Quietly Plotting

I've been reading lately, instead of writing. And yet, it's still helping. I've been at a standstill regarding Cold Blooded, completely devoid of ideas, until I read something completely unrelated. I read John Green's Paper Towns, which is a young adult novel that has nothing to do with vampires, or murder, or ice cream. And then I couldn't sleep because new ideas for my book kept popping into my head. Now, I'm in the midst of Jim Butcher's Storm Front, which is the right genre, but I had a random idea about interpersonal relationships that has nothing to do with the supernatural elements.

I'm not sure why this is working, but I'll take it.

I can watch tons of TV and movies, and maybe I'll think of random plot ideas I'd like to write one day. But I read one book, and it's like it cracks open an artesian well of creativity. Issues I've been wrestling with suddenly have answers. Like, it doesn't clutter my brain with extraneous ideas, it focuses the ideas I have.

So that's where I've been.

I haven’t had much to report, and just saying the same nonsense over and over doesn’t make for good entertainment. And at this point, I don't think anyone is reading, so I haven't felt compelled to keep creating content that much.

I'll see you, I don’t know, sometime.

Reading is Fundamental

I haven’t done a ton of writing lately. I've actually been doing some reading.

Most recently, in that's it's ongoing, I've read Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. I started it last night, and I'm almost done with it. It. Is. Fantastic. Narratively, it's fascinating. It has a habit of telling you about things before they come up in the story, but it doesn't make it any less exciting when it does come up. Like, something will be mentioned, and it piques your interest, and you want to know what on earth that's about. Then it gets to that point, and it's still all, "Oh shit! That happened!" I'm explaining this terribly. But it’s fucking great. And it includes all these elements of modern culture, like the internet and social media, that makes it all seem kind of… possible.

Seriously, if you are a fan of… books that are good, read it.

The other thing I read recently was not a book. Not a real one. Not a complete one. I had opened it up when I was looking for excerpts for my last post. It's Cape Nowhere, my 2012 NaNo novel.

Forking Roads

This post is being written late, because I got super distracted yesterday. By a book. Not one I was writing. One that I was reading.

I've been big on road trips lately. The Long Road was a road trip. My little rom-com involves an albeit short trip where two people get to know each other. And I just read (in seven hours) John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, which kicks off its main story with, that's right, a road trip.

I think this is a sign that I need to get back to at least one of my stories.

A Proliferation of Portals

I've been watching 11.22.63, and spoiler alert for the first half hour, there's a portal. Not anywhere that would make any sense, it just is. And I'm only a few episodes in, but it’s not explained how it got there. In true Stephen King fashion, I suppose. Sometimes, weird things just are. I mean, in From a Buick 8, there's a portal to a hell dimension or whatever inside a car (I think, it's been a while since I read it). He can get away with it. But can I?

To be honest, The Long Road is really shaping up to be some kind of homage to Stephen King. The weird town with the sheriff is very Desperation, whether I meant it to be that way or not.

And that's where we run into trouble. There's a fine line between "inspired by" and "a rip-off of." You don't want to be on the wrong side. Especially if you hope to eventually publish something, which I do.

So on the one hand, I might be able to get away with giving no reason for the portals and reality jumping. On the other though, I kind of want to have one. It's seems kind of cheap to just say, "It's happening, just because."

What do you think? Would you want a reason to eventually be revealed, or can you accept a mystery with no answer?

Today's post is a little short, because I don't have much time. I'll see you Saturday.

Travelling Through Places Unknown

I want to write a journey story. We've been over this. And the more I think about it, the more I think it's going to be an Oz/Wonderland sort of deal. That is, where someone from our regular boring old world finds themselves in another, far more interesting world.

But will they stay there?

In those kinds of tales, typically the goal is to get back home, because they're stuck on the other side. But that needn't be the case.

Taking a Page Out of Someone Else's Book

I don't know if I've said this before (I've really lost track of all the things I've said), but I've been much more influenced by movies and TV than other books. I imagine that's why my stories are always so dialogue heavy and description light. They're verging on script territory.

There are two possible solutions to this:

• Give up on prose fiction and write scripts
• Read more books

I used to read a lot. Like, a ton. Notably, that was during times in my life when I didn't have internet. That is, in my youth, and that one year when I had my own little studio apartment and couldn't be arsed to pay for internet. If I wanted internet, I had to walk the half a block up to the public library and stay within ten feet of their wireless router, where the idea of a chair and table to set my laptop on was a foreign concept. So I would get movies from the library, and books.

But now I have internet. And a chair. And a table. And so I don't do a lot of reading. I just finished Terry Pratchett's Making Money yesterday, and Goodreads informs me that I started reading it August 5, 2014. I can't fathom how it took me that long to read it. What have I been doing with my life this whole time? To compare, just before that, I read had read a previous Pratchett book, Going Postal in 16 days. And before that, I read Thud! in five. Now it takes me 997? I'm so disappointed in myself…

This illustrates how I don't read that much anymore. That needs to change. And I should probably branch out and read something besides Discworld. But I don't want to! (She said with a petulant whine.)

So let me ask you this: what books, or what authors, would you recommend I read? And why? Do they have vivid descriptions? Engaging characters? Wild plots? You know, give me a reason to want to read it. Don't just tell me "It's good." Tell me why it's good. Tell me why I should greedily turn page after page and not drag it out for three years.

I miss reading. Nowadays, I just watch Netflix and spend too much time on the internet. Living in the future is not all it's cracked up to be. I mean, look at me. I'm writing this on a tablet at 1am while listening to music on YouTube. What happened to staying up late reading just one more chapter and accidentally finishing the book at 3am? Now it's one more episode, one more Reddit thread. One more mile down the Facebook feed. So tied to all this modern technology. Soon all that will be left are machines. And where will we be? We'll be machines, too.

Sorry. Like I said, it's 1am. I get existential after midnight.

They say to write good books, you need to read good books. I've heard that. And I laughed. HaHA! But I scoffed inadvisably. I mean, I keep saying that I don't know what I'm doing. So why would I think for a moment that I did? Know what I'm doing, I mean. Why would I think I knew better than the proverbial "they"?

So yes, recommend books for me to read. Novels, short stories, whatever. Preferably something I can find at a library. I'm not made of money over here.

And if you're wondering if I'll ever finish my Camp NaNo story, the answer is yes, I will. This weekend. That's all the time I have, after all. I just don't know how it ends. With death and misery, probably. You know me.

I'll see you Tuesday.