Dragging Up Old Stuff

June 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Monday I was mostly working on covers for those three stories. I’m still not crazy about them, but since I’m not a graphic artist I figure I’ll just go with what I have. Three stories are ready to go on KDP, but I haven’t pulled the trigger yet because I still want to do some more research. I’m bad like that.

Today I only got in 45 minutes of writing so far, although the day is still relatively young. I did about 1000 words on a silly project I started a long time ago, a long-form seat-of-the-pants story about teenagers meeting vampires, and the vampires really are horrible monsters. I have no idea where this is going, which is sort of the point of the project; no editing, no looking back. I figure I can do a couple thousand more words today.

However, it’s slower than when I have full creative voice kicked in, and part of that is because I have to look back to remember what I was doing before. These are half-finished stories I started years ago, and while I remember all of them, I need to go make sure I’m not screwing up some important detail. That doesn’t really happen when you do a whole story from scratch, beginning to end, because it’s fresh in your mind. I think I might be better off just starting some new stuff instead of finishing the old. So why bother?

I guess I just hate to leave things half-done.

Filed under Useless Blog-Like Non-Content, Writing Process

Dean Wesley Smith Gave Me an Attitude Adjustment

May 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’m a big fan of Dean Wesley Smith‘s blog about publishing and writing. he has an excellent series up called Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing, but it’s more than that. It’s about killing the idiotic myths that get in the way of new writers… well, more specifically, some of the idiotic myths that  get in my way as a new writer. The most recent entry is all about this last point, because all of these obstacles boil down to fear.

There are some other things in his blog I didn’t really get, most specifically about his admonition to not rewrite–well, he does say there are some authors for whom rewriting works, but for a newbie he recommends against it–and working in creative voice. I understood these things on a superficial level, but didn’t understand the why, until very recently.

How I finally got it: Read more of this post

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Themes as Little Darlings that May Have to Be Killed

May 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Clarifications up front for terms as I use them in this post:

  • "Plot" refers to the story as an identifiable structure, a sequence of events from beginning to conclusion. This is the sort of thing that can be summarized or outlined, as in, "Prota Gonist leaves his house in the morning to go to work. He winds up fighting traffic, avoiding potential accidents, and overcoming similar obstacles on the way. When he gets there, his boss warns him about his lateness, and Prota Gonist quits at the end of the day. When he gets home, he puts a For Sale sign on his car and takes a job (previously offered) at a greengrocer’s next door to his house."
  • "Theme" refers to messages or meanings within a story. For example, "Wasted time, aggravation, and danger can outweigh the extra money you get from a job."
  • "Little Darlings" is a writer’s term (I forget who coined it, King maybe?) for things in a work that the writer has fallen in love with and cannot bear to destroy, no matter how bad it may be for the work as a whole.

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Kindle as a Revision Tool

April 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I finally picked up an eReader, specifically a Kindle 3 WiFi. 3G would undoubtedly be useful if I were wont to leave my house without a court order, so I’ll save the $50 delta for now. I think the Pearl eInk panels are finally ready for prime time; the older screens on the Nook and Kindle 2 look a bit yellowed and faded, even under harsh store lighting. Please note that at home my Kindle 3 looks a little washed as well. Stores are extremely bright. It’s one reason that TVs are so freaking clipped at the top end of the brightness scale; they have to compete with an army of fluorescence. But I digress.

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Channeling Ta-Coumba Aiken

April 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The novel I’ve been working on is about a painter. This was a conscious decision; I thought writing about a musician would be a bad idea because (1) I’m so close to the topic that I would naturally write it at a high technical level, thus alienating laymen, and (2) I thought it wouldn’t translate quite as well to print. Writing about an author, uh, well I guess it works if you’re more famous and a much better writer than I am, but it just sounded like a horrible idea. Visual arts, however, can lend themselves to some really nice evocative language.

The problem is that I know zilch about painting.

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