You know, writing a few hundred words every day (sure, for the last three days only, but still) has been working remarkably well.
It helps that I “figured out” the major sticking point a week ago (October 9th, so 8 days!), but regardless, I’ve still managed to plug away at the novel more effectively and added more words in the last week than I had in all of September. Woo!
I can’t wait to be finished with this novel! I have so many other projects that are just waiting for this one to go off to the editor!
With that, I’d better get back at it… fifteen minutes of writing a day. Turns out? Real useful!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Shift in Perspective
I’ve been listening to some writer-focused podcasts recently, and one of them said something that resonated with me quite nicely. The basic thrust of it was that when we (writers, artists, ‘creatives’) set goals, we often set such insurmountable ones that we are doomed to failure before we even start.
The example they used, since they are both writers themselves on said podcast (“Unpublished”), was having a ridiculous word count expectation, or waiting for a good day to write. Instead, they do 10-15 minutes of writing every day. Every day! Consistent, without fail effort to result in consistent output.
Most of the time I’m writing novels, I’m aiming for 2,000 words a day. The idea was that at that rate, I could finish a draft in about two months, polish it up for about two months (including professional editing, obvi), and then get 2-3 novels out a year. Bam!
The reality has been closer to one novel a year, even at that rate, and the reason being is that it’s really hard to sustain while also doing all the other stuff I have to do to not starve to death. So I would write 10,000 words a month instead of 14,000 words a week, and I’d feel like a failure.
But 10-15 minutes? A few hundred words? I can do that.
I’m calling it now. Starting today, I am absolutely writing for 15 minutes a day, every day, unless I’m bleeding out of my eyeballs.
And even then I might just write with my eyes shut…
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Ahsoka
I’m really enjoying the new Ahsoka show. I loved Andor… possibly the best Star Wars ever made? But Ahsoka has also been a pleasure. Whoever is in charge has been cranking out top-notch stuff recently… even Boba Fett was okay. Not great, but certainly not bad.
Ahsoka herself, as a character, is probably my second favourite of the Jedi? I like Rey a little more (although I liked her a little more than now when she was the daughter of nobody… her being… well, who she is… is more disappointing, but I still think she’s a great character). She’s got depth and nuance that Jedi often lack. The white sabers is still an interesting choice… I kinda wish they had gone with yellow or orange or something with colour, but that’s probably a petty complaint.
Anyway. I’m up to Episode 4, so no spoilers, but I am really enjoying it. Highly recommend to anyone on the fence!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
I Figured it Out...
Well, that’s overselling my contribution.
On Saturday, I mentioned to a friend the issues I was having with the ending to the novel, and he suggested something that, while it wouldn’t work, it did give me an idea for what will work!
I’m so excited! I can finish the novel, and then all I have to do is rewrite, like, half of it! Woo!
… wait.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Happy Turkey Day!
I don’t remember if our (Canadian) Thanksgiving is today, or tomorrow, but either way, much turkey is about to be consumed.
I love eating turkey. It’s delicious, it’s a great vehicle for sauces and flavours, is fantastic in leftovers, roasts, pasta dishes… really, a very versatile bird! One that I make periodically, not just for holidays, but also definitely for most holidays!
This year will be quite sedate, which is fine by me. No big meal, no big plans or get-togethers. For the best, since I have a lot of work that needs getting done, and it will let me focus on the book.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Finishing a Job
I was hired for a short painting commission (2 weeks), and I’m just wrapping it up.
There is an undeniable sense of accomplishment (and light terror) in finishing any artistic endeavor. There’s always the fear that the client or customers won’t like it… and I only get paid half up-front, which means if they really don’t like it I have spent a lot of time and effort for not very much money at all.
Of course, writing books isn’t very different there. That’s a tonne of time and effort for, fundamentally, negative money. At least so far… maybe one day I will make money from it. Who knows!? Stranger things have happened!
But regardless, it’s really nice to finish. To see the results of all my hard work, to be content with how it turns out, and to be able to move past this project, and onto another.
… now if I could just do the same with this novel…
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Argh-tober
Dang. Really wanted to have the novel done before September ended. T’was not to be. The novel is taunting me… there are really only a few thousand words between me and “The End” of this story.
Making sure they’re the right (or at least approximately right) words has been the struggle. But I’ll get there… I can feel it. Almost done! Almost done. Gods, so many months of “almost done”… well, no point in lamenting what could’ve been. Have to focus on the now. And now, I have to finish this novel soon if I want to get it out and published in 2023. Which, I assure you, I do.
Lots of things to distract and get in the way. Lots of reasons why it wasn’t finished in September, and very few of those reasons have disappeared. My life from October until mid-January tends to be a long, torturous misery, punctuated by restless nights and increasingly difficult days. But it is what it is, and all that. No point in letting it stop me.
To put it another way: if I didn’t do things because they’re difficult, I wouldn’t do anything.
So! On that cheery note, I’m going to see if I can get a bit of work done before the proverbial excrement hits the rotating air circulation device.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Cause and Effect
You know, I’ve been told many times that the key to success in these kinds of endeavors (artistic, primarily, but also social) is consistency.
You keep showing up, doing the best you can, doing stuff you’re passionate about, and results will follow.
After seven years of doing this, I think I can confidently say that’s total BS. Consistency seems to be no assurance of anything aside from a fixed amount of time you will spend on a thing. And that’s not bad, I suppose… I know every morning how long I am going to spend writing, or updating my blog, or whatever, but the numbers that are associated with those efforts are all over the place. This month I sold ten novels, last month I sold five, and the month before that was seven. I suppose the numbers are too small to be predictable. Still, annoying.
Ah well. I think I finally know how I’m going to finish this book. More on the weekend!
Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!
A Full Week!
Didn’t mean to go a full seven days without an update, and yet, here we are.
I had to attend a funeral Wednesday last week, and that kinda ruined everything leading up to and most of the days leading away from that event. Which, I suppose, appropriate.
I wasn’t super close with the man who died. Close enough to attend the funeral, I suppose? He was nice, and he was old, so it was kinda expected but still hard.
Won’t be dwelling on it any more, though. Don’t really have time. A couple significant projects are coming due, and one of them has the potential to be long-term, but also require a lot of up-front labour (as is so often the case). Still, nothing that will take me away from writing… in fact, if I’m lucky, it might let me do a lot more writing!
Still have to finish this novel! Gah!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Itchy Face
I have weird allergies. They aren’t periodic, they aren’t predictable, and when they hit, it feels like I have ants crawling inside my skin. Extremely unpleasant.
That stated, I do have a few predictable allergies. I’m allergic to insulin, for example. That’s predictable. I’m allergic to wasps and bees, apparently.
But this face-scratching allergy… it flares up every few months and makes either opening or closing my eyes (also known as “blinking”) really unpleasant.
Thankfully, I have a solid treatment… writing! By focusing on something completely outside my body, I can sort of forget that my eyes are trying to crawl out of my head.
It’s nice to have work that I love so much it allows me to feel less discomfort. Gotta get the novel finished… I’m thinking today might be the day! Fingers crossed!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Are Marvel Movies Sci-Fi?
This is mostly a rhetorical question. The MCU films are MCU films, and that’s about that.
But they flirt with both sci-fi and fantasy. Magic, of the type Dr. Strange and the Scarlet Witch use, is normally relegated to fantasy. On the other hand, spaceships, laser weapons, and power armour is almost always sci-fi. And then you get the weird middle grounds where you have spaceships pulled by magical goats, or semi-sentient warhammers, or whatever Loki does.
Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
Any magic, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from technology.
It’s just a weird thought experiment, I suppose. Most “genres” are social contracts of expectations, after all… nobody says you can’t have elves in your epic space opera, but if you do you’d better have a good justification for it (see “Pandora’s Star” for an example). And likewise, power armour in high fantasy certainly isn’t unheard of, but you have to go that extra mile to justify it.
I’m not much into genre-bending myself. I’m happy to stay in my lane for the most part. Although my pirate epic that I’m planning has some anachronistic elements… stuff that’s “out of time” for the period in which I am writing… but that’s only because I think telling a good story is far more important than rigorously adhering to historical accuracy!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Another Chapter Done!
Chapters are weird things. I mean, most of the time they sort of make sense… this is a logical place to build some tension or for the perspective to switch or what have you… but sometimes they just sort of… are.
Like the chapters I’m working on right now. Each one could, theoretically, be the last one of the novel. The one I’m working on right now won’t be, because I kind of know what needs to happen for it, but the one after this one? Maybe! And if not that one, then almost certainly the one after that. I already have the final few paragraphs sketched out in my mind, and it’s just a question of getting to the point where it makes sense to write those down.
I am legitimately optimistic about finishing it soon, though. All the pieces are now in place, and it’s just a question of going through the moves.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Being Broke Sucks
Okay, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I tell myself that a lot these days… a lot of situations involve really bad stuff, but it could always be worse. So I shouldn’t complain.
But man, being broke sucks. Every little thing that breaks or fails or even hiccups is a terror. I can’t afford to replace anything, and I often can’t afford to repair anything. So it just gets used until I can’t use it any more, and then I make do without.
For example, I bought a nice coffee machine two years ago. It was nice! Not super high-end, but it made good coffee and did the grinding itself. A nice machine. It died one month after the warranty ran out (because of course it did) and so now… I mostly don’t drink coffee at home any more. I still have a little French press that I use occasionally, but that’s it… when it dies, I’m out of coffee making devices for who-knows-how-long.
But what luxury to complain about not being able to make coffee, amirite? There are people who would kill for the freedom to complain about not making coffee. So I shouldn’t complain.
I just wish everything wasn’t so expensive. Everything! Editing costs, art, advertising (especially advertising)…
I guess writing is still free. I should go do more of that.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Shocking Expenses
You’d think by now I’d be used to it. Every month I have the same approximate bills from being a writer: advertising is the big one, but there are other “Normal” expenses as well. Website, editing, art, all the standard stuff. It adds up quickly!
And sure, part of that is offset by my lovely patrons (thank you!). But only part of it… the rest of it comes out of ye olde bank account, and there are days (like yesterday) were it is kind of breathtaking how fast I hemorrhage money.
As far as I know, there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s part of the job for now. Scalzi says “Money flows to the author,” and I believe in that on a fundamental level, but right now… yeah, money flows from the author.
Ah well. Next novel is almost finished, so I have a few very expensive months on the way… fingers crossed that it sells well and pays for itself before too long!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The End is Nigh!
I know I say that a lot. But it’s still true! Just because I haven’t reached it yet doesn’t mean it’s not close.
So today I’m going to focus on writing the last few chapters of the book. The moment I do that I’m going to pour myself a stiff drink (Maple whisky, probably) and then dive right into the edits. Behind schedule, after all.
September has been freakishly warm thus far, and usually I wouldn’t care, but since I’ve been stuck inside writing instead of outside frolicking… it feels kinda personal. Ah well! It’s my own fault for not being done yet!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Branching Narratives
Very (very!) early in my career I wrote a couple “Choose Your Own Destiny”-style books for a small digital publishing house. The idea was that writers would earn royalties on people who purchased the app and then specifically downloaded the stories you wrote.
I wrote a kids story about a couple cats looking for treats, and I wrote a big sci-fi epic space opera thing. I’m proud of both, although I secretly kinda hope that nobody ever finds them again. They were early in my career. I had so much to learn! I mean, I still do, but I make fewer mistakes these days… and the publisher wouldn’t pay for editing, so that was also an issue. But whatever, they never earned me a cent… I don’t think the publisher screwed me or anything, I’m just pretty sure the app never sold at all. Who knows, maybe he made a billion dollars off my books and retired to a palace in Mexico. Beside the point.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about branching narratives recently, due to a bunch of games I’ve been playing that use open-ended, branching narratives. Writing for games (board and video) is an art unto itself, of course, but the idea of how to write open-ended enough that you don’t have to have the story being linear, but tightly enough that each section flows well into the next (and, ideally, makes a coherent story at the end!) is a heckuva puzzle. I’m sure there are people that thinking in four dimensions for their writing plots ain’t no big thing, but even the two I wrote (which were less ambitious with the branching narrative stuff) were challenging enough!
Maybe something I’ll tackle someday. For now I’m trying to focus on this novel, and writing just one ending would be wonderful!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Thing About Everything
There’s a scene from “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” (one of my guilty-pleasure films) that has Scott asking his roommate “You know what sucks?”
”What?”
”Everything,” responds Scott.
It’s a stupid little scene during a time when Scott is still fundamentally unlikable. But it resonates, because sometimes… sometimes everything sucks.
Right now not everything sucks, but it feels like it occasionally. My home life is hard, my work life is hard, my attempt to bring balance to the Force is really hard… nothing is going the way it’s supposed to go.
Upside: I’m now at 77K words (THAT took forever) and the novel is this close to being first-draft finished. So that’s something? But everything else?
Yeah. Not so good.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Ted Lasso
I respect the modern trend towards shows (and books and movies) that have definite end-points. While I get that the goal is always 7 seasons and a movie, I’m much happier with a story that has a definite start, middle, and end.
Ted Lasso nailed that. The show ended exactly when it should end, with everyone doing what they were supposed to be doing in the place that they should be doing it. It was a joy from start to finish.
Now, the later seasons never hit the highs of the first, in my humble opinion, but that’s not a problem since the later seasons were still really good. The character arcs for almost everyone were fantastic! The conclusion was sad yet satisfying! I can’t compliment the writers, actors, and crew enough. Just a great story.
Now with that done, I have to go and see if I can wrap up my own story as satisfyingly! Wish me luck!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Didn't Finish! Argh!
Okay, hear me out. I’m almost finished.
But I’ve been almost finished for over two weeks now. Getting the final few chapters down on paper has been agonizing. I continue to plan on being done very, very soon… but I’m not yet. And it’s frustrating! I feel like I’m spinning my wheels.
Ah well. It will get done when it gets done. No point in rushing it, although I would very much like to finish it. Maybe this weekend! I have a few hours now, and my plans include:
1. Writing the end to this novel, and
2. See #1
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Going to Finish Today, Hopefully!
So close, so close… I can see the ending of this novel. I can hear it whispered in the creak of my chair, in the smell of warm coffee and I can taste it with every bite of each meal. It’s so close.
But it’s not here yet. And even after it is here, gosh there is going to be a lot of editing work required. But that’s okay! That’s how the game is played. That’s part of the job.
Not my favourite part of the job, granted, but part of the job nonetheless.
I should get back to it. Nose down, fingers on keys.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!