Spinwork Blog

I tend to learn something new about my process every day, even when I don’t write. Weirdly enough, I’m starting to think the times I’m writing and the times I’m not are equally important. At the moment, I’ve been wrestling with that feeling of utter stupidity I have from looking at the first draft of Lanternfly and going, “what next?”

Truth be told, I have a crystal-clear image of what I need to do, how I want to go about doing it–but I can’t. I don’t know if its that I took so much out of myself just getting the manuscript done, or that I’ll dig in and discover I actually hate what I’ve been working on for what’s going on (technically) five years. Whatever it is, I’m in this limbo of, “oh, come the fuck on, Ben,” and “eh… it’ll pass.” Maybe this whole process is like a diet, where you’ll always start it “tomorrow.”

Well, I’m technically on a diet right now, and that’s going terribly (in fact, the only thing I’ve managed to hold together is biking to and from work every day). I’m also stuck working full time at work this week, which also marks my one year anniversary at this job. All my shifts are closes, which means I literally have no time to anything other than wake up, go to work, make however-many hundreds of lattes, go home, and dick around until I have to do it all over again.

Of course, I COULD not dick off and actually plug in my flash drive and open up the manuscript, or at least crack my journal and get some concepts done. I COULD write down those ideas I’ve been batting around in my head for the last three days about book two and where that might be going. Or I could continue to sit here and get down on myself about *FINALLY* finishing a book after two years of being a recluse until I could actually get a workable idea rolling.

What I think I’m learning is that this part–just like starting the actual book, is probably a lot harder than it is. I’m gonna hem, I’m gonna haw, but at some point I’m just gonna quit my whining, knuckle down and do it. It’s not like I’m completely void of time. Seriously, I could have turned out some serious material in the time I just wasted on LOST (even though the words “wasted” and “LOST” can’t be used in the same sentence).

So, that said, sleep, and tomorrow–writing. If not, I give my ghost-readers every license to kill me.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion 2009, Hellion Book 2, Lanternfly, LOST, procrastination, work

May’s usually a transitional month for me. Aside from the obvious seasonal changes, its usually when I leave wherever I’ve been living over the course of the school year for New York, or a new place. This summer, like last, I’ve opted to stay in Vermont, so I’ve been spending the last three days or so packing up my old place and moving into my new one.

The housing situation at my school is sort of weird. We’ve got the usual dorms, and even the more higher-end on campus “suites.” Then we have Spinner Place (which nearly made me fall over when I heard the name, since that’s been my online handle since I was 11), which is two miles from campus and on the other side of a river. These are fairly high end, with a kitchenette, and four private rooms.  Crossed with the low rent and the fact that Burlington is an extremely beautiful place in the summer–it’s pretty much win-win.

The other day, I moved into the third room I’ve lived at in Spinner, this time with my good friend Will Ryan, a fellow writer (he writes cyberpunk–and the only way to describe it is to beat yourself into a coma with binary code). When we’re rounded out in the fall with my two other good friends, we’re gonna have quite the living arrangement. There’s something to be said about four nerdtastic, creative, metal-listening, game-consol playing psychopaths in the same room. Let the madness ensue.

Broke out my bike today for the first time in about ten months. I’m really intent on getting into shape this summer, and I think the only way I’ll do that is by biking as much as I can. Its a two mile trek from Spinner to my Starbucks, so I can easily see myself managing that on every non-rainy day I can.

I’m really hoping I can get back into Lanternfly soon. Some of the edits and stuff has me pretty psyched ^_^

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion 2009, Burlington, Personal, summer

I’ve been thinking now and again about how much I use this blog and how useless it is. I mean, I’m not a published writer, and no one really ought to care about what I have to say. Hell, I don’t even have any experience in the industry aside from advice I’ve received from various professors over the last few years. By that logic, this blog shouldn’t exist, and I shouldn’t be trying to promote myself. People don’t care about books until they’re done, and I highly, highly doubt the world needs to know about the growing pains I have with my writing.

Prior to this, I spent about six years around with a LiveJournal which was pretty much a wild emo-fest covering day-to-day events from 2003 onwards. Its sort of horrifying to look back on now–2,500 entries or so of raw emotional defecation. I still use it now and again–mostly to publish really personal things for my closest friends. That, nonetheless, is my introduction to the world of “blogging.” I really shouldn’t be that uptight about posting useless shit. After all, that’s what my twitter is for, even if I did spend an entire day once mocking the people who used it for useless crap like the fact they were “drinking coke, lol.”

There are just days where I go through these existential bursts of “what’s the point?” Fortunately the amount of these moments that concern my writing are less and less as of late. I wonder how long THAT will last. I’ve been trying not to remind myself I’ve got the second draft of a novel to slog through by August. The fact this is the first second draft I’ve done aside (at least, the first second draft of anything over 20 pages), I’ve got a bit more to write before I actually start the process of going through and taking stuff away and fiddling. Oh, and then theres the research. There’s a lot of stuff I want to look up on steam engines, flower arrangements, mopeds, law, the feudal system, the history of–ye gads. Yeah. I think I proved my own point. There’s a lot of stuff to do.

I think the point here is that I want to start doing more with this blog than just ranting about how the writing’s coming. I’ll see what I can do about that.

In other news, I’ve been working on two site-related projects–one, the final design integration of this blog into the Spinwork layout, and… *gasp* the forums. I’m still struggling over whether or not I want forums on Spinwork. I always thought I’d wait until after I got some short stories up. I may still–but it’ll be good to have something waiting for when that actually happens. I mean, if this blog is bloody pointless, then forums would be like trying to burn ashes.

I’ll see what I can do about actually interesting content in the interim.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009, Site-related 2009, Bitching, forum, IS2009, moaning, Spinwork

I’m sort of internally screaming in anguish that I’ve done next to no writing on anything since I’ve been in NY. I don’t know–maybe it’s distraction, or maybe its burn-out. There isn’t much exhaustion, or a lack of inspiration, really. A lot of my efforts have been going toward Lanternfly and building up to write the new scenes for the second draft. After that, I can really begin fiddling with it. But for some reason, I’m stuck in the mud. Ah well. As Erik would say, deep breaths.

For the moment I’ve refocused myself on Unwound, a short story I wrote last September and posted on IF (only visible if you have an account there). I’m really not impressed with the story at the moment. The end is massively cheesy, and suffers heavily from the unfocused emotional power-drive I was on when I wrote the damn thing. It’s the narrator that’s really getting me–and his voice. Its rare for me to reread something of mine and feel like I didn’t write it. Something about his tone, and the way he tells his story is so foreign from anything I’ve ever thought about or wrote.

I’m thinking of rewriting part of the story from a point and sending it in a different direction and focusing on the relationship between the man and the doctor, rather than his family. I just gotta put myself back where I was last September–and find the guy’s voice again. I’m really intent to see how this works out.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, Short Works 2008, 2009, Editing, revisiting, Unwound

Lately I’ve found myself being distracted by a bunch of fresh ideas that have nothing to do with Lanternfly. I guess that’s good–a fresh story, a fresh perspective, something different. Yet I can’t help the feeling that by pursuing them I’m engaging in some maritial affair. On the one hand, it means I’ve finally settled on Lanternfly as my project. On the other, some of these ideas are kind of good. There’s one I’m actually kicking around on the back burner that I might do a bit of work on in my spare time–the concept of spare time being relative beneath the concept of impending 30 weekly hours of latte-fest.

This new idea, though, is a lot more microcosmic in comparison to my other work. What I find interesting about it is that it hinges on observation, yet doesn’t make the narrator an irrelevant character. I don’t think I can elaborate any more than that, the story still being in its infancy and all. At the moment, I’m calling the story Leophim. I’ve got a little bit written. We’ll see what happens with that.

In other news, all I’m really trying to do is get back onboard draft two of Lanternfly. That I may be enmeshed in this part of the process for a year or more isn’t all that helpful. Apparently, the worst of this is over and I’ll actually enjoy this. Then again, I do have a lot of ground-up rewriting on the beginning and ending, at least three characters I still only partially understand, and about 30-40,000 words to cut. Uguu.

At least I’m going home tomorrow! Weeee~. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, Leophim 2009, draft 2, Lanternfly, Leophim, summer, work