Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Doll’s Game: Done For Now

Posted: November 14, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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I just finished with the first draft of the rewrite of Doll’s Game. And yes, I said I was renaming it “Animal Child”, but you all are more familiar with the title Doll’s Game, so for now I’ll continue calling it that. The new version of the story is four pages shorter, and doesn’t cover as much ground as the earlier version. And unlike the original version, I like this one much better. In fact, I think this draft kicks the old draft’s butt, and actually stands the chance of being published somewhere, which I certainly don’t mind.

Well, now it’s time for the next step in the process for short stories I’m trying to publish: I save the story and put it away for later, when I can edit it with fresh eyes. I’m pretty sure that when I do the edits, I’ll be doing a lot of work on the middle and ending sections of the stories more than the beginning section, just because those sections involve important character important, so I have to make sure those sections are good sections.

In the meantime, I have some projects and papers to write for class, and then I have work to do on my novel-that-is-in-its-final-stages Reborn City and my novel-in-progress Snake. Of course, the former requires more work than either of the latter, which may mean I’ll have less time to devote to NaNoWriMo. Ah, the troubles of a college student.

I have to go now, so I’ll write more later. Happy Wednesday.

Rewriting “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 13, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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As I’ve said in previous posts, I’m working on editing the short story I’m writing for my creative writing class, Doll’s Game. One of the biggest criticisms I got on that short story when we workshopped it was that for a little girl who’s been held captive and abused for most of her life, she adapts to the outside world rather quickly.

So now I’m writing a version of the story showing the events of the main character’s first few days on the outside through her perspective, and since she hasn’t had much human contact, she has a rather unique point of view that’s been challenging to write. Then again, I like the challenge, so what’s the problem?

I’m also trying to rename the story, seeing as in the act of a total rewrite, a title that worked under one circumstance doesn’t work under another. Since kids growing up in the sort of environment my main character is growing up in tend to be feral, I’m going with “Animal Child’ for now, but it’s subject to change. Hopefully a better title that fits the direction of the story will come along.

Anyway, I better get back to work; I’m two-thirds of the way with this rewrite, and I need to do a little more if I want to get to three-fourths. Wish me luck.

“Doll’s Game”–Beginning the Revision Process

Posted: November 10, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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In my creative writing class, I have to do a revision exercise due two days after my workshop date. Yes, that means I have to turn in a new draft on Sunday. By noon, too. Jeez, what if I want to sleep past one in the afternoon?

Well, I can’t sleep in that late apparently, not without getting a lowered grade. So I did my revision exercise and I plan to send it in after I finish writing this post. What I had to do was take a certain section of the story and, taking into account all the suggestions I got on the day of my workshop, rewrite it. And that’s what I did, editing one of the early sections of Doll’s Game. And now, I think I’ll work on the rest of the short story, doing an entirely new version of the story based on all the feedback and critiques I got on Friday.

What does that mean, though? Basically I’ll be writing an entirely new story with the same main motif at the center. What was that motif? A girl raised in captivity by her kidnapper gets free and gets a real shock when she escapes. The original story focused on her entire life after she escaped, but now I’ll be focusing on her time in captivity, and what happened immediately after the escape.

And yes, I do write that sort of creepy subject material. Why? I blame a childhood trauma I wrote about several posts back.

But back to the main theme of this post: I’m basically doing an entire rewrite. At the center will be the main character and her experience, but it’s less about her lfie growing up after her trauma and more about what happened immediately afterwards, which is just as terrifying, if not more so, than her time in captivity. Imagine how terrifying an unfamiliar world might be after escaping one that was familiar but filled with pain and fear. It’s horrible.

Which works to my strengths, since I’m writing disturbing material whenever I’m not writing a term paper or something along those lines. But still, it’s going to be quite a lot of work.

Oh well, that’s the challenge I’ve taken up, isn’t it? And besides, I’ve got about a month. If I work now, I should have plenty of time to do any necessary revision. And if I get a good grade, who knows? I may seek to get it published somewhere. I’m not sure where, though; even hardcore horror magazines might pass on a story involving this sort of story if they feel it’s a little too disturbing for their tastes.

Well, wish me luck. I’ve got some work to do.

“Doll’s Game” Post-Workshop

Posted: November 9, 2012 in ideas, short story, Writing
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Alright, so I just got back from lunch, and now I’m writing about what happened at the workshop, where Doll’s Game was discussed and we talked about ways to improve it. Surprisingly, people didn’t hate it. Some actually liked it, and one person said that compared to the other stories we’ve read this semester, mine was “a breath of fresh air” (I’m going to chalk up that last part to the fact that I’m probably the only person besides the teacher in the class who’s ever been published, so I might have a little more experience than my classmates).

However, there were plenty of things to be improved upon. One was that my story spans about twenty years, summarizing unimportant bits while going into detail about life-changing bits. The gist was that all this information would make a great book as well as a novel (not that I’d write such a novel; in addition to the projects already in progress, I don’t want to write something that has nothing to do with horror). However, my classmates and my teacher recommended that instead of making a novel, I should focus on when my character Renee is eight years old and her life is changed forever, which sounds challenging and interesting to write.

There were some other parts that were pointed out as implausible, and now that I think about it, I can see the logic in this. So I’ll have to fix those areas up as well.

So I’ve got to do some rewriting to do, starting with a short revision exercise that I’ll do over the weekend. Finally I’ll turn in a rewrite in early December, and aftar I get the grade…well who knows? Maybe I’ll have something publishable. Fingers crossed and hope for the best, right?

Workshopping “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 9, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Some of you know that I wrote a short story for my creative-writing course, Doll’s Game, and that I turned it in last week. You may also remember that I thought it was the worst piece of fiction I’d ever written in my college career, and I made a point of telling my classmates that it would be the worst story they read this semester.

Well, I stood corrected on that last point: mine’s the second-worst. The grand prize goes to the guy who’s story, although interesting in terms of plot, had so many point-of-view switches that it left me dizzy. Not too mention the guy couldn’t properly signify dialogue to save his life. It just took down the quality of the story so much.

But today I’m getting my story reviewed. And I am not looking forward to it one bit. I mean come on, my strength is in scary stories, not literary ones, and my plot goes all over the place. I sent everyone the link to my recently-published alien invasion short story Ripple just to make up for the quality of Doll’s Game.

Well, maybe they’ll give me an idea to improve the story. Who knows? I’ll let you guys know how it goes after class and we’ll see. Wish me luck.

Update on the Self-Publishing Front–Part 2

Posted: November 8, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report
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Okay, remember my last post, where I said I’d probably set up my press as a sole proprietorship? Well, I got an email from an uncle of mine who has to deal with lawyers from time to time (including his brother-in-law), and he said I’d do better with an LLC. I believe him, but I also plan to talk to my other uncle on that side of the family, who, although not in business, is a lawyer, jsut to check one or two things about the differences and the benefits and disadvantages of LLCs and sole proprietorships.

So, just wanted to let you know about that. I’ll hopefully figure this out quickly and won’t have any problems setting things up. Wish me luck.

News on the Self-Publishing Front

Posted: November 8, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
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I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but I’m preparing to self-publish my science-fiction novel Reborn City (still being looked over by a friend at this moment, hope for some new news soon). I’ve also mentioned that I’ll be starting up my own independent publishing press, both as a way to gain more legal control over my published work and as a way to gain maximum profit if, God-willing, my books are picked up by a major publishing company.

Well, I contacted Ohio State’s Student Legal Services to see if they had any advice in that area, because I have no idea whether or not forming these sorts of businesses requires any paperwork to be filed or fees to be paid to the state or whatever. They emailed me today, about an hour after I’d sent my email to them, attaching a document with all the different business types here in Ohio and what was required to create any of them. Looking over the document, I think my best bet would be to create a sole proprietorship, which would give me all the control over the business and its assets, and all I’d have to do would be to file a form with Ohio’s Secretary of State if I’m using a business name other than my own (which I plan to do). I’ll probably download both the document SLS sent me and the forms for the business once I can get to a printer, so until then I’ll be making sure no one else has the name I plan to use for the press (I’ll let you know what it is as soon as the paperwork’s filed and I have everything in order).

You know, this self-publishing process is easier than I thought it might be. So far, the only fees I might accrue are copyright and trademark fees, especially given I’ll be formatting my work as e-books and the sites I’ll be using don’t charge for the formatting. Hopefully my books will be successful as well (fingers crossed). Now I just have to put the final touches on Reborn City, get a cover, set up the business, set a release date, and do some advertising. Not too much trouble, right?

A Plethora of Short Stories

Posted: November 7, 2012 in ideas, short story
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Or to be more specific, short story ideas.

You see, over the past couple of weeks I’ve had several bursts of inspiration, each leading to an idea for a short story. Today, I’ve reached ten ideas I could run with. The bad news? It’s National Novel Writing Month, and while there’s no rule excluding short story writing during NaNoWriMo, I want to focus on my two novels, one being looked over and edited by a friend, the other at forty-one chapters with the forty-second on its way.

But you know, there’s a silver lining in all this. If I can get through Part III of Snake by the end of the month, I might sit down and punch out one or two of those short stories. And who knows? That might lead to me working on several more. I could end up having a whole collection of short stories…which I could put out as a collective e-book. Oh, that’s a great idea. One sci-fi novel, one thriller, a collection of short stories. Sounds like the beginning of a great bibliography, if you ask me.

So I’ll keep collecting ideas. If I come up with thirteen, I’ll know it’s meant to be for me to do a short story collection. I even have a title in mind (but I’m not sharing it here; it’ll be a surprise).

NaNoWriMo Day 4: Progressing on the Snake

Posted: November 4, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Yes, it’s a gruesome image, but it works so well with what’s happening right now in the story.

I just finished a chapter on Snake, so I thought I’d discuss some of what’s going on in the world of Snake and in my life. First, I’d like to discuss how I’m doing so far in my first NaNoWriMo. So fat, about as well as I could hope. With classes, homework, and the need to relax and sleep (and not always at the same time), I’ve gotten about 4 chapters done, or one a day. Of course, these chapters are all less than six pages, so it’s not something to go wild about. However, I did add a chapter to Part I of the story, and I’ve gotten the first three chapters of Part III finished.

Actually, make that two chapters. I usually look over a chapter again after I finish it, and so far I haven’t looked over Chapter 38 yet. But I don’t think I’ll be changing that much; it’s pretty good as I wrote it.

So, I probably won’t finish Snake by November 30. I probably won’t write 50,000 words either. But hey, I’m getting a lot done, and I’ve gotten to a very important part in the story, one where the Snake’s brutal attacks on the mafia family he’s been stalking is starting to have its consequences.

And none of these consequences necessarily affect the Snake.

So I’ll let you know if I happen to finish Part III earlier than expected. In the meantime, I hope you all are having a good time with NaNoWriMo, and good luck to each and every one of you.

Submitting “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 2, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Today I had to turn into my class the short story I wrote, “Doll’s Game”, and can I just say it’s the worst piece of fiction I’ve written since I entered college? I’m not kidding, it’s just baaaad. I even made a point of telling my classmates that. Why do I think it’s bad? Because it’s literary, which I’m terrible at. I seriously prefer a scary story with demons or serial killers, but I can’t submit that sort of story in this class. Otherwise I’d turn in my succubus story for consideration.

But hey, who knows? I may think it’s a horrible story, but my classmates may disagree with me. They may actually like it, and give me helpful suggestions that will improve the story enough that I might want to submit it somewhere for publication. Who knows?

Well, in a week we’ll know what I should do with it, and whether or not I can make a diamond out of a lump of coal. I’ll let you know then.

And speaking of short stories, I’ve got one coming out Monday. Look out for it, it’s a science fiction story called Ripple. I’m looking forward to it.

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