Watching TV and movies with Justin, he often stops and says "I want this scene." He's picking out emotional and plot high points for Marius most often. I thought, well, what sort of scenes do I want for my story? That's what I tried to think about today.

I wrote some notes to myself about theme and scenes at lunch today. Nothing awesome like a real outline, but I almost never have a real outline, and hey, it's progress. It's still a pretty nebulous idea, but the mood of it stretches out before me now.

When I was younger I preferred science fiction over fantasy, and I am not sure specifically when that changed or why. It might have had something to do with taking science classes I disliked -- Chemistry was boring and sometimes too abstract for me, and Physics was awesome in principle but I hated the math. Teach me how the world works! Show me what applications there are for what humans have learned and where we're going and what we're ruined in the quest for science.

That's a rant for a different time, though. What I wanted to get at was that in my own writing I've mostly avoided science fiction, not because I hate it, but because I am severely lacking in the research foundation. I've started a handful of stories in that genre and kept them on the permanant backburner after only a few pages. I don't mind research, but I have a hard time balancing the need for research with the need to actually sit and write, and when I come to a detail I don't know anything about I am paralyzed because I am afraid to write it wrong. This is why I've found writing about places in my head to be much more freeing - I can only contradict myself, and everything is as mutable as I need it to be.

Still, right now at work I am reading a book on policy statements of biomedical organizations, and although the book itself is nothing but a list of policy titles, it reads like a list of hot topics of scientific medicine and medical research. I am so curious about some of these topics. I want to read about them, and because of the way my mind works, I want to take notes so I can write about them, too. I wonder if this is where NaNoWriMo will take me this year?

Justin was telling me a story this weekend about a fencing match he had and fighting strategy in general when he admitted that sometimes he felt self-conscious telling me his stories because they might end up in my fiction. In this case he thought it would be a good thing, and I'd agree since I am likely to need all the advice I can get to write a good combat scene. But it's still one of those shifty things about living around a writer, I guess.

I actually haven't stolen anything in a while. I used to be more of a people watcher: the more "shy" I acted, the more I was listening and calculating and noticing. I believe it is a skill as much as keeping a sketchbook. The more you draw [or write], the more trained your eye is to notice a particularly beautiful thing [or character nuance, etc.], and all around the more you'll notice and note.

I had some really interesting experiences working in the mall as far as people and conversations go, and I did make some notes on the odd things I heard or saw. I wrote them on blank register tape and hid them in my pockets, pulling them out to note something down when I had a spare moment. I took many more notes in the early fall than later on, and most of the notes made while selling calendars. I don't know where my register tapes are, but I am sure I did not throw them out. I think I stopped making those notes when I started working on my NaNoWriMo... at which point I wrote on sheets of notebook paper folded into sixths, scrabbling together scenes that I would type up and elaborate on when I got home. Then at Christmas time I was too busy for covert writing activities.

I think that the circle of people I see on a daily basis now might be too small for much people watching, and certainly a far cry from the daily assortment of strangers at the mall. My job isn't really full of free moments to make notes, though I still do try to make a few every so often when I run into something that sparks my mind. Those are on scrap pieces of paper spit out in error by the massive xerox printer/copier/scanner that prints whole books in three minutes. I have a pile of those, too, but they are scattered around my house. A lot of them have just got an assortment of strange names on them (the only interesting thing about proofreading for punctuation consistency in references), but there are also notes about ideas and plots and quotes. No people-watching, though.

Maybe I need to go hang out somewhere with unusual people I don't actually know. You can steal a lot more innocently from people who don't know you!