Spinwork Blog

As unheard of of two blogs in a week may be in recent years, yesterdays achievement is owed one.

After a lot of bitching, moaning, throwing things, and all the other crap I usually do that I’ll spare you when I have issues writing, I finally finished the first swath of Cloudnigh, bringing me just short of being ready to post. In retrospect its sort of horrifying that it took me almost THREE MONTHS to write THREE CHAPTERS (me, the dude who write 200 pages in four, once), but in my defense, this whole thing was a huge learning experience involving what it takes to get quality writing out of me, and the role editing plays in my process.

Over the next three-odd weeks, I’ll be editing what I have with Marina and getting the first episodes ready to post. By the looks of things, it turns out I’m actually going to be moving ahead with two-three updates a week, rather than bi-monthly as I was planning. I’ll have a definite one or the other closer to launching time.

Along with Cloudnigh, I’ll be moving house over to leophimstudios.com, and opening Leophim Forums, running on IPB. I don’t know when exactly the move is going to take place, since ‘Nigh is sort of the priority right now. ^^;

Keep an eye on my twitter for updates! Thanks for reading!

Spinner Cloudnigh, Daily Blogging, Site-related 2010, Cloudnigh, Editing, forums, launch, leophim studios, Site-related

School’s back in session again, thus returning me to the eternal struggle of finding the time to sit down and write. A lot’s been going on in both areas–what, with finding an apartment for the summer, finally getting passed some major Cloudnigh blocks that were making me about ready to make me stave in someone’s face, and this cute little idea I’m kicking around that may or may not sprout wings and crash into my window when I least expect it. So in short, all the usual.

I’ve been feeling a sense of impending doom lately about getting Cloudnigh going. The more I write, the more I realize how different the story is from anything I’ve done before. It’s weird to think of my writing and concepts in any sort of style, especially objectively–but if I did, ‘Nigh departs it in ways some of my other “off” stuff (like, for example, Shadower) doesn’t. I’ve come to consider my recent works–Hellion, Avondalius, and this new nameless one–to be more in the “innocently told, maturely realized” vein of things. In simple terms, I’m feeling a LOT of my Miyazaki influence coming out in those pieces. Again, really weird to think about it on those terms. Cloudnigh departs that completely. It feels more hardboiled, more serious, less escapist and more dystopian, real and intense. There’s a lot of irony in it–since I decided to rib every aspect of the music, politics and teen society that I could reach. On the whole, it’s been sort of unsettling to write. I like it

Speaking of changes and differences, expect a site move sometime in the near future before Cloudnigh goes live. Its been one hell of a task over three years to find a site name I actually like–maybe this time this one will settle well enough.

That’s all for now–thank’s for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Site-related 2010, Cloudnigh, Site-related

My God. Holidays at Starbucks were made to murder both customers and baristas. The last five days has consisted of some of the most maddening hours I’ve ever spent at this job. Rushes have started lasting all day, from 8AM to 5PM, with intermittent swells before and after. I’ve even noticed it as a customer. Those of you who follow my twitter will know I had numerous occasions today where I had people’s butts shoved in my face for minutes on end. Not cool. Even if growing up on the New York City subways have me partially used to it.

The other day I finished something that’s been driving me starkers since mid-November, that being finally finding a good, solid opening to Cloudnigh. People who read the IF version may or may not know how much I hated the original opening. If I have one pet-peeve, it’s protagonists that give an impression of emotional patheticism–which Roman did, uncharacteristically so. After much attempting to soften what I had, and then fretting over it, I finally  broke down and wrote a new first chapter. I’m fairly happy with the result–again, shocking, since I hate first chapters.

Now that I’ve got a solid foundation, my effort can now go into editing the remainder of my material–my goal is five chapters as a buffer–and then getting things going. I’ve been toying with web designs and the like in my spare time, and leaning towards a brown-grey themed design (Matt’s artwork asks for it). We’ll see how that goes in the long run. I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I have something up, but I’m aiming for late January, early February. I’ve also got some Spinwork related changes coming down the pike, but that’s another update.

So, it’s the new year now, meaning I should have some new years resolutions. Yeah. Well, I do–don’t get me wrong–but nothing really worth discussing on a writing blog–losing weight and eating better is among them–but nothing writing-related that I’d call a resolution. 2009 has been the best year for writing for me since 2004/2005, and that’s saying a lot for me. I finished a draft of Lanternfly, which still continues to mature and grow in my mind even though its been 2 months since I did any work on it, worked on and off on Shadower throughout the year, and fixed my sights on Cloudnigh. Its hard to believe I’ve been working on the story for eight months–exclusively, for four. In short, there’s nothing I want to accomplish in this year that I can’t from setting realistic goals and just keep walking.

In other news, I’ve started reading Anna Karenina, which has induced many orgasms of joy. Tolstoy was one smart mother fucker when it came to people. I can’t count the number of times while reading I found myself laughing and thinking, “I’VE THOUGHT THAT WAY,” and “I KNOW PEOPLE LIKE THAT,” which seems to be the pinnacle reaction to my reading lately. Its so incredible how writers from the fucking 1800s are seeing the same sort of human traits I’ve picked up on with the people I’ve known. I’d always thought that when a society evolves, the mannerism did so too, which in retrospect, I guess is sort of naive. No–people seem to have had the same “shoulds” and “oh-god-fucks” and “ZOMFG WHY?” now as they did then, if not made a little bit more insecure and unstable by the 21st century’s marketing and media machine.

Things go swimmingly–so off I swim. Thanks for reading!

Spinner Books & Reading, Cloudnigh, Musings & Rants, Site-related 2010, Anna Karenina, Cloudnigh, Lanternfly, New Years 2010, ranting, Starbucks, work

It’s about 10:30 in the morning and it feels like its about midnight. Chalk it up to my World Issues professor deciding it would be a good idea to watch Wall-E at 8:00 in the morning instead of a final. Not that I’m complaining–Wall-E’s one of my all-time favorite movies, but one I like to watch after a long Saturday, or when I want to wallow in the movie’s unique atmosphere, not just after waking up from an involuntary all-nighter. The upside is I’m currently blessed with that clarity that comes with 2AM writing sessions, where everything makes that sleepy kind of sense and you’re less inhibited to pursue your muse through the pearly avenues of her perpetual acid trip.

I finally finished Atlas Shrugged last night after a near three-month struggle. I say struggle because Atlas isn’t one of those books you read–it’s one you excavate with heavy explosives. Where the effort in reading it was is difficult to say. It’s a long sucker, to be certain (1168 pages), complete with everything I was taught not to do as a writer–from long, expository passages (60 pages, long) to dragging explanations of character’s morals, sexualities, and stoicism against emotional trauma. Still, when it pulled me in, it pulled me in good, and hundreds of pages would fly by in a blink. I wouldn’t quite say its a page-turner, because there are times I had to reread entire passages with a feeling of, “wait, what the fuck did he/she just say?” The reward of being able to fist-pump on my favorite characters in the end was amazing, though (DANNESKJOLD! REARDEN!).

The book is, without question, one of the most intense, overwrought, annoying, hair-tearing, scalp-shredding, bitter-laughter inducing, inspiring, life-changing books I’ve ever read. There’s something masochistic about reestablishing my reading habit with two, 200,000+ word books in quick succession–books that have earned me groans of “you’re reading Ayn Rand? But she’s so conservative/republican/economically fascist/idealist/reactionary, and her prose sucks.” I don’t read books for their agenda. Every writer has an agenda. I have an agenda. I don’t force it down peoples’ throats, and I don’t swallow when writers try to force theirs down mine.

Virtually every criticism I’ve heard about both Atlas and Fountainhead focused on Rand’s views, and I agree. Rand is an idealist, and her opinion is conservative past realism. Her prose is clunky–although, in her defense, English wasn’t her first language–and not something I’d recommend to someone looking to improve their writing. What hooked me was her focus on character and her portrayals of the ideal man (and woman, in the case of Dagny Taggart), which, although hyperbolic and utopian as the rest of Rand’s themes, had enough “real” for me to latch onto, and sufficient “unreal” for me to suspend my disbelief. In a way, I think it was that hyperbole that drew me in. You can learn a lot from exaggeration. After all, it’s more or less the core of comedy. Apparently it works well in fiction, too.

In the end, its difficult to put into words just what the effect was. There were a lot of parts in the book where I’d read a scene or speech and be like, “I FEEL LIKE THAT SOMETIMES,” or “DAMNIT, I’VE HAD PEOPLE PULL THAT ON ME,” or at times, be  awed that such a complex story could be held together with such ostensible simplicity. Maybe the message and the meaning is meant to be mine alone.

That said, I’m continuing my reading extravaganza. I don’t know what I’m going to read next, but I like blogging about it. It gives me something to talk about that isn’t creatively whorish and expository (a use for this blog!). On my list right now are Slaughterhouse-Five, Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Scarlett Letter and Stranger in a Strange Land. I should also look into finishing Snow Crash, but I haven’t been in the mood for sci-fi lately.

My semester’s over as of yesterday, closed with a read-and-edit of my friend Will’s book, Imperium, which he’s been working on about as long as I’ve been working on Hellion. It’s been really interesting seeing where he’s come from and gone with his stuff, and I’m really starting to see his story and concepts coming together, which is exciting. I’m just hoping he sticks to it. *stern look*

With the semester closed, the time’s come to do more work on Cloudnigh, which continues to stumble and swell in the relative semblance of growth. I haven’t done any actual writing on it in a few days, as the story seems to be demanding some background notes. Its sort of nice that I can finally identify the feeling of “what the fuck am I doing?” as a reminder to check my notes and see what I’m actually trying to say. When I look at the inspiration of my process, its sort of weird to see where I’ve drawn it from: Ayn Rand, Jonathon Stroud, Phillip Pullman, J.K. Rowling, Herman Melville, Fred Gallagher, my dad. I guess I make it work in my own way. Only now am I starting to realize how adaptable you have to be to plan a project. I’ve approached Cloudnigh in such a different way than I approached Lanternfly.

In that vein, I’m still working on Lanternfly–not as actively as I used to, but still. I’ve got a long term plan for that, and for Shadower. The gig right now is trying to execute Cloudnigh as best I can and see what comes of it as an online project. I’m finally at this place of relative confidence (90% acceptance of failure, 5% raw excitement, 5% stubbornness) where I can start to realistically plot out my course for the next year. With luck, that course will be Cloudnigh.

We shall see.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Books & Reading, Cloudnigh, Daily Blogging, Hellion, Shadower 2009, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Cloudnigh, fountainhead, Hellion, inspirating, Lanternfly, Rants, reading, reading list, Shadower

Finals’ time is here again, meaning fire season and impending doom. Things are actually looking pretty light this year, even though this semester holds the record as my worst academic performance pretty much ever. Senioritus is a flaming bitch. I’m actually convinced it hasn’t left me since high school, since most of college as-is has been like, “wait, I have to do work?”

That said–things are continuing to progress with Cloudnigh. Its been so long since I’ve been 100% dedicated to a fresh project like this that I’ve almost forgotten how exciting it is. Better still, is the feeling of streamlining and improvement of process that I’ve gained since the last time I undertook something like this. What’s weird is I’m actually taking to outlining this time. Nothing too restrictive–but something to go off of as I push forward. I’m recognizing that I really can’t just wing it like I’ve done in the past, since I’m actually (hopefully) going to have readers this time and I want to tell a solid story. The outline was actually finished last Sunday night (or early Monday morning, however you want to look at it), leading to a very interesting and demented flight back to Burlington (due to the sleep, of which I only got an hour, not the outline).

What was refreshing was realizing I had a pretty solid idea of the story already, after working on it throughout the summer of 2008, and the little bits I did even further back. Now that I’ve got a shell, my structure, character and continuity problems are a lot clearer, meaning I can now focus on where the story *will go* rather than where it *might* go.

In other news, I finished Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions last night. Without a doubt one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. There’s just something about his depravity that I can identify with–even initially I had no idea if he was just being flippant with his self-insertions, literary crutches, and commentary on the holes in the plot, or brilliant. That, and there were innumerable penis jokes, which everyone knows I’m far too mature to partake in pretty much made the book. I’m going to head back to reading Atlas Shrugged and its numerous philosophical posings and self-absorbed, romantically-materialistic, individual-exalting sex scenes.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Uncategorized 2008, 2009, Atlas Shrugged, Breakfast of Champions, Cloudnigh, Outlines, Vonnegut

The other day, I had an in-between day, a rarity when I’m up at college. In order not to be bored out of my skull, I did something I haven’t done in a while: I curled up and read.

Reading regularly is one of the things I lost in high school. Something about reading 50-odd pages of this or that classic a night, followed by 45 minutes crammed with tearing it apart didn’t sit well with me, so I just stopped. Between then and now, I’ve only read a few books, which were usually stuff my dad would give me, or that my friend Marina would recommend. After a while, I began to feel like my writing was starting to suffer, so I knuckled down and began picking things up here and there–first, Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, which was fucking hilarious, and then Brave New World by Huxley, which completely changed my perspective on science fiction. Finally, I finally picked up The Fountainhead, which coincidentally, Marina gave me as a birthday present way back in 2007–and read it in about three weeks.

I’m not sure what it was about that book, but it’s since turned me into a voracious reader. At the moment, I’m trying to resist the urge to pick up more than one at a time–which I’ve already failed at by reading Atlas Shrugged and Breakfast of Champions simultaneously. In my defense, Atlas Shrugged is dense and long-winded as fuck, and the sex scenes–of which there have been several–remind me of British tea ceremonies interrupted by violent, individual-crushing, possessive ravaging. From the ceiling in the form of Batman. I’m taking it slowly, in doses, breaking to laughing my ass off at Vonnegut’s drawing of *ahem* beavers in Champions whenever Rand decides to spend 30 pages to detail Dagny Taggart’s quest to find the creator of some random static-powered atmospheric motor.

What? Yeah… pacing fail.

Nonetheless, breaking my reading phobia came at just the right time. This past summer was an absolute slog for writing. It was one of those times where I knew I had to make my process more adaptable, and was fighting tooth and nail to get writing in between that and my job. I think in all my sessions of muse-abuse, I’d completely forgotten the distance you sometimes need to put between yourself and your work, and that time can be just as constructive as the process of creating. That’s what’s always been detrimental to my working–I’m sometimes so fucking desperate to get something down that I’ll go into full tunnel vision and burn myself a new one. Hopefully reading will mean I won’t be so hard on myself, and that I’ll allow myself to do that rather than obliterating my sanity.

Or hang out with friends. I’d forgotten about that.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging 2009, Atlas Shrugged, Brave New World, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, reading, The Fountainhead

The last few months have been some of the weirdest ever for my writing. It’s been about two years since I haven’t had a real “project” to work on, and the lull has felt kinda… I don’t know, empty.

Much of October was spent mulling over what I learned during the Lanternfly panel and what would become of the series. I’ve got a pretty good idea, but I’ve decided to set things aside for a bit to give it time to ferment. Creative energy is similar to brewing lagers, I’m finding–and let me tell you, October was fucking BRILLIANT for those–they just take a liiiiittle more time than you’d like to brew up properly. In that time, though, I’ve been further kicking around the idea of doing Cloudnigh as an online novel. Its been something I’ve wanted to try for years, but have always either been too nervous about the investment, or too busy with Lanternfly to give anything a solid bill. Until now.

What really kicked off this whole thing was seeing that Matt Page was open for commissions. I’ve been following Matt for years, and he’s a brilliant artist. There’s just something amazing about the rough, unpolished feel of his work. We fired back and forth a few notes on deviantArt, and after sending him the description, he set to work.

This was the result.

In the end, this piece was just the spur I needed to start taking Cloudnigh seriously. Over the past month, I’ve dedicated most of my time to editing what I have of the story, plotting out the rest, and creating promotional and web materials for a launch. I’ve got a pretty good idea of my resources at this point, and the story, my main focus, is growing more and more solid by the day. At the moment, I still don’t have a realistic time frame for when it’ll launch–I’ve just started working at the Champlain College Writing Lab and I’ve upped my hours at Starbucks for the holidays, because I’m broke as shit and I like being able to eat now and then–but I’ll let y’all know when I do.

Right now, I’m thinking late December to sometime in January, February.

In the meantime, I’ve set up a few pages for the story. For day-to-day updates, my sevenspinner twitter is a good bet. I’ve also created one specifically for Cloudnigh. Lastly, there’s a Facebook page for it you can find right here. Head over there if you’re interested.

Finally, after a year, I think I’m going to be moving yet again to a new domain. I registered sevenspinner.com over the summer, which has quickly become my web-identity for everything (e-mail, twitter–it’s pretty much open in everything). I’d be transferring my blog over to there obviously–probably sometime after I get Cloudnigh up and running. Its heavily dependent on my time to design something, so I’ll see.

And lastly, November 15th was Hellion’s fifth birthday. What the fuck.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Uncategorized artwork, Cloudnigh, deviantart, Hellion, matt page, sevenspinner, twitter

I’d been wondering who I’d have to sleep with to get some time to myself lately to sit down and blog about the happenings of the last couple weeks. Honestly, though, if sleeping with people was what it took to get some peace of mind from all the crap going on in my real life lately, the list would be pretty long–the CEO of Starbucks, various officials at Greyhound, the president of Champlain College, among others. Given half of those are probably twice my age, that’s probably not happening in any literal or metaphorical stretch of the imagination. I mean, aside from the fact that “sex for peace” really doesn’t work as is…

Anyway.

On Monday, October 5th, I finally had my Independent Study panel for Lanternfly. Given this was actually supposed to take place back in the last week of April, and then May, and then August–we were all sighing a massive “finally” about getting it over with. The panel convened over 114 pages (50,000 words roughly) of the 700 page (170,000) manuscript, which I had to select based on plot relevance. It was an interesting process, actually–especially since I have a tendency to over-write, and I hadn’t actually gotten around to editing anything. Rumor has it my screams of anguish are still ricocheting off the walls in Starbucks.

After much deliberation, printing shit, and twiddling my thumbs until my fingerprints wore off to the point where I needed skin grafts, the day finally came. Unfortunately, it also came on one of those off days where I’d been working since 7 in the morning, and had pulled in all-nighter the night before, leaving me to stagger into the panel over-caffeinated, mentally shot and smelling like an espresso bar. Fortunately it wasn’t as horrifying an experience as I’d thought. My good friend Will Ryan was there, as well as Erik, along with Tim Brookes, the head of the Professional Writing program. Over the course of an hour, we made short work of the manuscript, as I talked about the concepts, what I’d learned about my process and the like.

First and foremost, I have learned it is completely impossible for me to draft work on a deadline. I thought I could waltz in and write and come out with relatively decent material at the other end–yeah, wrong. Quantity of pages a week? Yeah, bad idea. Oh yeah, and minimalized concepualization and not editing a bit during the process to make sure I’m standing on a good foundation plot-wise? Epic fail. So I think it’s suffice to say pages-a-day are leaving my process–which isn’t really a new idea to me (I’d been skeptical about that since March). Other than that, the rest of the stuff was also stuff I’d figured out over the course of the study–don’t take three pages to walk ten feet, and so on.

By the end of the panel, I had a pretty clear picture of what my road forward with Lanternfly would be. Without a doubt, it was the most helpful hour of my college career. I’m pretty happy with the grade on it–even though I firmly believe even if I’d failed, it still would have been a successful course–and even though I pretty much have to start Lanternfly from scratch, I’m more excited than ever about the story and the way forward. A little weird, maybe, but I consider it an excuse to do a better job. =)

Ultimately, the panel was the perfect crossroad for something I’ve been considering for a while. More and more lately I’m beginning to realize being online has been more of a hindrance than help to my writing–and where I’ve been considering online publication for a while, I think it would be a health-hazard at this point to subject myself (and my work) to something like that. Perhaps its the age of the people I’ve been spending my time around–and don’t get me wrong, there are some great writers scattered in all these ones and zeroes–or maybe it’s mechanical and wholly uninspired nature of the online writing communities out there. Regardless, I’m realizing I get absolutely no joy from talking about the shit I write. Actually, 90% of the time, I feel like I’m bastardizing my process and the work itself. I understand there are people out there who are interested in my work, or–God knows why–respect me for what I do, or how I do it. Believe me, I thank everyone who’s ever given my shit, this blog, or any of my sites a glance from the bottom of my heart. Writing has never been about publishing for me, but being a storyteller, and I think it’s now time to listen to that part of myself and take a step back for a bit.

I’m going to keep working on Lanternfly, and eventually, I’m going to publish it. I think for now, the thought’s going to go towards writing and making a way for myself.

Thanks for reading everyone, and I’ll see you around now and again. =)

Spinner Hellion, IS 2009 Internet, IS2009, Lanternfly, Panel

Once more, my desire to update this monthly is about as reliable as my hopelessly ditzy, alcoholic muse. Half the bloody time, I want to reach into my screen, take this blog and just throw it somewhere. Off a cliff. Anywhere but its current location. We all know how I feel about blogging. I flip flop on the damn thing as much as I flip flop on ideas. It’s like, “I hate you, but venting!”

The semester has been settled into, more or less. I’m taking four classes and working only  20 hours at Starbucks, which thus far is a wonderful break from last fall where the entirety of October/November was a consistant, sleep-deprived nervous break down. I am still convinced I didn’t have the rings under my eyes before last autumn. Oh, well ^^;

Besides that, the oscillation continues between Lanternfly and Cloudnigh, the culmination of The New Breed/Endoflux Theory/Fairchild, etc. As far as the former’s concerned, I keep returning to this place where my style evolves too quickly for me to pin down a means to write the book in. There are a lot of parts that make me want to kill myself reading them over. The book found its purpose in the writing, but making the book actually… you know, reflect that purpose… is about as easy as getting my muse to cooperate. I’m anticipating a slow process, which is why I’ve been investing the time I have in ‘Nigh lately. Actually, I’ve been investing a little more than time in Cloudnigh, but that’s for another time =)

Short entry… not much to say. Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging

The temptation of understanding the creative process for me is similar to the medieval idea of immortality through alchemy. There are times where it drives me absolutely nuts not being able to have full control over things like my style, or how my ideas and the sentences that flow in my head don’t transfer onto paper the way I want. The latter is the worst part, because I tend to have a pretty narrowed down vision for the feel of my stuff. There are areas in Lanternfly where I strive to set a certain atmosphere, and lately I’ve been working on trying to kneed out one. Maybe it’s less like alchemy and more like emotional serendipity–because I can’t find the emotion I want–the one I started writing the book with.

Point is, a lot of my stuff has felt really forced lately. This happens to me every so often. The trick is usually settling into some kind of groove of understanding what I’m writing and where it’s going. After exploring some of my IS2009 material, I’m realizing that the writing is about 45% of how I want it. Usually my margin for salvaging when editing is 30%, so I can keep most of the crap in there. Maybe that’s what’s holding me back. All I know is that I’m approaching my writing with too many “shoulds,” and it’s starting to hold me back.

In other news, I finally did what I’ve been hemming and hawing at all summer–sitting down and doing a scene plan of what I have and what I need. What’s liberating about that is I now have a map of the book I can look at and mess around with, add to if I need, take away if I don’t. Maybe this will be a savior in getting the book to finally flow the way I want–so I’ll have all the plot material squared away so I can just write with it consideration without going, “this is poorly paced” or “this wasn’t something I wanted to write.” Yeah, shit.

Just a bitching rant right now, I guess. I’m actually reading Fountainhead by Ayn Rand at the moment. Marina gave me the book a few years ago, and I’m just getting around to reading it. I’m almost done, but the book was a challenge. The damn thing is about a third longer than anything else I’ve read, and pretty dense. But the way the plot flows and how naturally inspired me. I can see how a lot of people would sneer at some elements, and some that I can’t. I’ll finish it and see what I think. Then I’ve got Atlas Shrugged to read sometime after. Woo…

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging ayn rand, fountainhead, ranting, scene plans