Category Archives: Writing

General, Life, Writing, Changes, Career

Still Sinking In

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As of right now, I am officially a published author. My book is up and running on Smashwords. My publishing work isn’t finished of course, there are several other sites I need to publish to as well. Still, the book is out there. I spent a huge part of this day formatting my book to the Smashwords specification. I know that bit will get quicker the more items I publish. I just don’t know what to feel right now. I’m happy of course, but this is still scary to me. Success with my writing would be such a huge, life changing event that I can’t help hoping against hope for this to mean writing full time. Maybe a good night’s sleep will bring the reality of this step home.

 

For those interested, my book can be found here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/399672

 

Writing

And I’m Spent

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Pushed hard to finish the book this weekend. I finished chapter 20 on Saturday, thinking it was finished. Quickly decided that wasn’t the case and pushed on to chapter 21. Wrote 13 pages between Saturday and Sunday. Today was my last free day to get this done so I went at it even harder. Wrapped up chapter 21 with 21 pages (funny how that works out). Quickly wrote up a short three page epilogue and the book is done. Holy crap, what a feeling! It’s both over and underwhelming. I’m crazy excited to have come this far and really eager to push this book out the door, but now it’s time to take a break for a week or two. Come back with fresh eyes so I can get the first edit done properly. In the meantime I’m going to start on some ideas I have for short stories. Tomorrow anyway. Onward and upward!

Career, Writing, Inspiration

Ending a Novel

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I finished up chapter 20 today, which wrapped up the climax shown in the prologue. That meant it was time for a big decision: do I end the book here? My first inclination was that yes, I should end it here. After all, the climax itself was resolved in a very thorough manner. It would be a bit of a cliffhanger, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am certainly eager to be done with this story as well. Impatient really as I can’t wait to get to the whole editing and publishing part. So when I finished chapter 20, I was ready to throw in the towel. Write a little epilogue so I didn’t leave readers hanging completely and call it done. It was the reaction from my girlfriend, who has been reading this story as I wrote it chapter by chapter, that changed my mind and got me to thinking. I was super excited to be done. She was very much not excited. I’ve asked her not to give me any feedback until I do my first edit since I have a list of things I’m going to add/change anyway. She’s done a great job sticking to my request too. It was her tone that gave it away though. She was very disappointed.

So I’ve been thinking about it all day now and even tried to put myself in the readers’ shoes. The story is really for them after all. Then I realized ending the story right here might just piss people off. I spent a lot of time and effort tiptoeing around a lot of secrets and subtext because my main character is completely in the dark about all of this and all of the others are actively keeping things that way. The climax is the breaking point, not just of the action, but of the information. I realized that if I didn’t keep going, I wasn’t going to give the readers the payoff they deserve for being in the dark along with the main character. This is why I’m two pages into chapter 21 and actually pretty glad I’m still going. I still plan to finish the book this weekend, it just means I’ll be doing more writing than I thought.

All of the writers that I’ve researched have said pretty much the same thing about writing a novel, or anything really: make it as long as it needs to be and no more. I have been keeping a close watch on my page and word counts because it gives me a feeling of accomplishment to look back every week or two and see just how far I’ve come. This being my first novel, the process has felt pretty long and drawn out. This has been discouraging at times so I always write down my page and word total when I finish a chapter. In the beginning, I was also worried that this story would be far too short. I grew up reader authors like Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others. When I was that age I also thought that writing stories that long was what it took to be an author. Thankfully I am content these days to compare myself only to myself. For the most part. I’m doing this for me, because it’s fun and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. So I am happy with how long my book has turned out to be, and amused that I was worried it would be too short. Character development takes awhile after all, or at least it does for me. Either way, I’m still crazy excited to be almost done!

Career, General, Insomnia, Life, Unemployment, Writing, Inspiration

Crisis of Confidence

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Wow, almost two months since my last post here. Didn’t think it had been that long ago. Well, as the title suggests I went through a bit of a crisis of confidence where my writing was concerned. I took what was supposed to be a short break at the beginning of October. That turned into almost three weeks of little or no writing on my book. It coincided with the whole government shutdown and furlough thing. You’d think being stuck at home would inspire me to write non-stop, but I couldn’t stop worrying about when we’d get to go back to work and how I was going to pay my bills if we didn’t get back soon. So instead of writing I played Terraria, which conveniently enough had a content release the same day the shutdown started. Go figure.

It wasn’t until I’d been back at work for a week or two that I really started thinking about my writing a lot. It had been there the whole time in the back of my mind, but I didn’t feel good about how my story was turning out. I was also stuck. I didn’t know how to get where I needed to with the story. So all of this was on my mind most days at work. In the end though, I think my job was what convinced me to try to get back to writing. I know, through and through, that I can’t handle doing the 9 to 5 for the rest of my life. The daily commute and traffic, parking nightmares, tedious work, and soul sucking monotony just aren’t conducive to having a happy life. That ultimately got me to sit down one night and try to pick up where I’d left off.

It was a new chapter, so I had an empty page just staring at me as I tried to think of how I wanted the story to go. Then I remembered Stephen King’s advice from his book On Writing: just write. Do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, amazing, or the worst bit of drivel the world has ever seen. Write. Don’t worry about it. Silence the inner critic and worrier. Just write. And that’s what I did. I looked at where the last chapter left off, then thought about what the main character would likely be doing at that point. Didn’t worry if it was mundane or not, I just started back up. It wasn’t as easy as before I’d taken the break. It took me a couple of nights to really get back into the flow of the story. I did hit my word count minimum each night though, and once I was past the rough spot in the story I was excited to be writing again.

At this point I also went back to Dean Wesley Smith’s website to check out some of the other sections about writing and publishing that I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet. The section called Think Like a Publisher was incredibly informative. It’s all about self-publishing, put into simple terms. He laid out just how easy it is to publish your own work, and that’s made me more pumped about writing than ever. Last weekend I decided to try and make a big push on my book and managed to write over twice as much as I usually do. When I stopped to check my progress the other day, I realized I’m nearly done. It’s hard to describe how it feels to have come this far and to see the finish line ahead. With a longer weekend coming up my goal is to have it all finished by next Monday. I am incredibly excited to get this finished, but I’m also more hopeful than ever about my future in writing.

Mr. Smith basically provides a step-by-step guide to the process of publishing as well as how to succeed as an Indie publisher. I know this first book is just the beginning for me, and I can’t wait to get started on my next project.

Oh, interestingly enough this month is National Novel Writing Month. It’s an annual challenge where writers sign up on http://nanowrimo.org/ and try to write a novel within the month. I’ve thought about trying it myself, but I just don’t have the time to write a second novel while I’m still finishing my first and working the exhausting 9 to 5 still. Of course, the novel only has to be 50k words. Not too difficult to get done in 30 days. That’s only about 1666 words a day. My current minimum is 1k. If I get my current book done by next Monday, that will leave me with 19 days of the month. That’s a little over 2600 words a days to hit the 50k mark by November 30th. I’ll think about it. If I don’t do it this year, I definitely want to try next year. Maybe by then I’ll be writing full time!

 

If you’d like to check out Dean Wesley Smith’s site, it’s right here:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=3736

Insomnia, Life, Love, Writing, Anime, Dramedy

Watching Toradora

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

So I’ve just spent the last several hours watching an anime called Toradora. The title is a mashup of the Japanese words for tiger and dragon. The two main characters are Ryuji and Taiga, the dragon and tiger of the story. It’s probably supposed to be a romantic comedy, and it certainly presents itself in a fairly light manner. The drama is pretty heavy handed though. Some of the conflicts are pretty forced. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying it. I guess that’s obvious or I wouldn’t be awake at 3 AM writing about it.

I discovered anime when I was in high school. The first one I ever watched was an over-the-top comedy called Outlanders. Barely had a plot at all. I loved it. A crazy alien girl sent to wipe us filthy apes off the face of the planet falls in love with a pathetic photographer. Really, I watched just about any movie, show, or anime that had a bit of romance in it. Ah My Goddess! was next after Outlanders. Definitely had a crush on Belldandy. I didn’t think about it too much back then. Why I was drawn to that. Too close to the situation to see clearly. Isn’t that the biggest kick in the ass? To be so wrapped up or overwhelmed by what you’re feeling to be blind to the realities of the situation. Looking back it’s pretty clear that all of those movies and shows about falling in love, struggling to express it, all of it was a surrogate for what was happening to me. I’ve heard it said that nothing hurts as much as your first love. A bit of forethought could have helped me quite a bit. Not a good idea to take a class just to be with someone you’re in love with after they dump you. You still have to show up to class. Probably why I’ve never pursued anyone I work with. Messy. I digress though.

I’m now on episode 25. (SPOILER ALERT: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE PLOT TO TORADORA) In the last couple of episodes, out heroes have finally admitted their feelings for each other. I won’t go into the ridiculous means the writers went to keep them from doing this much sooner. I’ve never been to Japan, but I have a hard time believing the willful obliviousness of some of these kids. There was a time when I thought it was just a difference between US and Japanese culture, but I’m not that young anymore. Not that I don’t understand, once they get together the story is over, right? Bleh. Pretty tired of this trope. It’s all over the media EVERYWHERE. As if the bits that happen after people start dating aren’t interesting? I have to wonder if this tendency in television and movies, magazines and manga, really builds up an image of love and relationships that has no bearing whatsoever on reality? I mean sure, when I was in high school it was damn hard to talk to girls, to tell the girl I loved that I love her. I did, and I got hurt. Some people don’t, and still get hurt. The rare few stick together from those early days. I think this constant buildup of the “before love” gives people expectations that can never be met.

My love life has been a train wreck pretty much from the beginning. I fixated on one girl throughout junior high and high school. I was in an abusive (emotionally) relationship for quite some time after that. It took me years to get out of that one, and more years to understand why I needed to. I don’t hate her for the abuse though. We were both young and dumb. It came down to wanting different things. Neither of us could understand that though. It’s easy to confuse intimacy and the closeness that brings with love when you don’t have the experience to tell the difference. I learned a great deal from that relationship. I learn from every relationship. At least I try to. So I’ve dated, married, divorced, married, divorced… I’ve come to understand what it means, really means, that we are all different. It sounds obvious, but everyone being different means relationships are all different. Not superficially either, but truly unique. How could they not be? You take two or more unique individuals and put them together. Never know what’s going to come out of it. You can’t be too afraid to try. I won’t say don’t be afraid because there’s a lot to fear. Just can’t let the fear freeze you in place, or stop you from taking a chance. Even if that ends up in failure, you’ve learned something. Another combination that won’t work. To quote Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” (I am aware that this attribution is contested, doesn’t change how apt it is.)  So keep on learning from failure in the hopes of being able to recognize the real deal when you meet them.

Back at the ranch, I think what is pissing me off most about what’s happened in Toradora is just how forced this latest conflict is. Ryuji and Taiga were ready to elope if their parents tried to stand in their way. They’ve finally admitted their feelings and are taking the first steps to becoming a real partnership. They already know each other behind their social masks so really they’ve got big leg up over most new relationships. It can be pretty awkward when you start letting someone far enough into your life to really see all of the little “gross” things we do that are part of life, but that society likes to pretend doesn’t happen. Anyway, there’s some drama where they decide to run away. Sort of. Their friends all think it’s a bad idea but help them on their way. (True friendship or total irresponsibility?) After making their decision they both run home to get a few things. Ryuji expected to have to fight past his mother, but discovers she’s gone. She leaves him a letter and a watch that will get him into his grandparents’ home if he wants to. So naturally they end up there. Where else would they go, I guess? After they’re there for a day or two, they hatch a scheme to get his mom to show up. (BTW, the grandparents are incredibly understanding to take in a grandson they’ve never met along with his “bride”.) This is where they finally kiss for the first time as well. Practicing for when they really do get married. It’s actually an incredibly sweet and touching scene. Too bad it’s completely ruined by the next bit.

So after a happy family reunion, Ryuji and Taiga decide to return with Ryuji’s mom and go back to living the way they were until they can get Taigi’s dysfunctional parents’ permission to get married. Yeah, okay. At least they’re going to work on being a couple. Until Taiga comes back to her apartment to find her mother didn’t stick around to wait until she showed back up. And now, now, after all of the crap her family has put her through does she suddenly get a hair up her ass to go home and mend fences, leaving her fiance a note. A note. So of course Ryuji is devastated but is putting on a brave. All of her friends at school are upset, and more drama is about to ensue. Thus the writers have managed to narrowly avoid that kiss of death for a romantic comedy TV series, the happy ending. I think what annoys me the most is that I was far more interested in watching their relationship develop. All of the missteps they would no doubt take, Ryuji’s wacky mom breaking out with surprisingly insightful commentary from time to time. I guess that’s kind of shift to a more slice of life series, but why not? I like a lot of the things they’ve done with this series, but this forced conflict thing is just crap. It feels like they’re jerking these characters around for no more reason than to make the series longer.

I will no doubt continue watching this until it ends, or until the forced conflicts grow to such ridiculous proportions that I feel like I’m watching a puppet show by kids imitating bad soap operas.

Changes, Career, Gaming, General, Writing

Side effects

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

So I’ve been noticing some side effects from the whole writing project thing. The first and most noticeable was that having something meaningful to do, something I’m doing for myself and not just to pay bills or just as a distraction, pulled me out of my funk. Between re-locating for a job, getting divorced, and a general lack of direction with my life I was definitely pretty down in the dumps. What has fascinated me about starting, and keeping with, my writing project is how this one positive has lead to others. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that positive habits can reinforce more positive habits, but it has definitely been a fun experience for me so far.

Anyway, on to more nerdy topics! Sometimes when you’re sitting around on your computer with nothing in particular to do, you suddenly find yourself heading out on an Internet Adventure! It was on one such Adventure that I discovered an amazing web series called ‘There She Is!!’  Now, I actually discovered this quite some time ago while I was stuck on a deployment and incredibly bored. The Internet connection was slow and very unreliable so Flash videos were much easier to watch within a reasonable amount of time. The series is made up of five short music videos with no dialogue and a different song for each video. It follows the story of Nabi and Doki, a cat and rabbit person respectively. In their world, it is completely taboo, even forbidden, for cats and rabbits to be cross-species couples. Over the course of just these five amazing videos there is an amazing amount of story, character development, humor, and more genuine feeling than you can shake a stick at. The series was completed in 2008, but has never (to my knowledge) garnered much attention outside of its native Korea. This is unfortunate because I really can’t say enough about these videos. They are both incredibly moving and inspirational with a very definitive message.

Link to all five videos (the site is in Korean, but the Play movie links are in English and will launch each video in a pop-up window. You’ll need Adobe’s Flash Player to watch them. Or you could watch them on Youtube.)

http://sambakza.net/works_tsi/tsi_main.html

 

PS: If these videos do not tug on your heartstrings, you are a soulless automaton and should go back to watching “reality” TV.

 

PPS: So I just discovered that the whole series was posted to www.newgrounds.com as well as their Korean site. It looks like all five videos won trophies for top video when they were posted, and the last video has an amazing 1,662 pages of comments from users!

General, Writing, Inspiration

Another Week Down

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Another week of (successful?) writing has been completed and I find myself now into my fourth week. I’m not sure at what point I can call this a successful habit, but it’s definitely starting to feel very natural. Most nights I can bang out my minimum of 1k words with little trouble. Tonight was actually the first night in at least a week that I had to really work to hit that number. Mostly, I think, because I’m pretty tired and more than a little sore. Still, very happy to have managed to get this far. Here’s hoping I make it to the end of this story! That would definitely be something to see.

MMO, Writing, Balance, Gaming, General

No Country for Old MMO’s

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

One of the things that has been helping me stick to my writing project is the complete lack of interesting MMO’s on the market currently. I’m a long time player of World of Warcraft, but I’ve pretty much come to the end of my rope on that one. The ridiculous daily grind introduced with the most recent expansion pretty much killed any desire to continue playing. That and I’ve leveled almost every class to max. Not much left to do except grind for raiding or Arena gear. No thanks.

Still, just because there’s nothing I want to play that’s out right now doesn’t mean I don’t want to play at all. I’ve definitely been missing the ever-present entertainment of an MMO. The knowledge that there’s a game I enjoy that always has something new I can try. For a long time that was WoW for me. I’ve tried other games from time to time. Conan. Rift, Star Trek, Star Wars, Age of Camelot, LOTRO, and so on and so forth. Honestly I’m pretty tired of the WoW copies. It’s just frustrating  knowing that most of what’s out there are all variations on the same basic theme. Of course, there are some sandbox type games coming. Everquest Next is supposed to be such. Free to play as well. As a player of the original when it first came out back in 1998 (dating myself here), I do hope they’ve come up with something different. I am very interested in CCP’s take on the World of Darkness. The concepts they’ve talked about would definitely lead to a different type of MMO.

Sandbox games have certain grown on me as well. While I don’t care for Minecraft, Terraria is a game I just keep coming back to. Super excited about the hopefully near-future release of version 1.2 that’s going to add a massive amount of content. Starbound is a similar game that’s in the works and supposed to be released this year. Not sure if they’ll hit that time frame. Either way we’ll just have to be patient.

Overall this lack of games that I want to play has coincided happily with my finally getting off of my butt to start writing. When any of these games do arrive, it’s going to be tricky to balance the unfortunate necessities of work and sleep with my writing and games. There are much worse problems to have though, so I’d best keep my perspective. In the meantime, Writing Week 3 ho!

Writing, Inspiration, Career

Week 2 – Getting Very Excited

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I’m now in to my second week of my serious writing project and I find that I’m really enjoying it. I frequently don’t feel the awesome inspiration that started this project several years ago, but I’m learning in a way that seems to be sticking that I don’t need to have that feeling to write. It is fascinating to me just how much of what I feel about writing seems to depend on just how I look at the task. When I think of a finished book and just the sheer number of pages, characters, scenes, and plot that make up that book it is incredibly intimidating. Always has been. That intimidation leads to fear of failure. Well, it does for me anyway. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really don’t like failing at anything. I know it is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean I like it. So that fear and intimidation give my inner critic a hard to ignore voice. “Oh, I’m tired today. Anything I write won’t be good.” or “I don’t know how to really get in to that inspired mood so that I can just practically will my book in to existence.” Very sill stuff when you take a step back and look at the objections of your inner critic more rationally. Still, not all of his observations are silly. “Am I really good enough to do this? I have to eat after all.” That one has stopped me more than once.

One of the things that is really helping me kick that inner critic to the curb is the daily writing routine Stephen King recommends in his On Writing book. I’ve already proven to myself that 1,000 words a day is a very doable, even easy, target for me to hit. There have been a few days where I checked my word count several times before I actually hit my daily minimum. Then there was last Sunday when I managed to put down 2,300 or so words and nearly finished an entire chapter in one sitting. I think this, as much as anything else, is helping me to overcome my inner critic and build up my confidence. I am proving to myself every day, in a way that can’t be dismissed, that I can do this. That in fact, I am doing it! Every time I think and/or re-realize that, I can’t help but get excited about what I’m doing. I also feel like I’m really taking control of a life that I’ve let drift for years. I have no illusions that I have much control over my life, but at least this is something I’m doing for myself. Proving this to myself. It’s a good feeling.

Oh, I also stumbled across a pretty amazing resource for any aspiring writers out there. I’ve only scratched the surface of the great information here, but it’s getting me even more excited about my writing and my prospects for some day making a living off of my writing:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=9358

Tons of good information there. It’s made me realized that I need to treat writing much like I do my interest in computers. I need to read up on it a bit every day to stay up to date with where the industry is, what successful writers are doing, what new tech or trends are changing things up, etc. I should know at least as much about writing as I do about the HD 7970 3GB graphics card powering the visuals on my computer. I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m excited to get to it.

Writing, Inspiration

One Week Down!

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

My first week of writing is done and chapter 4 is coming along nicely. It’s been an interesting experience so far. Every night I’ve had serious doubts that I can keep writing as I have. Even my 1,000 word requirement seems intimidating before I sit down to actually do it. When I do sit down to write, it probably takes me a good 10 to 15 minutes before I’m really getting in to the flow of the story. Once I am though, I’m always surprised to suddenly realize that I’ve hit my goal already. I really hope I can keep this going.