Last month

Ok, so last month was pretty shitty when it came to output, compared to June.  June I wrote consistently in my journal and on 800 Words, a lot.

July I put out 8000 words on 800 words, compared to June when it was just over 10K.  Being that I can do a novel in a month, I know that I can do better than this.

So, a new month, and as punishment, I’m not getting a fresh notebook, but using June’s.  I haven’t even got halfway through it, so nah-nah, you’re not getting a new one.

A new month, and I need, NEED to write 800 words a day.  How hard is it?

~~~~~~

I read Stephen King’s short story in Esquire.  It was short.  In my opinion, it was a character exploration, not unlike what I do on 800 Words when it comes to writing up a new character.  Hell, he went into things that I didn’t care about with this character, and the end – he just dropped him at the curb.  Literally.

Call me old fashioned, but I was waiting for the end.  Something happened to change the man’s life, and he did nothing.  Where’s the story there?  What am I missing?

Of course, this is Stephen King, the man with the golden, bloody pen, and anything the man writes is considered pearls of heaven (or hell, as the case may be).  In my mind, he’s getting lazy.  His books still sell, his name still causes people to swoon, but if this is the best he can do, then God help me, even I can do better.

That’s always been the fire in my belly, “I can do better than you, published idiot.”  Same thing with the last book I read, Daywalker.  What a horrid book.  But I kept reading it because I said, “It can’t get any worse – oh, yes it did.  No, it can’t be any worse – oh, no, it is.”  The writer is local.  I’d love to go to his house and say, “Dude.  Dude, this book sucked.  But the world you created…man, it’s awesome.”

I might do some fan fiction.  Hee hee.  Take his Railwalkers and work it up a few notches.

I’m rewriting Grim, and it’s going so far off the beaten path that I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore.  It’s not staying in lane.  It’s like I’m writing it from scratch again, and it’s irritating the piss out of me, because I’m never going to get it done.  It’s a YA with swear words, and maybe sex once I get him together with someone.  Can I get away with that?

Just write the thing and pigeonhole it later.

Well, there goes my break.  I’m going to write more.  Somebody hold my feet to the fire.

What’s next

I did it.  I wrote trash.

Once I got beyond it though, there were some interesting tidbits after it.  A full-length story. I might lengthen it and make it a real story.

However, now I’m stuck on a character.  I was going through all my old characters to find stories based on them, and now I have Luther, who is a tough guy to write a story on since he’s from a different world entirely.

I’m not sure I want to go back to that world, because looking at it now, it’s so lame compared to George R. R. Martin.  I’m tempted to change Taurin from a she to a he, but that would cause way too much turmoil because most of the book is about how she has to handle the fact that she’s a girl and supposed to be the true ruler of North Hampshire; that the king and queen are just keepers until she shows up.

Taurin is also a bad name, because World of Warcraft uses it for their minotaur-like creatures.  So I have to come up with something else cool.

Maybe the story of how Luther lost his sight.  I wrote it out once, a long time ago; maybe it’s time to revisit it.

I can’t write garbage.

Vacation.

I look at my characters, and I want to write stories on each one of them.  However I also want to write fan fiction of the novel I’m reading (it’s pretty badly written, to tell you the truth, but I like the world it takes place in).  So, you know what I hate?  Badly written stories when I know I can write better than that, so why the hell is my book not among the ones that are put out for sale by Amazon?  I will admit Grim’s story needed polishing and consolidating.  Still does.

I want to write, the muse is there, but I can’t think of things.  I have the car running and full of gas, but no destination.  I don’t like going ambling when it comes to writing.  I have fans.  People who read this for a reason.

I can’t write garbage.

I can’t write stories about people that nobody cares about.

I can’t write stories with no conflict.

Who am I kidding?  I should just write it, preface it with “So this is what the characters that I’m not playing are doing…”

Yeah.  Maybe I’ll do that.

The Marathon

Fourth of July.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

My plan: I’ll do about 8 hours’ of work during those 3 days, and then…I’m going to write.

I’m going to write my 3 pages required per day.  I’ll work 4 hours a day.  Then the other 4-6 hours, my plan is to write.

I’m going to tackle Grim’s rewrite again.  Tam I’m going to put aside.  I read a couple of books and got a couple of good ideas for Tam, but I’m not going to use them just yet.

Grim is more my speed – it’s a linear story, not introducing side stories in between.

We’ll see if I can go 10K words this weekend.

 

Whuzzup?

This weekend’s output was pitiful; maybe a thousand words.

That’s everything.  Journal, online, Grim.  No stories, but I got a few in mind; Knight’s ultrasound, for one.  Mike is going away with Mikael which will explain my absence to Scott.  I plan on writing a story from that point of view.  Maybe another Sonnerad story, this time with Mikael and Mike going traipsing through Europe.  I have to find out what’s going on with Mikael’s player.

I started up on twitter and all of a sudden I have more followers than I have followed.  I have no idea how or why.  Maybe they don’t know I’m writing gay fiction – or they came here, or they went to my other site and read some stuff there.  I doubt that.  But if so, that’s great.  A lot of stuff happens behind the scenes and most of the time only the other players are familiar with it.

I may be sporadic for the next week, as I am traveling on business, but I promise to be back for next Monday.

Sneaking around

Why is something sweeter when you have to sneak it?

Like an office liaison, my dates with writing are when no one is looking.  I write in between doing real work, and I write at home between gaming times.

But why is it, when I get the nod that it’s okay to write, the muse runs away?

I have trained myself all these years to sneak.  I first started writing during school, when I was supposed to be taking notes from the teacher.  I wrote stories.  In college, sometimes, if the subject was boring, I did the same thing.  I wrote when the urge struck me, except during a five-year dry spell.  Then I picked it up with a vengeance and have been trying to write more often.  Since last October, I’ve been trying to write daily.

I’ve been sneaking writing at work since 2007, when I started here.  Short stories, scenes, that kind of thing.  Not novels.  Novels are too big.  Too unwieldy, especially when I have to use my head for some things.

I was out on leave and wrote Grimaulkin’sfirst draft in a month.  Pantsed it before I knew what Pantsing was.  It’s how I wrote all my novels, so I never thought that it was “bad”.  (According to Writer’s Digest, it is.)

Came back, and the writing dried up to daily stories for the game.  So it is now.

Although I’ve been writing Tamerlane these last few days, and a bit of Grimaulkin.  But today, nobody’s around, and those who are around don’t care.  So…why can’t I write?

Because the muses know that they can’t whisper in my ear during the hectic moments of the day.  They know that I am receptive, able to listen.

They’re not trained for that.

They’re trained to drop little things, hints.  Teasers.  In the back of my mind, they’re working on the full story.

Like I got to a point with Tamerlane last night, and thought, “Oh…OH!  I know where you’re going with this!  But will the reader know after I dropped this hint?”

So I have an idea consciously of where we’re going, but will I end up there?

I’m going to go back to Tamerlane, see if I can write more.

Where’s the time?

No time for writing much yesterday.  Or this morning.

I’m feeling guilty.

Usually about this time in the morning, I have a story in mind or I’ve already written it and posted it.  This morning, I’ve been working.  At home, I was doing some packing for my trip to AZ (for my day job).

That means all the writing has to happen tonight when I get home.  Unless I can squeeze some time here at work.

I was talking to someone here and she said, “You write an awful lot.”  I said, “You run, I write.  It’s the same thing.”

The thing is to make the time for it.  I need to write every day.  It’s as important to me as taking a shot.  More important, actually.

I MUST write.  And I will find the time to do so.

I started doing the planning stages of Tamerlane, and then I decided, “Screw this.  Why don’t I just let him happen?”  So instead of planning out his idiosyncrasies before the page, I’m going to do it as I go along.  Tamerlane is in my head at the moment; what I need to do is to let him out in dribs and drabs.  That will make it fun for me, and even more fun for the reader, I hope.

 

Partnerships

The great thing about writing in tandem with other people is that you can bounce ideas off of each other, and give each other ideas to work with.

I love the three guys I’m RPG’ing with.  They’re all fans of my page of work, and they read the stories there.  I try to keep close to their characters, and they feel honored, I think, when they see their characters being used in a story of mine.  I know I felt that way when I read one of the guys who used Grim in his stories.

But, alas, he no longer writes.  I hardly see him play, too.  Because of that, my character has limited action with his character because I don’t know his character well enough and I don’t think I could portray his voice correctly.

However, the other characters’ storylines…epic.  Truly epic stuff.

I really want to write out Mal and Knight’s story because that is truly romantic and epic at the same time.  Their stuff could go on for years, and many books.

Grim, of course, is dear to my heart, and his interactions with Scott are priceless.

Tamerlane is a single character.  He’s on his own right now and told in the first person.  Maybe that’ll change.

1574 words yesterday.  I cheated.  I did a lot of it at work.

Pantser or Plotter?

Julia Cameron makes writing sound so easy.  That’s because, she’s a pantser.

This is an ongoing argument in the writing community.  Should I plot or should I write?

I wrote Grimaulkin 1 Version 1 in a month.  I had an idea of what I was writing from (a Grim much older and wiser, admonishing the reader of the follies of power).  My idea was that the following things would happen:

He’d find out he was gay

He’d get a boyfriend

He’d go to the Academy

His boyfriend would break up with him

He’d get angry and do a deal with a demoness

Who would burn him and mark him as his own

He would get great power

Others would be afraid/jealous of him

He’d escape the Academy

He’d find someone new

He’d return to the Academy with this new man

He’d take over the Academy

He would bring magic to the masses.

The end.

I realize now, writing this plotline, that the whole Salem excursion (Grim 2) is worthless.  Well, not worthless – it was making the point about power and being responsible.  But most of it has nothing to do with this plotline.

I need to work on Grim 3.  I tried to plot it, but here’s the problem with plotting with me:  I write to hear the story.  If I plot it out, then I’ve told myself the story, so that’s it.  But the good thing about plotting is I can change my mind when I do write it (and often do).

So what’s best for me?

PANTSING.

I don’t care what the rest of the writing world says.  They’re talking about getting things done FAST.  “How to get your novel done in 30 days/90 days/1 year/overnight” is like that.

I think I have time.

The YA market (Grim might be going to that market, I’m not sure) is not going to go away any time soon, and the paranormal is going to be around for a long time.  Harry Potter-copy books – which is what I’m pushing Grim to be (“An anti-hero Harry Potter who’s gay”) will remain a big thing.

I’m thinking of writing for Samhain (A gay small press) using the Tamerlane stories.

Speaking of which, I need to write his novel.  Hm, who should I emulate?  Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden?  Alex Venus?  Drood?

Self-Promotion

It’s one of those days that my meds are actually kicking in.  It’s a day that I want to promote myself.  A day I want to show off.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any tank tops to show off all my tats.  Nor can I really show off that I’m an American and I’m probably going to be the only person who speaks English at the Vocational Meeting that I’m going to.

But mostly, they won’t see my writing ability.

In reading the many how-to-write books I got, I found one thing common to them.  The authors there pushed their own books.  Only one book did I not find that: Writing as a Sacred Path.

Are they showing us an example of what they mean by using their own writing?  Or are they trying to promote it?

Being the cynical person that I am, I’m of the opinion that they’re self-promoters.  Holly Lisle is notorious for this.  “In my novel this…  In my novel that…”  Do you only read your own stuff?

James Scott Bell also doesn’t self-promote, but his books are starting to sound the same.  Just get his “Art of War for Writers” and be done with it.

At least when I read Creating the Novel and Short Story, only a few authors referred to their own work.

I can’t wait until I read “Now Write” for Sci Fi and see how many people refer to George R R Martin versus Brandon Sanderson.  And heck, Holly Lisle who’s written so many books I’ve never heard of.  I’m going to count how many times authors refer to their own work and get back to you.

Meanwhile, I’m going to look for a tank top.  I want to promote good tattoo art.