One demd horrid grind

Posted on 10-Nov-21 by Dave

“My life is one demd horrid grind.”

— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 64 (1839)

So I’m still over necessary word count overall, but part of that is relying on one or two big bursts earlier in the month. My dailies have mostly been below word count. I’m kind of in a creative trough, cranking out a lot of dialog without a lot of meaning.

I’m feeling a bit like I should have someone walk in with a gun. Which would be … kind of weird in the particular place I am.

I need to outline more about what happens next. I’ve got a target on the far end, and a vague sense of what happens in-between. Maybe I just need to push forward to a different scene. Maybe I need to sacrifice something to the Muse.

Regardless, I think I am spent for the evening. I’ll think about it (as usual) as I try to drift off to sleep tonight.

Oh, a WISE guy, eh?

Posted on 6-Nov-21 by Dave

Man, don’t you just hate it as a writer when one of your characters is a lot smarter than you were when you plotted the scene and basically says, “Of course I’ve figured this out, I’m not an idiot” and drags the plot behind them like the bad guy being dragged behind the sheriff’s horse?

O Muse, Thou Tease!

Posted on 4-Nov-21 by Dave

First part of today’s NaNoWriMo writing:

Ugh. This is scene slow. Painful. Hard to write.

Paralleling something from last chapter, from another PoV. Should be easy.

But the dialog feels stilted. Forced.

And … oh crap, oh no, this scene makes no sense. That character wouldn’t allow it to happen. That character would absolutely know that’s a horrible idea.

Ugh. I can’t stand this.

O Muse, why hast thou abandoned me?

Fine. time for a flashback. Whatevs.

Second part of today’s NaNoWriMo Writing:

Ooooh, this is fun.

Write! Write! Write!

Oh, nice twist.

How can I fix this on the fly — oh, that’s how! Awesome!

O Muse, All Honor and Glory Be Unto Thee!

Cezanne – Kiss of the Muse

Themes and Variations: A NaNoWriMo Tale

Posted on 2-Nov-21 by Dave

There is a particular fictional media figure that I have a long and multi-faceted fondness for. I won’t go into any detail, because Intellectual Property, Sweetie (as you shall see). Let’s just call him Boy Adventurer.

Several years ago, a good friend of mine was starting up a new TTRPG, using the fine Masks game rules. In the setting that goes with those rules, the players are high school aged super-heroes of various sorts — which can mean anything from traditional heroes (whether of the mutant powered or just highly trained normal folk) to aliens to tech-based to whatever you want. On one level, the powers don’t matter, because the game mechanics and goals all center on dealing with the life of a teenager, and having super-powers, and making decisions, and going to high school, and balancing prom and homework and your super-powered dad’s expectations and the Cosmic Planet Eater showing up during finals week.

Awesome stuff. So I adapted the Boy Adventurer to work in that world, aging him up, filing off a number of the obvious serial numbers, changing some fundamental things about his life, but still, being able to play the Boy Adventurer.

It was a hoot. It was tremendous fun. And I don’t think I’ve ever journaled so many cut-scenes for a character before (and, mind you, I often go overboard with that).

And, after a year or so, I retired him to NPCdom, and instead started running his arch-nemesis-but-redemption-story-kinda-maybe-girlfriend, who was quite non-canonical to the original Boy Adventurer tale, kinda-sorta, but who had been a major part of the Boy Adventurer (in this iteration)’s life growing up.

And that went on for a while, with tons more journaling. And then the game wrapped up (in a most satisfying fashion).

And then, some months later, in November 2019, I started writing Legacies, taking another IP-scrubbing pass at those two characters as my NaNoWriMo work. And I cranked out about 50K words, about half the first book of a planned trilogy (yes, I know).

And I’ve been running that through a Writing Group since then, which has prompted further changes from the preceding versions / canons.

And another friend who was in the game has been doing up some cards for a super-hero card game, taking the versions that were in our TTRPG sessions and scrubbing them of that setting’s IP.

And yet another friend who was in the game (and who journaled cut-scenes at least as much as I did) is writing up the Further Adventures of the in-game universe characters.

So, as I sit down to NaNoWriMo this year (having skipped last year), I have running through my head:

Boy Adventurer (the original inspirational IP Which Shall Not Be Named)
Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as played in the game.
Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as written up in NaNoWriMo 2019
Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as they’ve evolved through writing group feedback.
Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as Friend 1 as adapted them for the card game.
Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as Friend 2 has taken their in-game story further.

Themes and Variations can be fun. Just … change things up enough that you’re not just ripping something off.

Which is a lot of different versions to keep straight. And, as the Boy Adventurer’s name has now changed twice (once from the original inspirational IP, again when I did the first NaNo story), I still find myself writing the wrong name for him (and for her) as I do further writing.

But I also put it forward as a lesson for writing: being willing to use — with changes — previous material from other media (both inspired by things out there, and things you’ve created) is useful.

Don’t just rip-off others, or repeat something you’ve already done. But inspiration (and adaptation) can come from a lot of places. Don’t let your inner voice tell you that you have to be utterly original and working from de novo with every tale. Every story, at some level, has been written. The challenge is, not to write a new story, but to take an existing story, and truly make it yours … and, in your own way, better.

The State of the NaNoWriMo Outline

Posted on 24-Nov-13 by Dave

I did something very different this year in NaNoWriMo. I wrote an outline.

Past years, I’ve gone with a connect the dots approach. I’ve had a beginning scene. I’ve had a sense of an ending scene. The rest is just getting from point A to point B.

This year, having been involved in some writing group discussions on the subject, I chose to do some outlining. I actually had a multi-paragraph layout of an Intro, Four Acts, and a Conclusion, fleshed out in decent detail. Not where I actually wanted to be with it — the technique I was using had several iterations to go — but enough to have some ideas.

As one of my protagonists, Roger, would know, no war plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. My outline …

Well, it served as some nice guidelines. I managed to hopscotch over a bunch of stuff to have one of the big moments happen earlier than originally plotted. And rearranged some bits to backfill after that. And added a conflict I hadn’t expected to have. And some other scenes that came to mind. I’m on my way to my second big disaster, and feeling pretty good about things.

I am glad I did the outlining, and I’m glad I was willing to bend and break it as the Muse pulled me along (nose rings are painful, I’ll tell you). I also am keeping in mind that I will not be done with the novel this year — 50K words is way too little. If lucky, I may be at or past the next big event by next Saturday, and the rest will be for me to pick up next November (assuming, he squirmed uncomfortably, I don’t do any work on it in the interim).

And, nicely enough, I’ll know then where I’m going with it. Because I have an outline.

“The Muse does not do your work for you”

Posted on 1-Nov-13 by Dave

It’s a job. It’s not a hobby. You don’t write the way you build a model airplane. You have to sit down and work, to schedule your time and stick to it. Even if it’s just for an hour or so each day. You have to get a babysitter and make the time. If you’re going to make writing succeed you have to approach it as a job. You don’t wait for inspiration. The Muse does not do your work for you.

So says Rosellen Brown.

To my mind, NaNoWriMo serves two great purposes. First, it teaches us we can write. It may not be great or polished or memorable — but we remember it, and we learn that we can do it.

The second purpose is that it teaches us how to do it. And I’m not speaking here of plotting strategies and deleting adverbs. I’m talking about discipline. You don’t get to 50K unless you write. Constantly. Every day (or with painful lurches after the goal when you let a day slip … and then another … and then another …). There’s no substitute for it. You have to immerse your days in writing, and when not writing, in thinking about your writing — what happens after this scene, what if that happened, who’s the real bad guy in the story …

NaNoWriMo isn’t a job. Yet. Like Tom Sawyer’s definition, it’s not something a body’s obliged to do. But it does teach us that writing is work, not whimsy or waiting. Glorious and rewarding and frustrating and maddening, but also just plain old work.

Sit down. Write. Get started, and get continuing. Time’s a-wasting. That second lesson is at least as important as the first.

(Oh, and do as I say, not as I do.)

NaNo NaNo

Posted on 4-Oct-11 by Dave

So it’s now a month away from November. Which is when a young writer’s heart turns toward … NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month.

As recently as a few weeks ago, I was shaking my head sadly over the prospect. I’m still hip-deep in huge workload at the office, and life has been just way too stressful to even dream of doing NaNoWriMo.

And then the Muse started whispering in my ear …

Or something. Because I started thinking of my novel from last year. I hit my 50kwords, but didn’t finish the tale. But it’s within spitting distance of completion. And there’s a bunch of editing I know I want to do. And …

So i was thinking of doing all that for NaNoWriMo this year, with an eye toward finishing the month with (at a minimum) something polished enough I’d be happy to share with my friends. Even the writerly/literary ones.

Now, there’s no easy metric to use for that sort of thing. There are words before I’m done, but after that it’s just investing time. So I’ll have to figure out an “invested time as words spent” kind of a thing.

Is this actually less work than creating something new? Hell if I know. But it’d be nice to have the novel wrapped up.

On being a creature of habit

Posted on 18-Nov-10 by Dave

According to this calendar, all my tasks are done by late 2012 ..

My ability and willpower to get my NaNoWriMo writing done seems to vary a lot during the week. In fact, it’s particularly strong on …

Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

… and pretty piss-poor on …

Sunday, Monday, Friday

There’s a reason for this.

Tuesday and Thursday we have karate. I bring my netbook to the rec center with Katherine, and while she’s doing the Karate Kid routine, I’m writing. It’s an available time, regularly recurring, and so I’ve set the hour or so aside for that. (I usually have to work another hour when I get home, but that’s okay.)

Wednesday is the NaNo Write-In at Panera Bread in Lone Tree. 6 pm we show up, I grab some soup and a baguette and a coffee, and I start to write. Two hours, in a lounge area, set aside on a regular basis. No worries.

Saturday is the NaNo Write-In at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch. 3 pm we show up, I grab a coffee, sit on a couch or a wing-back chair with the others, and I start to write. Two hours, hanging out, set aside on a regular basis. No worries.

You probably see what I’m driving at.

There's always something else important to do.

I will not universalize this, because I know that in so many things I am an oddball. But it seems clear to me that one way that I do things, successfully, is by making a habit of setting a time to do them. I need, and therefore set up, the structure, both in time and space. At time X I will be in place Y and do some writing.

And when that doesn’t happen — when it’s sort of, “I’m done with work, I have the afternoon, or maybe tonight, to get some writing done” … it is much less likely to happen. There’s always something to do, something I’d rather do, something I’ve gotta do.

I’m a creature of habit. I can fight against that, or I can use it. Which is what I’ve done here, leveraging Tuesday/Thursday karate and the Wednesday/Saturday Write-Ins to set that time aside.

The challenge, of course, is what happens after NaNoWriMo is over — when both the external pressure to hit a word count, the sense of a time-constrained mad dash, and some of that habitual infrastructure all go away. If I want to keep writing, at some scale …

… what will I do then?

(I do know the answer, or what the answer should be. The question is, will I do it?)

The Muse isn’t an exhibitionist

Posted on 3-Nov-09 by Dave

Okay, I have to share another Inkygirl cartoon:

I have mixed feelings sometimes about folks reading my writing — both terror of rejection and eagerness for praise (Insecurities ‘R’ Us)*, but I cannot abide someone watching over my shoulder as I write.

It’s not just a matter of someone noting all my typos and spelling errors (though that’s irksome enough). It’s because when someone’s watching over my shoulder, I find myself wondering more how they are reacting to it than focusing on the creative process itself. Creation, like procreation, is probably best done privately, though it’s fine to show off the results of both to friends.

* That all said, I very much appreciate constructive feedback, even if it’s critical. Critical stuff I can stand (because I can analyze it and agree or disagree with it). Subjective rejection (“Sorry, it’s just not my cuppa”) is fine, too. It’s the “This writing sucks, and the horse the writer rode in on” sort of thing that I get all anxious about receiving, even though when I do receive it, it tends to simply make me determined to go better. I didn’t say this was a rational bundle of feelings.

“And we can call it … the Death Moon!”

Posted on 25-Oct-09 by Dave

Once upon a time, I was running a D&D game. And about a third of the way through, I had an epiphany. The Muse sang to me a aria of inspiration, of clarity. I knew where things were going! I understood the plot that had been, hitherto, murky and unsatisfying. It all made perfect sense!

I started to write …

… and two games sessions later, I realized that the Muse was feeding me the plot from Star Wars. Not in a Campbellian “Hero of a Thousand Faces” meta-way, but major, unmistakable plotty bits that would have had, when revealed, occasioned at best a Cease and Desist from Lucasfilm, and, at worst scorn and laughter and derision from my players.

My left-handed right-sided brain tends to work in gestalt, long on broad concept, short on details. So I do occasionally find myself discovering that a brilliant idea is simply something I’ve previously seen with the serial numbers filed off by my corpus callosum. It’s frustrating as all hell.

I had an idea the other day that completely changed what I wanted to do with my protagonist in my NaNoWriMo novel. It made perfect sense, on several levels — but after a few hours of pondering it and running along with how it might influence the conflicts and plot lines, I realized that I was actually adopting a character in a popular TV series and making him (in some ways) my protagonist. Which is not what I was looking for.

The advantage I have here is that I haven’t started writing yet. Which means I can evaluate what that all means, and make the protagonist not a clone of the popular TV character, but someone in his own right, who shares some traits in common, but for very good and understood reasons. Or I can decide that it’s too derivative, and not do it. Or I can start that way and then demonstrate why a radical change in the protagonist is completely warranted.

But knowing is half the battle.

By the way, I remain terribly daunted by all of this upcoming NaNoWriMo stuff. Not daunted as in, “Oh, no, I am going to back out of doing NaNoWriMo because it is too challenging for me.” (I only do that in GMing games.) No, more daunted as in, “Jeez, let me fret myself into a frenzy beforehand, even though I know I’m going to be fine once I get into it, or, if not fine, then capable of handling the pressure.”

The NaNoWriMo folks actually have a lot of support group stuff in place, in terms of meet-ups in the Denver area and the boards and all of that. Being a terrible introvert, my own inclination is to depend eschew such public interactions and hunker down amidst friends and family. But I might keep my eyes open for an opportunity somewhere along the line to interact with others. We’ll have to see.

Doing Write

***Dave writes stuff. Here's his world of (non-blog) writing.

Category Archives: The Muse