Saturday, July 13, 2013

Revising MySELF & My Work...



What have I been up to?
Lots, actually.

I’ve been rather busy in both the areas of pleasure and work.

First off, I suppose I should talk about the drawing here.  Obviously it’s just the ‘cartoon’ of me from up on the left tweaked to reflect my new haircut.  I didn't seem know what to do with it these days, and I’d been letting it grow out.  A few months back the joy of it became a chore and -sinp- cut.  I'd rekindled my passion for hats.  Since then, I’ve made a new friend, Darling.   He suggested I go shorter.  As I said, I didn’t have any particular way I wanted my hair to go at this point, so I ventured.  I like it. I don't use the hats anymore, at least not right now.   I’ll change the upper left picture eventually.

So some of my time is filled hanging out with Darling, and that, coupled with the general wonder, events and surprises one encounters in Life accounts for the pleasure I spoke about.

On the “work” side I re-read two of my novels.  Is that work?  Sure, when your intention is polishing and revising.  A bittersweet sort of work.  I of course, then, needed the queries to go with them.  One never knows and it’s easy to get too close to it, but I feel them to be solid.  Many approaches, angles and the like.  Special thanks to Doodles who took an axe to one of them.  So much better!   And so, I am now ready begin the grueling process yet one more time.  I already have, in fact.  Did the required homework and I’ll be submitting any day now.

I’ve also been working on, for a lack of a better term, a special edition of Peter Pan’s NeverWorld.  It will include annotations, other artwork & more.  It’s often on the backburner.  But I do return to it.  Right now I’m focused on the querying.

And in the category that’s a little of Column A & a little of Column B, Darling and I had become mildly obsessed  for a time with “Princess Alice” – a character from a serious psychological study by Jesse Bering.  It’s designed to examine how children’s behavior is affected by an invisible person watching over them. The Princess Alice Effect shows that children are less likely to cheat when they believe in an invisible figure looming over them.  There's more to the study than that, as it also explores  at what age and how  complex cognitive processes form.

Anyway, given my penchant to wonder and immerse myself, Darling and I have been pontificating about the nature of the character.  We enjoy over-analyzing the sparse information we have about Princess Alice, trying to glean the nuances of her psyche, powers and the like.  It also yields deep probing into the nature of reality.  Please understand that it’s all for amusement and yet we mean no disrespect to Bering, his work or the study.  On the contrary, we were rather taken with it, hence our desire to expand & create with it. Darling’s lightly considering composing a piece inspired by Princess Alice and I hope to write out the notes and ideas we have as an essay, with the citation/justification for the claims of her highness.  Maybe one day for both projects!

After all, the chatter of other characters is never (thankfully!) turned off.  Always plunking away at the other books in my head, too… more tales of the NeverWorld and other books’ sequels.  I’m leaning toward one in particular.  In fact, it would be book three of the very book I’ll be submitting.  I found some writing scraps lost in the shuffle and it rather got me thinking…

By the way, here’s a link to how the study appeared on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

4 comments:

Daisy Porter said...

Hey Petey! I loved your reference to Princess Alice and am going to read one of Jesse's books. Also, forgive me if i've told you about this before, but do you know about Query Shark? http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ You can submit your query and have it critiqued on her site, and you can keep trying until she likes it. Just a thought - I know if I ever am in the position of query-writing, I'll take advantage of it!

Peter Von Brown said...

Daisy -

Thanks for the point to Query Shark. I did indeed know of it and frequent it. I've been through all the archives. Learned quite a bit. :) I've submitted to QS before, but I didn't show up. Mediocre, I guess. (Not now though methinks!)

And there is of course more to Princess Alice than is included in the video. Yet there isn't terribly much else available online either. But that's part of the charm of trying to pin her down, so to speak. As an example of analysis: we'd wondered if PA could affect other objects, or is it just a power over electricity? In another version of the experiment PA knocks a picture off the wall. Thus the too-long-but-always-fun debate over her power limitations the night before had been settled. :)

Enjoy the book!

Somerset Wedding Girl said...

My gosh, you certainly have been busy! When will be lucky enough to see some of these creations?

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