to scurry through life looking for disasters. At that, he scurried away.

Love to see what you all come up with.

I tend to develop stories around the characters. In fact, I have a whole bunch of fictional people swimming around in my thoughts - acting, interacting, going about their fanciful adventures which, most of the time, would never make a good story. It is my characters -not bills, romance, work or any of the other usual suspects - that keep me awake at night. They evolve and grow, take on personalities and seem to cultivate their own world until one day I realize that there is something worthwhile brewing in the chaos. And so I type...

The plots come along eventually.

But from my perspective, Jessica, you've got the tough part figured out. If you have a plot, and especially if you know how you want the story to unfold, than you probably have a good idea of the type of characters you need and how you need them to behave. Now all you have to do is give them names.

And this brings up another topic. Names. I have so much trouble with this and will go through online baby name sites for hours trying to find a good fit. How do you decide on names?!

Hello All,

    A concept always grabs me first, and that develops into a story.  I fill the story with characters based on people I’ve known or learned about.  For instance, my story “And The Last Shall Be First” was inspired last summer by all the celebration around the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – it’s a bit of a cautionary tale.  I pretty much worked out the way the plot would go, that was easy, the hard part was the characters.  I needed to make some sympathetic and others not, but at the same time they had to be real people.  Got into an argument with Carl over one of them (that’s the great thing about BC, we can argue but end up learning and improving).

    Names?  I always try to keep them simple.  I still remember when one rule of genre writing was to make your name descriptive – Stony Rockjaw, Space Ranger, or Belle Elegante´, Countess and Spy. Luckily those days are gone.  In “Agony of the Gods” my too MC’s have no names (some reviewers liked that, but one hated it).  Just do what works and feels right.

    Angela, best wishes for your friend.  Here’s a story that might help.  My father moved up from Florida to be with us.  When he got here he was diagnosed with prostate cancer by a young oncologist in the area.  I spoke with the Doc and he told me he was pretty sure my father was borderline stage C/D – a pretty bad diagnosis. He went through both chemo and radiation.  A few years later the young oncologist passed away.  Twenty some-odd years after the original diagnosis my Dad passed – of old age! You just never know, but the important thing is to let the person know they have friends who care (from your posts I’m sure you do – blessings upon you).

Tom   

Names are the hardest ……. I literally sit for hours trying to come up with something that feels right.

@Delroy Henry: For what it's worth, you might try naming a character by starting with a one-word definition of that character's essential role, and then
researching the linguistic or mythological roots of that word.

Examples:
Ambrose Phoenix is (well, kinda, anyway) immortal. The roots of both names are "immortal."
Rhiannon Dell is a girl from a small town who grows up to becomes a priestess. First name from a goddess in Welsh mythology, second name from an old English word referring to pastoral regions.
Otero Smith is an ordinary kid who grows to accomplish extraordinary things. Smith is ordinary, but his first name is after a god of the Ute Indians whose name meant "Slayer of Alien Gods."
Marc is a kid who becomes a warrior. His name can be traced linguistically to the Roman god of war, Mars.

Blending the meaning of the character's name with their behavior can be fun and suggest ways to keep him/her in character as you write.