Byproducts of Writing: Honey or Crap

So today is the final day of NaNoWriMo. A good many people who's blogs I visit have participated. I am aware of two who have announced they achieved their goal: fairyhedgehog did; and so did T.Anne. Congratulations to both of them.

There are others who, for this reason and for that, weren't able to get the time. I know how that goes. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't. And just because one has the time it doesn't mean they know what to write.

I, of course, was not officially part of NaNoWriMo. I was part of a blog started by Writtenwyrdd which was like NaNo, but I bailed on that a couple of weeks ago. The idea of having to write was too distressing. That constraint made me want to do anything but write. So I bailed and finished up my word count in short order.

My November word count was a little on the low side. I attribute this to the holiday, which resulted in less alone time. But I got a lot done.

Overall, I wrote more then 64,000-words. I tallied this up by using the Word Count on the eight things I wrote in November. The biggie was Summer Shade. That's over 50,000-words, but I only wrote 45,000+ in November. Summer Shade was begun in October. White Wolves was begun in September, and I added another 5,700+-words to it, before setting it aside in favor of Summer Shade. I began a new novel, Hexagon, but soon set that aside, too, so I could rewrite Swords of Fire. That will probably pick up the pace in early December, only to stall for the Christmas holiday. And I wrote some short pieces, including one of the more erotic things I've ever put to pen or computer. That was a sudden inspiration.

In all, I worked on eight November projects, finishing five. This makes three months in a row that I have finished a novel. I am not writing as many words as I have ever written in a short burst (that was 30,000-words in a single day), but I seem to be writing more consistently. It's a pity the stories aren't being shared. Nobody except me has read Shadow People or The Sweet Girl. Part of Summer Shade was read by others, but not the whole story.

It's funny, storywriting. Some of the things I am writing now I thought about forty years ago but never got around to writing. Back then I wasn't able to. There are things a ten-year-old just doesn't understand. But the stories were there. They never go away. They just continue to cook.

Anyway, if you participated in NaNoWriMo I hope you achieved your goal. If you haven't then I hope you are within range. You have the rest of today. If not, I hope you don't become so discouraged as to give up. Perhaps these kinds of deadline things don't work for you. They don't for me. If you never seem to be able to make NaNo, then why not try this?

EVERY month is a kind of NaNo month. But there are different rules. Write what you want. When you can. As much as you can. There are no word limits or requirements. Write when you can. That's all there is to it. Just write. Oh, and don't give a damn about whether anything is well written, or even makes sense. Just write. Tell the story. Get it out there. Once you've done that you can always change it. If you feel like it.

Good luck.

When You Got It, Flaunt It - When You Don't, Dont

My work on the Swords of Fire rewrite is a leisurely effort. To put it simply.

Actually, it's quite the understatement. I've written less than 5,000-words.

But it isn't my fault. Son is on holiday break and it's impossible to write with him vying for computer time. So I dabble at this and that and wait until such time that comes when I can actually write.

Did most of my writing in the middle of the night. Actually, that's always when I seem to find the alone time I need. Spouse has been working evenings, which means I am not alone during the day. Son is at school during the day which means I am not alone evenings. That leaves the middle of the night. Assuming I wake up in time for it. I often do.

Some people are able to schedule time every day to write. It's the same time, too. I never know when I'm going to have the time. And energy. Just because it is the middle of the night and everyone else is sleeping that's no guarantee I will be awake. Of course if Spouse is snoring it's a safe bet. And if my legs hurt especially bad. But there is no guarantee.

I'm not worried, though. Guess I'm accepting more and more that what I write, and want to write, doesn't mean jack sh*t. I'll keep working at improving my technique, but I have no reason to believe anymore that any of that work will ever amount to anything other than an exercise in futility. My choices are to either write cr*p with contentment, or write cr*p without it.

Do you ever feel that way?

I do. All the time now.

All. The. Frikkin'. Time.

Same Story Different Eyes

Stories are amazing things. Emphasize this and you have a love story. Emphasize that and you're making a political statement. Quests, personal growth, action, adventure. All of these things are part of the same story. We, the storytellers, simply decide which elements will be emphasized and which will be minimized - or even ignored.

I have always known this, but it is with Swords of Fire that it is really brought home to me. Particularly this time. All of my previous story-shattering rewrites involved making major changes to the story, the time line, and a host of other things. Not this time.

This time I am telling the same story as last, but I have changed the angle at which I look at it. And now it seems to be a completely different story. It's the ten blind men and the elephant thing.

By concentrating on aspects I had kept in the background, and pushing to the background things I had focused on, I now have a new story. And yet it's the same. Hopefully, I will be happy with what I wind up with. Writing it, I feel a greater sense of intensity, urgency, and danger than I did in the previous version. In the previous version those things built slowly over time until they reached the climax. Now, beginning the story about a week later than Traitor, it feels like a different animal. And so I have given it a new name: Fire Mountain. It is appropriate, because the new focus is on the mountain and not the treason. The Mountain, and its surrounding lands and waters, contain the prize. It is the prize. The stakes are high and the risks are higher.

The rewrite is also going to bring forward characters who otherwise were not even mentioned. Now they will play a role. Some significantly. Of course, this means other characters are going to have to fade into the background.

Something else to come out of this is an epiphany of how I can create a database table containing an instant list of who is descends from who, instead of having to search and do time consuming calculations. Creating the table will take time, too, but not more than a few hours. But it really is useful. Trying to figure out if Bordan is descended from Bolar is a bit of a pain in the a*s. And then I will have the data henceforth.

I like The Great Sea. I guess if I could go anywhere it would be there. But I suppose that only makes sense. After all, I'm the one who created it. Kind of.

It Never Goes Away

Well, it turns out yesterday was more than a strange chance. Today I began an earnest rewrite of Swords of Fire, Book I.

I have rewritten the story literally dozens of times, but only a few have been of the nature to change the story's basic flow. This is one of those times.

For the first time in more than ten years I am not just rewriting the story, I am changing nearly everything. Ultimately, the start and ending will be the same, as well as certain key milestones between. But the actual road map has changed.

Maintaining the travel analogy, instead of traveling from Minneapolis to Los Angeles by means of heading south to Texas and then west to California, I am going to cut through the mountains and take the Denver route. Both routes allow me to visit Kansas City and Las Vegas, but each also presents its own places of interests.

And so it will be with this new version of Swords of Fire. The title will change.

Of all the stories which pass through my head this is the one which matters most. I will keep working on it until I find a presentation which works for an audience.

I have to. There's no other way.

A Long Story is Made of Short Scenes

Just finished doing something I haven't done in a long while: wrote something new for Swords of Fire.

The entire Saga has been put on hold while I explored a new realm of creativity with Apprentice, Ekundayo, The Sweet Girl, Panthera, and Sassy. But I think about Swords of Fire every day, even if I do not actually write on it.

Now I have only completed the first two books - and neither of those is ready for prime time. (Probably never will be.) I've started Book III, but I'm no where near the climactic battle. So why I should be concentrating on something that occurs in Book V or VI I don't know. But it's something I have been thinking on for more than a year. Nearly two years now.

I guess when a thing's ripe you harvest it. Whatever.

Typically, I do not like writing scenes from the future. I've done it. Many times. But nearly so often as smart writing says I should. You see, I like writing to a milestone marker, and these scenes in my head become those milestone markers. They're my inspiration to keep writing when a thing is going slowly. Without the milestone marker I lose interest and fade away.

Generally, the markers have to be close enough in the future to realistically be reached in a few days. This gives me my childish immediate gratification. And to write them early often results in the equivalent of eating one's dessert before the main course.

But today I just had to write. It didn't come out exactly as I wanted, but I was kind of rushing it, I think.

I have to laugh. Everything I've ever read about writing tells me that whenever I come up with one of these scenes I should write them down. Get them out of my head. I have so many on Swords of Fire alone I suspect I could easily produce a 100,000-word volume just on vignettes alone. Anyway, this little scene took a couple thousand words, and I was rushing it. Left out some things because I am short of time and I wanted to finish it before I had to leave. I could have written more. I still have ten minutes.

Oh, well.

I wish I could go back in time and make up for all the wasted years in which I wrote, but failed to learn my craft. At my current rate of decay I often wonder if there's enough time left to get it done.

So maybe I'll add these vignettes to my legacy. Maybe after I'm gone somebody who actually has the skills can put things together and fix them up into something for the world.

Until then, I write.

When Writing Fails

So remember how I posted about starting a new story - Hexagon? Telling people what I'm going to do seems to be the kiss of death.

After two forced days absence from writing in order to visit with some professional people who didn't have a lot of good things to tell me I have had three days in a row in which I had three straight hours to write. I haven't finished the first chapter.

I'm reasonably close, but the inspiration has faded and I find playing computer games to be far more inspiring than doing anything creative. So either I find new inspiration or I forget about this book and start another.

Ever do that? Start a story and find you don't care anymore? My archives are filled with stories ranging from several chapters to mere titles. That's one problem with having a lot of ideas. There always seems to be a new idea ready to push out current ideas.

Maybe I'll keep writing it. It's actually a good story. Perhaps the problem is so many days where I just could not write. I did wake up early this morning, around four, but I wasted my time playing games instead of writing. Since seven this morning I have not been able to write. That's the way it goes sometimes. Isn't it?

Something Fun to Do

Writtenwyrdd has new story idea. You can find details here. In essence, it's a progressive story, in which one person comes up with the first sentence or two, then another continues the story. I'm not clear if she actually intends to do this or if it's just an idea she's tossing about.

We used to do something like that when I was young. We would sit around in the living room and someone would begin a story. They would talk for up to two minutes. Then they would create some sort of cliff hanger, or decisive moment, and pass the story to their right. Eventually, the story would return to the originator who would have to find a way to tie up all the loose ends and end it.

Some times it was quite fun(ny). Some times it didn't work.

We did a lot of stuff like that. Mother would also write stories and remove several nouns and replace them with blank lines. She had made up a stack of small cards with names of nouns on them. These would be shuffled and dealt out to whoever was home that evening. Mother, or Gayanne, would then read the story out loud. Whenever a blank was reached the reader would pause and let the next person in the circle flip over their card and read the noun.

The first time we played it we had no idea what the nouns were, so the game was hilarious. Especially when we got to Mother's favorite joke noun: Sour Owl Sh*t. Mother had no trouble with being earthy.

Don't know how many readers this blog has, but if you enjoy things like that you might want to give Writtenwyrdd's blog a few visits. See if it's something she plans to actually do.