Story Telling – Page 18

Nanowrimo Day One

Day one… is done.
I’m not going to bore you and me with daily NaNoWriMo updates – I’ll keep it weekly. However as the first day is over, I thought I’d give it a start.
So my thoughts on my NaNoWriMo project so far – I suck. Okay, it’s not that bad, I’m well past the 1,667 word standard target for day one, however I wanted to blast it. My personal schedule called for 6,000 words. In the end, when I finished last night I was at 3,062 words. I should be happy with that, but I’m not.
See the problem is, I got home from work, (and I’d been successfully writing on my phone on the way home), and just went pfft. I got distracted by the interwebs, television, food, reading the news. So what I need tonight is a digital coccoon to stop this happening again. Going to need it to, as I’d really like to make the Herculean effort to get back on track, (according to my schedule for the early push by the end of today I need to be pushing 10l to 11k). However, that’s probably not reasonable, so if I write 6,000 words today, I will allow myself to get back online. Though from this point onwards I’ll only be recording the shows I like, I’ll wait until I hit 50k to watch them, (I actually prefer watching multiple episodes back to back anyway, you get to to see arcs developing better than if watching them one by one.
After today the schedule, aside from weekends, becomes a lot less punishing – that’s why a good strong early push is so important.
Okay, aside from my crap ability to focus after a days work, and my inability to resist the temptation of other forms of entertainment, the story itself is going pretty good. I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’m going still, we’ve not gone completely off plan (though I used more words than I anticipated in the first section – I can easily see in editing that the word count in that chapter alone will drop 25-50% but I’m not too worried about that now). I’m now on the second chapter, and I’m pushing hard at the world building, because chapter one was too limiting an environment to build up the world the story takes place. Chapter two is a little cruise, several meet and greets, and just a tinge of excitement, as a preview of what is to come as the story progresses to the thirdhalf way point.
That’s actually a little bit of an issue, but again I’m pusing it aside until the editing process – I think the plan I have flows pretty well, but it does trouble me that the main events of the story line don’t happen till late on – with feeder events earlier on building up to it. However, if it doesn’t work I’ll worry about it in editing, because it’s too late to go back now, and if I go off plan I’ll probably lose the thread in my head.
This of course makes sense to me, but I offer no guarentees anyone else will understand a word of this.
So, do I feel confident after just one day? Despite not being where I want to be, the likelihood is I will finish this year, I do have a plan, I’ve got a cast of characters, yet still there’s plenty of room for my own creativity.
I was going to throw in all sorts of random stats, such as I’ve spent around 4 hours 37 minutes writing, currently averaging 15 words per minute (including the time I’m sat looking at the screen trying to motivate myself to put words down), at my current rate there’s 59 hours writing to go, and as things stand now (with only a part day done on the second day), should finish on or around the 27th November), however I just could find a seemless way to fit them into this post, so you’ll have to wait till I’ve got a few days worth of stats.

Planning a novel

I’m no expert on planning a novel, actually I am precisely not an expert. I write by the seat of my pants. Disorganisation is my stock in trade.

So why am I writing a post on planning? I quite often organise myself in the work place, so I don’t completely live life in a disorganised mess, I am perfectly capable of organising myself. As a writer I just don’t, or haven’t until now. As I mentioned in my previous post for NaNoWriMo this year I’m all about the planning, so much so I’m dying to get going now so much is planned out.

Why stop there though. For NaNoWriMo I’m following the advice of Roz Morris in her book How to Nail Your Novel, which was a birthday present. It’s a great book and makes a lot of sense, however there are other books, other techniques out there for planning and writing. So for December this year and upto next year’s NaNoWriMo I’m going to experiment with them. See which matches me best, and gets the best results.

Of course that means I’ll have to dedicate more time to writing, I’ll need to be firm on making time everyday a priority. Of course it might help that not every month is a writing month, between every project there’s the planning to do, so it’s not twelve months of hardcore fingers to keys.

I’ll also experiment with software, and services.

As to ideas for all these short stories and novels, well I’ve a treasure trove of ideas, false starts, and aborted projects to make my way through.

I’ll review each method, book, and software our tool as I make my way through and post it here, what may not work for me, may help a fellow aspiring writer on their quest for successful story telling.

Another year

As I mentioned before, I failed NaNoWriMo again. I feel a touch bitter, but I just never truly got going. I had a fantastic idea (and one I’ll keep on the back burner – till I’m feeling like writing again), I just never felt the writing bug.

So, I do feel kind of ashamed, but that’s life. The benefit of writing as a hobby is the only person who can be disappointed in me for not finishing, is me. At least I didn’t have something important riding on this, such as a contract, or reputation. Though maybe that would help – maybe part of the problem there isn’t enough pressure on.

Regardless, there never will be that kind of pressure unless I learn to be a better writer, and to deal with deadlines however lax, or under pressured they are.

In the meantime (between where I am now, and being that fabulous writer I want to be), I’m going to get back to blogging, and working on my space pirates serial. I’m in editing mode with the first few chapters, because there were too many mistakes. At the moment, I’m rewriting, as I’m going to move away from an autobiographical story, to a biographical one. It may not sound much of a change, but it changes the whole complexion of the story. I have a new character, some kind of historian, or person with a special interest in the subject at least that can introduce each section, and write areas in a story format. Which removes the problem of being stuck to writing only what the character sees, and or hears about. However, since most of it is still based on the writings of my main character, now supported with writings and accounts of other major characters, I can still practice with that style. It actually gives me a multitude of styles to chose from, and practice with – yet it shouldn’t be as disjointed as it sounds it could. If it were a single novel, it might be a bit tough to read if not handled really well – as its a serial its still important that it fits together nicely, but people are less likely to be reading it all in one go anyway.

So major re-write under way, not just to add in the new character introducing each bit, but to fix all the mistakes.

Aspiring.org Repatriated…

Well I’m back in foggy Leeds once again. Prague was amazing, took a lot of pictures, saw a lot of sights, ate a lot of food, and drank a lot of beer. Perfect holiday. I also squeezed in two and a half chapters of Memoir of a Space Corsair.

I would thoroughly recommend Prague as a decent retreat, though there are plenty of distractions – the goulash is amazing, and the semi-dark beer is awesome.

Well I’m back in sunnyfoggy Leeds once again. Prague was amazing, took a lot of pictures, saw a lot of sights, ate a lot of food, and drank a lot of beer. Perfect holiday. I also squeezed in two and a half chapters of Memoir of a Space Corsair.

I would thoroughly recommend Prague as a decent retreat, though there are plenty of distractions – the goulash is amazing, and the semi-dark beer is awesome.

Now I’m back, I want to focus a bit on my writing once more. I’m finally back ahead again with my current serial, having two and a half chapters currently unpublished onsite. However, I won’t be posting anything for a little while, I want to take down the first four chapters and do a thorough editing on them, cut out some of the extrenuous detail, close a few plot holes, and clarify some of the confusing elements. Unfortunately, though it was always my intent not to, very little editing was done on what I’ve posted. Just a spelling and grammar check. The idea was to just write – however having gone through the initial stories to compile a list of characters, character attributes, places, ships, and events (both covered and implied), I found far too many mistakes to just let it lie. So for the next few weeks, I will be concentrating on a thorough editing of the initial, and the unpublished chapters, to try and form a more coherent story.

It’s a good place to do it, the first unpublished chapter establishes Arsène Frassin into a different situation from before, where he has more control of his actions, the second removes most of the metaphysical shackles that bind him, and allow him to flourish as an individual, and not just someone trapped by circumstances (though, as there are no magic wands, some circumstances are still very much present, its the form that allows his freedom of action). This is where the story really begins, we’ve cleared the back story, and that is an excellent achievement.

There are other things I’ll be doing the next few weeks too –

I will be completing my notes on the story, which will help to avoid future plot holes, and blatant mistakes, (the worst of which is forgetting a character completely, and having him turn into a different character).
I’ll also get some of my notes written up, which is in the form of a writing diary, a kind of behind the scenes look (not that there’s much to see, but I’m sure there will be as the story really takes off).
I’m also going to plan out a few a chapters ahead, and give a rough gudie, for myself, as to where I’m going with this (read more of this further down)
Lastly, need to do my Autumn playlist in Spotify

Being a child of modern times, I spend a lot of time online, and one of my favourite sites is Ctrl+Alt+Del an online webcomic, which is updated regularly, and aimed at gaming, and gamers (though I’m not really one, I do play some games so get most of it). Tim that creates the comic, has recently just finished a storyline, where fans could email in their choice for the next action. A bit like the Choose Your Own Adventure books of years ago (one of which I have on my Kindle). Now he’s finished, he’s just done this post, in which he has a tree diagram of the choices that were made, and were possible. I’ve never done anything like this for a story (I’ve done story boarding and such, but its always a linear thing, and usually never in great detail). I quite fancy giving a similar diagram ago.

I would definately have decision paths, for my purposes though, I would literally fill loads of them with sample short adventures, which gives me the choice each time I write a new chapter to go one way, or the other, or stick to the core story. I think it would be a fantastic tool because it allows me to have both a plan, and an evolving story – as each sub adventure, in some way or form will add something to the core storyline, while also keeping to my main aim of a exploring as many different space adventures as possible. The great thing about writing in serial form is that if I don’t want to further the main story line for several issues, that’s okay, as long as it eventually ties back in.

So, writing wise, that’s my next few weeks sorted. It’ll give me a October to then squeeze some quality writing in, before I break off from existing projects and switch over to NaNoWriMo 2010. Yes, its not far away at all now.

I think science will probably feature in my NaNoWriMo novel this year, purely because next week I’ll be at the Science Festival in Birmingham, absorbing lots of lovely science to be recycled into my writing.

[nocrosspost]

Then, soon enough it will be Christmas, and the year will draw to a close. It’s been an amazing year, and we’re only three quarters through so far. Why am I getting so far ahead? Just so I can mention that next year Aspiring.org will go international again (as in I’ll be holidaying across at least three different countries next year, go me). This last paragraph is of no relevance, but it makes me happy, so tough.

[/nocrosspost]

Aspiring.org goes international

Good day folks, or as they say where I am now dobry den (or ahoy).

I’m currently on holiday in in the beautiful city of Prague. Only been here a day, but the creative juices are flowing (get your mind out of the gutter I meant the intellectual ones). So far in MSC (Memoirs of a space corsair) we’ve not done much but there is our first proper space battle coming up, and some actual piracy – I’m going to base the world they go to fence.their ill gotten gains on the Czech capital I think. It makes sense, the more we leave where we came from, the more we try to capture the spirit of what we left… so in the future major colonies will be heavily influenced by their language/ethic groups in architecture and design. The architecture here is beautiful that it needs to be preserved in some fashion by the Czech speaking people 500 years from now.

I think it will be especially true of language/ethnic groups that lost much of their homes on Earth during the wars of 100 years from now. Well its war or catastrophic after affect of going over the green cliff (entirely depends how preachy I’m feeling when I write it).

Just need to break my current chapter and the show will really get going.

Another update – but good news!

Well the time has finally come, I’m going to actually show some brand new original writing on my part.

The first two chapters of my Memoirs of a Space Corsair are completed, and edited (though I offer no gaurentee to the quality of my self-editing, especially in the small hours of the morning). I’ve really gone for a bleak start to my characters adventures, and the third chapter will largely be bleak, though of course I can not keep it in such bleak a circumstance, I’m fairly sure if it continued into a fourth chapter, Arsène Frassin (my main character), would probably but aside his principles and simply off himself. He’s been through a lot, poor lad.

Hopefully these first two chapters give you a hint of the potential in this boy, trapped by circumstance. It is the foundation for the character, and ultimately the whole series of stories I have planned.

Hopefully, once we move out of these initial chapters, each entry will actually work as its own short story, but feed into the overall plot I intend. However, I must admit, the first three chapters, and possibly into the fourth are sequential, and intended to be read as such. I want to try and keep a word count of between 5,000 and 10,000 per instalment, just because its neater than trying to read 30,000 words in a single posting, and more convenient for the style of writing I want to achieve. As we do move into later chapters, and each adventure is one instalment (albeit with the possibility of an adventure or two being split across two instalments), it should feel a bit more like the pulp fiction of the first half of the twentieth century. I suppose I should come up with a garish and extravagant cover or two to go with milestones in my story.

I am finding this project very exciting, and its been relatively easy to write (albeit in between work, and family), but I can honestly say, the editing has been a lot tougher. I’m sure if I were to re-read either chapter through right now, I’d probably find another hour or two of changes to be made. There is little time for that before the first chapter publishes, so I shall let it lie, plenty of time before the scheduler posts up the second chapter though.

I had to have a little think about the impact of posting a story online, just as with poetry, I want to share my creative works, but a part of you does wonder, what would I do if someone misappropriated my ideas? I’ve of course added “© Jonathan L. Lawrence, 2010”, but also a disclaimer at the beginning, spelling out that this is mine, and mine alone. This may be overkill – however when I ran forum for writers, way back when, the issue of copyright did come up, and I can appreciate the wronged parties point of view.

I want to do a post on copyright, (I did do one previously, but it was more an idea, rather than a real look at the subject), and will probably do this week. I sometimes think copyright isn’t really reflective of the time, yet at the same time, I want my creative works protected as I share it with the world. There has to be a balance somewhere, and maybe it lies with the creators rather than the law to find that balance. Of course I am, in my small, untalented way, a creator, so I’m biased.

Anyway, I hope you read and enjoy the first two chapters, and I hope not keep those that do enjoy it waiting with the third and fourth.

Au revoir,

Sage

P.S. Feedback, good or bad, is always welcome – it makes me feel important that someone felt enough about what I’ve written that they would say something about it. I am an egotist after all is said and done, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Plus, it might just help shape me into a real writer, then if I was ever published, I’d have to acknowledge your contribution – (bribery gets you everywhere, or it does in Arsène’s corrupt world).

Aha! Found You!

My muses have elected to return to me it seems. I suddenly have the ability to write again, and am doing so with gusto working on a new project. I know, I have lots of unfinished projects I should be working on, but I’m just enjoying writing right now.

So the new project, it’s currently titled Journals of a Space Corsair, and is a sci-fi piece. Inspired by the concept of the Bio of a Space Tyrant novels by Piers Anthony, which I read recently, and once I finished reading those books, I also read Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes, between the two of them, this whole science fiction universe of mine was inspired and created in my mind. What’s more is I’ve been able to put it into words, something I’ve struggled to do for the past eighteen months.

It’s a nice feeling, not too many words just yet, but just passed the 20,000 mark in two weeks so that’s a comfort.

The way I’m doing this project is blog posts, it’s an auto-biography, so I’m going to write it as a series of confessionals, the man’s story in his own words, detailing his good deeds, but mostly his crimes, the lifestyle he led, and the suffering he brought and received. The hardest part is not giving in to my tendency to make the character a flawed good guy, or to have the character swing from bad to good. I’m trying to write something that reflects a man, and not an archetype from a TV series. That isn’t to say there isn’t an arc, in fact there’s a pretty big one, and my aim is the character goes from illegality to legitimacy, and then back to illegality. Times are turbulent, wars rise up and allegiances change.

I do feel the need to acknowledge Piers Anthony, and Michael Crichton, as their books are a massive influence on this story, it was their books that really lit my imagination on fire.

From Michael Crichton I tried to take a sense of how pirates actually operated, and in many ways how the new world worked, the trade routes between the colonial lands, the stopping off points like Jamaica, which I’ve tried to translate the spirit of into worlds and space stations.

From Piers Anthony, obviously I’ve tried to take the format, the fictional autobiography of a significant figure in future history, I’m also borrowing some of the technology he mentions in his books, the travelling via a beam of light, over massive distances, which is as reasonable a way to explain interstellar travel as any. Of course it is fraught with its own difficulties in a story that takes place in real time, with politics, wars, and tactics – I can’t really afford it taking decades to travel from one planet to the other. Instead, I shall embellish the idea with faster than light energy – so it takes days and weeks to travel between the stars.

I think it is important to acknowledge where a story comes from – it is not my intention to plagiarise these amazing authors, but they have inspired within me a tale which I think is unique and distinct in its own right. Besides when it comes to science fiction, it’s never easy to come up with easy ideas for propulsion, and story telling in general tends to form into archetypes. I think that’s one of the advantages of writing an account of a self confessed bad guy, while not ground breaking or unique, it is a point of view that is carried far less often than that of a hero, heroically battling to save the world.

My intention is to post up a chapter (and if I write it right, it will be more of a self contained short story, which feeds into the overall tale), every fortnight, detailing a significant memory of this space corsair. I won’t be launching it right away, as I want to build up four or five chapters ahead, this gives me a nice cushion with which to edit the stories (because while the muse does flow, it tends not to check the grammar for me, nor does it worry about the annoying inconsistencies of writing large pieces of work in small bits). Also, my sister’s baby is due next month, I’m on holiday in Prague in August, and I’m off to the British Science Festival in Birmingham this September, so there’s plenty to interrupt my schedule.

Speaking of the British Science Festival, I’m really looking forward to it, it feeds a lot of knowledge in my science fiction, such as the power system for the ships in my story – I learned that from a presentation I went to on fusion energy, I always favoured the methodology employed in the tokamak fusion generators, rather than the method involving lasers, purely because it seems to me that once such devices as ITER are operational and producing massive quantities of energy, we would be able to learn from this and scale the process down to have a device that can sit aboard a starship and produce the kind of energy I need for propulsion, FTL (faster than light) travel, and of course the staple of most space based science fiction, the weapons.

I am genuinely excited to be writing again, and long may it continue. Nanowrimo is in November (it’s always in November, hardly a surprise there), and this year I’m going to ace it. Mark my words.

Its Been A While

Reports of my demise, well weren’t really reported at all – but if they were, they weren’t true. I’m still here, this heart of mine beats its strong baddum baddum.

It has been a while since I posted, and the last time I posted I admitted failure, I had lost NaNoWrimo09, however it wasn’t the end of the world. Unfortunately, the writers block didn’t stay long gone, and since then I’ve struggled to write again. Even the words for blogging just wouldn’t come. As I said though, its not the end of the world. It never really is, however depressing it feels. That said, I’m feeling ready to write again, a whole chasm of ideas has started to fill the void where inspiration had previously been lacking.

I also have a brand new toy to help with my writing. Since I switched to using the Nokia 5800, I’ve been struck by the lack of keyboard, and many key features of my beloved Nokia E71, so until I get another new phone that combines the great features of the E71, and the 5800 – I needed a filler, which was either going to be a carrying my laptop everywhere, or gadget time. The gadget in question is an electronic pen. I got the cheapest one I could – however it is incredibly amazing. Forget your iPads, and you tablets, the future is pen and paper!

I’ve never been adverse to handwriting my fiction – in fact I find it far easier to transfer my thoughts to paper than to a screen, however I fail at typing up, and at some point I’m going to get stuck because my handwritten pages are hard to read, and get damaged, or go missing. There is no way I can type up thirty thousand words of my handwriting, especially not when most of my writing time comes while travelling. However, the digital pen comes with software to not only catalogue your written word into a database, but to also convert it into text.

Obviously the catch here is that the quality of your handwriting will affect how well your scribbles can be converted into text, the software can’t make miracles. I’ve found, though, that as long as it can hit 70%, you’re correcting, not rewriting whole sections. Which suits me, as it lets me slip a bit of editing in the process.

I bought the most basic one I could find, (by basic read cheap), and the look of the product does reflect this – however the actual quality is so much better.

It comes in two parts, the pen, and the sensor that does the recording. You clip your sensor to the top of the page, and then start writing. When you complete a page, you hit the button, and it starts a new one in memory. Best gadget buy of the year for me, its going to take a lot to top that. Here’s a link to the one I bought: http://bit.ly/bKV5OG

Hopefully that’s going to help me achieve some writing – but toys themselves aren’t whats necessary, I realise now I’ve been having real difficulties at focusing on the tasks I set myself. So I need to work on my habits – and this is a general life thing, rather than specifically a writing thing. So I’m going to introduce some new behaviours, such as going to a coffee shop once a week to chill out, and read or write. Getting back to going to the gym, get myself fit, doing more puzzles to get my brain engaged, rather than switching off the second my mind wanders. I should probably stop making lists of things I intend to do – but we all have our vices. There are never any promises with me, I get distracted far too easily to even promise myself something – but I’m going to try. Writing isn’t just about writing, its about making better worlds, and better people to me, especially a better me.

In the mean time, I think I’m going to spend this week writing a couple of three hundred word short stories, just to get myself warmed up for the rest of the year to come.

NaNoWriMo – Week 2

So we’re now in week 3, I figured I’d reflect on week 2 briefly, as I did week one.

I can sum up my NaNoWriMo experience this year so far in one phrase:

“Off course”

Life keeps interfering in my writing, last week I didn’t write anything until the weekend, for which I have plenty of excuses, legitimate ones, but only one person to blame – yours truly.

My goal of writing 100,000 has slipped to a remote chance, and I have to accept that, and I do so, with much sadness. 50,000 is starting to slip away too. I know I like brinkmanship, but I really need to find some gumption and get on with writing.

Did manage some writing on Sunday, at the Leeds café meet, but then I decided when I got home to concentate on fixing my netbook. This is less procrastination, and more a practical act. I’ve been trying to use my 17″ laptop to do my novel on, however it was bought for media and not typing, I didn’t pay any attention to the keyboard – as it turned out, aside from being impractical to carry round with me, it was truly awful to write on. Now the netbook is a go, it’s portable, and I feel quite comfortable typing on it (in fact it’s what I used for NaNoWrimo last year), all being well, I can increase the time I can get writing done.

Last year I utilised time on buses, probably was only a few thousand words, but every little helps. Plus now I can easily just turn up at a café and write. The world is my literary oyster once more.

So, for now the aim is 50,000 words by the end of the month, and though I’m behind, I am definately confident of achieving that when we reach the 30th November.

Just to be sure, I’m booking myself a little getaway for the final weekend of the month, a few days in Ilkley to concentrate on writing without the distractions of everyday life, just what the doctor ordered.

NaNoWriMo 2009 is a go!

NaNoWriMo has officially launched, and the race to 50,000 words (or 100,000 if you’re doubley stupid like me), begins – just 30 days to clear the novel, and claim the victory.

This is going to be an amazing month, hard, soul destroying at times, but the feeling when you make it over that 50,000 word barrier is immense.

Weeks of anticipation, preparation, and nerves have finally lead to the start of NaNoWriMo 2009.

It started at midnight, and so did I, or close enough (what I actually did was start the procastination early, by waiting an hour to start while I worked on a spreadsheet to track my writing… erm oops). Anyway, today I went to Café Latino in Leeds, met up with another writer doing NaNoWriMo, and we got to work properly on writing our novels.

I’d like to say I’m target, but I’m about four thousand words short as it stands, and annoyingly I’m currently averaging a very poor, and very slow four hundred and fifty three words an hour, I’m not really sure why, the ideas there. Hopefully when a few more characters turn up, and we get some good interaction (not just phone calls), the words will start to flow.

My ideal is to do ten thousand words a day at weekends, with an extra five thousand on a Friday night. Now I know this isn’t entirely sustainable, which is where week nights come in, they’re my bonus rounds where I can pick a few extra on the word counts, but I can also take some time to create and organise notes, drawings, and do plans to help me at the weekends. The weekend and Fridays plan brings me to my target of one hundred thousand words, across two stories – and thats where I need to focus my efforts.

I don’t really need to feel too bad about not hitting target today, this Sunday is an extra, above and beyond the plan, so any words today, just help take a bit of pressure off later on. However, aside from a few chores, and writing this entry I’ll be writing right up until bedtime. Sadly this year there won’t be any bus writing, my little netbook is still out of order (bang out of order as it were), and I’m confined to using my seventeen inch monster laptop which is just about portable, if I’m writing in a café, or some such, not really something I can sit on a bus with.

I am feeling really confident about this year though, I’ve got a good plan, and some great ideas. There’s a lot of pressure, but I write better with pressure, its how I made it last year, when I did 80% of my novel in just ten days, right at the end.

I’m going to try and fit in time to keep writing here, this is what my blog is for, writing, and discussing writing, and this is the month I’m going to be doing lots of it, so i’ll have plenty to discuss.

To all everyone doing NaNoWriMo out there, I wish you all the best of luck.