Spinwork Blog

A week as has passed since I finished the first draft of Lanternfly and I’m really surprised by how empty I feel without something to do every day. This has got to be the first (and longest) period in the past two years where I haven’t gone to some cafe and sat down to write. When it wasn’t Lanternfly, it was Endoflux, or a short story of some kind, and one of my many tangent projects, and if it wasn’t actual writing, it was conceptualizing. The other day I sat down to look at all the material I have and its sort of shocking–especially the amount of stuff I did in 2007 that *wasn’t* actual writing. Not that I did much of anything writing-related in 2007, but… ah.

According to Erik, the fun part starts with editing. Not that the last 170,000 words weren’t fun, or anything, but the entire effort of actually writing something that I’d eventually have to edit was sort of like coaxing myself to jump off a cliff. In fact, a good portion of the process this time around was writing with editing in mind. I don’t know when, but I came to a point where I just went “fuck it” and started banging away. That really made all the difference, and that’s when I really started having fun.

Now that I think about it, I’m really looking forward to editing, especially since it means I get to revisit and reexplore many of my characters. It also means learning more about the drafting process, and how much room I can give myself in the initial writing. The biggest problem I ran into in the independent study was toward the end where I ran out of time to develop the concepts and characters of the chapters I was about to write. The last three, while decently written, are a complete mess and a prime example of what happens when you don’t space out the bones you throw readers. There’s also the first three, which were when I thought I was writing a story about some girl whose father worked on steam engines in Quebec City and the relationship with the girl’s mother made her run away up there. Well, I still wound up in Quebec City–nearly wound up in Germany, however the fuck that came about–but with a very different story

Something I noticed in writing is that not all the characters came to me fully formed at the end. In fact, one particular character, one who actually used to be the protagonist of the whole damn series, and will assume that role later, is the worst off. In fact, I pretty much ignored his development completely in the first draft just because I had no idea “how much” the reader needed. Now that I’ve got the book down, I’m thinking, I’m hoping, that I can go back and tinker with him a bit and get him how I want. That’s the glorious thing about the drafting process is you can consciously allow a few of these. Or at least, that’s what I think right now. Maybe I’ll wind up revisiting him and shoot myself a quarter chapter after his introduction or something. Fuck.

Last Friday, I had my last meeting with Erik about the independent study. Idiot that I am, I was half asleep through most of it being that I was up late doing things that one should not do when they have to be awake at 9AM. One of the best parts about working with him has been the manner of his encouragement, and caution of holes I could possibly fall into while writing. I think the most important question he asked me was sometime right after we started and he asked why making dreams concrete was important. I sort of sat there for a minute and was like, “wait… what?” And then realized he’d hit on something I hadn’t thought about directly. I had thought about it, but in that really abstract way you do when you’re hashing out an idea and want to leave the specifics out for the time being. In the end, that conversation helped me come up with a pretty important bit of info, and I was able to write merrily again.

There was also a lot of good reading over the course of the study. The two that affected me the most are the ones he gave me about character and the idea of the villain as a catalyst as they taught me to view my characters and my antagonist as humans and not devices. It opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities, not just for the book, but for the series as a whole that I’m really eager to explore.

I could write a million more things about this, and how much fun I had on the first draft of Lanternfly, but I’d be getting ahead of myself. After all, the book’s not done yet and I still have a lot of stuff left to do before I can let anyone read it. What I’m going to do now is enjoy the rest of my “writing vacation,” finish out the semester, see my family and then kick back into things again. And make lattes. Can’t forget the lattes.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Endoflux Theory, Hellion, IS 2009, Short Works 2007, draft one, Erik, IS2009, Lanternfly, Rants, school

First and foremost, I’ve updated the synopsis of Lanternfly a bit and lengthened it. You can find that here.

There hasn’t been much to do lately–nothing, that is, besides the usual latte faire and school. Besides that, I’ve done little in the way of Lanternfly editing. My current plan is to round out the year (no finals–yay), take a week off to head back to New York and see my family and some old high school friends. That takes me to May 11th or so. That’s when I’ll be kicking into the second draft.

Otherwise, I’ve been pouring through old pictures on my hard drive. Like, old, OLD shit. I put them together in a facebook album. Many won’t make any sense unless you know me, but for the sake of humor, you can check it out here.

I also looked at some pictures of the places I used to write–the first being my  room. I also got a few pictures of some particularly nostalgic times, or milestones in my progress as a writer. That I actually have pictures of this stuff is pretty neat, so I’m gonna share.

The image to your left is what my table used to look like when I was conceptualizing the original Hellion, then called Aura, back in 2005. If you can actually manage to read any of what’s there, I highly suggest you don’t, or consider burning out your eyeballs. This was back when the series leaned more towards high fantasy. My work is the stuff facing the camera. The stuff facing the other way is the concept work of my friend Allaya, who would join me and we’d work on our stuff at the same time. It was monumentally fun, since she’d always drag a book full of Tolkienic history and stuff like that along with her. Jeez, it’s really funny to remember all of that…

The store itself was also fairly important to me. This is how it looked in 2007 right after I got my iPhone. If you go around past the black trash can toward the right, you’ll arrive at the table, and the bar where I wrote the last 25% or so of the original story. When I got back from college and most of the original staff was gone, it was pretty depressing. Also, finding it this empty these days is nearly impossible.

It’s really weird how nostalgic you can get about places you used to write. I’ve always found writing in cafes to be pretty integral to my process since I started. Gah, I really miss that place…

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion Aura, old cafe, old Hellion, pictures

A little bit ago, I polished off the last page of Lanternfly for the time being.  I’m waaaay, waaaay too exhausted to go on any long drabble about the book. I think its abundantly clear to me that this is just one of the initial steps in banging out the story and that I hope the road to a proverbial finished product is just as fun as these last 14  months have been (Jesus Christ–that’s twice as long as it took me to write the original).

What comes next?

First, I gotta get done with school. Then, I begin the part where I go through and journal-enter like mad for a bit about what everything is, if its needed and what absolutely sucks… write additional scenes (in this case being about 6  chapters from scratch and one plotline). Then… we’ll see! =)

Thanks for following guys. The journey’s not over!

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009 draft one, IS2009, Lanternfly

I knew about this Friday, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out until today (Monday).

So, I’m going to be able to finish Lanternfly before semester’s end. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have to take an incomplete because there wasn’t enough time to get a panel together to read the book. D’oh. My first reaction, and continuing one until a few minutes ago was utter panic. What do you mean, an incomplete?! Y’mean I’ve been busting my ass for four months for nothing? My school is infamously anal about credits when it comes to housing, and I have a great deal this summer living with three of my best friends.

I was partially asleep when Erik and I talked this over on Friday, so it staved off the panic until today. Luckily the incomplete means I have a certain amount of time to polish everything off–until about July/August. This means I can have a rudimentary second draft done for August that people can actually read. Okay. Panic gone. World not ending. Put on some Katatonia–ignore everything.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve put my feelings on hold for this one. Too much work to really think about anything right now.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, IS 2009 deadlines, incomplete, IS2009, Katatonia

Writing dramatic structure into an extended piece of writing is one of the most excruciating aspects of the process for me. When you look at it, two, or even five pages a day, five days a week is such a pain. You start, you stop, you laugh, you cry, you go through monsoons of inspiration and salty droughts while your life breezes on around you and your unconscious, the refuse filtering through the cracks.

I don’t pretend to have an unconscious any more or less complex or vulnerable than the next jack, but there’s something annoying about being on the precipice of finishing the first major milestone in the process and hitting a brick wall. Its not the first time this has happened to me. Writing my third book, Shadower, saw me hit a rather profound pile of this about six paragraphs from the end, stalling me two months. You gotta wonder if it’s you in moments like this, especially when you run into it on two separate occasions in two very different books two years apart.

For those who follow my twitter will know chapter 25 was a bit of a pain in the ass to write. Anyone who’s racing to finish something for whatever reason will know how giant a deadline looks when you’ve gotta redo a part of the peice three times. I guess I can chalk that up as another learning experience–rewriting a full 15  pages 3 times in 48 hours. Its not that I don’t know what I’m writing–or that my muse is an emotionally disturbed, bipolar slumbitch who requires heavily bribery to operate properly–but that there’s so much other shit going on. Papers, projects, more papers, housing selection, class selection, half the people at work bailing for new jobs. it weighs on you after a while.  But this is where stubbornness comes in to play, I’m learning, and although I probably won’t get 26 done til Thursday night, I know I can get everything settled by Sunday. Just gotta push, push, push.

I’m happy to say that Lanternfly has held together as a  much better than any of my other efforts. Its not perfect by any means, and it won’t be for a long while, but the story’s there, and I feel like its definitely workable into something I can finally finish and show people. I feel like I’ve finally found a process I can parry with–one that hasn’t evolved all that much since the Writing a Novel Guide I posted sometime ago (minus the outline bit). There are still things to tweak (I’m not sure if my going a draft without any sort of edits are going to work in the long run–I have a lot of shit to rework in this book), but I’m liking the majority of what I’ve set down. Also, Advanced Creative Writing has been very helpful with research methods. I hope to keep that going.

In other news, my 22nd birthday was on Tuesday. I’m at that age now where birthdays have really lost their charm. People keep asking me if I did anything special. Aside from jury duty forms (FUCK), and a nice card from my grandmother, I endured two classes and went to a Hibachi place with my friends where the chef set onions on fire and sculpted a dollop of rice into a stunted choad with balls. Maybe when I’m 25, or 30, I’ll do something exciting. For now, I’d like to focus on graduating.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009, Shadower IS2009, Lanternfly, Shadower

I’m finally getting to the point where I can officially begin freaking out about my Lanternfly deadline. As of right now, I am in the groove  to get the book done sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. In that time, I also have a 12 page paper to write for a class, on top of other assignments. That, and my work schedule is glorious enough to make me want to obliterate large, preferrably uninhabited portions of the Midwest using a very powerful rocket launcher.

So in short, here comes the stress.

Lanternfly on the other hand, is really sailing. I finished the 22nd chapter tonight of what is probably going to wind up being 26 chapters (27 if I somehow wind up needing more space to pull off the ending). Averaging 2 chapters a week, as I have been consistantly through March, this is more than doable. The only problem is–well–that I’m going to have to go into relative seclusion to do it. I’m even contemplating finding some other cafe to write in, as the amount of people that bother me is starting to rise, on purpose or not.  I’ve always had to deal with idiots who seem to think my writing is some trite hobby I have to keep myself busy, and those are really the last people I want around as I throw down the end.

Maybe I should invest in a tazer. Or a bodyguard. Or something.

All I can really say is how overwhelming well the story is going for the speed I’m writing it. It’s taken me by complete surprise that I can manage a pace like this without the writing being terrible in every facet or not coming. Maybe something will blow up and I’ll get hung up on 23, or something. I dunno. I don’t think that will happen.

I may not be around much in the next couple weeks as I get this out. One thing’s for damn sure. Y’all will know when it’s done ^_^

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009 IS2009, Lanternfly, work-load