Spinwork Blog

Got back to actual writing on Avondalius yesterday, and the going was slow. I’m still going off of two different ideas on how I want the book to be structured. I just need to figure out which one is better for the online-plan thing I’ve got going.

My writing began with a bit of an epic tangent that will probably add another 100 pages to the story just like Book 3 of Inheritance. I have to say, that’ s a bit of a good sign. It’s been at least a year since I’ve gone on one of these, and I already like where it’s heading. Even if I don’t get to use it where I want it, I’ll still be able to use it at some point or another when I get to explore Lupe’s character a bit more. Ahaha *uses character names no one is familiar with*.

A short update, but lets just say this is a good sign ^_^

Spinner Uncategorized Avondalius, progress, tangents

 Untitled is now known as Avondalius.

I hate the planning phase of projects–especially big projects. I think that’s why up until now, I really haven’t ever gotten past the planning phase of any of the things I’ve done. But things are progressing, even though I haven’t figured out the core yet. There are so many questions on my mind about how I want to pull this off–everything from points of view, to character themes, to how much character back story I want to build up. Then there are experimental plot progressions. Jesus, my dump notes are a disaster area right now. I’m working with at least two different structures at the moment and I’ve got a budding structure for book two.

I figured I’d try something different for Avondalius in terms of the way the story is structured. Instead of one book, I’m giving a dilogy/duology a shot. The structure I’m going for is cause/effect or event/repercussions. I already have a very loose idea of what the repercussions are, but it’s been a bitch and a half making the cause sit well. Technically, its not even two books. It’s one book in two parts meant to “test” the dilogy structure. I think if I’d kept up with the original version of Salamander, it would have wound up a dilogy. I’ve always been very inspired by the Odyssey and Illiad and I’ve wondered what it would be like trying to structure something like that. Those two stories always struck me as very independent of each other. I’d like to try to achieve that and thread them together some how.

Ramble, ramble.

I think what I’m trying to get across with this rant is how much I hate the planning phase. No. Expound on how much I hate it. I mentioned in my guide one entry below how sometimes you can want to plow ahead with ideas but need to figure out where those ideas are headed before you can. Well, that’s my current dilemma. I know–more or less–where I’m going, but I need to know. My main goal for this, besides actually finishing it, is running it online to see if I can hold an audience. To do that, I need a pretty solid plan of book one and a rough outline of book two.

So I’ll cease bitching now–I’ve got classes to go to and a paper to write. Maybe that will settle my brain from the “PLEASE GIVE ME NEW MATERIAL SO I CAN GO BACK TO WRITING” thunderstorm going on in my brain right now. And maybe, in my anguish, I’ll find a way to make this first chapter behave itself without breaking out the bondage gear.

Spinner Uncategorized Bitching, moaning, ranting

Alright–partially by popular demand, partially for the sake of resource, I’ve decided to do a guide on how I’ve recently been planning my projects. Keep in mind, I’ve only been writing seriously for about four years, so this method may not be as organized or streamlined as a professional. Professional is what I aim to be eventually, and my goal has always been to create a timely and efficient work ethic. To be honest, I’ve changed my approach to books millions of times over the past few years. What you see here is the product of that time spent. Hopefully it will help you. Every writer has their own methods. Maybe you’ll only find bits of this helpful. That’s perfectly fine. After all, your work is ultimately your own.

Step One: Inspiration. Obviously, the most important part of any book is having some kind of inspiration. Over the years, I’ve always thought it was more prudent to get the idea, then outline like mad, then write. It honestly works for some writers, but in so far, it’s pretty much lead to a vicious cycle of over-planning, over-analysis, and so on. Sometimes, you might get to writing and discover the idea is like one of those jokes that just “sounded better in your head.” If you get that after three, four months planning, chances are you’ll feel really discouraged (I know I have, when I’ve done it.)

So you get the idea–probably in some random place. Hopefully, you’ll be smart and have a pen of some kind on you, or at least a really good memory so you can write it down. The way it usually works with me is some sort of question or image that enters my head. With Train 67, for example, I was literally on the real Amtrak train 67 on the night before Christmas Eve coming back from an emotionally charged experience in Rhode Island. The pure silence of the train was such a stark contrast to what I had dealt with over the past few days, I began to think, “Well, wouldn’t this be an amazing setting to just sit and contemplate?” And it basically went from there. Ultimately, Train 67 told the story of Dario and how the long ride home on the train gets him to change his mind about running away from his past. Sometimes, the inspiration will hit you harder–maybe an opening line, or an image. Whatever it is, it’ll make you interested and that’s the point. At the beginning, you are the only person you have to interest, because until your selling your work, no one is going to care what the hell you write.

If your inspiration was an opening line, your in luck and you can skip the next part of this blathering. If not, I suggest you sit down and develop the idea. Usually opening line inspirations are telling of tense, point of view (POV) and the character. If not, those are some things to figure out. So, sit down, think about it, or maybe free write (journal style or bullets–I do both). Develop whatever feels appropriate about the idea. Don’t dwell too much on this. You really just want to get to a point where you can pen an opening sentence. Once you have that, you’re set.

Step Two: Writing. Once you have that opening sentence, set aside some time, usually an hour to an hour and a half (I usually need a clear day when I try this, but I’m also obsessed and crazy and ideas tend to make me sick) to write. Take that opening sentence and go wherever your inspiration takes you. Sometimes, it will take you in a completely different direction than what you were anticipating. Sometimes, it may actually go as you planned. Either way, by the end of this session, you’ll probably know whether or not the story is worth continuing. Again–this depends on the person. Some people will spend an hour on one paragraph (I’ve been known to do this) and say, “oh, fuck this–this is horrible,” and give up. Some people will stick to it until they have a full chapter. Whatever you go through, your goal is to start and build momentum.

A first day of writing is much like telling a joke you invented yourself. If its a good joke, you might find yourself laughing at it. If it’s not, you’re more liable to feel, “well hey, that sounded a lot better in my head” in which case you can either consider reworking your idea, or ditching it. Be quick to identify modesty. I’ve had times where I’ve thought something absolutely sucked and wound up loving it weeks/months down the line.

So, go on, if it’s worth it.

Keep at it for a while, using this initial momentum to keep your project rolling. Sometimes, you’ll get a lot of inspiration for more during this time. This is the part where you go into MSWord, Notepad, or whatever from of writing you use and begin keeping notes. I usually do bullets per idea with no particular emphasis on structure. I name these “DUMP NOTES.” Keep these close.

Write until you reach a point where you begin to feel stretched. Either you’ll begin to feel unsure about what you’ve written–like if you go on, it’ll require way too much editing to make the project worth it, or that you’re not sure where your going, or you don’t know your characters, or something. This is where you stop.

Step Three: Planning and Tedium. What comes next can easily be the hardest, most tedious part of the project. If you’ve been vigilant with your DUMP NOTES, you’ll probably have a lot of material. If you don’t, that’s okay.

So, what are DUMP NOTES? Dump notes is effectively a notebook tool. Random, unstructured jottings related to your project. Usually, I try to keep these separate from my other work, in a document dedicated to whatever I’m working on. This isn’t mandetory. Sometimes having multiple project’s notes jumbled can create new and fun ideas. But for one-project work, it’s usually best to try to keep it simple.

What makes this so hard is you might have inclinations to keep going. You may have reached this point hating what you’ve written, but somehow have ideas that you wish to work in. This will give you a chance to cultivate those ideas, and hopefully, work them into the project before you continue. Most writers will tell you to finish a draft before you edit. I find, especially being young, that such things really can erode on your moral, especially if you’ve never written a book before. So its good you reach this stopping point to take some time and give your baby some nutrition and strengthening.

As your DUMP NOTES begin to develop and you begin to see trends–like for instance, talking about Maria’s character traits, you can begin to copy and paste these into a new document called MASTER NOTES. So, say you have a lot of notes spread out in your DUMP NOTES about Maria’s character. Go into your MASTER NOTES, create a section called “Maria’s Story (date this, too)” and copy and paste all the things from your DUMP NOTES here. This way, you have everything together. It’s good to name these sections so you can make a table of contents at the top of the document. If you stay vigilant with this, you can keep your DUMP NOTES organized as you begin to see themes emerge rather than having to randomly edit as you go.

Another thing DUMP NOTES are good for are testing our rough step outlines. You can build these over time in your DUMP NOTES while simultaneously developing other concepts, characters and what not. You don’t necessarily have to put step outlines into your MASTER NOTES. In fact, I recommend you keep those separate.

I usually work with these plans for a while until I reach a point where I actually begin having ideas for scenes. Once again, you’re going to create another document and call it EXTENDED OUTLINE. Here, you begin filling in scenes for your story. It’s critical to add the ones you’ve written already first so you get a sense of flow. Then, you can begin going in and filling in other areas of the story. The great thing about this is you can fill this in as you go. Once you feel you have a solid enough plot, you can go ahead and write again.

If you complete this step, then the most tedious part of the book is over. The rest is up to adaptation and creativity.

Step Four: Finishing a Draft. Before you write, go back and make any changes to your draft that you made during your planning phase. After that, begin to move forward in your EXTENDED OUTLINE, being sure to keep your DUMPS and MASTER NOTES updated, and using what you can to fill in ideas for scenes to keep ahead of yourself. Sometimes, you may not even need to do this, and the momentum from the story will keep you going until the end. If you decide to do this, you get the chance to expand or change your outline before you reach that part in the book.

Adaptation is key for keeping an outline. There are times where writers will use an outline, swear by it, and never apply it. That’s fine. Not all writers need that kind of plan. The function of the outline is something for a writer to “go off of,” a flat surface to lay the bones of the work flat. Its good to at least experiment with it for efficiencies’ sake.

Keep this up until the end and you’ll effectively have yourself a book!

Step Five: Editing. I’m a firm believer in not showing anybody your work until you have something to show–and that would be a completed draft that you are satisfied with. Sometimes, you have a really close friend or fellow writer you share your stuff with. I do this all the time… in which case, it’s fine. But I’d avoid showing it to anyone important until you have your book to a point where you feel it’s the best it can be.

That concludes my guide. As I mentioned in the beginning, these are only my methods for writing. They don’t represent canon, or any sort of set method. I set this down in hopes this will help someone and if it does–great! Whatever happens, good luck, and keep writing!

Spinner Uncategorized , Guide

I think one of my biggest fears with my year-long writing slump was coming out of it only to realized I’ve digressed. The past week has shown otherwise. Always my problem with writing was the organization–making outlines I never looked twice at, creating character sketches I never applied. I left all the work to massive multi-page free writes that while sometimes fun, can get hideously tedious when you do them for months on end. I effectively have 40 pages of those from the summer when I was conceptualizing Twice Born. Half of it is pure shit and was very forced–trying to come up with ideas for the sake of shaking off the slump.

With this new endevour, which is still untitled (and probably will be for a while) , I’ve done the exact opposite. All the development was done by sitting down at the keyboard and actually writing until I reached a point where it’d be dangerous to go any more. Not that writing is particularly dangerous. In fact, the last week has been the most fun I’ve probably ever had with a project. This is partially because of the story’s nature and partially because of the new methods I’ve been employing. Instead of going, “oh hey, I have an idea, lets free write,” I went, “oh, I have an idea–let’s write!” and thus churned out a chapter.

What makes continuing dangerous is the same reason Salamander failed and why I actually finished Hellion. When I wrote Salamander, I intended it to be short–no more than 50-100 pages, max. My chapters were designed for that and ran about two to four very crammed pages. So when the story grew past 60 pages and I hadn’t reached the ignition point yet, I realized this was probably going to turn into a full book. That’s where I made my mistake. See, up until that point, I had an idea of where the story was going. I did, after, too, but I didn’t take the time to firm up what I already had, or laid a road map. Most importantly, things kept changing. Over the course of writing, I found myself struggling with inventing characters on the spot and dealing with their development of the ones I’d had since the first page. See, I need to know my characters pretty well before I set out past that point of ignition. Not only does it making creating and developing those new characters easier, but you spend less time going, “wait–is this person acting like a human being?” That, and things feel more solid.

I don’t intend to make that mistake with this project, so I’m going to be stopping for a time and focus on the very banal task of developing character and plot and look into the possibility of a sequel (Needed? Not needed?).

Somehow, over the course of a year of blathering, that process got easier. Instead of working with a pile of unorganized notes and freewrites, I’ve got three separate plans–character, chapter plan and outline.  Given that I’m setting this up as an online series, I can spend my day writing, stop, look at the stuff in my outline (organized by scenario/scene, or possible point of view) and put it into the “rough” part of the chapter plan. It takes a grand total of fifteen minutes if you already have a working outline, and it’s a pretty simple thing to do at the end of a writing day. That way, you’re putting the structure in motion rather than building it up as you go. The only thing that worries me about this is when I actually hit my stride, how I’ll be able to keep up this chapter plan without slaughtering trees, as I intend to keep things in a binder (I find juggling multiple documents on a computer to be monumentally annoying).

In other news, I’m working on getting a job, and school has started again. My schedule is awesome. Four day weeks, three day weekends, a class a day on Wednesday/Thursday. At least until I find work, this will be heaven ^_^

Spinner Uncategorized Outlining, Plans, Untitled

Giving the flood of inspiration I’ve had lately, I technically could write any of the three projects I usually harp about on here. Instead, the other day I came up with something else. In the shower, oddly enough. It was completely on a whim. I almost rarely pursue those whimsical projects because they always seem like “good ideas at the time” but turn out to be crap. In this case, I went with it.

In about an hour and a half, I’d penned a pretty satisfactory beginning with none of the editorial dithering I usually do in the first paragraph. After a couple days of screwing with it and then writing a bit more, I showed it to a couple of my close writing friends. Reviews were generally positive.  Being that my interest level is so high with this, I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick with this one for a while.

In a way, I wish I had those inspirational bursts every time I took a shower because I spend so much time scrubbing myself absently that I wind up getting very clean in the process ^^;

Spinner Uncategorized Unnamed Project 2008

The last few days have been some of the best writing I’ve done since 2006.

Given how crappy my 2007 year was for writing, that’s saying a lot. The other day, I found a new cafe near my house in New York to write. It’s a tiny place with about six or so tables, smaller than anywhere I’ve written in before, with cheap coffee and great pastries. I can’t wait to get back there next time I’m in the city. At this point, I really have no idea when that’ll be, given I’ve basically sold my soul to Vermont (I’m a registered voter here now). I’m not complaining, really. Despite the rampant cold, I love it up here.

Work is progressing on The Madonna Lily, slower than what I’m used to for big projects, but normal for the start of something as new as this. It’s way too soon to tell what I’ll wind up doing with it, if it’ll end up online eventually or whatever, but I’ve got a strong feeling it’ll be a while before anyone sees anything from it. And I guess that’s all well. I’m taking this project fairly seriously, meaning I’m going to want to do my best and probably finish a draft before I know what I want to do. Hell, I don’t even have an ending in mind ^^;

That doesn’t mean you won’t see work from me this year–no, exactly the opposite. I’ve got something cooking now that I can’t quite talk about yet, but when I can, I’ll post. All I can say is “you’ll see.”

Spinner Uncategorized Life, The Madonna Lily, Unnamed Project 2008

“Write what you know.” – Larry David

“Shakespeare was never a king.” – My Father

For those of you who frequent IF’s Writer’s Hangout, my rants on genre shouldn’t be very foreign. Then again, I do have this blog for stuff I can’t post on either of the forums I go to in good conscience. I guess you could consider this an unabridged blathering of sorts.

What my ‘genre rants’ boil down to is how genre is defined by writers and publishers alike. It seems the majority of fantasy stuff these days draws heavily from Tolkienesque Norse, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology. In fact, some of the stuff I’ve read parallels so closely to Middle Earth legend that I’d swear they were no more than elaborately disguised works of fan-fiction (Inheritance comes most readily to mind). Additionally, some writers, most notably the younger breed, seem to think fantasy is an escape from the banal rules of original writing by throwing a bunch of mindless magic into a contrived “Hero With A Thousand Faces” derived plot structure. That’s not fantasy. Not the sort I’d like to read. The successful stuff is the kind that combines creative use of themes, metaphors and if you fancy, mythology. Given that most of fantasy is the same crap bombasted across book shelves, finding a creative niche theoretically shouldn’t be that hard. For instance, I know a writer on IF, Hresvelger (I hope I didn’t butcher his handle) who writes Mayan Indian inspired work. That’s the kind of caliber stuff I’d want to read.

But writers aren’t delivering. It seems that since the publication of Lord of the Rings, we’ve been trapped in Norse-inspired, faerie-peppered, perfect-elf, dragon-flaming, dwarf-dying fantasy. Honestly, I haven’t read a full-fledged fantasy novel since I took a nipping at Lord of the Flies when I was seven-eight years old. The last fantasy related book I enjoyed was His Dark Materials. The rest I’ve picked up have been unimaginative and unforgiving headaches that try to mimic Tolkien’s “epic prose” style. For lack of a better word, “aslkfjls;afj.”

And then there are those pseudo-intellectual writers who think writing high fantasy will grant them fame and glory like Paolini. I have little respect for writers who write for the glory. Really, there’s little to no glory in writing. In fact, some parts of it can be plain torturous. I’m surprised half of my friends haven’t given me up for dead at times. I say it all the time on the forums I frequent: Paolini’s fame was an accident, and is very unlikely to happen again. I like to distinguish between saying “young writers shouldn’t be published” and “young writers shouldn’t aspire to be published young.” The latter is ridiculous. What writer doesn’t want their work to be published? But writers should stop “going for it” so young. There’s so much room to learn and grow during the tender years.

If you start writing a book and deem it “fantasy,” chances are you’re consigning yourself to attempting to “live up” to a genre whose very implication is creativity, and doing that will only bind you to its perceived norms. The successful stuff out there doesn’t try to live up to anything (With the exception of Pratchett and Pierce. Please kill me now.). It just is. What divides the successful writers from the bad in my eyes are the ones who work to nourish their talent and accept that fame may just occur one day by accident. Glory is always accidental.

So if writing what you know means sticking to fantasy norms, I suggest that writers make an attempt to branch out from this. There is far more you can do that you have never experienced. You only need to look as far as your imagination. After all, Shakespeare was never a king.

Spinner Uncategorized Rants