WP Platinum Blog
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 »
Sorry I’ve been gone for a while. I’ve recently started a new diet, hoping to get my body healthy and perhaps even off its addiction to sugar. Because of that (and because I’m finally seeing some evidence of it working) I’m not sure if I’ve been feeling ill due to actually catching a summer cold or if my body is cleansing, a term I’ve heard used that means “flushing out unwanted/unneeded chemical buildup from the body” . I’m guessing that it’s actually a cold since last night I had a touch of fever and I’ve started developing a headache along with a few muscle aches as well. Either way, that’s a small excuse for my delay in posting.
Sometimes I really wish that I’d been smarter a year ago than I am now. You see, last year, severely understaffed at work, I decided that my “minor” aches and pains could be ignored. So, when I started having trouble clenching and unclenching my hands (more so my right than my left), I got annoyed at my hands. I didn’t attempt to slow down… after all, if it only bothered me when I attempted to use a dishcloth or a pencil I was fine. I use a computer every day and it wasn’t as though the inability to unclench or fully grasp something was stopping me from typing after all. I was also trying to write as much as I could on my breaks and whenever I wasn’t working.
Now those of you who have had tendonitis before are probably already wincing in horror. After all, most people would consider the inability to use their hands a relatively serious condition. I really have no excuse other than to say that I was obviously abusing myself for no better reason than I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, either my bosses or myself. When my hand finally started hurting just to type though, I had to stop. I worked till the end of the day and then went into the doctors to see what was up. It was then that I found out the cold hard truth that I still live with today. There is no cure for tendonitis, in fact, Western Medicine doesn’t even have a fool proof way of dealing with the pain.
I ended up having to take a week off, in which I was told to not use my hand at all. For the first day or so, I tried to peck the keys like a chicken, using the two-finger style so popular among the aged who never used a computer until they were adults and aren’t interested in learning such a skill now. Even so, I would occasionally forget and the pain would flare up, and I would put away the computer hoping that reading would help. At the end of the first week, I went back to work on light duties… which meant that I spent the next week or two printing off emails, since sorting paper required too much use for my hand to be of any help.
Nowadays, my hand still hurts, even though I started taking better care of my hand after that. I suppose that once you’ve damaged your hand that badly it never truly heals. Which is why weeks like this one, I remember that I really need to start using my DragonNaturally Speaking program on a more regular basis. The ability to let my hands rest for evenings at a time (if not the days my hands would like) would be immensely helpful. I don’t know about you guys, but one day, I would like to be able to live pain free.
In other news, I have finally begun actual editing on my Seirei story. I have finished a rough draft of the book, and now I’m going through and putting my scenes in order, writing new scenes that I realize need to be added and making certain that everything is ready for a polishing rewrite.
I understand that I’m probably using the terms wrong, which annoys me, but stick with me or better yet, correct me if you can. This is my first time really working on editing a manuscript. I had tried once before, but I was trying to edit for content and doing line editing at the same time. Later, my notes were a mess (as though the story itself wasn’t already) and I could hardly read them. That first novel should never see the light of day, but it did teach me that edits should be done, first for missing content, then a second time for altered content, and thereafter for line edits.
Yes, Holly Lisle may be disappointed with me for doing 3 edits, when she can do it all in one, but the way I look at it, she’d probably just be impressed that I was trying to get it done and out professionally. On the other hand, I’m hoping to take her classes eventually, and perhaps after I’m more used to the editing process all around, I can try her One-Pass Edit style.
On a final note, I have been listening to a book recently, that I would like to endorse wholeheartedly. I first found out about this book from Philippa Ballantine on Facebook, when she mentioned that she was hoping to read it soon. Knowing that I love what she writes, I decided to take a chance that we’d have similar reading preference. I’m still not certain if we do, since this book seems much more like Science Fiction than a Fantasy, but either way, the book is worth finding.
Called www: Wake, this book by Robert J. Sawyer is brilliant. I’m about ¾ way through it and it’s awesome. The idea is that a girl who has been blind from birth receives a new bit of technology that allows her not only to see the world she lives in, but the world wide web as well. It’s a great science fiction tale that revolves around the themes of consciousness, vision and the idea of how do we decide what is sentient and what is not.
I haven’t reached the end yet, but I am willing to say immediately, go out and buy this book. I have the audio version and I don’t think I can rave enough about this novel! I’m enjoying it so much that I’ve already bought the second book in the series, www:Watch because I know that if its anything like my Wake, I’ll love it!
I’ll be waiting eagerly for the conclusion to the trilogy, www:Wonder, coming out soon!
Posted in Blogs on August 31st, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 47 Comments »
Today, I had a great breakthrough in my demonic love story. I’ve been unhappy with character motivations for keeping the girl at the Lord’s manor house, when there’s no reason for it… a point which was again flung in my face when I realized that my magic system didn’t quite work like I had hoped it would. So, in addition to simplifying my magic system, I’ve decided that the main male demon is going to be an ambassador of his race to this lord, instead of using him as nothing more than a second character for the main character to fall in love with (which is always a bad idea, and wasn’t entirely true, regardless. He was simply much less important in the first half of the book). I’ve included for your perusal (so that you can see how I work) a copy of the changes and how that part of the story will change. I think I’ll be able to adapt the one chapter I’ve already written to reflect this easily enough with a second chapter and a few scattered scenes to cement the change. Unfortunately, it means that my rough draft will probably end up being about 125k words (counting magic system changes to the plot as well) instead of the 100k I was aiming for. While this means a lot of work during the editing stage, it will simply remind me that I will need the wordcraft to be really tight before I consider sending it out to agents. Oh, I’ve also decided that I need a completely different name for the race instead of “demon”… tell me, what do you think of Kissrie for the race name? Corny, Cool?
Original: Seirei is a demon who prefers to not use her birthright magic, and thus she is considered flawed among their race. Kii, a male of her race decides that he will marry her (since she is beautiful and kind) since he desires a woman he can protect over a woman who would be his equal. Before he can propose, Seirei saves a lording named Tenoe from an assassination attempt and is captured in turn by Tenoe’s guards when they arrive. Seirei is held captive and is then forced to stay with the lord because Tenoe wishes to study the connection between their two magics.
Correction: Seirei is a member of the Kissrie, a magically adept race similar to humans. She is a very weak member of the Kissrie in magical power and her family has very little political power due to their “diluted blood”. Kii, a childhood friend of Seirei’s and a member of a higher house is trained to be an ambassador to the humans and travels to the Lord Sumae’s manor with Seirei’s family who happened to be heading a similar direction. He decides that Seirei will be his wife and she cares for him as well, but is unsure if it’s love she’s feeling. However, a marriage to him would raise her families power immensely. They talk about making such a commitment, but decide nothing for certain. When they are only a few hours away from the capital Seirei walks Kii near to the road to the manor to say goodbye, agreeing to see him again after his work has been done. Unfortunately, on her way back to her family, Seirei is captured, having endeared herself to the Lord’s son by saving his life. The lord insists on a hostage to be kept to seal the pack and Tenoe the lording asks for it to be Seirei. Though the Kii tries to convince them that it is he as a trained “ambassador” that should be held hostage the Lords son demands and is granted his request that the hostage be Seirei. Kii demands that she be given the choice, and if she disagrees, then he will be the one to stay. The lord agrees and Seirei frustrates Kii by saying yes to the proposal, since she is running from the knowledge that Kii wants to marry her and she hasn’t decided how she feels about that yet.
As you can see, the second is much longer, much more in-depth and even has motivations that will deal quite well with the sub-plots. Since I’m not much of a plotter I find that I tend to start off with all of my ideas as a big mesh that sounds much better in my head than it looks written down on paper. Thus, my first drafts tend to be overly focused on the main plot, with sub plots being thrown in wherever I happen to find them and ignored until I start the editing process. Technically, the rough draft is done, but I’m still adding in pieces, re-arranging and playing. I haven’t written the ending yet, due mostly to me procrastinating. I know how the ending goes, but in the wilds of Nanowrimo, I had been led astray by my own sense of competitiveness (I came in with the second highest total in Calgary though!). In my desperate attempt to get words, I started following my original plot, which I had changed prior to November. The old plot didn’t work and therefore, nothing about the scene was working… yet, I kept adding words to it. Finally I realized what was wrong was that I was being a slave to a part of my outline that no longer fit. It will be great to get in there and change things around.
On a different subject, I went to visit the Forward Motion forum earlier this week and I found a post that I had made months ago, before I’d even put up a website. I mentioned that I tend to read blogs even more than I listen to podcasts. If you go to my links pages you’ll see all of the blogs I heartily endorse you check out, but the point I made in my post was that following people’s blogs tends to feel just a little bit like stalking must.
Often people will talk about things in their blog that are quite personal, and even if they aren’t we are still putting out private information about ourselves. People who have a daily blog will tell you all about what they are doing every day and we the reader will follow along behind them, at just the safe sort of distance used by stalkers who don’t want to get caught. It is a bit of a creepy way of looking at all of the social media programs actually. By far, the worst one that I’ve seen is twitter where people use apps to let others know where they are and how far away from home they are.
Sometimes it feels as if the internet has stolen our safety and given us a sense of anonymity in return, giving us power that we are missing in our own lives. While this fact does sound horrifying and like my story plots above, much worse that it needs to, we need to remember that we are actually the ones in control. It would also help to remember that the same anonymity lets us feel that it’s safe to watch people online with no fear of reprisal. Before we start placing blame, we would do well to look to ourselves first.
Posted in Blogs on August 9th, 2010 by B.A. Matthews | | 9 Comments »
I did this over a year ago now, but when I wrote it, I had hardly a character in mind… something that comes through in the writing, I’m sorry to say. On the other hand, the moment I read it out loud, my mind started turning trying to learn all about who this young daemon was.
Nowadays, I’m still working on the first book with this character, now named Seirei (a Japanese word for ‘ghost’) and I’m about 2/3 of the way through the first draft. I’m hoping to finish the first draft this Julno so that I can start editing and have it ready to show at the SIWC later this year.
Here’s a picture I did of her, once I spent some time figuring out her personality.
Please, let me know what you thought of the writing and, of course, what you think of the art!
