Yes, It Is All My Fault!

Well enough to run errands today, yay! Long day.

Must not fall behind on work work stuff, but also have a tight writing schedule this week. Need to finish the zeroth draft of the current short story and Chapter 7 (neither should be hard with the multiple pages of notes for each I have arrayed), plus I need to think up and preferably write the zeroth draft of another short story I’d like to have ready for a contest due the end of this month.

Of course, the story idea that actually came to mind is the one due TWO months from now, rather than a month from now. Of course.

So I wrote a bunch of notes down for that one and am letting it cook on the backbrain. Hopefully the guys will help me brainstorm up an idea or three tonight for the due-earlier tale. Or perhaps tomorrow, it’s been a long day and not sure how much energy I have left.

These mental crushes, how I amuse myself. I love meeting cool people.

I’m still conflicted about Flipside. There’s so much I’ve missed doing at work due to illness, it’s not really the best time to be completely out of touch for five days. On the other hand, lying in bed sick does not an actual vacation make, and I haven’t really had one since LAST Flipside. So. Flip, flip, flip.

Still coming up heads.

I’ve passed the 150-page point on the novel draft. If I had to make a guess based on where I’m at and how much I haven’t fit in yet, I’d say I have at least that much again to go (probably more, really) but we can pretend for now that it’s the halfway point, since that sounds nice and weighty and accomplished.

It is longer than the old terrible other first novel written long ago, and therefore I’ve now written more words on this project than any other single project to date. Which also sounds like a nice mark of progress.

Yay me!

I waited a couple of days before posting about this, but I just sold another story! While searching for markets one day several months ago I happened across Triangulation: Taking Flight and the theme instantly caught my attention. Five minutes later I was putting aside my current project to open a new file and write the first draft of what would become the 350-word humorous sf flash fiction story “The Reap Assessors”.

As with my first sale, this editor requested minor edits before accepting the story. What I seem to be learning in beginning this seeking-publication process is you have to be willing to chop up your “babies” in order to be paid for getting them out of the nest and flying in the world. Even bits you really like. Which matters more to you–keeping the integrity of your deathless prose as you bled them onto the page, or having 95% of those words reach a wider audience? The answer will mostly likely decide how far your story soars. (And remember, writing for yourself and keeping the deathless prose in the nest is just as valid and potentially satisfying an option, depending on your need.)

While flash fiction doesn’t count toward pro sale status for organizations like SFWA, I had a blastload of fun writing the story and really pleasant correspondence with the editor and am very pleased that it will see print. I’ll post more details here when I have them as to how you, my interested readers, can enjoy the story too.

***

I’m several pages into Chapter 7 on the novel; the chapters are getting more layered and detailed as I figure this novel-writing process out for myself. The first revision pass will be extremely fun, finding with my first readers all the places to stick more cool bits or fold in more layers or explore the world (and laughing about how bad the first few chapters will look by the end). I am still so far away from being done that it seems forever to the finished draft, so I try not to think about that part too much and just keep writing my scenes.

I really, really love this cast. Like, a lot a lot.

***

Last night, talking with Steve, he was orating about one of his literary heroes, Roger Zelazny, who (paraphrased) said at one point that he wanted to be half artist, half hack in his writing: able to create great works, but also have someone ask him for an x,xxx-word story about yyy topic and be able to sit down and turn one out. With my usual far-reaching confidence, I casually replied, “Oh, I can do that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“All right then. Give me a 5,000 word short story…”

“Is there a time limit? I’m not committing to anything until after I finish this novel.”

“Novel comes first.”

“Okay then.”

He gave me the topic and left the room. When he returned two minutes later, I had the story premise, idea, main characters, and basic outline ready, and total confidence I could write about it for 5,000 words.

“That was too easy. You’ll have to try harder than that to stump me.”

He smiled.

It’s been a hectic month here at the Slutbarn and Dream Cafe. I’ve been doing a lot of shop-work, and a lot of writing work. All seems well on the shop end of things, with some minor stresses that should be gone by the end of the month. I’d prefer to babble a bit about the writing-work end.

If you haven’t heard it here before, you have now and will again, but I’m currently in the middle of a novel work-in-progress. As Steve puts it, it’s my “second first novel” so perhaps a bit slower going as I figure out my writer processes and more about how my creative mind works alongside discovering the actual characters and story. I feel I’m past most of the early writer angst hurdles, as part of my work goes toward establishing a foundation of healthy writer habits wherever possible. Last month and this month I’ve learned that blockage or slow movement in my other daily work will definitely slow down my creative writing, just as a certain level of clutter in my home will also slow down the flow of creativity.

My super-cool project of the month is what I want to spend the most time chattering about tonight. I’ve come up with various tricks and approaches along the way (I’ve been working on this book actively or passively since April) to keep me moving forward and undaunted by the ever-growing scope of the project. Most of these involve taking the oh-my-gods huge giant novel thing and breaking it down into smaller manageable less-scary bits. I have notes and colorful brainstorming posterboards and outlines and am on Chapter 5 in the actual novel work. The past month I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and working on some of the thematic elements, setting, and worldbuilding aspects of the story, and I found to my dismay that since I was writing fewer daily pages during this time, I felt like I was drifting further away from being able to “get into the heads” of my characters. Since this piece is all about the cool cast of characters, continuing this trend would be tragic.

First I compiled a master list of all the characters that have shown up for this novel so far. I labeled individual 8.5×11 sheets of paper each with a name of a character from the list, though I only pinned 2-3 sheets to the wall at one time. Next, preferably as part of a brainstorming session with other smart writers, I wrote down onto the labeled sheets several questions about the characters and how they fit into the world and the story, and left the papers up to stare at for a day or two. Then, preferably in another verbal brainstorming session (that’s how I primarily work; yes, Freak Writer here), I picked the answers to the questions, or at least ones I can be happy enough with to get me through the first draft, writing those down on the sheet as well. Finally, to help make my connection with the character more concrete, I wrote a scene (or a story, depending) with that character as the focus, given all the new information I have gathered in the character “interview”.

Now that sounds like a lot of work, and it is, so I won’t make any promises to stick it out for the whole master character list. However, so far it’s quite fun and working smashingly well; tonight I just finished a 15-page 3500-word short story about the first of the characters examined in this manner. Though I don’t think it will work out this smoothly for all the characters I interview, this particular story seems to be relevant enough that if I can likely either sell it as a “standalone” short story then incorporate it into the novel after, or provide it as “bonus” material to promote the novel. Or both. Or something.

I hope after completing a couple of the character sheets and having a feel for the process, that I can continue that work while also actively producing pages directly on the novel more consistently. Sometimes it’s hard to have patience and give the proper space and time for the story to grow; so far I seem to be maintaining the balance well.