Maps, Outlines and Writing

Another month is nearly gone and though I don't have much to show for it, I can at least say I've been writing. I finished editing a novella for an anthology project that won't quite die. I ended up doing the final edit by hand on print out--it just seems to be easier to catch the little stuff that way than doing it on screen. Of course, now that means I have to retype the final version. If I get off my lazy butt, I may send it and a piece of flash fiction I've got waiting off to some venue or other. I'm not real optimistic about the state of publishing right now, though, so I'm not in a hurry.

Speaking of the anthology, I've--sort of--formed a monthly writing group with two of the anthology's potential authors and my wife. Ironically, the only thing I've presented at the meeting so far is an introductory essay for the anthology. Guess that means I have to get that novella typed up again.

When I realized I wasn't going to make the local con, all the game writing got put on hold which should have given me more time for the book, but that hasn't happened. Speaking of the book, I had also hoped to be halfway through the remainder of my nanowrimo project by now, but at this point I'm thinking I'll just try and get a functioning outline for the rest of it and finish the book next nanowrimo.

I have been working on maps lately. It may sound strange, but ever since I realized that the distance one of my characters traveled between two points (and thus the time required) was greater than I had anticipated, I've been working on mapping the setting for my nanowrimo project. I'm afraid it kind of messed up a bit of the story so its going to take some work to straighten out. Fortunately, I've got an old copy of Photoshop and a method that seems to be working for me. Geography might seem like the sort of thing that a writer just makes up, but after reading Guns, Germs and Steel, I don't take geography very lightly. I may post a thumbnail of some of it when I'm done if I'm feeling like it.

Yet Another Internet Meme

I stumbled across yet another amusing internet meme on a Jeff Rient's blog (which I also just discovered at the same time) which involve randomly generating a band name, title and cover art for an old-fashioned concept album. For instructions on how it's done, check out Jeff's site. Here is my results.



Yeah, I know it's pretty saccharine, but the funny thing is that the Larry Sweeney article was about a pro wrestler.

January--where did you go?

Ok, so I didn't get anything done on my nanowrimo project. I was scrambling to try and get my RPG ready for Chimaeracon, but judging by how much my co-designer and I have done, I don't think we're going this year. I have plugged some important holes, but I'm something of a perfectionist and an intuitive thinker, so I have to get each component "right" before I'm satisfied, but making the leap to the correct design has been difficult. I've considered setting up a game design blog and even a podcast (yeah, like the world needs another one of those) because I thought it would help me to focus my thoughts. Some of the best design work I've accomplished--particularly in the area of clarifying my design goals--has been in some form of conversation with others. Even if the person I'm conversing with doesn't offer anything in the way of insight, just composing my thoughts helps a lot.

The other thing that has been occupying my time is an anthology that I've been trying to get together. Just when I'm about to give up because most of my writers have flaked out on me, someone else comes along to give me just that sliver of hope to cause me to drop everything and start work on it again. I did just have another short story submitted, so I've been spending quite a bit of time working on it. The down side of working with brand new writers is that they require a lot of guidance and hand holding, so that has absorbed a lot of my sparse writing time.

I have been thinking about plots a lot again, mostly since I'm working on the second half of my nano project in the back of my head. I've been looking a lot at things like Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations (which is horribly disorganized and missing large gaps in plot possibilities) and 20 Master Plots which is better, but still not as systematic as I would like. I'm taking a more, I don't know, linguistic approach I guess. I've got something like 13 key verbs which I think sums up the action in all plots. My goal is to create a system that encompasses both plot and premise and which can account for all plots. Ambitious, I know. and it will only be possibly in a broad categorical sense. Still, I think it would be cool. I'll post more when my thoughts have a chance to gel.

A few thoughts on Nano 2007

It was an incredible blast getting back to real writing again. I may continue to do some short fiction, but there's not enough markets yet to justify spending a lot of time doing it. Not that it's any easier to get a novel published, but a dozen short stories has a dozen times the submission wait times as a novel for roughly the same amount of words. That (and the fact that I just seem to prefer taking my time telling the story and enjoy having lots of room to tell it) makes me think novels are a more worthwhile direction for me now. Of course after saying that, I've got a little piece of flash fiction I'm probably going to start shopping around.

It did feel good just cutting loose with an act of creativity. Making sure to hit that 1667 words a day was quite the grind but it felt good shoving everything else aside and just writing.

Now I have to finish it.

My outline just barely covered the 50k words of the contest. Unfortunately it's only half the book I'd intended and while I have a general idea of the rest of the story, there are a lot of details regarding how I get from point A to point B to point C... that still need to be worked out. I'm determined, however to have it finished and the outline for the next book ready by next November.

It's Over!

It's done! 51,172 words and I totally slacked off the last 3 days. I would have done more, but I caught up to my outline and I was suffering from some serious sleep deprivation. I rewarded myself for reaching 50k with a long nap.

The funny thing is that I set up the blog to document my experience as a first time wrimo-er, but I ended up not making a single post. What little non-novel writing I did during November was in the nano forums and even there I didn't put in much of an appearance.

I'm already planning on doing this next year and I already know what story I want to write. I'm just hoping I'll be a little bit better prepared so that it won't be quite the ordeal this time was and maybe I can get more involved in some of the social aspects of wrimo-ing. We'll see. I'll post more on this later.

And they're off!

NaNoWriMo has officially begun! For us it included a countdown at Dragon's Lair Comics Games etc. of which yours truly was a few milliseconds late booting his laptop because he was yakking. I discovered two things last night:

1) After ten years of focusing on tightening up my writing (and spending a lot of time editing other people's stuff) it felt very good to force the internal editor off and just write. Several times I saw a phrase that could have been cut down or even replaced with a single word and I made myself leave it.

I keep reminding myself this isn't about creating a finished product, heck I may not use any of any particular scene I am writing at the moment, it's just about brainstorming and getting it all out and hopefully, during the mad dash to the deadline, discovering something new and cool lurking in the story that I might not have been able to discover with a slower and more deliberate process.

2) I also discovered that wrimos are cool people and really fun to hang out with. I regret that I probably won't be able to make many other write-ins as they're all on the opposite side of town from me and all seem to be on Sunday morning. Still, I was glad I made this one and look forward to at least seeing the others online.

Below are a few snaps of the event. Unfortunately some shot didn't come out that well, but hey, it was pretty crazy.

(click each to enlarge)

Our fearless leader

Mike thinking what the heck have I got myself into?

Knuckles aka Todd

Yours truly

Ok, I've wasted enough time on this post. Now I've got to get back to writing!

5 Days to Go !!!

Well, I'm holding my breath and preparing to plunge in. I'm not as prepared as I'd like to be, but I have been working on my Snowflake. I wish I had had a chance to post more often. I was kind of hoping to use this blog to organize my thoughts as I prepared for November, but I guess I'll just have to be more spontaneous. Well, this is my first nanowrimo after all, I expect I'll be better prepared next year. The one good thing is that I've managed to collect a ton of writing music to keep me motivated for the next 30 days.

(EDIT--I've completed the first two steps of the snowflake process. I had previously jumped to the outline stage, so I'm actually a bit farther along, but I ran into problems because I hadn't done stage 3. If I can get that done and a good list of scenes, I think I'll be alright when November 1st starts...maybe.)