Category Archives: Writing

changes

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It’s a miracle I ever read a novel, never mind wrote one, as I have the attention span of a flea. I signed on to post about the wild and crazy night of dreams I just had, and how I awoke with the knowledge that–oh look. Dog videos!

Anyhow, ahem. I dreamed rough and woke up because my arm had fallen so thoroughly asleep it hurt, and I was suddenly sure not only that I need to change the beginning of godlight, but also certain of how, which in spite of much mulling, has eluded me so far. A way, I think, to move the beginning closer to the beginning (if you will) and yet still sparing me one of those in media res openings.

Those are very popular now, stories that begin in the middle of action, but I personally hate them. I want to know a little about the character before she plunges through the old wellcap on her way to the mailbox, and it’s hard to fit that knowing in without telling, dumping, or what have you. But if I don’t know the character, I won’t care if she falls through and dies down there or hauls herself out just as the cap collapses, or if she subsequently leaves a bloody trail upon the ground as she crawls to the mailbox and finds a letter from her dead sister in there.

So, changes. Or a change, plus its ripples. In a story, everything ripples out.

godlight – what’s it about

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I think I am supposed to be writing entries about the kinds of things that will appeal to and attract potential readers for my novel, but I don’t know what kinds of things those might be. I don’t really like discussing my unsold stories in public much, ever since a critique group member absconded with no less than two character names and a major concept, and since there is no way to protect ideas except not to share them, I re-envisioned the whole story and have kept it quite close to the vest since.

The novel is a dystopian adventure about a collision between the near future and the far future. Although I never come right out and explain it in the story, godlight is about using time travel to change the past, and to some extent, about the effect of time travel on multiple incarnations of the same soul. It’s about what it means to be human, and what it costs to belong.

In addition to the adventure, there’s a love story (actually three, now I think about it, one of them a love-hate situation) and a mystery. Did Cera–the heroine–kill her husband seven years ago and get away with it? Just about everyone in the story world thinks so, except her one crazy companion.

There is no god in godlight. It’s not religious fiction and it’s not my intention to confirm or deny the existence of a divine being.

Now if I think of any topics that might appeal, I’ll be sure to post them here. But while I’m working on Seldom, I won’t be able to discuss her story for fear of killing it. So I’ll probably continue to share minutiae about life, the varmints, and everything. I hope that’s ok, because that’s pretty much all I have in the silo right now.

seldom on a black friday

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I don’t shop on Black Friday. The whole acquisitional frenzy thing just bums me out to the point where I have hated Xmas for years. Then last year I decided I would take Xmas on my terms, including the X, since I don’t think the frenzy is very Christ-sanctioned. I would embrace the things I loved, the trees and lights, the cards, the food, and perhaps oddly given my relationship with the X, the carols.

Not just any carols though. It has to be choir carols. Preferrably the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but definitely not anything sung by “the new” country and western set, and not really the old country and western set either. I might make the occasional exception for Burl Ives.

But about Black Friday, I don’t do it. I don’t celebrate Capitalism Day. Not that I think Capitalism is an inherently bad system. Flawed, yes, but not evil. But! NO BLACK FRIDAY. No pushing and shoving among the huge numbers of greedy cretins who think it’s the day when courtesy and good judgment are suspended.

I don’t do NaNoWriMo, either. I tried it twice, and it left me burnt out on a level I can hardly bear to recall, let alone describe. After each NaNo, it was months before I wrote again. Their rate is, if I recall correctly, 1,667 words per day. A more natural rate for me is 600-1000 words per day, with days off to recharge and feed the muse. (Maybe more on this later, if I remember.)

Yesterday I wrote the first section of Seldom. I would say I wrote the first chapter, but chapters are an unnatural concept to me. I won’t know where they should really break until the next pass at the earliest. But the first section, piece, whatever…rough drafted. 1,399 words. A few of those I’d put down longhand while waiting for Zor to get out of school on a Friday, but regardless. Yay, me.

There are always so many things I ought to be doing…and only time for a few of them.

Yesterday I also, with Zor, watched the film Alien. It was Zor’s first time. I was rather jealous of that, in spite of the fact that my first time, I saw it in the theatre. With my father, who pronounces it thee-ATE-er, and my brother who was probably eleven or so. We plan to watch the Alien Quadrilogy, and the entire Harry Potter series before we go back to school in January.

Oh, and also to figure out how to make good homemade macaroni and cheese.

whitman’s sampler

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I leave half-finished posts unposted for days, and then delete them because the topics are now old news. So here’s some random:

School
My Clock Picture for Drawing Class.

Self Portrait, ugh. The blue cast is because I took thie picture outside, I think. Afterwards I did a fingerstick, and let’s just say it’s a miracle this drawing didn’t come out even worse!

The Six Basic Shapes (for Fundamentals of Design class.) This project was more my speed: COLORING. Ha!

I haven’t received grades on any of these yet. It’s hard for me to accept that, when it comes to art, the very best I can do is–maybe–a B. Maybe that is the real lesson I need to learn at this point in my life, though. On the up side, I don’t have any trouble accepting critique, because years of writing have thickened my skin. On the down side, I still hate hate hate to give it. I don’t feel qualified, and I know other people do get their feelings hurt.

Critters
I have at least six hamster pups running around the cage and trying out the wheel. There is so much cuteness contained in such a small area, even T-Moth had to go, “Aw!” I’m fixing to move them all to a large plastic bin as soon as I figure out how to hang the water bottle. I’m on a budget, and I chose to buy an exercise wheel rather than a bottle hanger that probably wouldn’t be low enough anyway. I have another idea though…we’ll see how it works out.

Cobie and Kelly miss me, and I miss them. I’m gone a lot, and when I am home, I’m busy. I’m hoping to squeeze in some hanging-out-like-dogs on the deck time this afternoon.

I need better time-management skills.

Seriously.

Health
It’s not just the colonoscopy, or the eye exam. It’s all the hours I lose prepping for the -scopy, or half-blinded by the dialation. I can’t afford to lose that much time. My brain is not as fast as all these 18-year-olds’! Also it’s tireder. Probably the only part of my body that’s smoother now than 10 years ago.

Writing
Last Friday I went to the school’s creative writing club. I didn’t have a good feeling about it, since the club description emphasized poetry and short fiction, and well…I hardly read poetry, much less write it, and it’s been years since I popped out any short fiction. I went because Zor wanted to go, and I was obsessively avoiding an art project.

It didn’t turn out too bad. The instructor who leads the group seems to be grounded in publishing realities rather than literary snobbery (as I admit I had feared.) One of the women in the group is writing a YA F/SF novel with black protagonists. I wish I were more enthusiastic about speculative YA. Although lately I’ve been wanting to read Black and Blue Magic again for the first time in what,…30 years or better?

Mostly what I learned from the meeting is, I need to make time for writing in my life. And dogs…but also writing.

Need.

It goes back to that time management thing again.

Anyhow, as fragmented as this post feels, I’m-a hit send before I get distracted again.

Setting the Pace | Nathan Bransford, Author

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Setting the Pace | Nathan Bransford, Author.

Pacing is the length of time between moments of conflict.

one thingadingie…two thingadingies

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After days of wallowing, I finally have a one-sentence thingie for Seldom.

I know better than to share the thingie.  Nothing kills a fledgling story for me like the Arctic wind of outside scrutiny…but I have a thingie!  And I had to share that I have it–the thingie.

If I were a real writer, I’d be able to remember what the one-sentence thingie is and not keep calling it a thingie.

I can probably also share that there’s probably going to be a maguffin, or something maguffinlike.  A maguffin thingie.

Probably.

====================
P.S.  They are one-sentence pitches.  But I don’t need a pitch yet, so for me it’s a one-sentence summary.  Having it makes me feel less likely to wander off in hunting plot tribbles.

oh, so that’s next

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I was just trying to noodle the first two scenes and realized I need my heroine to do something good right away, something heroic even, like saving the cat.

So now I’m leafing through Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder.  This book is actually about writing screenplays, and was not my favorite when I first read it in 2008.  That’s probably at least partly because according to Save the Cat, godlight is a superhero story, or would be if it were a film.  Still, the book has good ideas about character and plot, and I’m looking for questions the answers to which will help flesh out my story.

Even though I’m marginally more of a dog person, I  love the concept of saving cats.  One of my all time favorite heroines became one of my all time favorite heroines when Ellen Ripley went back for Jonesy, the ship’s cat.

So onward, noodle.

what next

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The Snowflake Method has lost it’s allure, for now.  I want to dive in to the composing, but I know it’s too soon for that, so what next?Harvest Moon DS

Well, I don’t know it’s too soon, but I think it’s too soon.

It might be time to spend the day watching Netflix or playing Harvest Moon.  Sometimes that is part of The Process too.

new blog, and the whys and hows

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I am not going to write about how to write, like some authors do, because I don’t know how to write.  I might occasionally write about how I write, because I do know that…although how I write changes on a half-regular basis.  However, talking about The Process tends to bring it to a screeching halt, so not too much of that either.

But for the first post on a new blog, ok.

Currently I’m not even really writing, I’m noodling.  Or pre-writing.  Working on character info, plot, and most importantly (to me) motivation.  Why is this happening?  Why are these people reacting this way?  What does she want, and why?  As I learned from writing godlight, when the characters are fully realized, they’re more likely to take the story bit in their teeth and run with it.  I’m doing this pre-writing longhand, which is my preferred method for drafting anything.  Typing it in then becomes part of revision, an extra pass.

I need all the passes I can get, as I am a Tyop Queen, but I have a hard time seeing my own mistakes because I see what I know I wrote, instead of what’s there.

The pre-writing is happening at my desk.  When I’m ready to start drafting, I’ll probably take some loose leaf paper to Grand Central Station the kitchen table where I’ll write little bits when they occur to me.

That whole Butt In Chair Hands On Keyboard thing has never really worked for me.  It feels like punishment, and for me writing is a joy and an escape.

As to the how of noodling, today I am using the Snowflake Method.  A few days back, I was using Donald Maass’ The Breakout Novelist.  At some point I will almost certainly pull out Holly Lilse’s Create a Character Clinic and Create a Plot Clinic.  I will also doubtless consult my old Tarot deck and a book or two on astrology before I’m done.

I do what feels like it’s working until it stops, and then do something else.  I guess that’s my Process in a nutshell.