I’ve dedicated some time this week towards expanding my understanding of the Twitterverse.
One of the benefits of increasing my Followings (Is that a term? I think it’s a term.) is that I have discovered a couple useful and informative blogs to add to my Blogroll.
The recent additions:
David Gaughran Let’s Get Digital
David Wisehart – Kindle Author
Go take a look at these sites, and visit often.
Alas, not all news is good news. I have fallen well behind my projected word count in the last week, thanks largely to our 4-year-old’s birthday party and the tremendous amount of planning that goes into even the smallest small-person affair!
But also, I have re-tasked myself to assist my wife with editing the second draft of her project, Black Sun. I found it impossible to maintain both efforts with the limited time I can squeeze into my schedule, so I decided to focus on the copy editing, and once that’s done, resume with my own novel.
Which will put me behind my self-imposed deadline, but the happiest part of this development is the word “self”. I’m not going to lose sleep over it, but I do feel a degree of pressure. This is a good thing. Without this pressure, I would stop drafting and find new reasons to re-task myself.
Writing while holding down a full-time job, a full-time family, and a hobby that demands no small measure of my free time truly forces me to carve my writing hours into my calendar with a sharpened Bowie knife. The balance I have found in the last few weeks has been to take an hour of each day, at the end of the day, and disappear into the basement. I put on the Dark Ambient station on Pandora, and churn out the words. Night after night, I’m finding this allows for a fair amount of continuity. However, I can manage approximately 1200 words per hour like this. Often I’ll find myself drawn into a narrative, and I’ll spend extra time to arrive in the neighborhood of 2000 words.
But to catch up to my original goal, I’ll need to bring in 1900 words per day. This means getting creative with my writing schedule. Weekends will need to devote more time, not less. Evenings may grow to an hour and a half. And though my deadline is completely arbitrary, I still want to make it, simply for the satisfaction of the accomplished goal.
Tally ho!
There hasn’t been much to report lately, as my head has been well and truly buried in word production. In the way of a progress report, The Curse Merchant just broke the 40K word count mark, which is the half-way point to my September 1st goal. The new math now states that I need to increase my per diem word count to around 1800 words to reach my goal of finishing the first draft by September.
Mind you, this deadline is entirely arbitrary, but without some kind of goal to strive towards, I tend not to produce. Since setting this goal (special thanks to Michael Shean for making me open my big fat mouth and creating that deadline to begin with), I have found very little internal resistance when it comes time to sit down and write.
Another big motivation has been my wife, Courtney Sloan, who has just completed the second revision of her latest novel, Black Sun. Her achievement and the infectious energy that comes along with it is pushing me to reach a benchmark of my own. Regrettably, drafting is the longest single step in the writing process, and so I must remain content with the small word count goals I have reached.
I am happy to say that so far I am quite pleased with The Curse Merchant. Though my outline is keeping it shepherded along the path, it is still finding ways to surprise me!
For now, my world is writing, and more writing, until the thing is finished. Good thing I have a goal in mind, and appreciable sources of motivation from friends and my family!
I have survived a week so far since my self-imposed deadline for The Curse Merchant. And I’m happy to report that I have been meeting, and most often beating, my minimum word counts every night. I’ve only missed one day’s goal thanks to a game night on Skype, but I made up for it the following day.
All of this calls to mind the words of Kim Harrison on her June 24th blog entry “An Open Letter to ‘I Am Special’ Writers”:
“Write every day, same time, same place, even if it’s only for 20 minutes. This will train your creativity to turn on at a drop of a hat. Two weeks of agony, and you will start to notice you will not be staring at a blank page when you sit down, but writing immediately.”
This is precisely what has happened for me over the past ten days. Not long ago, I found myself answering the call of the muse, and forsaking my efforts when I didn’t feel “in the mood”. Now, I can certainly attest that writing is a habit to develop, not subject to whim. Much like exercise, one can decide to get to work despite one’s lethargy or mental state. And in doing so, one can condition one’s creative muscles to engage, create, and produce.
I’m finding as I dedicate my hour’s worth of writing each night, that I come away with a kind of “runner’s high”. There is a mild euphoria that lingers after meeting and exceeding my target, applying myself to a goal, and overcoming the “I don’t wanna’s”. It’s actually putting me in a good mood overall.
Moreover, I like how this bodes for future projects. I’m showing myself that I’m deadly serious about getting these manuscripts completed and in top shape. Once I believe in myself, the rest is all about getting the job done.
A little luck doesn’t hurt, either!
The three week hiatus has now passed, and as promised, I am back at the keyboard!
For the record, the vacation was outstanding! For further record, my exam the following weekend went very well, and with any luck I’ll get good news about that exam sometime between now and Christmas.
But back to writing! I have a plan in effect… I will finish the first draft of The Curse Merchant by September 1st. Doing the math, I feel I can make 80,000 words if I write 1300 a day. That should be no problem at all. My average work-week productivity is closer to 2000 words, which means I’ll have a thicker first draft to whittle down come revision time.
Forward, march!
I just wanted to take a break from vacation planning, and taking, and post an update from my little world.
The Curse Merchant is well into its Chapter 7, and there is considerable momentum!
Between writing and packing suitcases, I have been dedicating considerable time towards my other passion in life… homebrewing. More specifically, I have been studying to take the Beer Judge Certification Program’s Exam, which is like the Foreign Service Exam for beer.
Between this endeavor, my actual writing, and some greatly-needed time off with the family, expect sporadic update to the blog until July, after I take the Exam.
See you on the other side!
I’m happy to report that I have rounded that initial hump with The Curse Merchant, and my sails are full of wind! Any time I begin drafting a new project, there is the get-to-know-you period where I have to find my characters voices (often different than I planned it in pre-writing), find the narrative style, and just plain get the words flowing.
I mentioned previously that I tend to require a great deal of silence and solitude during this lag period. But when I find my momentum, I find it easier to tune out surrounding noises and input. The words come, and I feel confident in them. I usually have to at least achieve the Inciting Event, that point at which the plot has begun in earnest, and the protagonist has been thrust into the ordeals I lay before him or her. Introduction of characters has been achieved, as well as the super-setting.
That done, it’s time to get to the business of the plot, which is where I find the joy in writing lies.
This morning, I took a look back on the last few projects, and I recalled how my output flowed. Omnipotence was slow and steady, perhaps one to two thousand words per day. My project previous to that was far more sporadic, relying on individual spurts of massive output between gulfs of desert. Perhaps this reflects a maturing of my writing discipline? I’d like to think so!
I far prefer the steady stream, honestly. I find I am kept within the world that way. Real life has less impact on the story itself. The pace of writing doesn’t feel as hard when it’s just a handful of pages per day. But in the long run, the manuscript is completed quicker than waiting for the muse to unload chapter after chapter. Because the muse? She is a strange creature, and often schedules long vacations without warning you.
Not that I wouldn’t welcome a spate of words, but if given the choice, give me momentum!
As of this weekend, The Curse Merchant has just over 10,000 words. Here’s to today’s 12,000!
Today I wanted to post an excerpt from the first draft manuscript of my previous project, Omnipotence.
This passage occurs as three of the Empowered come together for the first time at a meeting with the military to discuss their powers.
—–
Miriam released an excited chirp.
“Hey! Maybe that’s why we can’t make electricity work? None of us understand electricity. And life? Maybe… maybe that’s why we can’t create living things. We don’t get it. We don’t fully understand what makes a living thing alive?”
Glen spoke as Danville broke the point of his pencil, “Hate to crap on your theory, but I was an electrical engineer before the Storm. I do understand electricity, and I still can’t get it to work. I think it’s another limitation.”
Danville shook his head as he clicked more lead from his pencil.
“That implies that this global cataclysm is governed by intelligence.”
“Yep.”
“We don’t know that for a fact. We can’t even claim it’s a likelihood.”
Glen countered, “Look… we don’t know where our powers are coming from. We don’t know why we were chosen. We three in particular. It could have been random. But it sure as shit was intentional.”
“How can you be certain, Mr. Porter?”
“Because… we’re being observed.”
Roberto spun on his heel and looked at the back of Glen’s head. He moved slowly back to his seat.
Miriam looked quickly down to the table and studied her hands.
Danville lifted a brow.
“Come again?”
“I came into contact with a being. A creature. It was observing me. I don’t know where it came from or how, but it wasn’t human. It had wings, I think, like a roach. Shiny and black, attached to its body. But the thing kind of looked human-ish.”
Danville dropped his pencil, and picked it up quickly.
“Mr. Porter… I’m at a loss.”
“It was watching me. Just me. I thought it was a looter or something, but when I tried to grab it, the thing, well, it didn’t seem to feel threatened. At all. Not even a little bit. But it was intelligent. It knew I had powers.”
“How… how can you know it had intelligence?”
“Well it spoke English well enough.”
Miriam snapped her head up.
“It spoke to you?”
Danville turned slowly to Miriam.
“Miss Idzi? Have you seen this being, too?”
She nodded sheepishly.
“He didn’t talk, though. He just… watched me.”
Roberto gripped the table, then added, “Me too. Just like you said.”
All eyes turned to him.
“I was surfing. Kind of. He was watching. Didn’t say anything, though.”
Danville slid his clipboard onto the table and leaned back in his chair with a huff.
“You’re telling me… the two of you have had contact with an extraterrestrial being, and you failed to bring this to my attention… why?”
Roberto shrugged.
“Didn’t think anything about it. Lots of weird shit was happening at that particular moment, dude. I was walking on water, for God’s sake. Some weirdo in a black trenchcoat doesn’t really rate.”
Miriam added, “Yeah… I just saw him. I didn’t ‘have contact’. Not like Glen.”
Glen flipped his hand over.
“I was yelling at it. Asking it if it was behind all of this.”
“And?” Danville demanded
“Well, it said it wasn’t here to explain what had happened to us. It said it was just here to observe. So, that’s it. But it didn’t say that it didn’t know. Which means it might.” After a long silence, Glen added with a dry smirk, “I call him Roachman.”
Miriam snickered, “I call him Kafka.”
“Nice!” Glen replied with a laugh.
Danville reached for his clipboard and muttered, “Can we focus, people? This is probably the most significant development in the last two months. It bears exploration.”
Roberto cracked his knuckles.
“Like the most important thing, right?”
“What?”
“The most important thing about Mr. Kafka Roachman.”
The others stared blankly at him.
Roberto continued, “He ain’t here. He’s not watching us right now. So what does that tell you?”
Glen nodded.
“It tells us that he’s watching someone else.”
Miriam continued, “There’s others.”
Roberto pointed at her.
“Bingo.”
Danville gave the airman taking notes a tap on the shoulder, and stood up.
“Find the Secretary of Defense.”
—–
Today, I thought I would take a step back and mention my previous manuscript project, Omnipotence. I completed the first draft in February, and it is sitting to age while I work on my current project, after which I will take up the red pen and bloody it to death!
Here’s the pitch:
“After a global cataclysm wipes out all technology on Earth, five strangers across America discover they have been endowed with god-like abilities, and must learn how to deal with their powers… and each other.”
Omnipotence begins by following the events of a sudden unexplained natural disaster, as seen from the eyes of five different characters from differing walks of life. Their stories begin to converge as the novel progresses, and the characters react in distinct ways to being granted omnipotence. Their exploration leads them to test the limits of their powers, and when human frailty is given the ultimate challenge, some choose the service of their fellow man… others, unspeakable evil.
Though the first draft is complete, it is still very much a work in progress. The greatest challenge to this novel is in keeping so many POV’s alive, in balance, and interesting for the reader. Though I have entertained the notion of whittling down the scope of the story to a single POV, I continually return to the original premise… how do people respond to absolute power? I find the exploration of the five Empowered to be the soul of the story.
The tone of Omnipotence is somewhat grim, set in an America which has been suddenly and violently plunged back into an eighteenth century level of technology. The landscape is wrought with panic and the devastation of an entire society which has forgotten how to survive without electricity. All the more, therefore, that the people look to the Empowered for help.
All the more they feel betrayed when the Empowered prove to be human after all.
Drafting The Curse Merchant is proving to be quite an education!
Beyond a renewed and redefined outlining scheme, I am playing with the first person voice for the first time since some of my very early short story writings. I’m finding that all of the courses, books and solid advice from industry professionals is being wrapped up neatly, bundled tightly, and summarily tossed directly out the window!
The relentless search-and-destroy sorties for filler words? Suspended.
The dogged refusal of exposition in favor of dialogue? Commuted.
Straightforward narrative without ornaments and artifacts of idiom and parlance? Pre-empted.
This isn’t to say that I’m allowing for sloppy writing, leaden exposition, or purple prose. I still favor snappy dialogue to long paragraphs of internal monologue. But the monologue must happen, if the reader is ever going to identify (and hopefully cheer on) the protagonist/narrator.
Which makes the craft yet more difficult.
In the past, I have learned to keep the narrative lean and mean, forwarding the plot like a race car engine without inserting itself into the reader’s consciousness. Rather, I allow dialogue to pop into the ears of the reader, thereby keeping their eyes moving, and the plot humming.
The “lean and mean” narrative, however, must drop a gear or two when it adopts the first person voice. The narrative is now precisely that… narration from an individual. The character’s words are a kind a dialogue between the narrator and the reader (one in which the reader seldom gets a word in edgewise). Fostering this personal sense of connection with the protagonist requires deliberate suspension of the “rules of writing” from time to time. If I pruned every extraneous adverb or cliche from the prose, the result would be an antiseptic, robotic narrator with exactly zero enticement for the reader to continue.
The tricks are knowing when to “purple up” the narrative, and when to keep it lean. When to allow the monologue to sidetrack into the narrator’s mind, and when to keep him interacting with other characters. When to broaden the reader’s understanding of the supersetting, and when to remain loyal to the limited scope and assumption sets inherent in a first person voice.
The key is fully fleshing out the narrator in the mind, knowing his thought processes, his biases, his speech patterns, his history, and the precise shade of rose-colored glasses through which he views the world. The price I pay is in the pacing of the novel. The benefit, however, has been an intense investment in the emotional and relational complex of the central character. I chose the first person narrative specifically because I wanted The Curse Merchant to be character-driven, not plot driven. And I felt this character was sufficiently distinct and engaging for the reader… a character the reader would like to know.
This education is priceless! It’s slow-going, to be sure. But with any luck at all, it will render my most compelling narrative yet.
J.P.Sloan's Fistful of Fiction 