So, this is weird. I feel like I'm sitting in limbo.
For the first time in weeks, I don't have a writing project on my hands.
Now, that's all going to change tomorrow (I'll talk about that then). But for now, it's... actually kind of scary. I'm floating around looking at all the time I have on my hands and not getting anything done (more or less). I made some progress on my reading, played some video games, and generally wasted time.
It was kind of miserable. Not having anything to write felt... wrong, somehow.
I did enjoy it, sure. And I do think it was a good thing (that's a big shift, by the way; for the longest time I felt terrible every time I took a day off). Breaks are necessary in order to "refill the well," as Brandon Sanderson likes to say.
All that being said, though, I'll be glad to get back to writing tomorrow. I don't want to lose this momentum.
Showing posts with label declaration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label declaration. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
NaNoWriMo 2011 - Day 9
"If you understand the basic elements of crafting fiction, craft will help you find your way when you are lost in your story."
-M. Todd Gallowglas
 |
| But don't worry, none of them are about you... ...often. |
First, the above quote is from author and bardic storyteller Michael Todd Gallowglas. I met him at WorldCon in Reno this past August (for tales from my Reno adventures, take a look through my blog archive). He's been seeing some success with independent publishing and often has insightful things to say about the writing life on his blog.
Speaking of which, today he talked about "Why I Write," which is a question many of us authors have either asked ourselves or else been asked before. Like I said, some thought-provoking insights. So I encourage you to take a look at it and see what he has to say. While you're there, you can also find links to his works on Amazon. I haven't had a chance to read through it yet myself, but I've bought it and it's on my list and it all looks like some fun stuff. So go ahead and give him a look.
On my own side of things, I can now make my big, exciting announcement.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Stalling Out at 30k
I'm at that point in my word counts right now where things get difficult.
I recognize this point now -- as opposed to the past three or four projects where I would just come up against it and shrug. It's right around the 30k or 35k mark. The writing just stalls out.
It's not that I've run out of ideas or don't know what to write next. I definitely know where the story goes and usually I'll have the next few scenes or story arcs blocked out in my head. What happens is that I simply hit a mental block and don't want to write anymore.
Naturally, this is something I have to overcome.
And I have overcome it, in the past. I've written two "novels." That is to say, I've written at length on two continuous streams of text that congeal together to form some semblance of a story.
I've attempted several others.
Each time I start a project, I can see improvement in my skills with word usage, character development, world building, and plot. My craft improves, in other words.
But this 30,000 mark is still a challenge for me.
My first completed work, "Runic," totals around 32,000 words. Right. On. The Mark. I hadn't realized this until today, when I identified this 30,000 mark as the bane of my productivity.
Now, I've talked in the past about how "Runic" needs to be revised. But that's something of a lie. Truth is, the book needs to be totally rewritten -- possibly even re-imagined. There are solid ideas in there, and the core concept of the character dynamic is a solid one (when I have the skills to pull it off), but the rest of it is flat, haphazard, and way too simple.
I think I now have a reason (aside from a simple "I-wasn't-a-good-writer-back-then" explanation). Put simply, I was brought up short by the 30,000 mark. I didn't want to go past it, for whatever reason, so I cut corners, simplified world and plot details, cheated my characters out of there development, and otherwise squeezed the life out of my work in order to maintain my secure-feeling barrier of 30,000 words.
Almost one year after starting "Runic" (which took about two months to finish), I started work on "Godslayers." It's a project that I am still very excited about -- one that I knew was going to be more ambitious than anything I had seriously attempted before. I worried that I might not have had enough practice writing completed stories and single novels and et cetera before embarking on such an epic journey (I still worry about these things, actually). In the end, however, I decided I didn't care. Epic fantasy is what I'm passionate about. So that's what I write about.
I think you can guess where this is going.
Yeah, stopped around 30,000 words.
Again, it's not that I didn't know what to write. I had just finished a major action sequence for the book -- the first of many that I've envisioned. I knew where the overall plot was going, I was beginning to settle into writing the characters. The world was fleshed out from months of research, and the plot was set for at least another 60,000 words from months of outlining.
But I just stopped. I claimed that I was growing burned-out. I needed to take a break. School was growing more busy. I needed to come at it with a fresh mind.
Lies. All of it.
I don't know what the truth is about this subconscious barrier. But if I were to make a guess at it, I'd say that it's fear on several levels:
Fear of the unknown -- I'm comfortable at 30,000 words; I've done it before, so it's not as much of a milestone.
Fear of success, perhaps -- a good portion of myself can't believe that my fragile self is capable of producing tomes like Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, and others, even though my entire self wishes to do so.
It may very well be a fear of letting go -- usually by the 30k mark, the dust of my faltering first steps within the project are beginning to settle and the world is coming alive with more detail than I had initially imagined, which should allow me to set my characters free and see what they do; but I'm always afraid of what my characters will get themselves into when they deviate from my handcrafted outline (however meager that outline is).
Actually, come to think of it, the problem here could simply be that I don't trust my characters to take care of themselves. Which, of course, means that I as an author am not comfortable enough writing them yet. Which further means that I need to spend more time on character development before starting a project.
Which... is something I keep telling myself. *shrug* I never learn, do I?
Anyways, triumph moment of this story: I have made it past the 30k mark.
With NaNo, I finished off the novel at 60,000 words. Give or take. If my memory serves, the 30,000 mark was a difficult one to pass, but I'll bet I can't even remember or figure out when that was by reading the text. And it doesn't matter that I had difficulty, because I still pressed through to meet my goal (and then some).
So that's what I'm going to do here. And with every project I write go forward until the day I die.
Anyone else? Can you identify any weird mental blocks or rhythms in your writing?
The Journey to 500K.
Current Progress: 40,634/500,000 words
I recognize this point now -- as opposed to the past three or four projects where I would just come up against it and shrug. It's right around the 30k or 35k mark. The writing just stalls out.
It's not that I've run out of ideas or don't know what to write next. I definitely know where the story goes and usually I'll have the next few scenes or story arcs blocked out in my head. What happens is that I simply hit a mental block and don't want to write anymore.
Naturally, this is something I have to overcome.
And I have overcome it, in the past. I've written two "novels." That is to say, I've written at length on two continuous streams of text that congeal together to form some semblance of a story.
I've attempted several others.
Each time I start a project, I can see improvement in my skills with word usage, character development, world building, and plot. My craft improves, in other words.
But this 30,000 mark is still a challenge for me.
My first completed work, "Runic," totals around 32,000 words. Right. On. The Mark. I hadn't realized this until today, when I identified this 30,000 mark as the bane of my productivity.
Now, I've talked in the past about how "Runic" needs to be revised. But that's something of a lie. Truth is, the book needs to be totally rewritten -- possibly even re-imagined. There are solid ideas in there, and the core concept of the character dynamic is a solid one (when I have the skills to pull it off), but the rest of it is flat, haphazard, and way too simple.
I think I now have a reason (aside from a simple "I-wasn't-a-good-writer-back-then" explanation). Put simply, I was brought up short by the 30,000 mark. I didn't want to go past it, for whatever reason, so I cut corners, simplified world and plot details, cheated my characters out of there development, and otherwise squeezed the life out of my work in order to maintain my secure-feeling barrier of 30,000 words.
Almost one year after starting "Runic" (which took about two months to finish), I started work on "Godslayers." It's a project that I am still very excited about -- one that I knew was going to be more ambitious than anything I had seriously attempted before. I worried that I might not have had enough practice writing completed stories and single novels and et cetera before embarking on such an epic journey (I still worry about these things, actually). In the end, however, I decided I didn't care. Epic fantasy is what I'm passionate about. So that's what I write about.
I think you can guess where this is going.
Yeah, stopped around 30,000 words.
Again, it's not that I didn't know what to write. I had just finished a major action sequence for the book -- the first of many that I've envisioned. I knew where the overall plot was going, I was beginning to settle into writing the characters. The world was fleshed out from months of research, and the plot was set for at least another 60,000 words from months of outlining.
But I just stopped. I claimed that I was growing burned-out. I needed to take a break. School was growing more busy. I needed to come at it with a fresh mind.
Lies. All of it.
I don't know what the truth is about this subconscious barrier. But if I were to make a guess at it, I'd say that it's fear on several levels:
Fear of the unknown -- I'm comfortable at 30,000 words; I've done it before, so it's not as much of a milestone.
Fear of success, perhaps -- a good portion of myself can't believe that my fragile self is capable of producing tomes like Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, and others, even though my entire self wishes to do so.
It may very well be a fear of letting go -- usually by the 30k mark, the dust of my faltering first steps within the project are beginning to settle and the world is coming alive with more detail than I had initially imagined, which should allow me to set my characters free and see what they do; but I'm always afraid of what my characters will get themselves into when they deviate from my handcrafted outline (however meager that outline is).
Actually, come to think of it, the problem here could simply be that I don't trust my characters to take care of themselves. Which, of course, means that I as an author am not comfortable enough writing them yet. Which further means that I need to spend more time on character development before starting a project.
Which... is something I keep telling myself. *shrug* I never learn, do I?
Anyways, triumph moment of this story: I have made it past the 30k mark.
With NaNo, I finished off the novel at 60,000 words. Give or take. If my memory serves, the 30,000 mark was a difficult one to pass, but I'll bet I can't even remember or figure out when that was by reading the text. And it doesn't matter that I had difficulty, because I still pressed through to meet my goal (and then some).
So that's what I'm going to do here. And with every project I write go forward until the day I die.
Anyone else? Can you identify any weird mental blocks or rhythms in your writing?
The Journey to 500K.
Current Progress: 40,634/500,000 words
Friday, December 10, 2010
Runic Progress
Okay, so not an insightful rambling, but still wanted to mention this.
I finished my reread of Runic today. First step of editing: complete.
Now it's time to go through it all over again, but this time with the intent of taking judicious notes.
So yeah, this is exciting for me. Runic is the first novel I ever finished. It's not good, but I think it still has potential. So now it's going to be the first novel I ever revise/rewrite.
Truly, it is an exciting day.
Still, though, I'm kind of disappointed. I had initially planned to read through this text during my first couple weeks back at school, but now here I am about to enter Finals week and I'm just now finishing the read-through.
Oh well. It's not a big deal. And with all the other progress I've made this semester (finishing NaNo, writing so much of Godslayers, reading Way of Kings, etc.), it's hard to be disappointed with what I've accomplished. It's also not surprising that I was a bit too ambitious and that some things had to fall by the wayside during all of this productivity.
From here, it's going to be an even greater uphill climb. I write very sloppy first drafts. Characters are flat, settings are underdeveloped, plots are paper-thin, etc. I generally seem to have a solid concept of structure and theme, even if those things don't always make themselves apparent until the end.
I'm confident of my ability to rework this thing (and if I'm not, I'm still going to fake it for the sake of trying). It's just going to take a lot of effort.
But hey, I knew about that when I signed up for this job.
Back to work now.
I finished my reread of Runic today. First step of editing: complete.
Now it's time to go through it all over again, but this time with the intent of taking judicious notes.
So yeah, this is exciting for me. Runic is the first novel I ever finished. It's not good, but I think it still has potential. So now it's going to be the first novel I ever revise/rewrite.
Truly, it is an exciting day.
Still, though, I'm kind of disappointed. I had initially planned to read through this text during my first couple weeks back at school, but now here I am about to enter Finals week and I'm just now finishing the read-through.
Oh well. It's not a big deal. And with all the other progress I've made this semester (finishing NaNo, writing so much of Godslayers, reading Way of Kings, etc.), it's hard to be disappointed with what I've accomplished. It's also not surprising that I was a bit too ambitious and that some things had to fall by the wayside during all of this productivity.
From here, it's going to be an even greater uphill climb. I write very sloppy first drafts. Characters are flat, settings are underdeveloped, plots are paper-thin, etc. I generally seem to have a solid concept of structure and theme, even if those things don't always make themselves apparent until the end.
I'm confident of my ability to rework this thing (and if I'm not, I'm still going to fake it for the sake of trying). It's just going to take a lot of effort.
But hey, I knew about that when I signed up for this job.
Back to work now.
Monday, December 6, 2010
NaNo 2010 Novel Complete
Well, that's that. The beast is dead.
Even though I "won" NaNo about a week ago, the story wasn't quite finished, so I had to keep it up for about 10k more words.
Today I put the final (optional) finishing touches on the draft. It was quite an experience to actually do NaNo right and finish it out through to the end. (I'm curious now as to how far my other efforts reached and if they would breeze by as easily as this one did now that I have some practice. Maybe we'll see some day.)
Overall, the experience was highly validating. Which I realize is the point; the NaNo organizers put on this show every year (with all its fantastic support) for the sole purpose of boosting the confidence of thousands of budding (and some experienced, no doubt) writers. And that's a great service to the writing community.
For me, this year it was simply a crazy gamble. About three days before NaNo started I thought, "You know, I'm kind of reaching a dry spot on my current project, I could probably use a break from it. Why not NaNo?"
So there I was, three days to prepare and about to leap off into a whirlwind of production unrivaled by anything I've done before. Sure, I've been writing consistently almost every day since the semester started, but this? This was borderline crazy. November is always one of the busiest months of the school year, especially for English majors. I had to be batty to think that I could triple my word count per day for an entire month, especially November.
Low and behold, the first day came and I produced well more than the required word count. I even had some energy left to go on, but I figured I should do the responsible thing and actually work on that homework I was so worried about.
The first week was fantastic, setting me on track to finish by the 25th or something.
Week two was rough as anything. The momentum from exploring the world and the characters and their interactions was starting to slow and I was having to let them do stuff, like make mistakes and drive the plot forward. (Note to self, something to work on: Allowing characters to drive plot.)
Week three came and I was barely on track with my word count and way off track with my outline. The sci-fi military heist thriller I thought I was writing had turned into a corporate mining drama somewhere in the middle of week two and now week three was devoted to living through the ramifications of that shift in tone.
Week four started out strong, but somebody decided to have NaNo in the same month as Thanksgiving, so I lost a whole day there. Once that was over I was able to get started on the word counts again and, with a little help from the buffer that I hadn't quite exhausted from earlier in the month, I hit 50k by the end of the week. NaNo was over.
...but not quite. I was still trying to pull off my sci-fi military heist thriller, after all, and I was going to get my action-packed ending come hell or high word counts!
So I hunkered down this past week to produce what I estimated would be 5k words to finish off the story and ended up being 10k (of course). But now that's it. The story is told. It's put to rest. It's sent off to friends and family who are clamoring to read it (surprisingly), and now I can turn my attention back to other projects (and homework).
So, a quick forecast before signing off.
"Declaration -- NaNo 2010"
This is finished. It's still in draft form, obviously, but it's a full story, so I'm going to put it to rest.
"Godslayers"
This will be my main project for the rest of the month. I'm hoping to reach another milestone in my outline before the end of the year, but as I'm easing back into it, I'm wondering if a month was too long to take off. I'm a little disoriented and the characters' voices are a bit thin. On top of that, we ended at a major milestone before NaNo and I'm not really sure how to deal with the fallout from those events. (Two things I learned from the NaNo: 1. Letting your characters guide the story is quite an exciting ride of emotional discovery, but I am horribly inexperienced at it. 2. I have difficulty filling the "slower" bits in between the major plot twists.) I'm going to hold myself to a modest word count for the rest of the month and I'm going to focus that word count on "Godslayers" here, but I'm probably going to have to read through it again and do another month or so of development and outlining before I can really make some significant progress. That'll probably be my project for the summer.
"Runic"
I've only got fifty pages left to read on what I had hoped would be my semester-long revision project. Well, plans go awry. I would like to at least finish reading through this time here and (hopefully) identify some structural concerns so I can start outlining the second draft for me to write over the summer.
Class Projects:
Shakespeare presentation and paper due within a week. Lord of the Rings presentation and paper slightly overdue, but I talked to the professor. I'm hoping I don't botch these up like I sometimes do with final papers, because I really like these classes and I'm actually interested in the topics I'm researching (especially the LotR one).
Development:
This is going to be the big one. I need to start developing one of my larger stories to be my writing project while I'm in England. I want to do something that I've been "working on" for a long time. One of those peripheral ideas that I keep holding off on, even though I keep doing bits and pieces of worldbuilding, because I don't think I'm ready or whatever. I want to take the stuff I've learned this semester and attack this project head-on. Unfortunately, that means I need to decide what project it's going to be within the next few days here so I'll actually have time to develop it before diving into word counts for January.
Phew. Alright. Kind of a heavy load. But that's okay. I'm looking forward to it.
I think tomorrow I'll take some time to talk about an author I admire. This one was far too much about me.
Tune in on the 25th for some fun news about next year.
Even though I "won" NaNo about a week ago, the story wasn't quite finished, so I had to keep it up for about 10k more words.
Today I put the final (optional) finishing touches on the draft. It was quite an experience to actually do NaNo right and finish it out through to the end. (I'm curious now as to how far my other efforts reached and if they would breeze by as easily as this one did now that I have some practice. Maybe we'll see some day.)
Overall, the experience was highly validating. Which I realize is the point; the NaNo organizers put on this show every year (with all its fantastic support) for the sole purpose of boosting the confidence of thousands of budding (and some experienced, no doubt) writers. And that's a great service to the writing community.
For me, this year it was simply a crazy gamble. About three days before NaNo started I thought, "You know, I'm kind of reaching a dry spot on my current project, I could probably use a break from it. Why not NaNo?"
So there I was, three days to prepare and about to leap off into a whirlwind of production unrivaled by anything I've done before. Sure, I've been writing consistently almost every day since the semester started, but this? This was borderline crazy. November is always one of the busiest months of the school year, especially for English majors. I had to be batty to think that I could triple my word count per day for an entire month, especially November.
Low and behold, the first day came and I produced well more than the required word count. I even had some energy left to go on, but I figured I should do the responsible thing and actually work on that homework I was so worried about.
The first week was fantastic, setting me on track to finish by the 25th or something.
Week two was rough as anything. The momentum from exploring the world and the characters and their interactions was starting to slow and I was having to let them do stuff, like make mistakes and drive the plot forward. (Note to self, something to work on: Allowing characters to drive plot.)
Week three came and I was barely on track with my word count and way off track with my outline. The sci-fi military heist thriller I thought I was writing had turned into a corporate mining drama somewhere in the middle of week two and now week three was devoted to living through the ramifications of that shift in tone.
Week four started out strong, but somebody decided to have NaNo in the same month as Thanksgiving, so I lost a whole day there. Once that was over I was able to get started on the word counts again and, with a little help from the buffer that I hadn't quite exhausted from earlier in the month, I hit 50k by the end of the week. NaNo was over.
...but not quite. I was still trying to pull off my sci-fi military heist thriller, after all, and I was going to get my action-packed ending come hell or high word counts!
So I hunkered down this past week to produce what I estimated would be 5k words to finish off the story and ended up being 10k (of course). But now that's it. The story is told. It's put to rest. It's sent off to friends and family who are clamoring to read it (surprisingly), and now I can turn my attention back to other projects (and homework).
So, a quick forecast before signing off.
"Declaration -- NaNo 2010"
This is finished. It's still in draft form, obviously, but it's a full story, so I'm going to put it to rest.
"Godslayers"
This will be my main project for the rest of the month. I'm hoping to reach another milestone in my outline before the end of the year, but as I'm easing back into it, I'm wondering if a month was too long to take off. I'm a little disoriented and the characters' voices are a bit thin. On top of that, we ended at a major milestone before NaNo and I'm not really sure how to deal with the fallout from those events. (Two things I learned from the NaNo: 1. Letting your characters guide the story is quite an exciting ride of emotional discovery, but I am horribly inexperienced at it. 2. I have difficulty filling the "slower" bits in between the major plot twists.) I'm going to hold myself to a modest word count for the rest of the month and I'm going to focus that word count on "Godslayers" here, but I'm probably going to have to read through it again and do another month or so of development and outlining before I can really make some significant progress. That'll probably be my project for the summer.
"Runic"
I've only got fifty pages left to read on what I had hoped would be my semester-long revision project. Well, plans go awry. I would like to at least finish reading through this time here and (hopefully) identify some structural concerns so I can start outlining the second draft for me to write over the summer.
Class Projects:
Shakespeare presentation and paper due within a week. Lord of the Rings presentation and paper slightly overdue, but I talked to the professor. I'm hoping I don't botch these up like I sometimes do with final papers, because I really like these classes and I'm actually interested in the topics I'm researching (especially the LotR one).
Development:
This is going to be the big one. I need to start developing one of my larger stories to be my writing project while I'm in England. I want to do something that I've been "working on" for a long time. One of those peripheral ideas that I keep holding off on, even though I keep doing bits and pieces of worldbuilding, because I don't think I'm ready or whatever. I want to take the stuff I've learned this semester and attack this project head-on. Unfortunately, that means I need to decide what project it's going to be within the next few days here so I'll actually have time to develop it before diving into word counts for January.
Phew. Alright. Kind of a heavy load. But that's okay. I'm looking forward to it.
I think tomorrow I'll take some time to talk about an author I admire. This one was far too much about me.
Tune in on the 25th for some fun news about next year.
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