Thinking About Writing

I haven't done a lot of writing lately. That's the short answer for why I haven't posted in a while.

I did write a piece of flash fiction (it's a couple hundred words, I think) that I'll be putting on Instagram eventually, but it requires some artistic steps before that's ready. I'd like to start writing more, again, but I have to actually work on making that a habit. Otherwise I think about doing it, but don't actually ever do it.

Still Here

I realize it's been a while since I posted. But I am still here, and still working on this same damn story.

I know a lot of people out there have been staying home and finding themselves with an abundance of free time. But, lucky me, I have a job deemed "essential" that can't be done from home, so I still have to go to work and have exactly the same amount of free time.

I have been working on Cold Blooded, off and on. I'm still trying to outline the whole thing so I don't write myself into a corner later on. I have the plot laid out, scene by scene, up to the first murder and a little bit after. But then some, like, other stuff needs to happen before the second murder. Like, more setup, character building stuff.

I just haven't felt very motivated, so progress has been slow. It's now Camp NaNo: April Edition, and I have decided to work on something else. I'm not sure what, but I need to get out of the novel for a little while and try to find the joy in writing again.

I'm never going to get rich off my stories, so I might as well enjoy them.

I'm kicking around the idea of time travel. I haven't written a time travel story since 2011. Maybe it's time (ha HA!) to have another go at it. Maybe that'll be November's novel. I don't know.

But I'm still here. Still writing. Or trying to.

I'll see you… well, I'll see you.

Hiatus 2018

I'll be going on hiatus for the remainder of November. I'm just busy trying to finish my novel in between working.

I'll be back in December with a post-NaNo report.

They Raise Their Towers to the Clouds

This week I'm coming to you live from the deep dark woods. Where yes, there is internet. It's the 21st century, guys.

I had an idea about a story, where there was a model, and an overdose, and a guy who was trying to unravel… something? It seemed like a really good idea, but when I thought about it later, I couldn’t remember why exactly. I had the basic idea, but I'd lost the spark.

This is why you write things down, kids.

A Change of Plans

All right, guys, I'm calling it. I'm discontinuing "Just One Yesterday" for the time being. I wanted to give it a better ending, but… It was getting stuck in a rut of nothing really happening, or just the same things happening. There was all kind of other information that needed to make it in there, but for whatever reason, it never did. I think it's the nature of making it up as I go. I don't have a set plan of where to fit things in, so they don't fit in at all, and the story just wanders off the rails.

I know there were some unanswered questions, the largest of which was probably, how did Patrick end up dead and condemned to hell in the first place. That was actually the initial idea I had for the story, but when I actually started writing, I skipped to the aftermath.

I'd like to return to it someday, and I probably will eventually. But right now, I'm bored of having to write it, which is likely reflected in the quality, and everyone's getting bored of having to read it. So we're moving on, for the good of humanity.

Thoughts So Far

So we're on, what, part three of that serial story (which may be called "Second Chances," I haven't really decided)? What do you think so far? I kind of know what's coming up next, but I have yet to work out a long term plan. So I don't really know how long it's going to be or where it will end up.

I'm hopefully going to a thing this weekend about outlining, so maybe I'll learn a thing or two. Maybe I'll come back as an outlining machine! Probably not that.

So anyway, I've been trying to build this world and these characters without all the baggage of a full length novel. We just don't have time for that here. It's a fine line between no extra info, and not enough info. I'm not sure what side of that line I'm on right now. I'm hoping the answered questions in there right now will be answered by the end.

I'm going to cut this one short because I have to go to work and I don't want to put this off another day. I'd like to post on time every now and again.

Unexpected Delays

I have found that by the time I get home around midnight, take a shower, and have some dinner, I don't have a lot of energy left for writing. So it's still taking me some time to get these posts and stories written. Hence all the lateness.

When I initially started this thing, I was in school, and had Fridays off, so I could take all day Friday to write the second post of the week, if I wanted to. Now I work Monday through Friday, so I have to get both posts done in the middle of the night. Due to this, I'm considering shifting my posting schedule, and going to Wednesday and Saturday. What do you think of that?

Moving On

I was going to write this post about another little thing I realized about my villain, but I'm not going to do that, because it's not terribly exciting. So here's where I'm at. I've created this very dramatic relationship between these two characters, which is going to make for a very dramatic story. And also a very boring story. They say you should write the kind of books you want to read. I wouldn't want to read this. It's a domestic drama set in space. It's not fun. I want to write something fun.

"So make it fun," you might say.

That would be the ideal, but sometimes stories go into a tailspin of mediocrity and it's hard for me to pull them out of it. They just get worse and worse until they crash in an explosion of disappointment and I shove them in a drawer. Sometimes my attempts at writing better just makes the result worse. Of course, it's also possible that I've just learned more, so now I can see how bad it is, but the writing itself remains the same.

I don't think I'll be writing the space story for NaNoWriMo. From what I have, my characters are kind of interesting and have some potential, but I can't slog through 50,000 words of the inevitably boring plot right now. I might come back to it later, maybe write a shorter story. Something where I don't need to add chapters of filler just to meet the word goal.

Now, you might say, "But I thought it sounded like a great plot." And maybe it is. If you're into family drama. I want an exciting, fun story with adventures and explosions. But the corner I've plotted myself into precludes that. Now everyone has to deal with their emotions and grief and try to find a way to move forward. It’s super dramatic, and super boring to me.

So now I have a month and a half to figure out something better, something more exciting. Stay tuned, I guess?

I'll see you Tuesday.

Tiny Steps in the Right Direction

Well, here we are again. I haven’t made much (or any) progress on my character creation. What have I been doing instead of working on that? That's a great question. Real life has been happening a bit and that's taking a lot of my attention, but I feel like that's not a good enough excuse to be slacking off. I've always tried to make a point to not talk about real life here, because that's not what we're here for. We're here to see me turn myself into a real writer.

I'm not sure if I'm going to use this space story for November's NaNoWriMo, or if some other idea is going to come along in mid-October. I don't know if I'll have enough space-story-hijinks to fill 50,000 words. Maybe if I outlined…

I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to write the space story or if this is just going to be an exercise in character creation. I mean, it might be a waste of a perfectly good character if I don't write it, but… I don't know if that bothers me.

Truth be told, I haven't been feeling super creative lately. I'm hoping that's going to change soon, real life stuff and all. I even have a long weekend right now to get myself back to… me. It's pretty exciting. I'm hoping to actually take a day and get back to the character creation process. I've never been very good at villains or female characters, and I'm hoping I can kill two birds with one stone and create this well rounded female villain character.

Because if I can do that, I can do anything.

Except write this post, apparently. It's taken me over two hours to get this far. So I'm going to call it a day and hopefully have something more interesting on Tuesday.

How Far We've Come

It's been a year (367 days, technically) since I started this thing. So what do I have to show for it?

• 1 50,000 word novel
• 2 10,000 word novelettes
• 6 short stories, varying lengths
• 108 blog posts (including this one)

That may not seem like a lot, but that's about 77,000 words of just fiction, while first finishing my degree and then working full time. Nine distinct worlds, each with their own characters and rules and personality. And still thinking of something half-intelligent to say twice a week. That's a lot of writing.

But nothing published, you remind me.

That's true. I set out to be a "real" writer. That is, a writer who makes money writing, or at least is known beyond their group of friends. A writer who has their words printed in a book somewhere. And I haven't done that. Yet.

These Are the Wrong Sorts of Ideas

I have a story.

Well, more specifically, I have a scene. I have one character, and I can picture this scene so clearly, but it doesn't have any context. I don't know who the other characters are, or exactly where they are, or why they’re there. I think they're on an island, possibly in a hotel/bed and breakfast type place. I know they were brought there against their will by… someone. For… some reason.

See, no context.

A Case of the Blahs

I have dozens, maybe even hundreds of partial ideas and story prompts. Several jump out at me and I think, "That would be cool." But that's it. No flood of subsequent ideas. Just a desire to write a story that would be cool. It’s like… I'm just not feeling it. But I want to write something.

It's not writer's block. It’s just writer's meh.

I need something to give me that push off the edge. The thing that makes me stop what I'm doing and say, "Holy shit, what if that happened?!" That's the best thing, when you have so many ideas and plans and you can’t write it down fast enough. It's a rare thing.

Slow, Arduous Progress

At this moment, I have very nearly reached 1000 views on this blog. Exciting, no?

Already, I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo. I'll be getting my ML stuff, and the requisite annual poster. I even have a co-ML this year, so that'll be cool. All I need now is a novel to write.

I've pretty much decided that this vampire story is going to be my November novel. I'm hoping I can fill it with enough stuff to reach 50,000 words. I have about two months to figure it out. It's going to be a bit boring for you in the meantime, unless I get struck with the inspiration for some smaller project first.

As far as the novel goes, I have a bit of a setting and, like, half of a character. It's not a lot to go on. I have zero idea what the plot is. All I have is the line, "You want me to sell ice cream? Fine, but I'm not wearing one of those stupid hats." Like, for some reason, running an ice cream parlor is the normal thing for local vampires to do, and this guy's just getting roped into it. Why? I don't know! Haven't you been paying attention?

I don't really have anything else interesting to say, so I'm just going to leave it there for today.

Look At This Stuff, Isn't It Neat?

After careful consideration, I have determined that I will not be rewriting The Midnight Circus for July's Camp NaNo, or possibly ever. The general consensus on that was "write an entirely different story." So I will. I'm not going to waste my time trying to fix a story that no one would ever want to read. So now I have to figure out what to write in its place.

I have a partial story about a guy who can see the future that I could finish. I could try to rewrite any number of my old novels. There's one currently on draft three that I could try to figure out.

On my quest through all my story ideas today, I came upon my list of McGuffins. A McGuffin is a thing, that you probably want. Maybe it’s a thing that does something. That's real clear, right? It's the One Ring. It’s Dorothy's ruby slippers. It's the Holy Grail, and that suitcase from Pulp Fiction. It's either the cause of, or the solution to, all your problems. Maybe both.

Anyway, I have some great McGuffins on the list I have assembled from the NaNo forums. I'd like to share some with you. Maybe one of them will play a vital role in my next story.

• A desk that seems to swallow anything (or anyone) who spends too much time around it.
• A map that shows the location of something that you want the least.
• A tiny, metal puzzle box that is impossible to solve.
• A large, old book that doesn't open, and occasionally drips salt water from between its pages.
• A weather vane in the shape of a rooster that comes to life on the 14th of every month.
• A broken music box, which plays distorted and ethereal notes to a nursery rhyme tune.

Can you imagine a story around one of these things? Or a story involving all of them? Maybe it's time for me to write a delightfully weird fantasy/supernatural type story. Maybe that's what I should do for July.

What do you think? Any of my McGuffins stand out to you? Or might you suggest some of your own? Let's get collaborative in here.

I think we might be on the right track with this. These particular items and their odd style evoke a feeling I'm not sure I can explain. It's like… sliding sideways into a sunny room. It’s summer, twenty years ago, maybe. There's no way in hell anyone's going to understand that. I've got a good feeling about it, is what I'm trying to say.

So please, comment and tell me what you think. I don’t care if it's on here, or on Facebook. I'd just really like to hear your thoughts. All of you.

See you Friday.

Procrastination at Its Finest

I've been posting a lot of bullshit lately and I think I've really gotten off topic. I've veered away from the writing adventure I was supposed to be chronicling, and came dangerously close to just talking about boring life stuff. Someone needs to shake me or something when I do that. Get me back on track. You didn't come here for that.

I had that prompt challenge thing, but all the prompts were super boring and didn't inspire me at all. They made writing lame and tedious. And once something you loved becomes a chore, well, it's all over. I have a bazillion story prompts, so maybe I should dive into one of those. Most of my posts lately have just been talking about what I'm going to do eventually, and I'm getting tired of it. I'm sure you are too. I really just need to stop writing my posts the night before.

I have a post in progress (that I just started) about outlining. But I realized it's going to take more time than I have right now, so I'll save it for Friday. So there's something to look forward to.

Lately, it seems I've been doing everything possible to avoid starting a new writing project. I cleaned my place  last week, and took two days (there was a lot of laundry). Then I decided to learn to play the piano. I've got the first 30 or 40 seconds of an emo song that I can marginally play, so that's cool. I'll get to the rest soon. Then, I had an extra hour on Friday morning, so I did the obvious thing and started learning Russian. I'm at the point where I know what a word means when I hear it, but I'm a little iffy when it comes to thinking of the Russian word from memory and spelling it. Unless it's кошка. That one I remember, for some stupid reason. That's "cat," by the way.

But here I am doing the thing I said I wouldn't. I'll shake myself this time, but I expect you to be on alert in the future. We don’t have time for that life crap here.

Stay tuned for Friday when I actually talk about something that matters.

Face the Music When It's Dire

I don't know what we’re talking about today. I was working this past weekend, and it's a lot of standing and walking and carrying things, as opposed to all the sitting and thinking about things that I've been doing since August. So there was a lot of sleeping when I wasn't working.

I have also been listening to a lot of music. Mainly a band called Marianas Trench. Literally, 95% of what I have listened to in the past week is them. I even ordered one of their CDs as a graduation present to myself. Not going to lie, I'm more excited about that than my diploma being mailed to me.

Anyway, maybe a little more on topic, music is a huge part of my writing process. Sure, I like to have something playing in the background while I write to drown out all the background noise (and trust me, I can't hear a damn thing with my headphones in). But, music also plays a more direct role in the narrative process. I have, in my highly organized collection of story ideas and elements, a page entitled "Song Bits" with little snippets that I find particularly inspiring or compelling. These can lead to a scene or even a whole story. I have a couple of stories that owe their entire existence to a single song. I'm only going to tell you about one, because I can actually share it with you.

This came from a creative writing class I took. The details aren’t important, but the particular exercise involved using a song title as a story title, then writing the story from there. I ended up using Breaking Benjamin's "Unknown Soldier," and wrote a whole story based on it (found here). It's not a perfect story, but I did write it something like eight years ago. Although I was about 20 at the time, so it's not a great excuse. Unless I was 12 or under, I expect a higher standard of quality from past me.

Even when it's not directly influencing the plot, music is super important to my process. I tend to make playlists for each story that I'm working on. Since I imagine all my stories as movies that play in my head, it only makes sense for them to have soundtracks. There could be songs that fit the overall mood, or a particular scene, or a particular character. I haven't done this as much lately, for whatever reason, but some of my past stories have extensive playlists. An example for you is The Midnight Carnival's playlist. The protagonist was a teenage girl, so there's a lot of emo type stuff in there. When (if?) I try to revise that story this summer, I'm sure I'll be adding to it. I have a lot more of that sort of music than I did two years ago.

I've considered adding a regular feature to the blog where I share the music I'm into at the time. But I don’t know if I can consistently relate that back to writing without getting repetitious. Sometimes I just want to fangirl about a new band I found. For some odd reason, I try to cater this whole thing to the readers and what they want to see. But I don't know what that is. I'm just throwing spaghetti here. I need a little feedback if you want this to stay interesting. This isn't a monologue, it’s a conversation. And if you've ever met me, you'll know how terrible I am at keeping a conversation when I have nothing to work with.

Rewriting What We've Already Written

I'm going to take it easy this week, writing-wise. I have two finals on Thursday, back to back, and I should probably pretend like that's going to be a challenge. I can have a 5x7 "cheat sheet" for each, so I need to make those. That's going to be the majority of my test prep.

Last… whenever, I mentioned doing a revision. The story in question is The Midnight Carnival. It's something I did for Camp NaNo a couple of years ago. I had a collection of strange and interesting characters thrown into a weird situation. Namely, they were all trapped in a circus run by some kind of demon and his clown henchmen. The protagonist was a teenage runaway who was assigned the role of target girl. That paired her with the knife thrower (who throws knives around her), a guy a few years older than her. There was a whole unrequited thing going on.

But, a lot of it doesn’t make as much sense as it could, and the pacing in all screwed up. And then there's the pinnacle of literary issues: I have no clue how it ends. Our main character has to escape somehow. Doesn't she?

So I'm thinking that it might be time to revise it, either for July's Camp NaNo, or before then. Of course, I still don’t know how it ends. But I have some scribblings around here somewhere.

Here's the point where I futilely ask what you, my three readers, would like to see. The chances of me getting an answer is pretty slim, but here goes anyway.

• Would you like to see the path of revision?

• Also, would you like to see writing besides fiction? I've been known to write terrible poetry now and then.

• What, in general, do you want from me?

Onwards and Upwards

First, a bit of news. I heard back from the Trestle Creek Review. They have elected not to publish "A History of Falling Off the Wall." So this was my first rejection letter. And while, yes, this is kind of upsetting, it's also a good thing. For one thing, it means I tried. You can't get rejected if you don't put yourself out there (a phrase I really hate, incidentally). For another thing, this tells me the sort of direction I should be moving. I now know what people don't want, so I can try to write something else that people will want. It's a learning experience.

With that out of the way, let's talk about Camp NaNo. At this second, I think I have about 1600 words of my 10,000 word goal. I'm not worried about the numbers at all on this one, which is nice. With a 50,000 word goal, sometimes it can get kind of overwhelming and disheartening.

Anyway, so far the story is progressing nicely. I think I've landed on a narrative voice I like. That's always the hardest part for me. Most of the time, it starts out kind of irreverent but devolves into these cold, clinical descriptions. I'm not sure what that happens. It's like the narrative is afraid to have personality. I don't like it, so I don't know why I keep doing it.

But you're here (probably) for the story. Here's how it opens, with an introduction to the world that all potential short stories will take place in.

The world was flat. That was a given. Whether it was the only one was another matter.

Two thousand years ago, some cataclysm had occurred: The Shattering of the World. The continents had violently split apart, leaving the central landmass of Mesadia as the biggest fragment, with the other hovering distantly in the sky around it. Everyone assumed that the inhabitants of the other pieces were lost to the void.

Everyone was wrong.

Two hundred years ago, Mesadia’s telescope technology progressed to such a point that they could see the surface of Astranga. And they learned that they were not alone. The University of Gearheart, in Mesadia’s capital, began a program to construct vessels to traverse the void between the continents and train aethernauts to pilot them. One hundred and fifty years passed before the University could complete its task. Once the first ship successfully made the voyage to Astranga and back, other ships followed, and eventually, the cable-draggers.

Thousands of miles of cable were strung between Mesadia and Astranga, which went on to support the train system. Casual travellers could make the three day trip in comfort and relative safety. Over time, more and more world fragments were connected.

Today, the only sizable fragment that remained unexplored was Esphoros. Funds had run short in the program, and it was long theorized that Esphoros was uninhabited. While most of the other fragments were situated at or below the same plane as Mesadia, Esphoros had drifted upward after the Shattering. At certain times of the year, the continent would block out the sun in Mesadia.

Now, in the year 2016 PS (Post Shattering), Chancellor Gillivrey, ruler of Mesadia, okayed the University of Gearheart for one more exploratory mission. They were going to Esphoros.

This first story introduces us to Eli Makela, sheriff of the small farming town of Serenity. Serenity is about to have an influx of rather unwanted tourism. In this excerpt, Eli meets the explorers who have just landed.

When he reached the field (and shooed the onlookers away), the ship was just opening its hatch. Four people stepped out and looked around. The man in front noticed Eli approaching.

“Hello there! We come in peace.”

“Uh huh,” Eli said, stopping fifteen feet from them.

“Fear not! We are but humble travellers from the world below: Mesadia. For there lies a vibrant and friendly populous,” the man said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah…” Eli said. “We can see you.”

The man faltered. “You can… Oh. So you knew about the other world fragments.”

Eli nodded.

“So then why have you not sent down an expedition of your own?”

“What for?”

“For…?” the man asked, flustered. He shook his head. “Forgive me. My name is Solomon Maccabee. I’m the captain of the Akation—the ship here—and this is my crew. And who are you, who has come out here to make first contact?”

“Sheriff Makela, of Serenity—” He pointed behind him. “—the town here—and I came out here to tell you: You can’t park here.”

Let me know what you think so far, and I'll be back on Friday, if not before.

The Next Big Thing

It's a common occurrence that I will start plotting my next literary endeavor before I finish the one I'm working on. This project is no different. Rest assured, I'll be finishing the (still unnamed) prison train story. But the April round of Camp NaNo starts in a week and a half, and I am compelled to come up with a new story for it.

The plan is this: finish the current story before April, so I can jump into this new whatever. Of the three classes I'm taking, one will be finished by tomorrow, and next week is Spring Break, so I'll have plenty of time to finish up the tale. After all, I wrote "A History of Falling Off the Wall" in three days. This should be no problem, if I just sit down and do it.

So, what's the plan for Camp NaNo? As usual, I have a ridiculous number of plot ideas lying around. However, yesterday (I think) my husband randomly declared, "What if the earth was flat, and new worlds are discovered off the edge?" We discussed it a bit, and created this whole thing. Basically, some cataclysmic event shattered the world, and explorers have gone about reconnecting the pieces. There are air/space ships and cable car train things. The advantage of this idea is that it creates an entire world, so I could write the stories of several different characters, until I get to 10,000 words (the minimum word count for Camp NaNo).

Of course, there's a good chance I'll be struck with inspiration for something completely different between now and April 1st. These things happen. Whatever idea I go with, I will of course be taking you along for the ride.

Have any questions or comments about the upcoming Camp NaNo or the plans thereof? Leave a comment!

New Beginnings

So I thought to myself, "I should start a blog!" which was immediately followed by, "That you'll write for twice and forget about?" Yes, self, exactly like that.

The idea was that I would chronicle my journey toward becoming a real writer. I've tried this in the past. I have an old LiveJournal on which I posted updates about my NaNoWriMo projects. Why don’t I just pick up on that? Well, you get made fun of for using LiveJournal. It's right up there with MySpace, full of emo teenagers and people who can't keep up with the changing face of social media. Point is, I thought I should start fresh.

Here I am, starting fresh.

I recently submitted a story for potential inclusion in a local literary publication (North Idaho College's Trestle Creek Review). This is kind of a big deal for me. Not just because something I wrote might be printed on actual pages, but also because this is the first thing in a long time that I actually let people read. I have a terrible fear or criticism and rejection, so I tend to hide away my rough draft stories and novels (all twelve or whatever of them), lest someone give me crap for the amount of characters I kill and maim.

Obviously, if I'm going to be a "real" writer, people are going to have to read it. So that's step one, getting over my paranoia and self-doubt. The other thing I'll have to do is write things that people want to read. I seem to have that in hand. I at least have a tenuous grip on it.

The idea for this whole blog thing is that I would post something at least once a week. Which means I need to be doing something writerly and worth posting about every week. I don't see how this could be a bad thing. They say that if you're going to call yourself a writer, you have to write every day. And I have basically no homework right now, so why not? I have a collection of half a million story ideas. I might as well sit down and try to write them.

That's the other point of the blog. If there are people out there who are expecting things from me, it kind of forces me to write something, so I have something to deliver. It gives me… accountability, or something.

So that is the plan. I'll be posting this just as soon as I come up with a clever name for the blog. By the time you read this, obviously, that will be done, so consider this a note from Past Me.

And if you are interested (I'm sure you all are), my submission to TCR was "A History of Falling Off the Wall," the untold story of Humpty Dumpty, a notoriously bad egg. I should know in April if it was chosen for submission.