Writer's Notebook - James Rafferty Blog

Seeking Inspiration? Try a Change of Venue

This post is about writing, but it could apply to any work, especially when it involves creativity.  

I just finished editing my first novel, Growing Up Single, and there were plenty of times when I got stalled.   Here are some thoughts about how to get through that block.  

We've all been there   You are working on a story and it has come to a dead end.   The characters seem to have lost the spring in their step.  The dialogue is wilting.   It's time for a change of venue.   

 

Perhaps your characters will come alive again if you put them in a different place, maybe even a different country.  What happens when the steady mother of two ends up in Vegas?   Does love feel the same in Paris, Texas as it does in that better known Paris in France?   

Or maybe you need the change of place, scene and time.  Think how inspired you'd be if you pitched a beach umbrella along Waikiki and were able to look up at Diamond Head.  

Picture palm trees in the twilight! 

So, think about it.  What do you do to break the ice and free up your creative juices?   Do you try for a change in your life or a new writing space?   Is it time to head off down to Baja for that writing vacation?    Are your characters yearning for a latitude change?  

 
Spill the beans.  What do you or your characters do to get inspired?   

 

An Experiment: Making a DVD for the Holidays

I conducted an experiment today which turned out well. I decided my in-laws and my parents would enjoy a collection of family photos, and music that my son and I had recorded at various times during the year.

I pulled up the Windows DVD Maker under Vista, identified which photos I wanted to arrange in a slide show and then pulled in music that I'd recorded earlier this year for the First Tracks songwriting contest, along with with my recording of Calico Jack, a song written by two of my online friends.  You can listen to these recordings online here.  Then I asked my oldest son to contribute music that he'd recorded with his trio in the last couple of months.

In about two hours, I'd assembled the entire thing, a slide show with background music. The program has a useful preview feature, so I was able to weed out pictures with issues. Next, I burned the DVD. My in-laws were visiting, so I played the DVD for them after dinner. It provided an excellent way to share my travels and family pictures, not to mention the music. I've already burned another copy and printed out a jewel box cover to bring to my parents this weekend.

This technology stuff is pretty cool when it works!

Here's a couple of pictures that I used for the menu:  

Chinaman's Hat on Oahu, Hawaii

 

Carousel in front of Hotel de Ville, Paris, France

Happy holidays to all of my readers.  

Visiting Pearl Harbor

Today I visited Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.   The park and memorial here are available free of charge.  This is an experience that Americans should have and it was interesting as well to see the many people of other nationalities who were visiting on this day.   

The visit begins with a twenty minute film that offers the background on how hostilities were heating up between the US and Japan in the time before December 1941.   Despite the misgivings of the leading military man in Japan, Admiral Yamamoto, Japan decided to make a pre-emptive strike against the US fleet in Pearl Harbor.  As the film shows, the aircraft carriers with planes got near Oahu before the planes were launched.   I have been staying near Kaneohe on this trip and that was also the place where the first bombs struck that morning.  The more famous attack on Pearl Harbor followed.   

After the film, we took a boat out to the site of the sunken Battleship Arizona.   It still lies on the base of the harbor where it was sunk on the day of the attack.  Strangely, there are still highly visible spews of oil which are being released from the ship after all of these years.   I'd seen a battleship of this style in Fall River, Massachusetts a few years back (aka Battleship Cove) and it was tragic to see that a ship with over 1000 people aboard could be destoyed so quickly.  Several of the explosions were magnified by hitting ammunition that was stored on the ships.   

Pearl Harbor is part of the history of the US and Japan, who ironically are now allies.   We all need to be aware of this history and the miscalculations which produced such a great loss of life on both sides during that war. 

I also visited Aloha Tower a few miles away.  It offers a great 360 degree view of Honolulu and the surrounding mountains.   This is a remarkable pastiche of a city that has been overlaid onto a scene of great natural beauty.  For the most part, the buildings of Honolulu are unremarkable, but you will not get a better vantage point for viewing them and the forested hills beyond.      

Speaking In Hawaii on Media and VoIP Signaling

I'm in Hawaii for the Pacific Telecommunications Council, also known as PTC '08.   This is the 2nd time I've attended this conference.   It is set at the very picturesque Hilton Hawaiian Village on Waikiki Beach in Oahu.   

I'll be speaking on January 14 in the afternoon on the topic of "Media and ISUP Signaling Translation for IMS and other Next Gen Networks".   I have found that the nuts and bolts of translating media and signaling are an important part of what is needed to effectively deploy Voice over IP.   I wrote a paper on this topic for the conference and will present it in slide form as part of a Next Generation Platforms session tomorrow.   If you are at the conference, please join us. 

I had a fascinating discussion on where Telecom is going tonight with a woman professor in Telecommunications from Syracuse University.   We were in general agreement that the innovation in Telecom is tending to come from upstarts that change the rules and force the bigger carriers to accelerate the move to new technologies.  As an example, when Vonage started to prove that VoIP was viable, this caused the US cable companies to move from talk to execution in their VoIP strategies.   In a like manner, Apple is proving that an innovative handset can create lots of excitement in a part of the business that many companies view as a commodity item.   As is the case with much innovation, Apple moved into a vacuum and changed the UI experience for phones in a way that is likely to have a far reaching ripple effect.   Too bad that they've tied it to an exclusive with AT&T in the US and not let consumers choose their own wireless phone vendor.   I'm still waiting for more aggressive deployment by carriers of phones that can support both Wifi and 2G/3G; for internet access, the higher bandwidth available via Wifi is a game changer that customers should be allowed to take advantage of. 

As I write, the wind is howling.  We've had pretty good weather the last 2 days, as it has been mostly sunny despite predictions of rain.   There was a downpour overnight last night, but it was followed by morning sun with a mix of clouds.   

Hawaiian Sojourn

I dropped down onto Hawaii last night after a long day of plane rides from Boston.  Today I reaped the reward, as the drenching rains of last night led to a sunny day with occasional puffs of cloud. 

I stayed at a house on Kaneohe Bay, overlooking a sheltered cove, with ranges of green forested mountains in the view above the bay.   After a leisurely breakfast, I borrowed my friends' kayak and set out to explore the bay closeup.   At first, I hugged the shoreline, but as my paddling got more comfortable, I turned out toward the center of the bay.  Below were strips of white coral and a near phosphorescent green in the deeper stretches.   

Later, my tour of the area continued by car.  We drove about 10 minutes along the coast to a spot where we had both mountain and ocean views. Ahead, was the corduroy green pattern of mountains shaped like a bowl.  Along the ocean, we had a good view of an island called Chinaman's Hat; later I got a view which made clear the aptness of the name. 

We then continued on down the road to the quaint little village of Kaavaa.  It sets along the ocean in an area where the surf kicks up against a seawall.  We stopped at a little place called Bobo's where we picked up a coulple of barbecqued sandwiches.   We were able to stop back across the street to eat our food in a park by the ocean.   We took a short walk after lunch, then continued the tour.  The succession of amazing views continued.  The mixture of forested hills and green ocean surf is quite unique; I've never seen anything like this anywhere else.   

We then retraced our steps back to the bay.   Truly a day to remember.