Spinwork Blog

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

Over the years, I’ve just accepted the fact that it’s impossible to write in whatever living situation I’m in. Dorms are particularly hard because you’ve got people around. Not that I don’t write around people every day. I mean, I write in coffee shops where there are anywhere between 5 to 25 people around me at any given time. It really just depends how zoned out I can get.

Yet somehow, in my home and in my apartment, I’m never able to write. Its probably because of the constant distractions–the want to pull up AIM or MSN, or even SE and chat with people on there. I never get that in public because I’m so detached from the people around me. Honestly, you can find yourself a lot more comfortable in the anonymity of a crowd at some points. That, and when you’re listening to music that drowns everything out, it’s easier.

I experimented while I was home over Thanksgiving with writing in my room, the first I’ve really done since I wrote Hellion, by putting on headphones and listening to some Soilwork. I wound up polishing off And the Silence Screamed in that session. It was really fulfilling in the end.

In a way, it’s kind of nice to be coming out of this massive writing slump I’ve been in lately. First, because I’m not taking myself as seriously as I did and because I can experiment with different environments and mediums (And the Silence Screamed is my second attempt at writing in first person). For instance, I’ve been thinking about adding another cafe to my collection: this lovely tea house on Church Street with a really nice selection of teas. Its a little ritzier than what I’m used to (you can’t smoke hooka at Starbucks–not that I smoke). I think it’d be nice to deviate from the $5.00 beverages for a while, especially since I spend so much money on feeding myself now days.

I have such a shitty diet. First half of the semester, I lived off of Dominos Chicken Kickers and pizza. I live in an apartment and I have a limited meal plan, so I technically should be shopping for myself. Yeah, fail that. Lately, I’ve been dancing between Chinese and actually eating the caf food once in a while. When I do eat. I’m gaining and losing weight at the same time.

Aside from excessive distraction, there’s another aspect of my living situation that causes me some issues. Lately, I’ve taken to torrenting. A lot. My roommates and me torrent a shared terrabyte a week. Most are usually between my roommates who are better equipped in the hard-drive department than me, but lately I’ve taken to watching Clannad, an anime based on a Japanese video game. I’m torrenting the first eight episodes as we speak.

I often fail at recognizing how much anime influences my writing. Stuff like Fooly Cooly, Negima, Love Hina, and Chobits really have had a much greater effect on how I view themes than I thought. I noticed while watching the first two episodes of Clannad how real certain animes can be. Naturally, you really can’t call stuff by Ken Akumatsu or FLCL “real”, per se, but all of them have various elements that ignite that “oh, I’ve felt that” spark. It’s those character dimensions that rise above the genre and medium cliches that make me enjoy anime so much. Not every anime has squealing girls and panty shots.

Realistic, developed characters. That’s something I’ve always wanted to bring to my writing. Rowling did it brilliantly in Harry Potter, and shows like Lost constantly inspire me to focus on my character development. But that’s always been a problem, especially with two of the three major projects I’ve done. When I was planning Hellion, my character development was very rudimentary, just sentence long profiles. With Salamander, I didn’t even bother developing until I was 100 pages into the book (I paid for that, dearly). The only project I’ve really approached with a degree of character depth in mind was Shadower. In that case, I had the benefit of having lots of material done, on top of the actual short story.

I probably could rant on forever, but it’s 2 in the morning and I should have gone to bed a number of hours ago. ^^;

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, Musings & Rants, Short Works, Uncategorized 2007

There are a lot of writers out there who go for the “awesome” factor when they write. To me, the “awesome” factor is setting up a scene, character, or situation that’s basically meant to wow the reader. I think we’re all guilty of this at some point. Some of us (*cough* most Hollywood writers *cough*) seem to think the cheap thrills of creating these awesomeisms will make the book, when it really does is make them seem like amateurs complete idiots.

Like me, for instance.

Over the summer, I began writing a story, cleverly titled “The Harlot’s Well”. Here’s me thinking “Harlot” was some kind of awesome demon creature, because surely, if Avenged Sevenfold can use it in the title of their album, then it MUST be awesome.

Wrong.

When I got far enough into the draft to talk about it, I gave my editor-friend a ring to let her know what I had cooking. When she heard the title, she expressed extreme interest.

Marina: “You know what a Harlot is, right?”

Me: “Isn’t it some awesome demon beast?”

Marina: “No, actually, it means prostitute.”

Me: “What? I… you… the… but… *contemplates suicide*”

Well, there went that story idea, along with much of my dignity.

It’s amazing what can happen with your material when you least expect it, especially when you think you have a certain idea of something and it turns out to be completely the opposite of what you think. For instance, I could have changed the story to be about some awesome demon prostitute that somehow manages to teach life lessons–as original a concept as that is–but I was too ashamed to really think about writing at that point ^^;. See, it’s even taken me three months to talk about it. I’m still really ashamed.

That sort of thing happened again, recently. I’ve been writing a short story lately called “And the Silence Screamed”. It wasn’t until today that I realized the proper acronym of the story was “ASS”. It’s sort of ironic, in a way, given the protagonist wakes up after a night of drunken sex and finds herself eye-level with one, but completely unintentional. Once more, my writing has found a way to make an ass (hurr hurr) out of me.

I’ve been outright mocked for some of my attempted awesome-isms, and there are times I admit that I deserve it. For instance, there are these kids I babysit who sometimes get my half-baked ideas as bedtime stories (they bug me about them all the time). I made the mistake of using the name “Asmodeus” in one story. The kids never let me hear the bloody end of it. Yeah, granted, Asmodeus is a cool name, but try saying it out-loud.

In other news, I’ve been pretty much swamped with end-of-semester crap lately. I still need to update the links on ESS. I’m so freaking lazy. I’ll get to it, though. I promise!

And anyone who listens to melodic death-metal, try picking up Soilwork’s new offering “Sworn to a Great Divide”. It’s a lot heavier than their other stuff and shockingly devoid of keyboards. It’s a fairly radical shift as far as focus is concerned, but it works, y’know? There are some times where band’s styles change dramatically from album to album and suck at it (Meteora to Minutes to Midnight by Linkin Park comes to mind. Ugh.), but this actually is acceptable to me. I think it’s because Speed’s vox haven’t changed much compared to Stabbing the Drama and some of the riffs are really sexy (Opening riff of the title track, for example.).

It annoys me when people expect musicians–and writers, too–to not alter style. It really bothered me hearing all the flak Annette Olzen got after joining Nightwish. Yeah, okay, Tarja was awesome. She was a trained opera singer. But you can’t expect something radical like a new singer not to change a band in some way (e.g. Killswitch Engage, Jesse Leach to Howard Jones). I personally think that Anette adds a new dimension to the old songs and an exciting sound to the new one. Seriously, Poet and the Pendulum blew me out of the water. But some people are eager to point out the fact that she’s not Tarja. Duh. If Nightwish wanted another Tarja, they would have called her up, forgiven the whole “underestimating fans, demanding more money, declaring her position in the band temporary” thing and asked her back.

Bands grow and so do writers.

Some people got mad when the Harry Potter books got darker after Book 4. Seriously? How did you expect it to stay light? Voldemort was revived, Cedric died, and people don’t just get over that. It wasn’t just a stylistic change, it was in the character. Harry wasn’t about to deal with Cedric’s death–and then Sirius, not long after–with no more than a shrug of the shoulder. People often forget, despite the way the media works in this country, that human beings have to deal with their emotions. I think even when they are dealt with in books and movies, the “plot convenience” factor comes in to play a little more than it should. It can take years for people to deal with witnessing death.

Ultimately, artists change and evolve. It’s impossible to expect them not to. They, just like those enjoying the work, are under constant influence from the world around them and other mediums. My style altered dramatically after reading Pullman’s Amber Spyglass. Not only did finishing that book change my view on the world, it changed how I view stories in general. Going back to my schpeal on the “awesome” factor earlier, it taught me stories really are the most important part of a book, no matter how you really look at it. Sure, fight scenes are cool and all, but I don’t want my books to be one long fight scene full of empty one-liners. If I want that, I’ll watch any movie with Vin Diesel or a rap artist starring.

Life goes on, ultimately and chances may be, you might like your favorite artist’s new style if you can open your mind and view them as human beings. There is always the very-human want to idolize, but even idols have flaws (*points vigorously at Megatokyo*). It’s best to accept those flaws and try to enjoy them nonetheless.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Musings & Rants, Short Works