Well, it’s officially been one week since I crossed the NaNo finish line and I haven’t gotten a damn thing done in this time, unless celebrating at Hard Rock and watching a few neglected DVDs counts as something. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, though, as far as productivity goes. I’ve come up with a few short story ideas and have spent a little time brainstorming over the last third of my novel, but I haven’t produced much.
This has to stop. Now.
I’m not even sure what the hell is wrong with me right now. Stress, work, decompression, who knows? However, I’m making a list of goals for the month of December that need to be met, preferably before Christmas. They’re in no particular order, really.
Write the “Lori’s Chain” story.
Finish the “inky eye” story.
Work on the novel, if not outright finish it (+30k).
Write every day, even if it’s nothing but story ideas and blog posts.
Finish reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide set.
Don’t buy any new books.
The last goal I can meet simply by being inactive, but it’s probably going to be the hardest one to accomplish. I’ve got boxes upon boxes of books, shelves of books, books on my floor and books under my bed. I’ve got enough books to start my own Library of Congress.
Alright, maybe not that many, but I’ve got a ton of them. I can’t stop buying them, either, even though I don’t have the time to read them all. I think I have a hoarding problem. There’s something about a collection of printed words that’s completely spellbinding to me, and it’s almost like buying an extension for my brain every time I get a new book. I mean, it is new information, right?
I need to absorb all the information I have boxed and shelved and stacked up along my walls.
On to the fiction writing. I’ve come up with several short story ideas, including a rewrite of a story called “Lori’s Chain” that I originally wrote back in high school. It was never published and as far as I know the floppy I had it on is gone. It was a good story, a bit over sentimental, but as an adult I could probably make it a much deeper story. I may work on that a bit. Aside from that, I have a story to write about an eye full of ink, aliens hiding inside jack-o-lanterns, vampires preying on pedophiles and some other things. I have no trouble coming up with decent ideas, it’s the hows and whys of my stories that I tend to have issues with. What makes the characters do what they do, and how do I stop/kill them or get them to their goals? I think this is why my novel is slowing down. I just don’t know how to tie the two antagonists to the protagonists without making their reasoning flimsy. Would a supernatural creature do something solely out of jealousy? I think this one would, and could possibly have the lesser antagonist in her employ, but how do I go about making it sound convincing?
I think I might worry too much. This is, after all, a rough draft. It’s not like I’m chiseling this into some sort of public monument. I’m not sure whether my hesitation comes from perfectionism or what, but it’s starting to become annoying. From here on out I’m going to be working on my stories the way I worked on them during November, getting them onto the page while they’re still fresh and fretting over the details later. That worked very well for me.
Showing posts with label ink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ink. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Back to Business
It’s been a nice three days off. I can’t say I planned on taking three days away from the project (I hadn’t even intended to take one, to be honest), but it feels nice to be able to collect my thoughts and return to work. I wonder if the revision process will feel this way as well. We’ll see, I suppose.
My next goal is somewhat lofty, but it wouldn’t have been had I kept my writing schedule. I’m not going to give myself any slack. Forty thousand by Wednesday. Wednesday is the day before Thanksgiving, and I won’t be working that night, so if I get behind I can catch up by neglecting my sleep. Then again, there will be people in the house who don’t like to see me being anything less than productive with chores and whatnot so I may have to set up camp at the library or the coffee shop until my word count is caught up.
I’m not sure what to bribe myself with. I’m not sure I should even bribe myself with anything, considering the fact that getting my work done is something I should be doing regardless. Plus, the final deadline is looming and I’ve already promised myself the eTrex as a final gift. Who knows when I’ll end up picking it up, though? Maybe after Christmas, since there’s going to be no geocaching done during the dead of winter.
This Write Fill converter set seems nice and inexpensive, so I think I’ll use that as my motivation. I’m planning on picking it up anyway, so we’ll just make it sooner rather than later if I can meet my goal.
I love reading in the bathtub. I draw hot water, sprinkle enough bath salts to dye the water a nice shade and climb in, reading until I feel sleepy or I finish a story. Today I started reading 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories again after setting it down for a month or two. Some of these stories are really interesting, especially the ones with unconventional vampires or bizarre twists. This is part of a series of anthologies Barnes and Noble released several years ago, and includes 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories and 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, plus a few others. I have the ghost anthology as well.
I’m going to go ahead and keep any updates before the 40k goal is met short. I don’t want to spend too much time writing lengthy updates when I could be applying those extra words to my novel.
My next goal is somewhat lofty, but it wouldn’t have been had I kept my writing schedule. I’m not going to give myself any slack. Forty thousand by Wednesday. Wednesday is the day before Thanksgiving, and I won’t be working that night, so if I get behind I can catch up by neglecting my sleep. Then again, there will be people in the house who don’t like to see me being anything less than productive with chores and whatnot so I may have to set up camp at the library or the coffee shop until my word count is caught up.
I’m not sure what to bribe myself with. I’m not sure I should even bribe myself with anything, considering the fact that getting my work done is something I should be doing regardless. Plus, the final deadline is looming and I’ve already promised myself the eTrex as a final gift. Who knows when I’ll end up picking it up, though? Maybe after Christmas, since there’s going to be no geocaching done during the dead of winter.
This Write Fill converter set seems nice and inexpensive, so I think I’ll use that as my motivation. I’m planning on picking it up anyway, so we’ll just make it sooner rather than later if I can meet my goal.
I love reading in the bathtub. I draw hot water, sprinkle enough bath salts to dye the water a nice shade and climb in, reading until I feel sleepy or I finish a story. Today I started reading 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories again after setting it down for a month or two. Some of these stories are really interesting, especially the ones with unconventional vampires or bizarre twists. This is part of a series of anthologies Barnes and Noble released several years ago, and includes 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories and 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, plus a few others. I have the ghost anthology as well.
I’m going to go ahead and keep any updates before the 40k goal is met short. I don’t want to spend too much time writing lengthy updates when I could be applying those extra words to my novel.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Confessions of an Admitted Pervert
Today is the day I will cross the fifty percent line. My story isn’t even close to being finished, I don’t think, but I suppose it’s better to meet my goal and keep on going than it is to end a story prematurely and have an unmarketable piece of crap novella sitting around gathering dust.
I went ahead and bought the pink Pelican pen I’d been eyeballing from Pear Tree Pens, and a four pack of ink samples in some colors I’d been ogling for a while, including the Caran d’Ache Mediterranean I was gushing about yesterday. I’ve been selling some of my stuff on Amazon, mostly video games and DVDs that I haven’t touched in years, so I figured I might as well go ahead and buy it. It’s a cute, practical pen, too, unlike the antique dip pen craze that gripped me earlier this year. Once a pen catches my eye, it’s like a curse that doesn’t get lifted until I hand over my Visa.
When I sell my first novel, the Pilot Namiki Vanishing Point in raden finish will be mine.
When I first started writing again, I made a lot of notes in Scrivener (the Mac app I use for fiction projects) while working on an unnamed story that has yet to be completed. Some of them are pretty humorous. I remember one entry being about growing up, having my mom find my fiction, being criticized by her and still not being able to write sex scenes as an adult. I wrote it in July, and it’s titled “I Can’t Get Them Laid or Killed, or My Mother the Critic.”
An excerpt:
To be brutally honest, the reason my novel extension of “The Woman Without” never took off is because I had too many difficulties writing the teen/college portion of the story. I couldn’t find a way to keep the sexuality and awkwardness of that age from becoming trashy and/or ridiculous. I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it at least a dozen more times, I’ve got issues killing my characters and/or getting them laid. I will beat around the bush for paragraphs, sometimes pages, letting the story completely fall apart rather than detail all their dirty goings-on. The few “erotic” horror stories I’ve written and/or sold were a blast to put together but now, years later, I shy away from rereading them. I shy away from rereading the sex in my own fiction. Thank my Catholic upbringing for that, I guess.
Sometimes I think I know where this hesitancy comes from. I’m afraid of letting down, embarrassing or disgusting my family. I remember when I first showed signs of interest in writing “erotic” horror. It was mid to late high school, imagine that. Around the same time I actually started actively working towards getting some action in real life (I got it too, just to clarify that). I’d written a bunch of short vampire fiction, a thousand words or less, and some of it was a little risqué. It wasn’t anything gratuitous but it was a bit bold for a teenage writer, and I enjoyed it. Well, enter Mom at stage left. I think a lot of my hang-ups come from worrying about her finding things out that I’m hiding or her reacting poorly to my decisions. She found my stories, some of which had already come back to me from various publishers with rejection slips attached. She read passages of them out loud to me while I was standing, helpless, in my bedroom. I hate it when people read anything I’ve written, even an email, back out loud to me. So now, over ten years later, I think there’s a part of me that’s nervous she’s going to find my writing somewhere, published or not, and get pissed at me for talking about some fictional guy’s dick. I hope she never sees these notes and yells at me for typing out the word “dick.” Twice.
I am still having this issue. Of course, I would pick a story that’s based on a sexual concept and then whine about having difficulty writing it. I don’t have any difficulty making off-color jokes in real life, or visiting the “adult bookstore” or viewing pornography, but as soon as I need to commit this kind of thing to paper I balk. It’s something I’ve had a problem articulating for quite a long time, obviously.
It is, however, something I need to get over.
I have a scene coming up where my main character is just flat-out assaulted. I’m actually at the beginning of it now. Now, our character (and the reader) knows that, because she’s a succubus, she’s going to come out of this the victor. The perpetrator has no idea what kind of person he’s decided to victimize and as such is going to be in for a very rude and fatal treat when he’s done. Despite this, I still feel a bit squeamish, and I’m not sure why. It could be because it’s a sex scene, period, but I doubt it. It’s probably because it’s a rather violent scene that’s not really in the plot to be arousing in and of itself. I put it there to show once more that our hero isn’t exactly pristine or always kind, because I’ve been writing her as a very casual participant most of the time and I’m worried she’s becoming a bit “soft.” I don’t know how to feel about writing these kinds of scenes. I’d certainly feel embarrassed to show my mother, but at this point in my life I’ve become quite sick of worrying about her or any other family member’s opinion. I think my worry actually far outweighs any reaction they might have, to be honest.
At what point should I stop writing sex scenes? Most of these scenes are lackluster at best and bad at worst, not in terms of writing quality but of plot. She doesn’t victimize the nicest or most exciting of people. To be honest, most of these will be rewritten during the editing phase. I might go ahead and redo the first one today or tomorrow as I’m itching to overhaul chapters One and Three and I don’t think I did the scene any justice at all. I think my previous question should be reworded to “At what point should I stop writing unsavory sex scenes?”
I think maybe I feel a bit cheated so far, since the only sex in the book so far has been for “feeding” purposes only and hasn’t even been remotely hot. I’m almost tempted to go buy some smut novels at the porn store this weekend or some erotica collections off Amazon just to see how other people do it. I think my entire writing style could be considered a bit too clinical, to be honest. This is something I really want to work on both with this and future works.
Can I consider watching porn “research” for this novel? I’ve got a couple hours to burn after lunchtime…
I’m really enjoying how this whole month-long exercise has brought up new issues for me to tackle. I should start making a list of my weak points, including dialogue, pacing, sex scenes, etc. I think most of it can be boiled down to dialogue and pacing. I’ve tried to keep nervous chatter and uninteresting detail to a minimum, but I know I’m still including some of this without realizing it. I’m really looking forward to setting this aside for a short while and coming back to it with a fresher perspective. Another NaNo participant sent me an Instant Message earlier while I was at work to ask me if I’d be interested in participating in a critique group made up of Horror & Thriller forums posters. That might be a big help to the story, once I have it ready for other peoples’ eyes.
Whenever that may be.
I went ahead and bought the pink Pelican pen I’d been eyeballing from Pear Tree Pens, and a four pack of ink samples in some colors I’d been ogling for a while, including the Caran d’Ache Mediterranean I was gushing about yesterday. I’ve been selling some of my stuff on Amazon, mostly video games and DVDs that I haven’t touched in years, so I figured I might as well go ahead and buy it. It’s a cute, practical pen, too, unlike the antique dip pen craze that gripped me earlier this year. Once a pen catches my eye, it’s like a curse that doesn’t get lifted until I hand over my Visa.
When I sell my first novel, the Pilot Namiki Vanishing Point in raden finish will be mine.
When I first started writing again, I made a lot of notes in Scrivener (the Mac app I use for fiction projects) while working on an unnamed story that has yet to be completed. Some of them are pretty humorous. I remember one entry being about growing up, having my mom find my fiction, being criticized by her and still not being able to write sex scenes as an adult. I wrote it in July, and it’s titled “I Can’t Get Them Laid or Killed, or My Mother the Critic.”
An excerpt:
To be brutally honest, the reason my novel extension of “The Woman Without” never took off is because I had too many difficulties writing the teen/college portion of the story. I couldn’t find a way to keep the sexuality and awkwardness of that age from becoming trashy and/or ridiculous. I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it at least a dozen more times, I’ve got issues killing my characters and/or getting them laid. I will beat around the bush for paragraphs, sometimes pages, letting the story completely fall apart rather than detail all their dirty goings-on. The few “erotic” horror stories I’ve written and/or sold were a blast to put together but now, years later, I shy away from rereading them. I shy away from rereading the sex in my own fiction. Thank my Catholic upbringing for that, I guess.
Sometimes I think I know where this hesitancy comes from. I’m afraid of letting down, embarrassing or disgusting my family. I remember when I first showed signs of interest in writing “erotic” horror. It was mid to late high school, imagine that. Around the same time I actually started actively working towards getting some action in real life (I got it too, just to clarify that). I’d written a bunch of short vampire fiction, a thousand words or less, and some of it was a little risqué. It wasn’t anything gratuitous but it was a bit bold for a teenage writer, and I enjoyed it. Well, enter Mom at stage left. I think a lot of my hang-ups come from worrying about her finding things out that I’m hiding or her reacting poorly to my decisions. She found my stories, some of which had already come back to me from various publishers with rejection slips attached. She read passages of them out loud to me while I was standing, helpless, in my bedroom. I hate it when people read anything I’ve written, even an email, back out loud to me. So now, over ten years later, I think there’s a part of me that’s nervous she’s going to find my writing somewhere, published or not, and get pissed at me for talking about some fictional guy’s dick. I hope she never sees these notes and yells at me for typing out the word “dick.” Twice.
I am still having this issue. Of course, I would pick a story that’s based on a sexual concept and then whine about having difficulty writing it. I don’t have any difficulty making off-color jokes in real life, or visiting the “adult bookstore” or viewing pornography, but as soon as I need to commit this kind of thing to paper I balk. It’s something I’ve had a problem articulating for quite a long time, obviously.
It is, however, something I need to get over.
I have a scene coming up where my main character is just flat-out assaulted. I’m actually at the beginning of it now. Now, our character (and the reader) knows that, because she’s a succubus, she’s going to come out of this the victor. The perpetrator has no idea what kind of person he’s decided to victimize and as such is going to be in for a very rude and fatal treat when he’s done. Despite this, I still feel a bit squeamish, and I’m not sure why. It could be because it’s a sex scene, period, but I doubt it. It’s probably because it’s a rather violent scene that’s not really in the plot to be arousing in and of itself. I put it there to show once more that our hero isn’t exactly pristine or always kind, because I’ve been writing her as a very casual participant most of the time and I’m worried she’s becoming a bit “soft.” I don’t know how to feel about writing these kinds of scenes. I’d certainly feel embarrassed to show my mother, but at this point in my life I’ve become quite sick of worrying about her or any other family member’s opinion. I think my worry actually far outweighs any reaction they might have, to be honest.
At what point should I stop writing sex scenes? Most of these scenes are lackluster at best and bad at worst, not in terms of writing quality but of plot. She doesn’t victimize the nicest or most exciting of people. To be honest, most of these will be rewritten during the editing phase. I might go ahead and redo the first one today or tomorrow as I’m itching to overhaul chapters One and Three and I don’t think I did the scene any justice at all. I think my previous question should be reworded to “At what point should I stop writing unsavory sex scenes?”
I think maybe I feel a bit cheated so far, since the only sex in the book so far has been for “feeding” purposes only and hasn’t even been remotely hot. I’m almost tempted to go buy some smut novels at the porn store this weekend or some erotica collections off Amazon just to see how other people do it. I think my entire writing style could be considered a bit too clinical, to be honest. This is something I really want to work on both with this and future works.
Can I consider watching porn “research” for this novel? I’ve got a couple hours to burn after lunchtime…
I’m really enjoying how this whole month-long exercise has brought up new issues for me to tackle. I should start making a list of my weak points, including dialogue, pacing, sex scenes, etc. I think most of it can be boiled down to dialogue and pacing. I’ve tried to keep nervous chatter and uninteresting detail to a minimum, but I know I’m still including some of this without realizing it. I’m really looking forward to setting this aside for a short while and coming back to it with a fresher perspective. Another NaNo participant sent me an Instant Message earlier while I was at work to ask me if I’d be interested in participating in a critique group made up of Horror & Thriller forums posters. That might be a big help to the story, once I have it ready for other peoples’ eyes.
Whenever that may be.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Almost, But Not Quite
I met my goal Sunday morning at around 6 AM. I’m going to consider this a failure because it was several hours late. I went to bed at 7 with my alarm set for 10, but when the alarm went off I shut it off completely and went back to sleep. I was just too exhausted. I got up around 2 and started immediately on the task of reaching 20k. I did make it, but not under my original terms, so I’m now 0 for 2 in the “Challenge Yourself” contest I’ve been playing.
As of this update I am at 22,060. The new challenge is to hit 30k by the end of the night on Thursday the 15th. That gives me almost four days to get just under 8k done. It shouldn’t be a problem, but I said the same thing about the goals I made the last two times. I’m upping the stakes here, so instead of a paperback I’ll be buying something else I’ve been wanting for a year or more: a bottle of Caran d’Ache Caribbean Sea Ink. I haven’t picked it up yet because it seemed too close a color match for one of the inks I’ve been using, J. Herbin’s Diablo Menthe, but I’m still dying to own a bottle.
Speaking of inks and pens, I haven’t picked up either of my Moleskines in a long time. I really ought to get back into personal journaling, especially considering this blog only covers one facet of my life. It’s an important part of what I do and how I spend my days, but there’s a lot more I could be writing down. I’ve invested a lot in writing instruments and here I am using a keyboard for everything. It’s somewhat depressing, to be honest.
Today, when I get home, I will write at least two pages in my Moleskine. I will fill this book and buy a new one soon, maybe one of the nice 2008 red editions. That’s my goal for today.
I sent my short story Wings in for consideration at The Abacot Journal once it was rejected from Tabard Inn. The Abacot Journal is apparently a brand new online literary magazine run by another NaNo participant. I know a lot of writers (especially those with more credits to their names than I) frown upon giving their work to both new magazines and online magazines, but nothing makes me happier than doing something that could quite possibly be mutually beneficial. If a quality piece I write (and I’m quite fond of Wings) finds a home somewhere new that ends up lasting, we both win. And if it doesn’t work out, I’m not at the stage in my writing “career” where submitting to somewhere small could hinder me.
I’m learning quite a bit about my own writing abilities through this extended exercise. I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I am not very strong in the dialogue department. I have a tendency to let one character talk while another gives one-word answers, or let everyone argue about nothing. It seems stunted, weak and one-dimensional in places, but I’ve been known to be unusually hard on myself. I’ll have to go over my book on dialogue when I go home. I could probably use a bit of help when I rewrite chapters One and Three, and I’d like to get that out of the way as soon as possible. I’m having too much fun advancing the story right now, though. Maybe once I have met my next goal I can take a day or two to rewrite the places I feel are weakest.
You know what I haven’t gotten much of since October? Exercise. Between being busy typing and the dismal turn the weather has taken, I haven’t gotten any exercise in. It hasn’t had any adverse effects yet, but we’re going to nip this new habit in the bud starting today. If the weather is too cold for a walk, I’ll be in front of the elliptical watching one of the many DVD sets I’ve paid for but have yet to finish (or even start, in some cases). Considering how far ahead of plan I am at the moment it shouldn’t be that difficult to manage.
As of this update I am at 22,060. The new challenge is to hit 30k by the end of the night on Thursday the 15th. That gives me almost four days to get just under 8k done. It shouldn’t be a problem, but I said the same thing about the goals I made the last two times. I’m upping the stakes here, so instead of a paperback I’ll be buying something else I’ve been wanting for a year or more: a bottle of Caran d’Ache Caribbean Sea Ink. I haven’t picked it up yet because it seemed too close a color match for one of the inks I’ve been using, J. Herbin’s Diablo Menthe, but I’m still dying to own a bottle.
Speaking of inks and pens, I haven’t picked up either of my Moleskines in a long time. I really ought to get back into personal journaling, especially considering this blog only covers one facet of my life. It’s an important part of what I do and how I spend my days, but there’s a lot more I could be writing down. I’ve invested a lot in writing instruments and here I am using a keyboard for everything. It’s somewhat depressing, to be honest.
Today, when I get home, I will write at least two pages in my Moleskine. I will fill this book and buy a new one soon, maybe one of the nice 2008 red editions. That’s my goal for today.
I sent my short story Wings in for consideration at The Abacot Journal once it was rejected from Tabard Inn. The Abacot Journal is apparently a brand new online literary magazine run by another NaNo participant. I know a lot of writers (especially those with more credits to their names than I) frown upon giving their work to both new magazines and online magazines, but nothing makes me happier than doing something that could quite possibly be mutually beneficial. If a quality piece I write (and I’m quite fond of Wings) finds a home somewhere new that ends up lasting, we both win. And if it doesn’t work out, I’m not at the stage in my writing “career” where submitting to somewhere small could hinder me.
I’m learning quite a bit about my own writing abilities through this extended exercise. I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I am not very strong in the dialogue department. I have a tendency to let one character talk while another gives one-word answers, or let everyone argue about nothing. It seems stunted, weak and one-dimensional in places, but I’ve been known to be unusually hard on myself. I’ll have to go over my book on dialogue when I go home. I could probably use a bit of help when I rewrite chapters One and Three, and I’d like to get that out of the way as soon as possible. I’m having too much fun advancing the story right now, though. Maybe once I have met my next goal I can take a day or two to rewrite the places I feel are weakest.
You know what I haven’t gotten much of since October? Exercise. Between being busy typing and the dismal turn the weather has taken, I haven’t gotten any exercise in. It hasn’t had any adverse effects yet, but we’re going to nip this new habit in the bud starting today. If the weather is too cold for a walk, I’ll be in front of the elliptical watching one of the many DVD sets I’ve paid for but have yet to finish (or even start, in some cases). Considering how far ahead of plan I am at the moment it shouldn’t be that difficult to manage.
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