But Wait, There’s More!

Like so many unfinished projects, my blog sits here unused in recent months.

The catch is that I simply don’t have a ton of insight into writing, and certainly not enough for three posts a week.  As well, it’s difficult and a bit stressful to fit regular updates into my schedule, even if I enjoy blogging, on the whole.  What is a boy to do?

Be flexible, I guess!  Gone are the post deadlines and consistency, with the trade off of being able to post when I want to and can.  As well, I might expand the focus a little bit.  I’ll still be primarily focused on reading and writing, but that won’t be the limit of my topics.

Beyond that, NaNoWriMo is coming, and I’m still excited by the idea of posting chapters as I go, even if it’s some throwaway story just for the fun of it!

With that, who knows?

Most importantly, I appreciate all of the views, new and old: thank you all!  It means a ton to me that anyone reads any of these lackluster digital scribbles, because even if they’re lackluster, they come from a place of passion.  Thank you!

Portable Keyboards

It’s hard to find time to write with all of the other obligations life throws at us, but it’s important to get those words on the page, too.  Ideally, we have nice, quiet locations and large chunks of time where we can stay focused and really dig into writing, but that’s not consistently feasible in a lot of cases.

Enter technology.  Between the iOS version of Scrivener, 30 minute lunch breaks, and a portable, full-sized keyboard, managing to get some writing done during work might not be so far fetched.  I’ve been able to manage a good 20+ minutes of writing when I really focus.

There are a lot of options out there, so you’ll need to consider your needs.  In my case, I wanted a full-sized keyboard with bluetooth connectivity that could be folded and stored in a tiny space, and, preferably, a lower price tag, so I went with this model.  While it lacks a number pad, the keys are full-sized, making it great for my needs: getting some writing done at lunch!

(Note: I’m not endorsing this model specifically, although it has done nicely for my needs.  At the time of my purchase, there was only a single review.  I can say that it does indeed work with my Android devices as well as my iPhone.)

Also note: you might also want a nice pair of headphones for those loud break rooms!

The Slog of Rewriting

I’m hoping to release a full novel (Vexation: a Tale of Swords and Sorcery) within the next few months, but it’s proving to be a challenge.  I finished the first draft of what was then called The Pumpkin Knight back in November of 2014.  Ignoring a 150,000 word in-joke novel I wrote for my wife, it marked only the second time I completed a serious novel from start to finish, and it also marked that terrifying period of editing and rewriting.

Having completed a few first drafts of novels by this point, the elation of writing “The End” quickly gives way to the daunting task of making your work something you can actually put out there.  I imagine it’s something like making it to the big leagues of a given sport: it’s an incredible accomplishment and a huge success just to get there, but the real work is actually still in front of you.

When you’re doing that first draft, there’s a lot of leeway.  Nothing needs to be set in stone: characters can be easily tweaked, plotholes and questionable decisions can be left alone, and the goal is just to make it from point A to point B.

My previous novel (also unreleased) was an incredible learning process, and each of the handful of rewrites I did marked drastic changes in the overall storyline and character make up.  I had little grasp on acts and structure (although hints of the natural tendency toward three acts were there), and it was more-or-less barreling ahead blindly and learning as I went.

With Vexation, things worked a bit differently.  I had a solid outline in place before I even started, with characters and the general flow of events in place and still present in 2018.  Yet I’m somewhere on the fifth or six ground-up rewrite in terms of the actual text.  What I’m learning now is the sheer amount of nuance that comes into play in any longer work.

Why would she do this?  Where is his family in all of this?  What season is it in that specific geographical region?  What’s the time frame?  Why does his magic help here, but not there?

To illustrate further, let’s take the idea of traveling, since it’s a fantasy novel and they’re off on their quest.  Why would Randell insist they take this route instead of that?  The obvious answer is because they need to arrive at a specific location for a specific event, and in the first run through or two that’s acceptable.  Yet this location can’t occur on the main road–so what excuse do they have to go tromping off the beaten path?  The later rewrites need to address that.

Further still, there are no easy answers.  Maybe the bad guys are watching the main roads.  Maybe the main road is blocked because a bridge is out, or local warlords are battling back and forth.  Maybe Randell just has a terrible sense of direction, or Idona can feel the magical pulses given off by this location and they can follow that.  Maybe this even can occur on the main road: maybe the village only appears to those it wants to.

The choices are myriad, and when you’re the author, it’s your world and your decision.  So which explanation is the most reasonable and fits best within the overall tone and style of the story?  Now multiply the above situation over and over again across every event, every important bit of dialogue, every meaningful choice made by a character, and the daunting task of rewriting and editing becomes clear.

Shenmue 1 & 2 Collection

It’s finally happening: the original two Shenmue games are being ported to modern consoles and PC!  The two games were originally released on the Sega Dreamcast (and later II was ported to Xbox) nearly twenty years ago, and were groundbreaking in terms of realism: the graphics were an amazing recreation of 1980s Japan, every single character had their own name, backstory, and schedule, the weather matches real weather patterns of the time, it was fully voiced, and so on.

I don’t write period pieces, martial arts epics, or real-world settings.  Yet, Shenmue is one of the greatest inspirations in my life.  It showed just how video games could become art, how they could truly draw people in to new and unfamiliar worlds.  It created a real connection between an 18-year-old American in 1999 and a fictional 18-year-old Japanese in 1986, one that has stuck with me for years–more than half of my life at this point.

And that’s one of the amazing things about writing: our inspirations come from a myriad of sources, not just those related by genre.  Regardless of our preferred genre, our stories come from memories created by all the experiences we’ve had in our lives.  We could be writing a historical romance based in 1400s Ireland, and it will be forged and tempered by our modern experiences, from childhood memories to the last slasher flick we saw.

In that way, every genre is built through an incredible amalgam of discrete, unrelated stories.

Oh, and look for Shenmue 1 & 2 Collection later this year!  I’m stoked!

The Embarrassment of Returning

Putting yourself out there is rough.  I imagine it’s the same whether you’re a writer, an artist, a stand-up comic, or any sort of “ideas” type.

Around the middle of last year, I was making social media progress.  My Twitter followers tripled, my blogs started getting hits, and I released a set of short stories.

Somewhere around the first week of NaNoWriMo, life kicked in hard, and there went the blogs and the tweets, and the grandiose plans of uploading chapters as I went and making a big production of the month disappeared.  It was, to say the least, a pretty big fail, and more than a little embarrassing.

In the months that followed, a couple of false starts made it easy to heap further scorn on myself.  The joys of putting yourself out there, and the joys of being your own worst critique!

And then I realized: so what?  We all leave failures in our wake, but it’s really not about the failures so much as how you respond to them.  Feeling a little silly suddenly blogging again after a few failed attempts is nothing compared to the progress lost by wallowing in self-pity.

So put yourself out there!  Brush the failures off and look forward, not backward.  Delaying because of some embarrassment will only push those writing goals and dreams further away!

2017 A Writing Post Mortem

Since “post mortems” are all the rage, I figure 2017 deserved one.

Actually, I figured NaNoWiMo deserved one.  And then more time passed as work added up and I fell further behind, and I figured November and December both deserved one.  So why not 2017 as a whole?

Catching Up on the Classics
I did heavier reading this year than I have in past years (discounting 2016’s rough excursion through A Summa of the Summa), and two classics welcomed me into their lush worlds: The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Prydain.

The Lord of the Rings was a long time coming.  Despite being weaned on The Sword of Shannara and innumerable Dragonlance titles, and even the enjoyable, if lacking, cartoon versions, I never read Tolkien’s epic.  I saw the movies in theater when they released, and quite loved them.  And yet, outside of The Hobbit and a brief attempt that never made it past Biblo’s party, I never read them.

Wow.  It’s a heavy read, but it’s a great read.  It will definitely be indulged in again in my lifetime.  For more thoughts, check out my posts on The Lord of the Rings!

Prydain is one I was less-familiar with, beyond being vaguely aware of a lackluster Disney movie, a yellowed copies of the books sitting on my parents’ shelf.  As it turns out, The Chronicles of Prydain are fantastic!  I still find my mind wandering around Prydain, and will be rereading them before too long.  Naturally, I have more wordy thoughts on Prydain as well.

Fantasy Adventures Volume 1
But on to writing itself.

Perhaps my biggest excitement was my first actual publication: a collection of short fantasy stories.  As of right now, it has no reviews, and has only put about four dollars into my pocket.  But when you’re doing it out of passion, that’s all right!  Being able to look myself up on Amazon and see a book right there is utterly thrilling in itself.

While I can’t tell who actually read the book out of the handful of purchases it received, a Kindle Lending Library/Kindle Unlimited reader actually read 117 out of the total 135 pages!  I’d love to know what they thought of it, and why they stopped.  Was it a specific story that didn’t do it for them?  Did attrition take it’s toll and the last 18 were just too grueling?

If you–or anyone else who read my short stories–is out there reading this, let me know what you thought!  No offense will be taken here–criticisms are chances to grow as a writer.

NaNoWriMo 2017:
I had high hopes for this one: the third attempt at a story I failed at twice already, with a world and characters fairly solid in my head and a general outline to follow.  With my social media presence stronger than ever and my blog getting more hits each month, it was going to be a blast!  I was going to post chapters as I finished them, and become a two-time NaNoWriMo champion.

Oh, did that fall short!  Who knew that a full-time job that thrives on the holiday season would crank out 50-60 hour weeks and leave me pretty darn tired?

This all lead into an unintentional semi-hiatus from social media.  Beyond a few Twitter posts toward the end of November, the chapters never came to fruition, I never made it to any meet-ups, and my time became all about moving boxes and preparing for Christmas.

But that’s all right: we only fail when we give up, and I certainly have not!

What’s Coming in 2018
A New Novel: The whole idea of sharing a book as I write the first draft still seems like a lot of fun, and I’m thinking it might be worth another go, with the same story.  I’m leaning toward somewhere between March and May, with the same word and time goals as NaNoWriMo.  I’ll keep you posted!

An Old Novel, Completed: I actually have two novels that are coherent and in the later stages of drafting.  The writing is there, the outline is locked in, and there are just scenes here and there to tidy up.  Both of these had their early drafts completed in 2014, and I think it’s about time to get them ready to roll.

Fantasy Adventures Volume 2: No, the first one will not be one of those myriad titles that claims to be part of a series that never arrives.  Sure, the first one is not yet a million-seller, but short stories are a lot of fun!  They’re a great chance to play around with new characters, worlds, genres, and ideas.  A few of the heroes from the first one will still be around: I’d like Rax in particular to become a continuous, Conan-like series of primarily short stories.

And whereas novels require so much attention and focus it’s hard to ever feel them “ready”, these short stories are a little easier for me to send off on their own.

And the Rest: Several novels exist in lesser forms.  I have a chapter or two done of a story about warring immortals, and some vague outlines for the first book in a sweeping quadrilogy of kingdoms at war.  Pages here and there exist in a third novel centering on a fantasy world trio of a cowboy, a samurai, and a knight.

Beyond that, a few sci fi stories bounce back and forth in my head, one being a space epic aiming for novel-length, and another a series of short stories featuring a bounty hunter talking derelict ships, peculiar aliens, and the more human struggles of a vast, lonely universe.

 

Big year behind, bigger year ahead.  Let’s do this!