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I have been looking at my own work recently, and trying to decide how best to prepare for Nanowrimo while finishing up my current WIP. Of course, the new project is shinier… It’s new, I haven’t thought about it for months or years, and I haven’t seen ¾ of the book and decided that its crap. The fact that 4 months ago I thought this work was good and now I’m looking at it and worrying that its unsalvageable means that I’ve probably reached that area of the book where all authors suddenly think their work is bad and horrible. On the other hand, I also know (unfortunately) that I’m not yet skilled enough to be able to decide on my own. Of course, my husband says that the story is engaging and interesting but I know that he has a vested interest in it. I wish that I was part of a writing group so that I could pass around a chapter or so and find out what it looks like.
I’m really hoping that I can finish it before SiWC. One of the classes I’m really looking forward to is the one Master Class that I sighed up for. It’s taught by Robert J. Ray. It’s called “Welcome to Your Novel Rewrite”. Since this is really the area I feel I need help in, I’m very excited. I say that I’m rewriting my novel now, but I know that what I’m actually doing right now is perhaps the smallest part of the rewrite… filling in scenes that I didn’t write during November. A small amount of this will be at the beginning, and I’m doing it now. I also know that I condensed an entire scene into the words “romance montage… write when you have inspiration”. I now know what’s supposed to go there (and it’s not really a romance montage, but a scene detailing characters getting to know each other/teaching of the magic system mix) and so I should finally be able to write it down. I know I also need to rewrite the ending. The end of last nano was a bit of insanity for me and I was desperately trying to get 10k words in three days. Not that I required it to win… but I wanted to get more words than a young girl who writes here in Calgary (she routinely hits 100K during the month).
Even so, the main problem with my ending isn’t actually that it’s bad, but that it doesn’t follow the storyline anymore. What had happened is that about 4 days before the end of Nanowrimo, I realized that the story was no longer going where I thought it needed to at the beginning of the month. Instead of writing organically and seeing where the ending needed to go, I ran straight back to my outline trying to write those scenes. Since they no longer fit the story it was hard going, and even harder to fix, since I didn’t realize what had happened when I tried to start editing it.
This is all part of the very painful process know as Improvement. It can also be a very painful process. What it teaches you is that the good work you were doing before isn’t good… in fact it may be painfully bad. For most of us though, the hardest part of this is proving to ourselves that we can get better.
On that note, one of the things that are going to help me prepare to write is the beautiful inspiring Miyazaki film, Whispers of the Heart. This movie is about a girl who falls in love with a boy who seems to know exactly where he wants his life to go. She is amazed at his dedication when he travels to Italy to study for two months towards his dream. Though he also likes her, she is unsure if she is good enough to be with him since she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life at all. She decides to try writing a novel while he is gone. When she is finished she invariably says it’s horrible, but a friend tells her that what it and she needs is polishing. Like a gemstone, it’s dirty and flawed when you pull it out of the ground. Only through work and knowledge can you make it into a thing of true beauty. I now keep a geode on my desk to remind of the fact that even when my writing looks like stupid ordinary rock that it can still be polished to a thing of beauty and something worth publishing.
Other things that I need to finish before Nanowrimo are:
1. Cleaning up my office so that all the garbage is gone and it’s organized. Even if I don’t have my bookshelves by that time, I would like the room to be clean. When it’s a mess, I don’t want to go in and remember that I need to clean it, especially during Nano.
2. Reading a few pages of writing into my computer about my characters for this months novel… I want Dragon to recognize what I’m saying when I talk about Xiam and Zack (the main characters in the novel). Corrections and changes only slow you down during Nanowrimo and I’d rather have as few of those as possible.
3. My novel, nicknamed “Seirei” and called “Memories Written in Moonlight” finished, or at least finished enough that I don’t mind other people seeing it.
4. I would like to have cards done before I attend the conference, even if they only have my name, website address and “Writer of Dark Fantasy” on them.
Everything else can wait if they need to. On a more personal front, I still do not have “The High King of Montival”… The store was out of them. “Mr. Monster” is out now as well for purchase, so I’ll grab both when I head into the bookstore around October 15. This weekend I am gaming, playing my little Whore Queen, Demona… hopefully, I’ll have some wonderful little tidbit to mention in my next blog about that.
Also, coming up mid to end of October… Pictures of my Writing Space! Keep an ear out and I’ll keep you updated on my progress until I put out the pics!
Posted in Blogs on September 29th, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 7 Comments »
Please I’d love to listen to your thoughts on “Poetry of Wonder”. Which songs did you enjoy? Did you agree with my assessment on the album? Post below and let me know!
If you came to this page first, please follow the link to read the review first!
Today’s blog is running a bit behind so expect it to be a bit brief. I’ll make certain that I have a new blog post up Saturday for you guys. I got a bit sick a few weeks ago. The sucky weather Calgary has been having got into my hand, and my Tendonitis was so bad that I couldn’t close my hand into a fist or re-open it when I managed to. While this did curtail my writing, rest assured, I have gotten some done… Although, instead of using my computer, I have the scene written up in paper copy right now and working on it while taking the bus to and from work. The scene is turning out really well and I’ll be using a certain program of mine to add it to the computer.
That’s right, it’s time to talk a bit more about my Dragon! I’ve been using it more frequently of late, and now I can give a better opinion on it. My over all opinion is pretty good of it, though it’s near useless for using online. The commands activate whether you want them to or not, which means that trying to write text into a forum chat box or updated any social media site is out of the question (it works much better in actual messenger programs, like MSN Messenger).
This experience really reminded me why I got that program, even if sometimes I do worry that it’s more trouble than it’s worth (if I have a stuffed up nose it can’t understand me at all).
Using it has been teaching me to think more about what I write before I say/type it. I still have to delete things every once in a while, but it happens much less often now that I’ve been training myself not to screw it up. I do suggest that everyone give it a try though, since I am actually coming to enjoy using it. While I’m not using it to write this blog post (more for brevity reasons than anything else), it is on the computer and I have been training it to understand me. I am going to be training it to understand me, by using it at least 2 days out of every week to do all my writing… Something I hope to continue during Nanowrimo as well. (Remember to add me as a Buddy if you want to follow my counts during Nano!)
I’ll keep you all updated on that front.
Other than using Dragon and resting my hand, I have been keeping myself mostly out of trouble. I am still reading Brandon Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings”. I am 66% finished it and I’d like to say that it’s pretty damn awesome. It’s definitely an epic fantasy, told from a few different viewpoints. The only question I currently have is about the character Kaladin. While he is a wonderful character, Brandon Sanderson has been writing his chapters in a Present/Past sort of set up where we get one chapter of where he is now, and then we’ll get a chapter that led him to this point. While its really interesting, I am wondering why he choose to write it that way. I assume I will have discovered the answer in the next three-hundred and fifty pages.
I have also finally gotten notice that my long awaited copy of “The High King of Montival” is finally shipping. I should have that next week, or the first week of October at the latest. It will be next on my reading list after “The Way of Kings”. I also picked up Aprilynne Pike’s debut YA novel, “Wings”. While I don’t often read YA paranormal romance books anymore (Damn you Twilight), I heard about this one on Writing Excuses and decided to give it a try. I am also listening to “www: Watch”, a book by Robert J. Sawyer. If you haven’t heard of this series yet (beginning with “www: Wake”) pick them up. This set of novels is definitely worth your time and interest, although I give fair warning… Mr. Sawyer has a thing for ‘soft’ endings… They answer all the questions but do seem to leave you wondering why you’re vaguely unsatisfied. Perhaps it’s a problem with a super long dénouement feeling, instead of the hopeful awed feeling he was going for. I’ll keep you updated on all of the books I’m reading, as usual.
Oh, I’m going to try to write a review of Dan Wells “I am Not a Serial Killer” and post it up here prior to Nanowrimo as well… Expect new site changes in the next few weeks as well!
What are you reading? And will you be participating in Nanowrimo this year? Are there any great podcasts dealing with Nanowrimo that you’ve been listening to? Let me know, and keep those comments coming!
Oh, one final comment for all of you out there… Less than a month until my conference! I am soooo excited.
Posted in Blogs on September 23rd, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 5 Comments »
Today I think I’d like to talk about this about the “mask”. In psychology the mask was used to show the difference between our inner and outer selves. It was a very quiet child and I learned early that most people did not seem to see the world the same way I did. Thus I created my mask very early on. Irregardless of the fact that I have a blog, I don’t tend to let many people into the secret place when my true self was contained. A lot of this is due to the low self-confidence I developed as a child. However, even then I wanted to be strong. So when I was lonely or scared, instead of hiding I stood behind the mask. That aspect of me I had made brave and perhaps as stupid as any heroine in a book I’d read. Somehow, it allowed me to pretend that I didn’t mind the loneliness or the isolation we all feel.
Somewhere along the way, I started acting brave as my natural defense to anything happening to me. Someone picking on me? Well, I’d use my intelligence to stomp them down into a twig. Someone laughing at me? Of course, it was because they were simply “too common” to understand what I was about. After I met my husband, he helped me to come out of my shell, I realized that the mask I’d thought I was just hiding behind, was just as valid as the small terrified child I that I had always envisioned as me. I learned that instead of hiding behind my mask I could be my mask . I still feel terror at trying new things or explaining to people that they can’t bully me; however, I also learned the wisdom that being brave doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid. It simply means that you can find the heart to stand up for your beliefs.
I firmly believe that this truth is one of the hardest to learn, and like all truths it sounds deceptively simple. We can all learn the ‘truths’ and speak the maxims by heart, but only by learning what it feels like to understand those words can we begin to speak those words to others. Otherwise, we are just speaking maxims that we know nothing about. I am considered a wise person by those who know me, even if I am not usually thought of as smart, mainly because through my experiences I have learned much. Through the grace of the Gods I also seem able to convey that learning through to others. It is a true blessing to be able to help those I can, although I will admit that my heart always races when I speak of wisdom to others because of a quote I heard once.
“All Wisdom truly says the same thing… be more like me.”
It is quotes like this that have stuck with me and so I try to make certain that my wisdom is not simply repeating age old maxims and/or telling people to be like me.
Moving to a different topic before I start getting preachy about how we dispense wisdom, I would like to change the current topic. Without going into too much detail (since if you follow my blog you already know) I developed tendinitis just over a year ago. Usually it’s not much of a bother but just in case last year I purchased a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It’s one of those awesome talk-to-text programs that allows you to speak instead of type. Now I know I’ve been pretty bad in trying to actually use it, mainly because I prefer the feel of keys under my fingers. Tapping away the keyboard has always been very relaxing to me ever since I learned how to properly type. While I suppose that talking to my computer will eventually be very relaxing as well right now I do feel rather slow.
It’s working rather well I will give it that. So long as I’m not sick and the longer I use it the easier it gets and the more correct it becomes. Right now, I have trained it enough that only one word in every 30 to 40 needs to be corrected. I’m also getting much better at remembering the commands for it. However, and this is what’s really slowing me down, I really have to stop and think about what I’m going to say. This was a very odd concept for me and even now it still sounds very odd. I mean if you don’t know if you’re going to say how are you supposed to say it. Shouldn’t saying it immediately mean that you know how you want to say it? What I’ve learned is that this is apparently not the case.
When I type I must admit I’m one of those people who will delete a line three or four times to make certain I have gotten it out the way I want it. Dragon NaturallySpeaking doesn’t really take away that option, but it does make me think more about my words. After all, what it takes so much longer to get something out the last thing you want to be doing is correcting every fifth think that learning how to use this property will actually make my writing better. What I’m doing now, in addition to actually writing, is learning how to properly think about what I want to say so that I don’t have to think about it when I’m typing.
While this will be slower now I believe that this will make me a faster and much more precise typist in the future. While I don’t think I’ll ever be surely happy with my hand being injured like this, it is very comforting to know that my stories will still be able to be told, even if I do have to talk to my computer to do so. One thing I will have to keep in mind is my propensity for run-on sentences. When you’re talking a sentence can go on and on and I for one don’t generally notice if it’s getting too long. After all, if I start to take a breath in the middle of a sentence, it doesn’t automatically mean that the sentences too long. Knowing that I’ll be looking over my writing much more closely because of this should help my predisposition towards writing longer sentences.
This post is going rather long, so I’ll stop for now. I am 31.2% of the way through Brandon Sanderson “The way of Kings” and I went to go see the new movie earlier today. Resident Evil: Apocalypse will probably be in my next blog… expect it!
Posted in Blogs on September 10th, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 2 Comments »
Please feel free to comment about any of your thoughts on this piece. Was it good? What did you enjoy? What about the characters? Let me know!
It’s time for another blog, albeit a bit of a shorter one today. I’ve gotten a few responses saying “cut out the stuff that people don’t read”… Unfortunately, these helpful anonymous people never seem to say exactly what parts “people don’t read”. So, I’ll try doing shorter posts and keeping them under 1000 words each time… let me know if you think they’re too long or if you think they’re just right.
First off, very Happy Birthday wishes go out to my loving husband. Another year older and a new year just begun as the saying goes. We’re going to be having people over or going out to eat with friends the next couple of days trying to accommodate all of our friends who want to wish my husband a Happy Birthday as well. It doesn’t appear to be a gaming weekend and I’ve wasted away quite a bit of it thus far, but I should be able to start concentrating on writing again this weekend. Perhaps mixing in a bit of reading with that, but I’ll explain why later in the blog.
The good part about being this busy is that this time, I’m also on Vacation… That’s right, I’ve been off since Wednesday, and it’s been so relaxing! Of course, what good is a vacation without a new book to keep you busy!? With another five days to go before the release of S.M. Stirling’s, The High King of Montival(I title I simply can’t wait to see out and will be picking up after work on Tuesday), I decided that since we were walking into our local Chapters to pick up my husband’s birthday gift anyway, that I would look at (re: not buy) Brandon Sanderson’s new book, released this past Tuesday. Instead my husband proved what an incredible guy he is by taking the book out of my adoring hands and putting it in the purchase pile.
First off, the most notable thing about The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson is that it is a monster of a novel at 400k. **note to all new writers out there… this is not acceptable for your first book… make it your 5th best seller before you start sending out monsters like this to your agents and publishers. Unless your work is epic in a way never before seen, and even them, try to make it your second or third book. ** The fact that Brandon Sanderson managed to find a publisher even with it being this long (if memory serves me, it was longer originally. He cut it down to this level) is a real testament to his writing skills. I became a fan of Brandon Sanderson after I read his much acclaimed Mistborn Series (though I was very wary, since I’m not a Wheel of Time fan) and this book has recieved glowing reviews(a la Dan Wells and Howard Taylor, two people whose professional opinion I’m willing to trust) so I can’t wait to start reading it!
Oh, a side note… most Epic fantasy Series reach 400k words, but even knowing that, he still made this book a “Part 1”. Yep, there’s going to be at least one more this size for the world to peruse. I’ll try to keep you guys updated on how I’m enjoying it. I’m only 7.1% into the book thus far, but I have been enjoying it immensely. Brandon Sanderson has a brilliant way of writing that allowed me to keep turning the pages and enjoying it, but when I had to put it down I was more than able to. Most books that I don’t mind putting down, I have a really hard time picking back up. Not the case with this book. Sanderson has an ability to make every chapter satisfying in a way that makes you think about it even once you’ve put it down. The book seems to have a high learning curve on it, but if you can get past that (and you can, you’re following my musings and writings, right?) then they are marvelous to read. I’ll keep you updated (with no spoilers, without Heavy Warnings before them, other than the one in the title).
Also, keep an eye out for my book review on Dan Well’s I am Not a Serial Killer… I finished that one way back at the beginning of August and it was great as well! I’m hoping to write that up later this week. I handed to it my husband and he’s been enjoying it as well. I’ll say more in the review, but I will leave you with this. The main reason I enjoyed his book is that it is a horror… not a gore show that doesn’t scare you but grosses you out instead. Actual books in the horror genre are rare these days, but Dan Wells seems to have hit that nail head on, especially for his first published work.
That’s really all I have to say right now, especially since I’m trying to keep this under 1K words. I have been working on my book, although not as much as I could wish… we had a roommate move out and that took away a sliver of my writing time. I’m still deciding on whether or not I’m going to enter my two poems to the SiWC contest. The poems were good, but I don’t know if they were great. I might send in the one I wrote titled “Jilted Snowflake”. Otherwise, my life this week has been and will be mostly devoted to hanging out with my hubby… what better gift can a writer give than her time, after all?
Posted in Short Stories on September 4th, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 18 Comments »
