writing – Page 19

Tools for NaNoWriMo 2011 (Planning)

So I’ve talked about the planning I’ve done and am still doing for NaNoWriMo but not about how I’m going to be working.

First of there’s how I’ve done the planning. There are obvious tools such as the browser I’ve done online research from (Firefox on my PC, and Dolphin Browser on my phone), and then sites such as Wikipedia, space.about.com, and news websites (for the latest science and technological developments and theories). Nothing ground breaking there, I’ve been using a lot of science based sites to flush out details I can populate my universe with, but some sites on the history of piracy, and 16th, 17th, and 18th century naval life.

That’s all great but once I’ve got it, whether it’s snippets or whole articles I need to store it so that I can access it again, preferably offline so I’m not distracted by the internet later on. For this I use Microsoft Office OneNote – something I’ve had for ages but never gotten round to exploring for writing. It’s good, I’ve two projects on there, one for all that juicy research, the other for character bio’s and scene/locales.

I’m also using an app on my phone called Thinking Space (I’m using the pro version, but the free version doesn’t restrict you other than listing some screen retail to ads). This is a mind mapping (or brain storming if you want to call a spade a spade) tool, it’s a lot lower on detail than one note but has the advantage of quickly summarising thoughts and ideas and showing how things are interconnected. It’s in Thinking Space I’ve also mapped out the structure of the story, so I can clearly see what each chapter needs to include to feed events four or five chapters further into the story, and ultimately the end. Hopefully it means no loose ends at the end, and if I can keep it up to date it gives me a to-do list of changes I need to make in editing if things happen later in the story that weren’t originally part of the plan and need supporting events.

Other basics in the planning stage include Microsoft Word, Notepad, and a calculator. Then there’s my Kindle, where I’ve been reading plenty of similar sci-fi, and piracy novels. They’d also a few travel guides on there as this is an interplanetary novel each location needs to be distinct but something that can be related to by the Earth found denizens of today’s earth. It helps to borrow from out countries, cities, and cultures to enrich my fictional universe, lest everything in the universe somehow looks and feels like Leeds.

Add into that Google Sky Maps, Google Translate, and we’ve pretty much got everything I need for a space based science fiction story.

These are the tools I’ve used fire the planning, and they’ll be reused in the writing stage, but added to by things that are geared to better improve my writing, speed me up, andkeep me going. I’ll cover those in a subsequent post dedicated to that subject. I’ll do one in January to show the tools I’ll use to edit this story. For other novels I’ll try different tools and review them.

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 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).

Oh and Happy Birthday to Aspiring.org

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Just a quickie, my blog is a year old this month – how fantastic, probably not dedicated as much time to it as I should – however still feels great to hit a mile stone.

In the past year I’ve written forty-eight published posts, five pages, across sixteen categories, using one hundred and eighty-three tags, I’ve recieved fourteen comments, sixty-one photos across four galleries.

I hope to build from here, and keep this going – I’ve enjoyed my time here.

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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.

Being Creative Isn’t Easy…

Being creative isn’t easy, writers block just won’t let me go – I get a small amount of joy and then it is gone. Distractions do not help, so many things in my life deflect my attention to the important things. Unfortunately in life we must weigh up the importance, so work is rated higher than writing – because if I don’t earn a living, I’ll not be able to write anyway.

That said, I’m trying to reclaim some of my life, trying to close off massive projects at work, thus freeing up my time, and my mind outside of work, however as with all things in business, available resources are filled as immediately as they become available. A frustrating situation – however one that should not be moaned about truly, as I said I need to earn a living, and there are unfortunately many people far far worse (by a severe magnitude), than myself for whom lack of work is a significant part of their lives, and writing is far from their immediate concern.

We western writers have it so hard don’t we?

An unfortunate thing about writing in the grand scheme of things its relatively worthless, compared with the realities of living. However, the worth of simple joy is not necessarily measured by normal merits of survival, but surely without joy, we may as well not bother to survive.

NaNoWriMo 2009 – The Conclusion

I failed NaNoWriMo, sad but true. However I do feel better for it, in a bizarre twist of fate.

So NaNoWriMo 2009 has come and gone, with much heartache, sleepless nights, sore hands, etc, etc…

I have a confession to make – I didn’t finish. This year was not mine for the sweet smell of success. I peaked at 25,000 words (a quarter of my original target). To say I’m disappointed in myself would be an understatement – but equally, I’m not ashamed. Indeed, in many ways I’m quite happy, and proud of myself, during the final weekend, I finally learned to accept I can’t write all the time. I want to, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes there is no way round the fact that without will, inspiration is relegated to frustration.

I really really don’t like failing, but I could have pushed in that final weekend, and pushed, but I would never have hit even the modest target of 50,000, and even if I had. Instead I took a break, having accepted defeat, let go of the pressure – I felt wonderful. So immediately following my return home, I started writing again. Nice and smoothly, and without much effort. In fact I’ve had some late nights, because the writing has being going so well, and I wasn’t aware of the time.

I’m not finishing off my NaNoWriMo project for now, I’ve put it to one side, as my imagination is caught with a sequel to my previous NaNoWriMo attempt (the one I won last year).

Just shows you, sometimes pressure helps, and other times it hinders – I think for me it’s the accumalative pressures I found myself under with family life, work, money, and writing, it made for some unsurmountable obstacles. Until I let go, and found away to enjoy myself away from the pressure.

Annoying Writing Habits…

What are your annoying habits when writing? I seem to have a few…

Doing NaNoWriMo in the company of others has shown me something – how many annoying habits I’ve built up

I’m not talking about actua writing issues, I’m talking behavourial one. The one I’ve noticed most often has to be the tapping of keyboards. Not the keys themselves, but the frame or rest area, when I’m trying to think around a problem, or plotting my next move.

I also seem to a very emphatic gesture when hitting the carriage return, it’s like every new paragraph is a victory. Also, it seems full stops too.

The other one I’ve noticed, though I’m trying really hard not to do this in public, is the chewing of my tongue during tense, or really busy period.

There’s a few more, but those are probably my biggest crimes against the people around me.

It has led me to wonder, what are your annoying writing habits? Answers on a post card – however since I’m not giving you my address, probably best to answer in a comment.

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.