eddyfate

So last night was my Fiction Writing class. The class started at 6:30, and after some shuffling around rooms because the one we normally use had a leak, the professor wanted to start by talking over my story. By 8:15, we took a break. The entire time the professor was like "We're over time, but I don't care; I want to keep talking about this."

Without reading through every single comment, I got a general vibe of feedback: the description's a little too heavy in spots, there's not enough of where Shannon's mind is during it, and the ending is sudden and weak. Conversely, I got numerous comments that the writing was very good, the story was enjoyable, and the action was well-written. One person thought that it wasn't a short story at all, but the first chapter of a book. Another comment was that my description of the action scene was so vivid that it made the reader ill. Most everyone in the group liked it overall.

The professor was the most critical, but for two main reasons. One, he's not a fan of genre fiction (and "Bete Noire" is, effectively, modern fantasy/horror), and two, he thinks I have enough talent to be able to try something truly literary. At the same time, he said that not everything we write needs to be literary. Sometimes, we just like to read good stories, and he said that "Bete Noire" is a good story.

So, I'm going to probably read over all of the comments tonight, and then put everything away for a while and think on it. Right now, I'm tentatively considering rewriting the whole thing in first person (which, I think, will get rid of some of the problems) and try a few different endings. I have a few vague ideas for tweaks of the plot and style of the piece. However, the point is that people who have already commented on it or offering to comment again might want to hold off, as there's a good chance the next version will be completely different. And who knows? Maybe there is a book in there.

My story was ripped to pieces, and I couldn't be happier about it.

That felt good. Forced myself to write, and after a slow start got some good work in: 1,345 words in a little over an hour. I just went over the minimum word count for the project, but this is a first draft, and there's already a few scenes where I want to expand some description. And it really is a nice starting piece for the world of Domhan.

3,259 / 3,000 (108.6%)

Well, I started over on "Bete Noire." I actually managed to salvage some of the work I did last night, but rewrote and deleted large chunks of it. The story is approaching the climax, but this is harder than I expected: After a couple of hours, I'm brain dead, but I have over a thousand words cranked out. The minimum for the assignment is 3,000 words, so I'm going to use that as my meter limit:

1,328 / 3,000 (44.3%)

So last night I freewrote a few hundred words. After I was done, I came up with a couple new ideas, and hammered out a rough plot. It requires me completely rewriting the opening again, of course, but it's more than I had last night. I don't know if I have interesting or believable characters, but I do have a basic story.

I'm a little nervous about this story, honestly. It's outside of my comfort zone in many ways, and the plot as I envision it feels hamfisted and trite. I'm writing about faith and religion (neither of which I possess) with a female protagonist in an occupation I've witnessed a few times but never actually held (locksmithing, you perverts). However, my mind has been going back to it over and over for months, so I'm just as much compelled to write it as I am nervous about it.

Tonight is my fiction class. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'm going to try to block out a few hours in the evening and hammer through as much of the story as I can in a really dirty first draft.

As a side note, if people are interested in offering their constructive criticism on a draft of this story, feel free to email me if you know it, or posting a comment below. (Edit: This will be in a week or so, after I run my story through a few revisions first.)

The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana by Jess Nevins

Must. Have.

The meme: Post the opening lines to current works-in-progress. For you illustrators out there, post scans of sketches you have laying around. Here's three of my projects:

[Untitled Domhan Project]
"3 January 1881

He walked through the streets of London, the sky unusually clear in the bitter January night."

Bete Noire
"I heard the howling as I was easing the lock out of the door."

Darkgate: The Animated Series
"Darkgate Keep (a stronghold on the edge of the Black Forest) resides in the barony of Darkgate in the country of Reddoch."

Decided to go into work today. My dizziness went down last night, enough to where I was able to play Jade Empire comfortably. I also slept well, and woke up this morning with only minor dizziness and fatigue. I expect I'll be exhausted when I get home today, but my boss at work assured me to it was okay to take it slow and pace myself after my surgery. I had planned to do pretty much nothing this week (since I wasn't sure what shape I was going to be in), but I think I'll spend the time working on the Midway City LARP playtest and research. Next week, I'll have a sense of when things will fall into place, and move from there.

Forgot to mention: yesterday I did some revision work on the LARP mechanics (based on some good feedback from onecrane), and jotted down some ideas for Domhan. I also got my copy of the Oxford NRSV stupidly early (it was supposed to be delivered Oct. 5), so I moved all my bookmarks over to the new book so I could return the NAV I borrowed. I'm not sure exactly how much work I got done, but I'm pretty sure it was at least 200, so I'm going to give that to myself.

200 / 200 (100.0%)

Last night, my dizziness didn't get much better, so I decided to be pre-emptive and call off work today. In retrospect, that's probably a good thing, since every just taking a shower took a lot out of me. I am able to sit at my computer and focus a bit more than I was able to the last two days (which is good, since that's most of my job), but I still get dizzy and a little uncomfortable at times. So, today I'll poke at a few things, maybe do some research, and generally relax (even though I've been feeling guilty that greebotrill and garchangel have been doing chores and the like all over the house and I just sit and watch them).

Speaking of, something I forgot to mention. On Friday, after I was recovering, Dr. Kletzker gave greebotrill the update. He made a comment to her that I was a "model patient," and that he might have me come in to talk to extremely reluctant patients to help reassure them and offer my personal experiences. It hasn't come up again since then, but if he's serious I'll be glad to do it -- he's certainly done a lot for me.

Aside from that stuff, though, I've been poking a bit at Midway City LARP (yes, even in a dizzy and half-powered stupor I can crank out LARP mechanics), reading a bit, jotting down some more notes for Domhan, and playing Jade Empire and Burnout 3. I need to get my watch battery changed, get a new color cartridge for our color printer so I can finish putting up my pictures, get a frame for my Mark Twain print, etc. etc. etc. Funny how, when you can't work on things, projects come out of the walls at you.

First off, I finally started buying my reference books. Did a lot of asking and a lot of searching, and this one seems to fit my budget and my needs. Huzzah.

But I have a screaming headache now. I've been getting them occasionally at work, and I'm beginning to think that I'm allergic to styrofoam cups or something, since that's the only thing that appears to be the constant between my attacks. This one is particularly bad, and I can't have any Advil or similar products before my surgery. Tylenol's okay, but we don't have any in the house, and it seems silly to go out and get some just for one day. So I'm going to lie down for a bit.

Now that I've started on the road to reading up on the end times, I need to go back to the very, very other end of things. Where are the best resources to research the casting out of Sammeal et al, the Gregori, and general angelic politics before and around the start of humanity?

After I wrote my last entry, I decided to kick back and read a bit of Oscar Wilde before I watched "Iron Chef" with the family and headed to bed. At around 9:30 ("Iron Chef" comes on at 10), I got an idea involving one of my characters in "The Bureau" (William Bouclier). I jotted the idea down on an index card, and the start of a scene popped into my head. I switched to the moleskine notebook, figuring I would jot down what little bit I had, sketch out the rest, and come back to it later. Over an hour later, with my hand cramping and screaming at me, I had written out about a thousand words of what might very well be a prologue tie between "Thy Kingdom Come" and "The Bureau."

Writing an entire scene out in longhand was an interesting experience. For one, it forced me to do something I'm very bad at doing: not go back to deal with nitpicky details. If I misspelled a word or wrote something wrong right then, it was a moment to erase and rewrite, but if I noticed that I used the same word twice in a sentence, I just plowed on. I'm not sure my timetable (or my hand) can take writing lengthy drafts in longhand, but it seems to have a lot of merit in capturing longer ideas than I had previously considered. I should transcribe what I have into a computer file at some point, though, along with the whopping 70 words I have for "Bete Noire."

Friday, I spent the entire evening getting 500 index cards and rubber bands, running errands with greebotrill, and then eating dinner and snuggling with the same. Result: a very lovely evening with the wife, but no productivity.

0 / 200 (0.0%)

Yesterday was Poverty Cafe at mrogre and banzaigrrl's house. Poverty Cafe is, basically, an attempt to get everyone together to work on whatever projects are on their mind at the time (homework, writing, computer program coding, etc.) We sit around, working on our various projects, taking breaks occasionally to chat and have coffee (or beer), and then we have dinner and spend the evening socializing. It was great fun, and I packed up the stack of research and notes I have for Domhan. Sadly, I didn't even get through my two moleskine notebooks, and I already plowed through nearly a hundred cards. Estimating about 15 words per card, I easily hit my quota that night, but I have a long way to go before I can even start on new research.

Edit (9/12): On reflection, 30 words a card is a much more appropriate average. However, the word meter breaks at around 1000%, so I had to edit the gauge.

2,700 / 200 (1350.0%)

I've already got a couple of people thinking about this, but I'm always curious to hear alternative ideas.

As I've mentioned, I have a lot of research vectors for Domhan. I've used binders to good effect on previous projects: I break the project down into an outline, have a divider for each chapter or section, and shove notes in there until I'm ready to write.

This is different. I'm actually researching the development of a whole literary universe that will act as the foundation for a variety of different projects. I had tried previously to keep my notes in various Word documents, but dozens of pages of random bullet-points doesn't seem to be helping me focus my thoughts. As such, before I dive into a lot of research (most done ad hoc as I get time and inclination), I'd like to pull back and organize myself so that I can spend more time researching and thinking and less time trying to remember where I buried a salient point from three years ago.

So, any suggestions to help me organize myself on such a large-scale project would be appreciated.

I still haven't typed up my notes from last week. I have to go through a few projects and update details to make them mesh all together. I have to find some way or organizing my notes, both current and future. Then I can start to go through the 1.5-inch-thick stack of papers that my co-worker dropped on me, along with his copy of the New American Bible (hooray for working with a former monk), as well as weeding through my original research from 2002. This is going to be the most research I've done for a project/projects ever, and it's a bit daunting. Luckily my editor (the ever-talented banzaigrrl) has offered her services as a combination of research assistant, brainstorming partner, and organization developer.

But before I do any of that, I have to make sure I continue to hit my quotas on other projects. Research can be a lot of fun, but I need to keep my focus on other things as well.

I got no writing today, because my computer was being a bastard and then our Exalted game didn't happen (but socializing did) because mrogre and banzaigrrl left early.

0 / 200 (0.0%)

However, I did pull out my notes on Domhan, and start integrating my various side projects back into it. Friday (after I hit quota on my Midway City project), I plan to sit down and start consolidating all of my notes, including "Bete Noire", "Thy Kingdom Come", and "The Bureau"/Modern Pulp, as well as "Rapture" (an older project) and possibly "Utopia" (an even older project).

And then, lots and lots of research.

Yes, I know it's almost 3am. However, my muse has been keeping me up for the past hour. Earlier in the night I picked up an old, obscure RPG. I skimmed that, and dug up notes for a game I had that I set aside in 2002, for the idea of an online game to potentially run. Thinking that over while trying to sleep, I came up with a detailed idea for that game, which integrated into my ideas for The Bureau (neatly solving a few problems I was running into with that setting), which integrated into my notes for Domhan (nicely solving more problems I had with that world), which integrated with the notes for the RPG idea that I had, which I had originally all broken off into separate projects because I thought initially they wouldn't work together.

Jebus. Well, at least I got my quota out of the way for today in notes alone.

455 / 200 (227.0%)

After playing Jade Empire for an hour or so (decent game -- kind of a Fable/Knights of the Old Republic mix set in a fantasy China), I went upstairs and spent a couple of hours revising my short fiction. I had planned to just tweak here and there, but rereading some of my stuff, I realized that it's pretty bland, so I've been doing a more thorough rewrite. I plan to spend a little time really working on all of the microfiction I've put into my LJ, compiling it into one document, and then offering it for download to get feedback, critiques, and compliments. I also have been turning over in my head a minor frustration with the plot in "Bete Noire", and after flipping through one of my writing books, I realized the problem. I jotted down some notes, and hopefully I'll have some time to sit down with the plot skeleton and reshuffle it.

My subject lines are becoming less and less inspired. Part of the reason is that, despite my last post, there really isn't that much going on in a short-term sense. I did get a few more pages of notes on "Bete Noire" done, and I'm pleased with the basic skeleton I have. Now I'm going to expand on each plot point, and then go back and make sure the characters are the right kind of people to be at each of those plot points. Then I focus on the characters and expand each of them to make them interesting and engaging. Then I should be ready to start writing. I have no idea what length this story will be, but I'll write on it until it's done. At a rough guess I'm estimating something between a longish short story and a shortish novella -- definately not microfiction, and definately not a novel.

As I was working on characters, though, I stumbled across the "Mary Sue Litmus Test". For those who don't know, "Mary Sue" is fanfiction slang for an overly-idealized author surrogate character. While the test is self-admittedly harsh and really slanted (for example, Requiem LARP characters of any stripe will pick up a couple dozen points just by being a Requiem LARP character), it is a good indication of some pitfalls to avoid. I seem to thus far have already avoided them.

Puck seems to be settling in. He's not biting as much or jumping up as much, and he likes to sit and watch TV with us on the couch. He's still very excited and full of energy (duh, he's a puppy), but we're not noticing any serious behaviour problems. Greebo and Trillian aren't warming up to him yet, but Claudius is being more adventurous (even though he still fluffs and yowls a lot). Beyond that, last night was just relaxing, something I'm learning to enjoy.

Edit: Completely forgot about my health update. I decided to take some advice I got in my LJ and start exercising anyhow. I did ten minutes of a fast walk on the treadmill, ten crunches, and a few reps with a light hand-weight. Oddly, I didn't get dizzy at all during the exercise, but an hour or so later I did (after I had showered, changed, and sat on the couch for a while). As such, I'm going to sit down with greebotrill and work up a routine, but I'm going to try to do something every day, even if it's a few crunches or walking around the block with Puck.

It looks like the floodgates have just opened.

I jotted down some final tweaks to One Night Stand, and decided to go back to focusing on fiction. I went over the barriers I'm running into in regards to even starting a story of any significant length. I know characters are my weak point, and the modern pulp idea has too many of them, so I started going through my moleskine and jotting down all of the bits and pieces I had for "Bete Noire", my first Domhan story. The story didn't really have a form, so I decided to make it a simple Man vs. Man story and started sorting out who the antagonist and protagonist are. I forced myself to keep it simple (no tricks, nothing fancy, just a well-crafted story with interesting characters) and just put pieces in place, make decisions, and fill in gaps from the few points I had.

Suddenly, I have a few pages of my moleskine scrawled with notes, and out of that mess I found a story skeleton to work from. Now I just need to start putting some muscle on these bones and finding out what's moving the story.

* First and foremost, between scheduling problems with members of my household, a severe lack of cash, and my prior plans to attend Origins later in the month, I'm probably not going to be able to make NEGLECT (unless I somehow managed to find a way to go that is damn near free and doesn't require me to take much vacation time). Rather than trying to sort out who I told I would be attending, I will just post here and in my Requiem LJ, and hope that gets everyone. My sincerest apologies.

Update: Plans are changing. I need to have a lengthy talk with a few people before I know what my convention schedule (NEGLECT, Origins) looks like in June.

* The weekend was very good, even if I did get a little too drunk on Saturday.

* Saw Episode III. Not awesome, but rather solid. If you want more information about the movie, look at just about every other LJ.

* Also finally saw Team America. Amusing, to say the least.

* Also saw (most) of Blade Trinity. Also amusing, but likely not in the way the creators intended.

* May 25th is Towel Day. Represent.

* Got a decent amount done on Midway City over the weekend. Plan to spend tonight being social and getting some stuff off my desk, so work on MC won't start again in earnest until tomorrow night.

* Also picked the brains of drucifer13 and caillile about Domhan, which was very helpful. I have some dilemma in regards to implementation, but I'm going to poke at the world a bit more before I get too concerned about that.

* Since I left Erlanger I've been feeling kind of blah, and I have no idea why. Might just be the general blah I get from returning from vacation. Blah.