Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Depth, Surprises and Collage



First, the surprise. The Collage Contessa visited me. To the left is a collage by Kris, the collage contessa. Go visit her site for more cool stuff.
http://collagecontessa.blogspot.com

She does good work. She even does home made business cards, so cool. She home schools in her spare time. Now I'm whining about meeting my book deadline, working full time and keeping up with OWFI Contest. I'd better stop complaining. I could not home school on top of everything else. I love doing collages but haven't in a while. Maybe I should do miniatures.

This morning on the way to work in the rain I listened to a flute concerto played by James Galway. There's something about the tonal quality when he plays, a depth to the notes that others don't achieve. I don't know if it is his playing, his flute or both. It's as if a deeper value comes under the notes to make them soar. In a painting it would be like the difference between a good painting and a dutch master where the light from the painting lights up the room instead of the room lighting the painting. See Girl in a Pearl Earring.

That's what I'd love to do with my writing. Kim Harrison does it, both with the depth of her characters and the sensory richness of her scenes. She doesn't simply have two dimensional vampire, witch and pixie. These are people you know with back stories, and personalities and emotional baggage. Plot isn't everything, as important as it is. It's the personal flaws and mistakes that tell us as much about the characters as their actions do.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the best compliments I ever received was that my books were character driven. That's what I wanted. :)

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