And here we are in December already.
Apparently we just had November, though in terms of writing I barely noticed it and I’m not sure why. I went from my best month in October to my worst month in November in which I got almost nothing done. It was a little depressing. Only highlight was the fact that towards the end I did start getting a few god ideas and at least started thinking of writing again.
Lets hope December is an improvement.
Its been a long time since I last wrote poetry – back in school, and that was many a year ago. So its somewhat odd that a bit of poetry came to me recently – either that or I’m channelling something I once read. The first line popped into my head yesterday and while driving my brother to the airport this morning a few more flowed on from it.
Its a touch melancholy, but I think that is to be expected for poetry.
And here beneath the scattered gloom
Where all is naught but withered bloom
Whilst all that should and can not be
Has come between both you and me.
The question is what to do with it. Thanks to Tolkien, as a fantasy writer its almost expected to have some poetry floating around in stories. I may have to use this – either expanded upon or with some character trotting out a few lines as is.
I think I need to reset the month. Or reload an earlier save point. There is actually a race in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series that can do that – the Yetis. Their species has gone extinct three times, but they have the ability to reload their lives to an earlier save point – and retain the knowledge of what caused their deaths so they can avoid it next time around. I could really use that.
Last month was a great month for writing – I made some real progress and started this month full of optimism. So far it has turned out abysmally. There is still time to turn it around, but it is getting harder to do so.
I should be writing – I want to be writing. When I’m not, I always have ideas and plots and characters and stories burning a hole in my mind pretty much every single second of the day. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. The problem is that when I sit down the words just don’t flow. All those scenes in my head, the words I set down just don’t match it. There appears to be a blockage between the head and the keyboard. It isn’t writer’s block as I am never short of ideas – in fact I have a lifetimes worth of ideas for novels and short stories crammed up in my head just waiting to get out. A large part of it I think has to do with self-doubt, a worry that, despite the images in the head, the stories won’t quite be good enough. Subconscious sabotage in effect. Trying to force the words hasn’t really worked, nor bribery or coercion.
What I think I need is someone to do all that writing for me – I’ll do all the brainstorming and plotting and creation of ideas and scenes and characters and the like and let someone else come up with the words to express it properly.
Its a nice idea, but not really likely, so its back to the grind I must go.
I was quite young when I first started reading the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells – probably in primary school from memory. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, The Time Machine and of course The War Of The Worlds.
For me, the most memorable scene of The War Of The Worlds involves the HMS Thunder Child. It is remarkable – and a little saddening – that this scene has not once appeared in any of the film adaptation of the book.
The Thunder Child is a fictitious torpedo ram ironclad that in the book attacks 3 Martian war-machines that are attacking refugee boats, despite knowing precisely what would become of them. Despite being utterly destroyed, it takes two of the war-machines with it, and its sacrifice allows many to escape safely. Only 3 war-machines are destroyed in the entire book – and it accounted for 2 of them by itself.
I admit I have a soft spot for the Thunder Child and have used names similar to it before for ships in various stories. The current one I am writing, I found myself doing a homage to theThunder Child without even realising it at first. A lone warship taking on three more powerful enemy ships…though in this case it it fantasy and not scifi. Upon realising it, I renamed the ship the Stormchild in honour of the Thunder Child. Hopefully the scene will do the original proud.
Edit: Now with music.
Two months of the year to go – November here we come.
September was quite a good month writing wise. I managed to get some writing done every single day. Admittedly a few days not much was written but at least something was. Overall the word count was just shy of 63K – half of that did come in a 7 day stretch of writing madness so I know I can do more if everything clicks.
It was also interesting for the fact it threw me completely out of what had been planned – a new story idea sparked and now sits at 44K on the first draft and still going. I had planned to take part in NaNoWriMo this year but I’ve done too much on this to start something else new.
The short stories seem to have taken a back seat just for the moment – only two Cahuac ones were written. I do have a few more lurking around that need writing but just don’t seem to get around to them.
Plans for this month are to finish off this rough draft I’m working on – not sure how long it’ll turn out to be but already its about the longest rough first draft I’ve written. It’ll need a lot of work once the rewriting starts as it had no plot initially and quite a few things have changed from how it started out.
This last week has been wild.
Seven straight days of hitting the 4K+ mark of words. 30,403 words written in total. All new. That is almost as much as I managed for the whole of last month.
I had hopped after the first couple of days I could keep the progress up and have been both pleased and surprised when I was able to. It was a bit tiring at times and I wasn’t certain I’d do it, but I got there in the end. As much as anything it has proved to me that I can do it, I can write consistent output.
The one thing that has failed so far is the names – normally I have no problem with names, but for whatever reason so far it has failed me. Apart from a couple of them, none are going to last – what are being used so far are place holders. Unless I can think up some of my own, I may have to ask for ideas..
Been a few months since I had a look at what books were cluttering on the bedside table, so it is time for another look. Some are new, and some are still there from last time.
Oddly, most aren’t there to simply be read. Some are for inspiration and ideas, and others I’m trying to critically analyse – the first time I’ve ever looked at books in that way – to see how they are written. Specifically I’m looking at how conversations are handled and descriptions done. Sometimes the conversations I write seem to bog down into two people just starting blankly across at each other stating their lines, which needs fixing. They need to be alive, carrying out tasks, with facial expressions and tones of voice. Likewise for descriptions, what takes a couple of lines for me can be a couple of paragraphs for others. I need to learn to pad a bit better.
The Silmarillion – J.R.R.Tolkien. As my favourite book, its pretty much a permanent fixture beside the bed.
Hornblower and the Hotspur – C.S.Forester. I read this first in my first year of high school and it was my introduction to the world of Hornblower and the wider world of the Napoleonic War era. Currently there for clues to making a couple of scenes at sea for Tears of the Mountain more realistic.
Sharpe’s Honour and Sharpe’s Trafalgar – Bernard Cornwell. More Napoleonic War era fun, and being read for the same reason as Hornblower, for scenes of the sea and the land.
Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling.. A collection of short stories about things like how the elephant got its trunk and the leopard got its spots. Read it to spark ideas for the writing of more Cahuac myths.
Queen of Sorcery – David Eddings. The fantasy equivalent of a hamburger and coke – sometimes you just crave fast food and this series fulfils that.
The Summer Tree – Guy Gavriel Kay. It has been a long, long time since I read this series. At the time of reading I was going through a bit of a bad time and this series was emotionally draining enough without that on top of it. Great read otherwise.
The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan. Book one of the Whale of Time. Er Wheel of Time. Pulled this one out just the other day to flick through after I started churning out the new stories, to see how he did it padding out the book so much.
Gardens of the Moon – Stephen Erikson. Ditto for The Eye of the World. More critical research than reading.
Toll the Hounds – Stephen Erikson. Its been sitting there so long I’ve forgotten where I was up to and what half the series is about. That is the problem with these door-stopper series – you need to reread them all first before starting on the latest one just so you can remember what was going on 5000 pages earlier.
The Complete Chronicles of Conan the Barbarian – Robert E. Howard. That one is still there because I simply haven’t gotten around to putting it away
As I mentioned on Monday, I had started working on something new, something with no plot and no clue to where it was leading.
As of today it has continued to explode into life. From 5pm Saturday to 5pm today (Wednesday), I have managed 4k+ a day and in those 96 hours have written 20,000 words – and I’ve got a couple more hours of writing left in me today. I have been trying to have this kind of progress all year, so am mystified why it has happened all of a sudden now – and on a project I have no idea where is going.
I am also stoked, to say the least, by the progress. In an odd way – with no plot to follow, no characters planned, no guidelines – it has been oddly liberating. I can smash up things as I see fit with no thought to consequences, kill off who I want when I want and generally go to town. The other stories I couldn’t really do that with – too much planning about events that transpire later on that prevents such total disregard for everything.
I guess a little about what it is about – it is turning out to be Big Epic Fantasy, much like the Wheel of Time or Malazan Book of the Fallen, at least in scale. The vast power magic has, the larger than life characters – and plenty of them – death, destruction and mayhem. The first 20K words has a city completely destroyed and a fleet smashed by powerful elemental creatures that escape the control of their summoners and two fairly major deaths – with at least two more I know of whom I plan to kill – a few plot points have developed as I surge on, but not many. There are knights and wizards, kings and princesses and monsters.
Currently one thing I am not happy with is the names – most aren’t going to survive and are just placeholders until I get a chance to sit down and figure out something better Which won’t be hard. Most are awful.
Hopefully I can keep this pace up – if I can, then be the end of the month I’ll be pushing 90K done and hopefully be finished with the first run through. I may even have a sit down and read through it then – I’m dreading to discover just how bad it is and how much polishing it will require.
And because it requires a name, it has very, very tentatively been given the code name He Stands Between
The last couple of days have been unusual to say the least.
Saturday morning started fairly normally. I scratched out around 1000 words of the rewrite of Tears of the Mountain, but I was, as normal, not putting a lot of effort into it. Come afternoon I was trawling the ‘net wasting time. Along the way I was reading through various pages on TvTropes and also some World of Warcraft forums, including a debate on most powerful characters in lore.
All of a sudden I get the briefest hint of an idea, normally not enough of one to do anything much with yet, not without more barnstorming at least.
Yet I sat down at 5pm and started writing, and by the time I was done for the night I had cranked out 3000 words.
Sunday, despite half the day being taken out with other things, saw another 4500 words written.
Somehow, in less than two days, I’d written 7500 words. What made it more unusual is that when I started I had no plot to work on, no characters, nothing. Yet somehow I’d managed to write all that, and am likely to hit the 10K mark today easily.
Its turning out to be looking like one of those big epic fantasy’s, completely unlike the world of Sharael. We’ll have to see where it ends up and how long it turns out to be.
The second of the Cahuac Cycle short stories has been finished off and upoaded now.
This one is called Wolf and the Stars, and is a little different than the other three in that, though it features Cahuac, it doesn’t revolve around him.
I think it should be obvious what the story is referring too, but it is the kind of thing that would be explained in mythological creation stories.
Mist and Shadows 