Category: Writing

I am there. I’m at that point. I’m facing the wall, and realizing that the wall isn’t going anywhere, so if I need to get past it, I’m going to have to climb over it or smash through it by sheer force of will.

I’ve been hedging–Oh, the hedging!–a lot these past weeks. Dragging my heels. Being non-committal. That little voice in the back of my head is whispering oh so many discouraging and annoying things, and I’m finally getting sick enough of it to do something about it.

Undoubtedly, I have a lot to learn. Undoubtedly, my writing-ego has taken some hits lately without a whole lot of good blocks or return volleys. But I can either sit around, moping, watching TV, bitching, “discussing,” planning, etc., or I can liberally apply butt-to-chair, put the head down, and dig deep to get through it. I’m tired of whining. I’m tired of waiting for something to magically “click” that will get things moving in a positive direction again. I’ve got work to do, and it sure as heck isn’t writing itself–in any form. I need to stop being a coward, and get my shit together, so here it is: the official list of goals for FY13 to be completed by August 31, 2013.

[    ] Finish The Thief Dilemma. Get it done and posted. I want it out of my hair by 28.

[    ] Have 60k minimum on a NEW NOVEL PROJECT (single-volume, no “multi-book” concepts), with a projected (and reasonable) “Due Date” assigned.

[    ] Write 500 words/1 hr every day, including weekends, no excuses.

That’s it. That’s the whole list. There are a million other things I’d like to do, like put together a short fiction collection, or work on editing the short stories I’ve piled up, or submit a bunch of stories to magazines/anthologies, or tinker around with a novel project that will *never* go anywhere while I let it think it’s my magnum opus, but everything else is on the side-burners until I can achieve even this limited amount by next year.

There is no reason at all why I cannot achieve the three things listed there, other than my own dawdling/whining/evasive maneuvering. It’s time to stop being scared of the work required and step up. No more stalling.

This, I know I can do. If I don’t, the only reason–outside of being hit by a bus/struck by lightning/[natural disaster of choice here]–is laziness and a lack of commitment.

I’m a bit peeved at myself. Can you tell? This time next year, I will have those three things checked off with big green X’s, and will hopefully have learned a lot about myself and my writing in the process. Time to open the floodgates. Hang on to something.

Sunday – 1/15/2012 – So a little late update, but there have been some delightful (read: sarcasm) changes to my everyday schedule, so my writing time has been a bit disrupted and unpredictable. Since it looks like it’s going to be the same for the foreseeable future, I’m adjusting my weeks to include weekends (so Saturday & Sunday may be used to complete a story which originally I’ve tried to finish by Friday). The rationale? I need more time to write. So! More likely than not, you’ll start seeing these diary updates on Saturdays or Sundays moving forward, though I’ll post them whenever a story for a week is finished.

I didn’t keep very diligent notes this week, but in the end, I did manage to finish the story. I was shooting for a 5k dark fantasy, and ended up with–still a dark fantasy-almost 11k story. This, I’m realizing very quickly, is something I am going to have to work on. Not only are stories above 7.5k much harder to place, they also commandeer a significantly larger chunk of my writing time, which seems to keep shrinking. I really need to get down to the 4k-5k range if I want to break into the fiction markets with any greater efficiency. It’s not that I haven’t sold stories that are 11.5k long–miraculously, I have–but it’s much more of an uphill battle, and I’d rather write an 11k novelette because I *want* to, not because that’s just how long my *short* stories run by accident. I need to move in to deliberate lengths, rather than “oops” lengths. Granted, a story will be however long it needs to be, but what that means is that I need to work on story conception and how many complications I put in/how many characters I want/how many scenes it’ll need to accomplish/etc. I’ve written 2.5-5k stories before, so I know I can do it. And I know I can come up with ideas that are still interesting even at that short of a length.

Either I need to shrink down, or I need to get bigger–I’m hedged in that demilitarized zone of 7.5k-25k. :( Too long to be a short story, too small to be a novel. *le sigh*

Thursday – 1/5/2012 – Knee deep in the first weekly story of 2012, though I’m not exactly sure what to think about this one. I’m working off the idea from last week that was too long to do then, and am somewhat concerned it may be still too long to do now. I’m almost 5k deep, after adding 1.6k this morning, and I still haven’t quite gotten to the “action”-y bit. There’s a lot of good background information, but I’m not sure it’s all useful, and I’m sure it’s not all necessary. Ugh. I haven’t had an overwriting crash like this for years. I’m talking a whole lot, but the story is just crawling forward. At least I’ve gotten back in to writing in the AM, which is better–at night, I just never know when I’ll get time to sit down, and it’s a lot harder to make time after dinner. Plus, if I write too close to bedtime, my brain tends to have a hard time shutting down for the night, and I end up inadvertantly brainstorming for a few hours before actually falling asleep.

Friday – 1/6/2012 – SO. Didn’t realize until mid-day that yesterday was Thursday. DERP. [Dates in this journal are added post-week, for clarity.] Well, it’s official. I’ve written my first Big Bad Bear ending (and *no*, not Elizabeth BEAR, an actual bear, with teeth and claws and lots of fur). BBB endings came into effect in the first Chekhov year for those times when, after dutifully hacking away at a story, you suddenly realize that it is *way* bigger than a short story, and there’s no possible way you can complete it in time with a satisfying ending. In cases like this, to keep from having the urge to continue the story the following week and sneak in a short-short, I created the ending: “And then a bear came and ate [Character Name Here]. The End.” This doesn’t mean I won’t go back to this story and finish the ending when I’ve got time either this year or when I revisit it later in 2012, but it DOES mean I’ve given myself the OK to set it aside for now and ramp up for next week’s story guilt-free (or guilt-light, anyway). It was bound to happen one time or another, so at least this daunting fear is now out of the way. All that said, I actually rather like where this story is headed. I changed the plot mid-week, which revealed about a hundred other Hydra-head plot devices rearing their ugly–and interesting–mugs, so there’s plenty of fodder to use here. I could blame being sick on Sunday/Monday on the inability to officially finish this one on time, or I could blame the story idea being about ten characters and five scenes too big, or what-have-you. There are a million excuses. Disappointed that this one didn’t get to more than a summarized ending, but at least I’ve got it summarized, so when I come back to it, I’ll be able to wrap it up without too much trouble. And possibly expand it. Into a novella. Oh, boy. Week #10?–Not entirely successfully ended, but ended just the same. It happens.

ONWARD AND UPWARD.

Monday – 12/19 – Began this week’s story, working-titled “Four Sisters Walk into a Bar.” Andy’s challenged me to write a story in the mode of one of his favorite SF authors, and I’m going to give it my best shot, but GOSH. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to take a long, long, long time. Overtime anyone? Today I clocked in a mighty 400 words. Ouch. This style just requires a lot more thinking; I can’t just hash it out fast. It’s got to be deliberate. Careful. It will probably make my brain bleed…just a bit… May add some more this afternoon.

Tuesday/Wednesday – 12/20 – 12/21 – Missed journaling yesterday. Got caught up in a whirlwind of other to-be-done-before-the-Holidays stuff. I have no idea how many words have been added today, or yesterday, because I’ve been writing this story by hand. It’s a strange experience; I rarely (RARELY) write by hand these days–my spelling is sloppy and my penmanship is a bit cryptic (not, perhaps, as bad as it could be), and my worst plague is simply that the muscles of my hand don’t enjoy writing for periods of time longer than forty-five minutes. I think I push too hard with the pen or something. Regardless: writing by hand has helped–I think–in the construction of this story, since I’m trying to replicate a very specific style and need to really think about everything I’m putting down. I already know that when I type it in on Friday, I’m going to have to make some significant changes, which I’ve already started noting. It’s going to be…interesting… Though it may not be good. :)

Thursday/Friday – 12/22 – 12/23 – Missed journaling yesterday too, due to the holidays, but writing still got done! :) And today, the story is complete. I’ve shortened the title to “Three Sisters” for now, and it’s clocked in at 3556 words. While it’s a lot shorter than others from this year, it took infinitely more time for that meager 3.5k. Writing by hand was an interesting experience, and showed me how much more time I could (and perhaps should) take when it comes to choosing the words I really want verses the first ones that pop into my head in a rush to get a story down. Whether or not “Three Sisters” is successful may not be something I can judge for a few months; the ending feels a bit abrupt to me at this moment, but there are parts I really like. I suspect it will benefit from a number of rewrites in which I can condense the language more. That’s one thing I’ve discovered about writing on the computer verses by hand: it makes it so much easier to write more words than I might need. I find I explain a lot more when I write via computer than I do on paper, simply because writing by paper makes me slow down and consider whether I *really* need X sentence, or X word, or X description. It’s been fun! Hard and rather trying at times, but overall, worthwhile. I may have to do this again sometime this year!

But it’s done! Happy holidays everybody! :D

Monday – 12/12 – Began this week’s story, and got about 700 words in. Not quite as fast as other days, but that’s okay–I’m trying something a bit new on this one. I’ve been reading a bunch of Roald Dahl short stories (he’s one of my absolute favorite macabre authors, particularly in short-form), and I’ve noticed than in a handful of his stories, his narrator is just an observer of an incident. It’s strange though, because although the narrator is just an observer, he seemed intimately involved in the emotional roller coaster of events playing out, maybe all the more so because he has no control over what happens to the people around him, or over the decisions they make for good or for bad. “The Man from the South” is a particularly good example of this, and all the more gripping because like the narrator, the reader can only hold her breath and watch as the events unfold. So I’m trying that–I’m bringing an innocent narrator into the middle of something far from normal, and letting myself play along those lines. We’ll see how it goes by mid-week. It’s going to be a busy (and stressful) week, it seems, and I’ve been a little worried about how this is going to impact my ability to be creative. That in and of itself is making me more stressed.

Tuesday – 12/13 – 1.1k of progress on story now titled “Swallow.” This story is totally unrelated to any music selection, so it’s not *quite* following my monthly prompt…at all, actually…but it’s getting on the page, and that’s all I’m really worried about. :) I am totally loving writing about a setting I’m familiar with. It feels so much more real to me, and I’m having a blast remembering details. I’ve set this story in the bungalow of a friend of mine–or at least in the house they lived in when we all lived in Portland–and it makes the story feel so alive. I’m going to have to do this more often. Writing a lot of far-future and distant-past styled stories makes it hard to literally incorporate many of the places I’ve lived, besides in a general way, but I really do enjoy writing more modern-set pieces which I can populate with real places I’ve known. There’s something deliciously intimate about it. It’s the same feeling I got writing “The Road to Ki’o Ahi” which is set in the Manoa Valley of O’ahu where I lived for a year and a half–I love that story, because when I read it, I feel like I’m back there. It managed to capture a lot of my memories of the place at the time, and that’s a really neat thing to be able to do in fiction. Recognizing a location is certainly something I enjoy immensely in other authors’ works. It’s fun to try my own hand at it now. :)

Wednesday – 12/14 – It’s Wednesday again, isn’t it? How is this week going by so fast? Added another 1.2k, but I’m going to have to pick up the pace. This is another one of those weird ones that seems to be writing itself–it’s not quite an unpleasant experience, though experience has taught me that just because something writes itself doesn’t mean it writes itself well. These kinds of stories tend to have a really tight flow to them, which is great if I get it right the first time through, but usually I don’t, and then the tight flow makes the revising so much more difficult because every change feels like it’s disrupting the natural groove. It’s rather like the story’s on pre-destined tracks, and it’s just rolling along, at its own pace, on the tracks, and I’m just sitting in the car waiting to see where it ends up. Maybe I’ll add more to it this afternoon if I have time. I need to do some other things also, but I’d like to get through the next scene to lock it down. There are a bunch of other steps I have to hit before the finale, and only a couple of my characters’ days to hit them in, so we’ll see…we’ll see… It may be tight….

Thursday – 12/15 – Eeeeeeek! We’re getting down to the wire. I have a feeling I’m going to be spending some time on this tonight to prep for tomorrow. It’s going to be a bit of a squeeze. So far today, I’ve added 1.9k, but I’m going to need to add a good deal more to get to where I need to be for tomorrow. The writing itself is going well, if a little slow. It’s happily chugging along at its own pace, which means all I can do is put in the hours and hope it gets where it’s going by tomorrow night. *bites nails*

Friday – 12/16 – Tried adding some to the story last night, and fell on my face. Was just too tired and too unmotivated to come up with more than a handful of sentences. BUT! That said, this morning I got an early start, and after 2.9k, the story’s a wrap at another ridiculous 8,484 words. So, shorter than last week, but then I did have to crunch it a bit at the end to hit my deadline of finishing today. Overall impression? I like it. It’s a reworking of a story I wrote a long time ago of the same name, possibly even during the last Chekhov year. The problem with that story was it was interesting, but wasn’t quite horror enough. Granted, I’m not sure this one is either–it’s sure longer, but I was definitely going more towards the Roald Dahl eerie feel than obvious horror. I very much like the personal details of this one better than the last one, though I worry the last one may have a bit more soul. But then, it’s been ages since I read it, so who knows? I may just be projecting that. I’ll have to dig it up and see. This one, I believe, is definitely creepier, but at such a long length, I’m going to have to edit it like crazy to get it down to a decent size. At any rate, Week 7 is complete!

Monday – 12/5 – Grumpy. Got started on this week’s story, YA/SF. This month’s theme is to write a story inspired by a song, so this one’s inspired by World Gone Crazy by Sleepthief–not that the story itself has anything to do with the lyrics… It just sounded happy, so I wanted to go with it and write a happy/sweet Peter Pan meets The Little Prince PLUS ROBOTS story, and that’s what I’ve started. Working title “The Seedling Prince”. That said, I hate what I’ve done on it so far. *haaaaaaaaate* It’s dumpy and slow and has no sense of place, and I think I’m trying too hard and thinking too much about what makes a work “YA” and really I think I probably just need to loosen up and have fun. I had fun planning it last night–I guess that doesn’t always carry over to the draft. BUT NO BIG DEAL. It’s a rough draft, and if there’s anything salvagable by the end of the week, I can always rewrite the whole thing some other time.

Tuesday – 12/6 – Restarted from scratch, with a little more focus on making Blanca more like me, and her situation more like mine. It’s less YA and more adult, but that’s okay for now. It’s been retitled “The Weight of the Mind’s Indulgence” and so far I’m a lot more pleased with it. 1.3k today. Probably has too much jibber-jabber about the space station, but I want the locale to be clear.

Wednesday – 12/7 – Crap, is it Wednesday? Why am I feeling like it’s Tuesday? Added another 1.2k to TWotMI, though I think at this point I’m falling into the ever dangerous “characters sitting around and talking” method of divulging background information, which I’m not too happy about. But it’s moving forward, at least, which is good. I need to really plug along and get this wrapped up, since I wasted Monday on a false start.

Thursday – 12/8 – Made excellent progress on TWotMI, though I still feel there’s a lot I’m leaving out, the prose seems to just flow for some weird reason. It’s kind of freaking me out, to be honest. This is the second story in two weeks that has just unfolded itself. It still needs work (I need to add in some earlier stuff about Blanca’s robot-making) and I still think the characters may just chat a bit too much, but I’m really liking the sense of place (which I’m sure could still be stronger). All in all, though, I made a miraculous 2.3k addition in only 1.5 hours, which kind of blows my mind. I didn’t feel like I was writing that fast.

Friday – 12/9 – Woosh! And done, at a ridiculous 9867 words. Ugh. Of that ~9.9k, I wrote 4k of that just today. YOWZAH. And Slater fails to write a responsibly short story, yet again. But hey, at least it’s done, and even if it’s crap (it is) I can always rework it later if I so choose. It’s certainly got some plot-hole (like giant, rough-edged, filled with water so you don’t realize how DEEP they are plot-holes) that would need addressing, and I have a feeling that with proper time and consideration, this one’s going to want to be a novelette at least, if not a short novella. That said, it’s been renamed to the more appropriate and less presumptuous “Fun with Robots”, which is really what this story is all about. :) Also, glad I didn’t check my email BEFORE finishing the last scene, because I got a nice two-date form rejection for a story I really love. *le sigh* Onward and upward, evermore.

Monday – 11/28 – Got a story started for the week, and made a good 1k start. I’m not 100% convinced this is going to work out the same way I want it to–it’s quiet, and contemplative, like I so often drift toward. One of these days, I’d like to try tackling a short action story–but action in a short space is so challenging! At least, it is for me. I want to write something with pep, with excitement, with drive. With moments–of course–of thoughtful calm and contemplation. A nice mix of action and resolution. Maybe I’ll throw in an action twist just to see what happens. *shifty eyes*

Tuesday – 11/29 – After a momentary distraction last night (I wanted to write an action story, was chaffing at the bit to write BANG! POW! WHAMO!), I’m back to the story I started yesterday. I may play around with that other story (it’s a fantasy world I’ve worked in before, so more or less of some of the background has been done, though I need a world-name, and I need to know more about the industrial revolution… Note to self: research more), but for now, I’m sticking to the SF one I already started. There’s something about it, though it’s not a fast story, that seems to be partially writing itself. I hate to abandon that feeling just because it’s not as active as I’d like. The characters seem to be taking on some life, too–I mean, obviously it’s a rough draft, so editing would be guaranteed post-draft, but it’s not horrible so far. Could use more world building, to be sure, but the characters feel real. I guess that’s a good sign, hmm?

Wednesday – 11/30 – Added about another 900 words today without too much difficulty. This story really is writing itself, which is surprising and a bit strange. It doesn’t feel like it’s got a drive, or at least not one I’m conscious of, but it is going somewhere. Not sure quite where it’ll end up (mostly just hoping it won’t be 5k+ down the road), which is a little fun. I think endings are one of my weaknesses that I may need to work on. I typically have a start and a location in mind, and after that a character, but as for conflict and resolution, that’s a bit fuzzy for me. I had reason a few days ago to think over my writing weaknesses, and conflict (particularly action-y conflict) is definitely one of them. I think I have a lot to learn about the very basic conception of a story arch, and how to approach thinking about one in the proto-stages of a piece of fiction. I feel like if I could just understand that a little better, I could really make a jump in terms of quality of fiction. That said, I’m just glad this story isn’t as dull to write as some of the last couple stories have been, even if it isn’t action-y.

Thursday – 12/1 – Added another 1k to the story, again without difficulty. I’m not sure if the ease of this is due to the story itself or because I’m finally starting to switch out of my inclination for 30-minute/500 word sessions. The story is progressing, though I’m not sure at all where it’s going, still. And I’m not at all sure how it’s going to end, which makes me nervous at this point. It’s Thursday–the story has to be done tomorrow by midnight, and I know after work, I won’t be writing, so it’s got to be done mostly tonight and tomorrow morning/tomorrow at lunch. I’ve gotten into a bad habit this week of sleeping in when I would normally go to the gym–means I start writing a little after nine rather than a little before it. It’s been a very sluggish week in terms of motivation. There are a lot of things I *need* to do, but very little I *want* to. The short-story focus has also kick-started the novel-drive in me; what’s it they always say about the grass on the other side? :) Too bad, novels! You’re confined to index cards for now.

Friday – 12/2 – Packed on a last 1.5k to wrap up the story to a semi-satisfactory ending. It’s not an action-y story at all, but I do think there’s something here that could be useful down the pipe, so I’m rather happy with it. I’m not 100% convinced that the MC would *actually* have his change of heart this way, but maybe he would. I’ll have to re-read it and re-evaluate at a later date to judge it better. All in all, the story’s approx. 5,900 words long, which is better than I typically do when just “roaming” like this, so I’m pleased with that! And I’m not going to have to wrack my brains tonight or spend valuable spouse-hangout-time writing instead of kicking back to watch a movie. :D Block week (the week of Do0m for med students here) is coming up in a couple weeks, so I need to take advantage of seeing the hubby whenever I can! ^_^ Week #5 story–SF/”The Alien Heart That Beats Within”–completed. TRANSMISSION END.

So it’s been a few weeks since the last post, and for that…I apologize. But I’m not going to grovel, because I’ve been working on some pretty crazy stuff. First off, starting in November, I decided to jump back on the crazy train–no, not NaNo, though that is a crazy train of crazy which I might try again next year, but alas, not this year–and do another Chekhov Year.

What is a Chekhov Year? Basically, it’s a year (so 52 weeks) in which I attempt to write one short story rough draft per week. I accomplished this (or very near it–just six stories shy) in 2007, and apparently (according to this blog!) attempted a modified version in 2009 which failed miserably. The whole every-other-week thing I tried to make happen just didn’t cut it. I need every week or nothing.

So this year, starting on the first of November, I began Chekhov Year #3: Return of the Chekhov Year. Thus far, I’ve successfully drafted four new rough drafts:

– “The Mortal Coil” (SF)
– “Arin Gladspire and the Rogue of Chaos” (F)
– “Snap” (magical realism/mainstream)
– “Relief from the Shadows of the Night” (F) (just finished this one today!)

They’re not always pretty, and they all need a lot of work, but at least I’m getting new drafts to play with! :)

For the time being, I’m setting my novel projects aside on lay-away. I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I feel like I’m ready to move in that direction, but I’ve got some stuff set aside for the future, when/if I begin approaching longer projects. For now, I’m pretty satisfied sticking to short fiction. I think there’s still a ton I can learn about the short form, and I’m seeing visible progress in my abilities in this area. Just a few days ago I got a rejection from Clarkesworld Magazine, but it specified that the story I’d sent them was close! I’m so thrilled by this, I cannot even tell you. Of course, it’d be great to sell a story there, but I’ll take a promising rejection, too! I’m not picky! :)

I’ve gotten a few other promising rejections lately, too, which makes me feel like some more focus in this particular area could be something with payoff in the future, so I’m going to focus in. I think part of this calming-down on the novel side is also due in part to recognizing that I often try to do things a little too fast, desperately trying to achieve certain personal career goals by subjective ages, etc., instead of focusing on the craft itself and improving that. Heck, even if I don’t qualify for SFWA until I’m fifty, it’ll be better if I’ve spent this whole time working my tail off on short fiction. So for now: the short fiction has it. My undivided (*cough*) attention.

Okay, I’m lying a bit. I’m also still trying to churn out chapters of The Thief Dilemma on a semi-regular basis, and DO still intend to get as close to a finale on that as possible by June. I got a little snagged up because September/October’s chapter was so draining to write, and I fought with it for so long–it’s where I want it, but now I have to work myself back up to jumping in again for another chapter! :) That said, writing a novel chapter a month or bimonthly may be how I eventually write novels. Oh, boy. :0\

Other than that, still chugging away per usual! I may begin a “Chekhov Year” diary, which might be posted every Friday, post-short-story completion for the week, and compiles notes from each day during the week. An example entry might look like:

Week 2: [Working Story Title Here]

mm/dd – OMGZ I have noooooooo idea what I’m going to wriiiiiiiiiiiiite this week!!!!!!11!!!!!!1
mm/dd – Ok, so I’ve got like this *TOTALLY AWESUM* IDEA AND OMGZ IT’S GONNA BE LIKE WHOA.
mm/dd – Fail. *sob*
mm/dd – 1000 words of progress on [Story Title Here]. I changed the whole plot and killed 90% of the characters.
mm/dd – Draft of [Story Title Here] finished! Hooray! I’m not dead yet! :D 

“OMGZ I have no ideeeeeea what to wriiiiiiiiiite this weeeeeeeeek!!!” which would have been my post as of 10PM last night, though I managed to pull an idea out of the air and out of some tunes this morning. AND it’s DONE already. Which is totally a rarity. I pounded out 3.5k today to finish the story in total, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t *entirely* suck, but I’m not making any promises as of right now.

And I’m going to call this post HERE because it’s getting long and unwieldy. ENOUGH I say. And goodnight.