projects

Deep in the Heart

Excerpts, News

Susan Lin - deep in the heart map

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Here’s a look at an ongoing mapping project I’m working on in conjunction with my in-progress collection of short fiction and CNF taking place in or around my hometown of Sugar Land, TX.  I created this first draft for my final project in the “Maps and the Geospatial Revolution” course (taught by Dr. Anthony Robinson at Penn State) that just concluded on Coursera.  Next month I’l be taking the “Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology” course out of the University of Alberta.  I expect I’ll have much inspiration for my novel as a result of that class.  Speaking of which, the first excerpt for Tyrannosaurus Rexia has surfaced online at Ghost Town.  Go check it out: A Lifetime Spent Documenting the World

Check out what I had to say about my map below:

As a writer whose work is heavily influenced by place and location, I set out to create a map that could act as a companion to an in-progress collection of short fiction and creative non-fiction set in and around my hometown of Sugar Land, Texas.  I moved to the west coast two years ago with the plan to attend graduate school and work on a novel set primarily in the California wilderness. And yet, when I arrived I found myself writing constantly about the very place I’d just left. During my first week, I visited the Oakland Museum of California and found Gene Autry’s “Deep in the Heart of Texas” on a jukebox in their historical exhibit and immediately set it to play. I don’t think I realized how much I loved my home state until I wasn’t there anymore.

Currently, the map contains short synopses of each work and attempts to plot out crucial points of interest throughout the region using a color-coded system.  As I mentioned briefly on the side column, my goal was to show in a dynamically visual way how all these characters from disparate circumstances and situations and time periods exist in and share the same space, their paths in life overlapping.  I’m a firm believer of the notion that while we take away a piece of a place wherever we go, we also leave a piece of ourselves there.  The Earth forgets nothing.

In print, this map will act as both a reference guide and a table of contents with page numbers at the beginning of the book.  On the web, the possibilities are endless.  Once implemented online, the map could link directly to each piece and be an interactive tool for the reader, featuring more pop-up photos and zoomed in locations. It would also have the potential to evolve over time if I decided to write more pieces about the region and plot additional points, for example.  In the future, I hope to create more detailed maps for each individual story in the collection.

The base map was created using Google Maps API Styled Maps Wizard and then laid out and designed with Adobe Photoshop.  Some of the plotted photographs are from my own collection; others have been appropriated from the web.

Also, you may have noticed I haven’t posted a new installment of “As Seen on TV” in a couple weeks.  This does not mean I won’t be writing these posts anymore, but that particular series is on hold as I explore other distribution options.  I will say that since my last blog on the subject, Dexter (particular Julie Benz, which is ironic since I’ve had an irrational aversion to her since she appeared on Roswell) has completely won me over.

The Fire Tree

Excerpts

As promised, here is one of the earliest excerpts of the novel I’m currently working on.  I wrote this part in high school, most likely around 2004.  It was initially a short story called The Fire Tree but the title has changed several times since.  I cut out this particular slice of backstory completely.  Originally the protagonist was an artist but then I made her brother an artist instead.  Now, no one in the story is an artist, so I guess it’s safe to post.  Trees remain an integral part of the story however.

When I was 13, my art class spent 3 months painting trees with opaque watercolors.  Pine trees, oak trees, ferns, and various bushes I don’t even know the name of.  You say it, we painted it.  The first two weeks were all technique.  Then we painted landscapes for two more weeks.  The first day we went outside to paint from direct observation, the wind was out of control.  Leaves were blowing everywhere, and my easel kept toppling over, threatening to fall on me every five minutes.  Cars drove by on their way to the building and we got some strange looks.  I felt strangely at home there, regardless.

I never looked at a tree the same way again.

I might as well admit that that part is largely autobiographical since I did do that in one of my art classes when I was younger.  Another reason to cut it out.  I’m going to be posting an old video next, because I don’t think I ever posted it, and there will be reminiscing.

Raffie Goes to the Olympics

News

I added a new video on YouTube a couple weeks ago of a flip book I made for my sister’s birthday.

“Raffie Goes to the Olympics *as a spectator” is an flip book (bound with a version of the Koki Toji, or Noble Japanese stab binding) about a young giraffe who desperately wants to be an Olympic-level gymnast, despite his size, body build, and the disapproval of those around him.

The song is “Party With Children” by Ratatat, no copyright infringement is intended.

Hallelujah

News

front endpages of "Hallelujah"

Last month,  I finally finished a collaborative book project I’ve been working on and off (mostly off) for an entire year.  I’m glad I finally completed it as I can now focus on other projects.  Current and upcoming projects include: re-binding a flipbook about a hard-working giraffe who just wants to be a gymnast, a thin volume of collected quotes from Kent Boyd of SYTYCD, a tin full of Edward Gorey-inspired blank books, and hopefully participation in the 2011 Sketchbook Tour, among other things.

In terms of writing, I’m sending out a few more things this week.  Hope something will come of it.

The Inside, The Outside

Musings, News

I wrote this on November 22 but I’m an idiot and saved it as a draft instead of publishing it.  Well, I’m publishing it now, and no, I’m still not ready to talk about House of Leaves.

Wow, almost 2 months since my last update!  I knew blogging regularly would take some getting used to.  Part of the problem is that I’ve been ill and also unmotivated lately.  I’m working on a variety of projects right now, but I seem to be stuck on all of them, or at least plowing through them rather sluggishly.  More details to come when I’m closer to completion.  Also, I finally read Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves in its entirety at the beginning of October and wanted to write about it but haven’t felt quite ready.  It’s a brilliant work of literature, definitely an inspiration to those who write experimental fiction.  Hopefully I will be able to devote a post to it soon.

What I want to talk about today are common themes of YA fiction.  A lot of the novels I grew up reading featured protagonists who were outcasts, who were hiding some sort of secret, who felt uncomfortable in their own skin somehow or felt they didn’t belong.  Often, they were insecure, didn’t think they were pretty or good-looking–sometimes overweight or plain, but definitely not homecoming queen material.  However, they were usually “beautiful on the inside,” that is to say that they were very kind or thoughtful, maybe smart or talented.  I can’t speak for other countries, but in America especially, we seem obsessed with teaching our children that it’s what’s inside that counts, and these types of stories seem to be the result.  I’ve always found myself more fascinated by characters on the other end of the spectrum though.  The girls or boys who seem to have it all on the outside (usually cast to a supporting role in YA lit) but are really quite ugly on the inside and often unlikable.  They seem to be the characters I enjoy writing most.  Just a couple hours ago, I wondered about converting that idea to something more visual and tactile.  A series of art pieces that have a clear “outside” and “inside,” where the beautiful hides the not-so-beautiful.  It would definitely force me to explore what the definition of beautiful is in each circumstance.  Anyway, obviously that idea needs some developing but I think there might be something there.

Until next time.

Thick Skin

News
Baby, It's Cold Out There (BACK, CLOSED)
Baby, It’s Cold Out There (BACK, CLOSED)

A couple weeks ago, I finally finished a project that has been at least a year or two in the making.  While writing my senior honors thesis (a work of fiction that takes the reader through a girl’s life as she tries to find ways to co-exist with a father who died a couple weeks after her birth), I was thinking about books jackets as literal jackets or layers clothing that someone might put on or take off at any point in their lives.  In this piece, each layer or “jacket” represents one of the 18 years in Lyssa’s life (although I only made jackets for 8 of the more intriguing years, for practical purposes) and each has cutouts that reveal parts of the jacket underneath, or the year before, it: the past is visible in the present, is visible in the future.  This story to me is all about time and our bodies and what we choose to conceal and reveal, both in our heads and outside of them.  At the same time, there is also the idea that you put on a jacket when it’s cold, or take it off when it’s hot.  Lyssa is a character who seems to have very clear associations to temperatures, especially extremes like hot and cold.  And yet, I think there are times when the two blur together.  By the end, it’s a modern “Icarus and Daedalus” story.  To her, the sun is hot and the water is cold, so she thinks: I like the cold, it reminds me of my father, I choose the water.  But you still die.  In both extreme instances, you die.  There has to be some in-between and she has to find that.