Still too much other stuff going on. However, last night I figured out an approach to the w-f-h sample, so did a little of that. I don't know if it's what they'll want, but it's something I can live with and expand on without feeling like I'm pulling teeth for 60,000 words. I hope it is, anyway.
On the my-own-stuff front, I'm likely to switch back over to the former GN and work on that for a while. If I get the w-f-h job, I ought to be able to work on both, because they explore similar themes (or at least themes that are in the same ballpark), and because the former GN is more cut up and doesn't have to flow like the regular prose swordfighting ms does. (Since it's all cut up, I won't have to maintain focus for weeks and months, but can work in spurts here and there.)
I retitled the former GN (again) and decided the latest framework I provided for the story is all wrong, so I cut that and took out some of the formatting, too. Now I'm thinking about trying a framework based on that scene from the Iliad that just kills me, the one where Helen is on the battlements of Troy with Priam and they're looking out over the Greek armies.
I know I've got to do something; I can't just dive into the story because it's boring. There's no problem. The problem only comes up slowly, so for pages and pages the story is just la-di-dah description and blah-blah-blah. I feel a framework is needed to provide a problem, but I didn't like the way the latest framework was all over the map, with each piece showing a different person and different place and a different thing happening. Rather than holding the story together and drawing the reader in, it felt like it just added unrelated fragments to the mix. I don't know that looking over the armies is much better, but we'll see.
When I was thinking about it this morning I realized that the new framework is in first person in my head, while the main story already on paper is in third. But I think I'll just go with the flow for now. It might end up working just fine--and if not, I'll worry about it later.
(note to self--remember to use MC's name up front so the reader knows it's the same person as in the story proper, even if pov/voice/tense is different.)
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Did try to write yesterday, but didn't get much done. Too much real life stuff piling up and causing stress, making it very difficult to concentrate. I'm not sure whether to try to push through a little bit of my WIP each day anyway, or just forget that for now and put any focus I can muster into the w-f-h sample. Probably the latter would be a better bet, because I'm going to have to muscle through parts of it anyway, and it has financial potential.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
No writing yesterday. I was a bum--busy with other stuff and confused over switching from WIP to w-f-h sample, but still a bum. I shoulda written something.
I'm not going to start the w-f-h sample yet. I've got to get a handle on it first. I'm going to call a writer friend and see if we can meet so I can try to talk it out.
Today Tyson and I sorted out a few things (him sniffing, me thinking, us both walking). I was a little stuck on the WIP, but now I've got something to work toward today. My last scene was people discussing and learning stuff and deciding to do things (bor-ing). That scene's not quite finished because I'm bored with it and don't know or care how to wrap it up (this may also be one reason I was a bum yesterday). Now I've got to finish that scene, end it on a question, and dive into another almost exactly like it, because more things have to be discussed and decided. Then I can hook up with a nice chain of scenes that I already have down on paper because they were more interesting to me.
Today it occurred to me that I'd better get the reader to like the dad before I kill him, otherwise they won't feel loss and despair. I thought, why don't I try to make them like him in the discussing scene? So although that scene would be doing plot stuff, to me it would really be about showing something characterwise.
[Side note: Then I thought, if I can always do this--take a plotting scene and do something characterwise--it could be the key to writing plot-driven stories for me. However, I quickly remembered I'd been trying to use this approach in the first four or five chapters. The problem was that there were a ton of characterwise things any one scene could be "about." This time the "about" is selecting itself. So maybe this approach is not so clearcut when you've got a large array of characterwise things to choose from.]
So I was thinking about how to quickly drive the point of a lovable dad while the characters are talking about plot stuff, and I couldn't come up with anything. But then I remembered I'd been wanting to write a scene with the MC thinking in bed at night (dunno why, I just want some kind of peaceful quiet scene that lets me sink into the room and the feeling of snugness a little). That was more fun to think about. Then I realized the secondary MC would have nightmares, and I knew I wanted to write a brief bit showing that. Then I thought, hey, since the main MC will be awake and up out of bed, maybe the dad can talk to him a little and be lovable? I couldn't think of anything to make him quickly lovable, but I did realize that he can say some of the stuff I'm trying to work onto the end of the discussing/deciding scene I'm bored with, so that scene can cut off quicker, thank g*d.
It's so much easier for me to work this way than struggling with things that I'm not interested in. It's easier to want to write something then think how I can use it to meet the needs of the story, than to see the needs of the story and try to meet them. On this nighttime scene, I can tell what the emotional point is without even thinking about it. Safety, snugness, loving family, protection, calm before the storm. I also know that it sets the reader up to understand the motivation behind things that happen later. However, I didn't think of the motivation connection till I'd already given myself permission to write the scene.
Now that I think about it, this nighttime scene, when added to the rest of the dad scenes, may be enough to make the reader really feel for all the characters when he's gone. Or not. We'll see.
I'm not going to start the w-f-h sample yet. I've got to get a handle on it first. I'm going to call a writer friend and see if we can meet so I can try to talk it out.
Today Tyson and I sorted out a few things (him sniffing, me thinking, us both walking). I was a little stuck on the WIP, but now I've got something to work toward today. My last scene was people discussing and learning stuff and deciding to do things (bor-ing). That scene's not quite finished because I'm bored with it and don't know or care how to wrap it up (this may also be one reason I was a bum yesterday). Now I've got to finish that scene, end it on a question, and dive into another almost exactly like it, because more things have to be discussed and decided. Then I can hook up with a nice chain of scenes that I already have down on paper because they were more interesting to me.
Today it occurred to me that I'd better get the reader to like the dad before I kill him, otherwise they won't feel loss and despair. I thought, why don't I try to make them like him in the discussing scene? So although that scene would be doing plot stuff, to me it would really be about showing something characterwise.
[Side note: Then I thought, if I can always do this--take a plotting scene and do something characterwise--it could be the key to writing plot-driven stories for me. However, I quickly remembered I'd been trying to use this approach in the first four or five chapters. The problem was that there were a ton of characterwise things any one scene could be "about." This time the "about" is selecting itself. So maybe this approach is not so clearcut when you've got a large array of characterwise things to choose from.]
So I was thinking about how to quickly drive the point of a lovable dad while the characters are talking about plot stuff, and I couldn't come up with anything. But then I remembered I'd been wanting to write a scene with the MC thinking in bed at night (dunno why, I just want some kind of peaceful quiet scene that lets me sink into the room and the feeling of snugness a little). That was more fun to think about. Then I realized the secondary MC would have nightmares, and I knew I wanted to write a brief bit showing that. Then I thought, hey, since the main MC will be awake and up out of bed, maybe the dad can talk to him a little and be lovable? I couldn't think of anything to make him quickly lovable, but I did realize that he can say some of the stuff I'm trying to work onto the end of the discussing/deciding scene I'm bored with, so that scene can cut off quicker, thank g*d.
It's so much easier for me to work this way than struggling with things that I'm not interested in. It's easier to want to write something then think how I can use it to meet the needs of the story, than to see the needs of the story and try to meet them. On this nighttime scene, I can tell what the emotional point is without even thinking about it. Safety, snugness, loving family, protection, calm before the storm. I also know that it sets the reader up to understand the motivation behind things that happen later. However, I didn't think of the motivation connection till I'd already given myself permission to write the scene.
Now that I think about it, this nighttime scene, when added to the rest of the dad scenes, may be enough to make the reader really feel for all the characters when he's gone. Or not. We'll see.
Friday, July 31, 2009
I did work on my swordfighting WIP just a very little bit, and had a very small (perhaps pin-sized) epiphany about character in it, and all this did indeed take the edge off my bad mood. It was still a bad mood, but the work and the epiphany toned it down just a tad.
Today there was a bunch of stuff to do, and I got most of it done, then settled in to write by re-googling the Earl of Leicester and associated people like Essex and Lettice Knollys and Amy Robsart because it was suddenly imperative that I refresh my memory about them before I tried to write today, even though none of them have anything to do with my WIP. But then when I finished refreshing, a potential w-f-h project suddenly came in, so now I'm like, should I work on the WIP or get started thinking about this audition?
This business is insane. My widdle mind can't absorb all the facets of it. I was thinking the other day about how some of the up-and-coming agents are so clearly sales/management types, not book types. And agencies are melding with packagers, and publishers are becoming their own packagers behind closed doors. I've seen agents selling packaged books actually written by said agents using pseudonyms. And writers--man, I don't even know.
Where is the writing in all this? I'm thinking that you have to find it inside yourself and then find a way to hang onto it. The crazy part these days is that you've got to somehow locate it in a maelstrom of Other Stuff.
And in a rare fit of circumspection, that is all I'm going to say about that.
Today there was a bunch of stuff to do, and I got most of it done, then settled in to write by re-googling the Earl of Leicester and associated people like Essex and Lettice Knollys and Amy Robsart because it was suddenly imperative that I refresh my memory about them before I tried to write today, even though none of them have anything to do with my WIP. But then when I finished refreshing, a potential w-f-h project suddenly came in, so now I'm like, should I work on the WIP or get started thinking about this audition?
This business is insane. My widdle mind can't absorb all the facets of it. I was thinking the other day about how some of the up-and-coming agents are so clearly sales/management types, not book types. And agencies are melding with packagers, and publishers are becoming their own packagers behind closed doors. I've seen agents selling packaged books actually written by said agents using pseudonyms. And writers--man, I don't even know.
Where is the writing in all this? I'm thinking that you have to find it inside yourself and then find a way to hang onto it. The crazy part these days is that you've got to somehow locate it in a maelstrom of Other Stuff.
And in a rare fit of circumspection, that is all I'm going to say about that.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
No writing yesterday, none today. Just stupid crappy annoying stuff that takes up all the time when it shouldn't, like sitting around in waiting rooms and being on hold and having to go pick things up from various places. I am in a foul, foul mood. So I'm going to try to get a very little writing in before bedtime, in the nature of an experiment to see whether doing so relieves some of the utter foulness of my mood, or whether my mood ruins the writing session which then makes me even crankier.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
With the chapter I'm working on now, once again it's a case of figuring out where to start. I can start in-scene and continue that way, with bits inserted between the dialog to explain where everybody is and what's going on. Or I can set up with narration then go into scene and stay there.
I think in a movie you'd have an establishing long shot (to say Now They Are In This Place With These People), then go into scene and stay there. In writing, that means narration then scene--but it feels weird when I try it, like all the urgency drains out during the setup. However, if I start in scene, inserting bits of setup amidst the urgent dialog feels draggy and intrusive. Not sure what to do. Keep piddling around with it, I guess.
I think in a movie you'd have an establishing long shot (to say Now They Are In This Place With These People), then go into scene and stay there. In writing, that means narration then scene--but it feels weird when I try it, like all the urgency drains out during the setup. However, if I start in scene, inserting bits of setup amidst the urgent dialog feels draggy and intrusive. Not sure what to do. Keep piddling around with it, I guess.
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