Phlebotinum!

Say that fast five times.

THE INSPIRATION

Every semester, I choose a new quote to put on my blackboard sticker on my office door. I work in the basement at the terminus of a hallway, very few people ever go down there, but if they do, I want them to see something that will make them feel hopeful about the future.

Specifically, theirs.

Most quotes that I’ve put up become invisible to me when I come in to work every day. They’re just part of that hallway, and I don’t think about them.

This one I think about every time I walk down that hallway. I ask myself, “Does the present I’m constructing look like the future I’m dreaming?”

I mean… yes. It’s a hard present, a tough present, because it requires a lot of hard work to build the life that I want. At the same time, it is the life that I want. I’m doing work I’m excited about, work that I truly believe is important. I live with a man who is, you will probably not be surprised to learn, specifically made to delight me. My work, not the day job, but the Work, is important to me and deeply meaningful. I’m not where I want to be physically, but that’s a change in progress.

The thing is, some things are always going to need work, and that’s okay. Acknowledging how your life does look like the future you’re dreaming, and being grateful to yourself for making that happen, is a hell of a start.

THE FAT ORANGE CAT

I love the smell of lilacs. It’s my favorite floral scent, and it’s only really around during the spring, so I try to snatch up all the car fresheners and essential oils and scented candles when they show up, and get enough to last me throughout the year.

When you’re writing prose, it’s really easy to forget how things look, how they smell, how the environment feels. At least, for me, it is. It’s also really easy to get lost in so much description that the story momentum falters. Straddle that chasm by casually inserting the smell of lilacs into your story.

The “Get Your Stuff” link will bring you to an item I selected specifically to accompany this post, but you do not have to buy that thing in order to support me. Just keep popping through Amazon and buy the stuff you were going to buy anyway.

THE TROPE

Phlebotinum. In a Buffy the Vampire Slayer commentary, Joss Whedon credited Buffy and Angel writer David Greenwalt with coming up with the idea of phlebotinum, which is the mysterious item/substance that, when applied, prevents your reader from getting too bogged down in how things work to enjoy the story. Phlebotinum is most useful in fantasy or science fiction, where what that you’re talking about doesn’t actually exist, so you can’t research it, so you just make it up.

What’s the substance our hero needs to deactivate the poison the villain put in the water supply? Phlebotinum! What’s the magic gem that, when put into the phlebotinizer, fuels the spaceship? Phlebotinum! What’s the ancient dust that, when inhaled, makes zombies of us all? Phlebotinum!

Is that a bad thing? No! Look, there’s a point where it just doesn’t matter. You’re there to tell a story, not to build scientifically sound theoretical models. Wherever there’s a part of your story that needs A Thing in order to keep things going, you create a piece of phlebotinum, name it whatever, shove it in the plot hole, and keep going.

Your reader came to hear a story about your characters. If a little carefully applied phlebotinum here and there gets things out of the way so the characters can do their thing, awesome. Go for it.

*In that case, your phlebotinum is also the MacGuffin.

THE QUESTION

“My question is about using a pen name. There is part of me that wants to use a pen name. I will soon be getting divorced and don’t want that a**hole’s last name be one that people attribute to me and my writing. But, as a child I wanted to change my name because my father was an a** hole too. I thought about using my mother’s maiden name, which I love and comes from a well loved family. But I think I’ll be starting small and doing local things and know that people know me as “Name Redacted*.” I have other factors at play that cloud the issue. Do I just resign myself to being stuck with an a** hole’s last name or take on an unfamiliar name that means something to me?”

—NR

Dear NR,

I feel your pain. I started doing professional work under my maiden name because I wanted that sunlight between my personal identity and my professional one, but then I got divorced and it all got smashed up into one thing and honestly, that was fine, too. I’ve also written under a pseudonym because I was trying out a different genre. I know writers who have chosen pseudonyms and other writers who have written under their real names and in the end… it’s about what makes you feel most comfortable.

It is, I’m not going to lie, a little weird to be Lucy at an event where people know me as Lani. But you get used to it pretty quick, and so do they. What you won’t ever get used to is seeing some a**hole’s names on your work, and you know how I know that?

I read your letter.

Use a name that means something to you. Jennifer Crusie got the Crusie from her grandmother; you could do worse than to emulate Jen.

In the end, to go with a pen name or not is really a personal choice; one isn’t better than the other. But when you love one name and resent the other, I say… go with love.

Love is almost always the right star to follow.

Everything,

L

*I’m trying to protect anonymity, so unless someone tells me it’s cool to share their name, I don’t.

Or, I try not to. I know, I did it before, but only because I was distracted and I forgot and I’m really sorry about it.

I am trying to do better.

THE PRACTICAL

I watched Coraline this week. I may be on something of a Neil Gaiman kick now that I’m doing the Endless podcast about the Sandman comics. I’ve always been a fan, but now that I’m critically engaging with his solo work, I’m seeing things that I find fascinating.

One of those things is the Other Mother, also known as the Beldam. I’m finding, as I dig in, that Gaiman is a master at taking things that have existed in our stories forever, pulling them through the dark depths of human psychology and planting them in his stories in a way that I find satisfyingly resonant.

I did some research online, but couldn’t find anything that a) cited their sources or b) wasn’t originated in talking about Coraline. But, from what these sources say, the Beldam is a fae creature from Romanian folklore who shapeshifts into a spider form, and like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, lives in the forest and steals and eats children.

What I’m learning from studying Gaiman is that these stories have survived the centuries for a reason, and his plucking these figures from these stories and giving them modern contexts is a fascinating way of examining those reasons. It’s part of what makes his work so satisfying. He’s not making it all up; he’s recontextualizing what he’s found that fascinates him.

At least, I think so.

The bottom line here is that originality in storytelling doesn’t come from the things we talk about. It comes from how we talk about them. It comes from genuine fascination, wonder, horror, delight.

That’s what makes you the writer you want to be. You can write a love triangle, or a children lost in the woods fable, or a sci-fi story about robots turning on their creators. How are you going to tell those stories, and why do you want to? Those are the questions that matter.