Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

My Last Creative Writing Class

Posted: November 30, 2012 in Living and Life, Writing
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Well today we had our last meeting in my English 2265 class, Introduction to Creative Fiction. I don’t think it’ll surprise that many people, but I did very well in this class. Still, it could be difficult at times, especially since I had to write a literary short story with only genre elements. That was rough. Luckily the second draft went very well, so I think that one I could potentially get published.

Well, we did our final critiques and revision exercises in class, someone passed around candy, we filled out some papers meant to grade the teacher (God I love that), and somehow at the end I managed to convince the entire class to join me in a singing of “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley. It was pretty funny, actually. After the class I had to listen to that song on my iPod.

I also turned in my final portfolio for the class, which included my initial draft of Doll’s Game, the revision exercise I had to turn in and read to the class, the global revision (or as I call it, the rewrite) and an essay where I went over how I incorporated the material from the critique session into my short story. I think I’m one of the person to turn their portfolio in, so hopefully my teacher will get to it first. I really would like that to be the case, because I want to send Doll’s Game (or as I renamed it, Animal Child) to a certain new magazine I’ve heard about.

Here’s to a good grade. Have a great weekend.

So Many New Ideas But No Time At The Moment To Write Them

Posted: November 29, 2012 in ideas, Progress Report, short story, Writing
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Last night before I went to bed, I came up with another idea for a short story. It didn’t involve black dog spirits, but it did strike me as an interesting idea, so I got out a sticky note, wrote it down, and tacked it to the tackboard above my desk. The idea was someone who had an unusual addiction (I’m not going to say what this addiction is, for obvious reasons) and what happened to him when he tried to get clean (again, I’m not going to say what happens to him, just to be mysterious). I considered saving it for my creative writing class next semester, where the teacher has a bigger emphasis on literary fiction than my previous teacher, but I felt this story would be better written with some dark, supernatural elements, and besides, I wouldn’t know how to make the conflict interesting if it was just getting over his addiction (there’s enough stories out there, real and otherwise, that are like that).

This makes fourteen stories if you include the black dog idea that’s still forming in the mess that is my head. And yet with my school and work schedules and trying to write Snake in a timely manner (I started Chapter 68 last night), it’s difficult to find time to write them. I probably won’t even consider starting one of these stories until after I finish the first draft of Snake. So until then, I’ll just have to keep them on the tackboard till then.

But after Snake is finished? Well maybe I’ll do some short story writing. It’ll be fun and good practice for me. And who knows? I could get some of them published in magazines, or I could create a short story collection and put it online as an e-book for $1.99. I really won’t know until I start writing.

Until then, I’ll keep collecting ideas as they come to me. When Snake is done, I’ll have plenty of work to keep me occupied until Reborn City is published and I’m ready to tackle its sequel and editing Snake. And keeping busy is a good thing in my book.

The Final Revision of Doll’s Game/Animal Child?

Posted: November 28, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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Well, we went over my revision exercise in class, and overall everyone loved how I tweaked my short story. Or perhaps “tweak” is too light a term for what I did. Anyway, they gave me some final suggestions for how to improve the story, so all I have to do is edit the story one more time and then turn it in with a few other documents for a grade by December 6th. After that, I’ll probably wait until I have the actual grade, but I’ll try submitting Animal Child somewhere for publication. I can already think of a few places it could go.

Let’s hope that I can write an awesome story that is also literary and not horror and get it published. Fingers crossed.

Snake & Black Dogs

Posted: November 27, 2012 in ideas, Novel, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Well, it’s been an interesting day for me, and I’m going to end it by watching NCIS and writing during the commercial breaks. I’ll start with the first chapter of Part IV of Snake (wasn’t that a small break?). This part is where the Snake is offered help from a powerful sponsor in his goal to bring down the mafia family he hates so much (why does he hate it? You’ll have to read the novel once it comes out).  This section is much smaller than Part III, with only sixteen chapters, but what sixteen chapters they are! The Snake doesn’t just meet allies: the family he’s fighting calls on its biggest and baddest hitman; someone comes dangerously close to the Snake’s true identity; the Snake has an episode; and there’s a sex scene. Yes, you read that right. A sex scene. It’ll be awkward to write.

WOOF!

As for the “Black Dogs” part of that title up there, I got another idea for a short story. Or perhaps the beginning of an idea for a short story. Black dogs are more than just cute; in folklore, particularly Celtic and English folklore, the black dog is a portent of death and a messenger of the underowrld. Occasionally they also double as benevolent spirits that watch over children and traverlers, but more often they are not something you want to run into on a dark, lonely night. So I’m going to write a short story based on the idea of a black dog spirit. First I’ve got to think of a context for it that’ll be exciting and not relatively used. Nothing’s come to mind yet, but I’ll come up with something; I did with the dybbuk idea.

You know, now that I think about it, this’ll make 13 short story ideas on my tackboard. What do you think? Should I create a collection of short stories and put it on the Internet as an e-book? I could write several of them over winter break. Let me know what you think.

Snake: Part III Done

Posted: November 25, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Part III: Search and Rescue was the longest part of Snake I’ve written yet, a whopping twenty-nine chapters. I am happy to say that after I finished my homework this evening, I worked on the last two chapters for this section, and I finished it up! Can I just say, woo-hoo! There are eight parts of Snake, including the prologue and epilogue, and therefore with Part III marks the halfway point for the parts (but then again, the Parts are just for organizational purposes, so they’re no indicators of length left to go; the chapters do a better job of that, truthfully). A the end of this part, the Snake has finally gotten back what he sought out to get back when he started hunting mafioso, so he’s now got to fight to keep it, and he’ll be getting a little help along the way.

However, I think I’ll take a small break before I start Part IV: Alliance. Maybe I’ll edit a short story or two. It is about time I take a second look at Animal Child. Or maybe I’ll sit back an read a book. It’s all up to me, at any rate.

So before you click away from this post, I’d like to update you on word and page counts, like I’ve been doing after I’ve finished the previous parts (and when I say “page counts”, I mean when the pages are 8.5″ x 11″ paper, double spaced, and 12-point Times New Roman font, so take that into account before making a loud whistle). The page and word count for the prologue was fourteen pages and 3,979 words. From Part I, forty-one pages and 10,177 words. From Part II, ninety-six pages and 23,801 words. And from Part III (cue drum roll)…one-hundred and twenty-six pages and 30,733 words. In total, this leads to two-hundred and seventy-seven pages and 68,690 words.

So not yet as long as Reborn City, but it’s getting there, isn’t it? And if I’d stayed in NaNoWriMo, I’d have done an excellent first try for Part III alone.

I’ll keep everyone updated on my progress. Please continue to support me, and I’ll let you know what’s what with both RC and Snake.

Snake: Halfway Done!!!

Posted: November 21, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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With the first draft, that is!

This evening, while waiting for the laundry to finish, I was working on Snake. Much later than I should’ve been, actually. But what does that matter, because I got three chapters out of the way. And one of them was Chapter 52. Multiply by two, and you get the number of chapters in Snake, at least in this first draft.

So yeah, I’m halfway through, and I’m happy as hell! This chapter was actually kind of difficutl to write, to tell you the truth. This chapter was the first time in several chapters that a character had appeared, and I wanted to do an update on what she’d been doing during that time. However when I was editing Reborn City, I’d been told that doesn’t always work very well, and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t work here, so I had to go back and rewrite what I’d written (thanks again, Matt; it’s good to have your counsel in so many ways). In the end, I used dialogue and a really creepy mafioso to explain what had happened to that character, which made for a much more interesting way of telling this story.

In a way, I wish I could show you this chapter, but not only does it reveal one or two plot details I wish to keep concealed, it’s a little too disturbing for some audiences. What can I say? I write creepy stuff, but I know not everyone wants to read it. They prefer other stuff found here on my blog.

So I’m halfway done, and I’ve still got fifty-two more chapters to do. But hey, if I can get from chapter thirty-five to chapter fifty-two in twenty days (with a ton of schoolwork and whatever getting in the way), I can probably tackle the rest in that amount of time. Who knows? I might be done by New Years, God willing!

Wish me luck. I’m going to bed.

Some Thoughts on Romance

Posted: November 20, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
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I think at one point or another, if we haven’t written romance stories, we’ve all included romance in our works. I know I have. And last night, I was thinking about romance in writing, and what it took to write romance. I hope you’ll forgive me if I go over this topic a little bit.

Now, some writers say you actually have to draw on personal experience in romance in order to write about it. I disagree; I’ve never been in a relationship before, and I’m also one of those types who doesn’t need to be in a relationship in order to feel fulfilled. So not a lot of experience there. And yet I’m pretty sure I can write stories with romantic elements, I’ve read enough books and seen enough movies to see how it’s done: two people meet (I’m not saying boy meets girl here, because that’s no longer necessarily the case); there’s the initial spark of attraction; some sort of obstacle keeps them apart; they get over said obstacle and get together; if the author wants to explore the relationship even further, there will be more obstacles between the characters and true happiness; and once they get over those, it’s supposed to be happily ever after (unless there’s a sequel).

And the elements that go into such stories are only limited by three things: how much romance plays into the plot of the story; the setting the story takes place in; and the author’s imagination. For the first, you have either your typical romances, where the whole plot revolves around someone (usually a woman, because that’s how these stories typically work) finding fulfillment with a man (because once again, that’s how those stories typically work), and the travails she goes through trying to reach that happy state (pretty much most of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children books). Then there are other stories that, while having romantic elements, don’t focus exclusively on them. Instead the romantic elements are used to highlight the story and/or explain the motivations of certain characters (like the various romances in Harry Potter). Of course there are also stories that hint at romantic attractions but don’t have characters play on them or anything, but I’m not going to focus on them (though if you want an example, there’s Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud).

Next you have settings, and this plays more into a story more than you think. For example, if you want to have a character unable to be with their lover because of an arranged marriage, it makes more sense to have that in a historical drama (or in a country where that is still common) than in Midwest America where I doubt that sort of thing happens. In the same vein of thought, if you have a story taking place in Victorian England, it makes very little sense to have a montage scene or a musical number out of an 80’s movie unless your story is a musical to begin with. So as much as we tend to forget the setting, it plays a big role in how much you can do in the world of the characters.

Finally, you have my favorite part in this equation: the author’s imagination, and this is especially useful when coming up with obstacles for the characters to get over. Perhaps there’s someone else that is courting the character (I think this is what’s used in The Hunger Games and Twilight, though the main draw of the latter might just be sexy teen boys). Or perhaps the characters are from different social classes, and being together would be tanatamount to social suicide. Or perhaps the main character is leading a campaign and as much as they’d like to focus on love, that would be detrimental to the war effort. Or perhpas one character had a traumatic childhood experience and has trouble getting close to people. Or the romance is forbidden (religion, politics, orientation, etc). Or one character is still getting over the loss of a previous love and has trouble moving on. Or a thousand other options; it’s all up to the author to decide.

So, what makes a good combination of any of these? That’s up to the author, really; besides putting all these factors together, one has to write and write it well. Otherwise, who will be interested?

Snake: Longest Chapter Yet

Posted: November 19, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Someone’s been a glutton!

Okay, so I just finished chapter forty-seven of Snake, and so far, it’s the longest chapter I’ve written of Snake, a whopping ten pages (double spaced and 12-point font Times New Roman) and 2,424 words, beating out the 2nd longest chapter by about seventy words. This chapte is important to the plot, because this is a point where the Snake really starts moving toward his ultimate goal (what that is, I can’t say, but more people are going to die for it). I guess that’s a pretty good excuse for it to be very long, though I can tell you that the chapter afterwards will be relatively short.

At this point, I’ve got about nineteen chapters in Part III of Snake left before I finish this part, and I’m also very close to the halfway point in the book. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to blog about finishing Part III and taking a little break, maybe just to write a short story or watch a movie or even play video games because I don’t usually play them! I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll let you know when I’m there.

NaNoWriMo Is For Those Who Can Devote Time To It

Posted: November 18, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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And unfortunately, I can’t devote my time to it. I’d like to though; I’d like to be able to spend hours each and every day just typing away on my computer, pushing out word after word to create an awesome story that people will want to read. The only time I would stop writing is if I was hungry and wanted to make something to eat; or if I had to run an errand; or if I wanted to work out; or if it was just too late in the day, so let’s forget work and just play.

Sadly, I cannot live that sort of lifestyle right now. Instead, I spend more than ten hours a week in classes, and close to that amount at a part-time job. In addition to that, I spend several hours over the week working on homework, reading books and writing papers and doing projects, and that’s especially so in the last 3-4 weeks of class before finals. Add into that meals, sleep (essential, even in college), errands, and just finding time to relax, there’s only so much time to write.

So I’m going to have to drop out of the National Novel Writing Month challenge. It’s just too much at the moment to try and get out fifty-thousand words in thirty days with the workload I have. I’ll still work on writing Snake and editing Reborn City, but I won’t do it with the focus of just getting 50K words written.  Instead, I’ll work on them with the hope that eventually I’ll get them done and share them with everyone.

Am I sad that I can’t finish the challenge? Yes I am; I was getting so much done at the beginning of the month, I thought that if I couldn’t get 50K words, I’d get very close to 30K. Not so at this point. But hey, look on the bright side: I managed to write twelve chapters of Snake and type out 12,329 words. Not bad for my first time, right? That’s more than your average short story.

Maybe next year, if I don’t have that much of a workload, I’ll try again at NaNoWriMo. In the meantime, I’m off to work on chapter forty-seven of Snake. Wish me luck.

Write And Don’t Be Ashamed

Posted: November 17, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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A classmate of mine in my creative writing class sent me (and the rest of the class) an email today. In the email, she said her mother and her aunt had wanted to see the short story she’d written, but the problem was her story dealt with subjects like drinking and random hook-ups. Guess what? Her mom and aunt don’t approve of those sorts of activities.

So my classmate–whom I’ll refer to as “Freya”, because that’s as far from her real name as you can get–whipped up a little short story that doesn’t involve any of that, and asks all her classmates to take a look and edit it if we can spare the time.

Naturally, my instinct as a writer is not to encourage this, so I write back to Freya and tell her that her mom and aunt should be proud that she’s grown into a strong, independent woman with her own thoughts and feelings, and they should be proud that she wrote a story with her own original ideas in them. If she has to be ashamed of her own work–which for romantic fiction set against the background of a wild college party, is actually a quality story–what’s the point of even writing the story in the first place? If Freya’s family doesn’t like the topics voiced in the story, then she should just tell them so, and leave it at that. If they still want to see it, then show it to them. These women might actually like it, and might also be fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, but are too proud to admit it.

I hope Freya get’s my message and doesn’t feel she needs to hide, because honestly, if a writer can’t be proud of their work, or at least admit they wrote such subjects, what’s there for the future of writing and fiction? Be proud of your work writers; it’s your brainchild, after all. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, no matter what objectionable material within. Instead, shout it to the world, “I wrote a story and it has stuff people don’t like in it but I don’t care.”

If I didn’t do that, why would I bother writing a novel with a serial killer in it?

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