43 posts tagged “writing”
I've now had occasion to watch the first two-thirds of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace with my three-year-old son about five times. (He can't quite sit through the whole thing before he wants to wobble off to do something else, which on the whole I chalk up to him being three. He can't sit all the way through any film that long. It's just not something a three-year-old like him is going to do.) It's interesting watching what holds his attention. I've learned a few things about story from keeping an eye on him while he watches movies. It's especially interesting watching Star Wars: Episode I with him.
I should remind my friends that I do not share the commonly received wisdom that the Star Wars prequels represent a terrible crime against a beloved franchise from our generation's collective childhood. It's my considered opinion that the first three films were every bit as mockworthy and cheesepacked as the later prequels, larded with bad writing and horrible acting. Taken as a whole, the entire six film sequence from start to finish makes a pretty consistent bit of pulp science fantasy. It's not Masterpiece Theater people, it's freaking Star Wars. Get a goddamn grip.
However, watching Episode I with my son, it's interesting to note what catches his attention and makes him ask me questions about what's going on with the characters. He likes the whole action sequence aboard the Trade Federation ship that opens the film, and he wants to know who are all the players (even the background extras) and what they're doing. He doesn't have the bad reaction to Jar Jar that all of You People suffer, and his attention stays focused all the way through the whole sequence in Gunga City, the rescue of Queen Amidala and the escape from Naboo.
The sequence where the boy loses all interest? Everything on Tatooine leading up to the pod race. He loves the pod race, of course, so I've now watched that chapter about fifteen times. There's a lot going on in there that you miss the first time through! Sadly, once the pod race is over, he loses interest again.
The fight with Darth Maul just before they leave for Coruscant is, interestingly, too short. It doesn't set him up sufficiently as a bad guy in the piece. In fact, if I were to rewrite Episode I, then I'd definitely go back and give Darth Maul all of Sidious's lines in the opening sequence. I'd also have him lurking around on Naboo in person. Dude should have been hanging all over the heroes like a dark cloud from Page Fricking One. When we get to the line where the Viceroy's lackey says, "This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them," I would have made that where we first get to see Sidious.
At some point, I'm going to start the movie for the boy right at the pod race chapter and let him watch all the way to the end (minus the gruesome parts that will give him nightmares). It'll be interesting to see what other major failurages Mr. Lucas made that my three-year-old will helpfully sort out from all the other stuff everyone complains about. I mean, I've been complaining about a lot of what goes slow on Tatooine in Episode I, but I didn't quite get what was the most glaring flaw until I started watching my son react to it. Darth Maul shows up, and he's confused. You could fix an awful lot of what went wrong in Episode I just by introducing Darth Maul a lot sooner.
A while ago, I participated in a lexicon game run by a friend called The New Faith of the True Emperor. The result is at least a novel's worth of SF/F fiction content collaboratively competitively developed by a team of around twelve people. In this case, the theme is far-future dark science fiction weirdness.
It was great fun playing the game, even though real life intervened and made it tough for all of us to complete it. I had to drop out and wasn't able to return for the wind-up. Still, the resulting fiction product is interesting for its novelty. Like all lexicon games, the thing that separates the content from the more collaborative approach of building alternate world fiction is that the discontinuities aren't errors; they're a critical part of the content.
Anyway, this is a short message to promote the release of the material to the public. It has a non-commercial share-alike Creative Commons license, so it's completely free fiction. Enjoy!
From a Haskell quotes archive:
<shapr> how will you know when you've written enough?
<kosmikus> I don't really know yet, but one of the following:
(a) if my supervisor tells me I have,
(b) if every chapter heading has content following it,
(c) if the deadline is there
<shapr> that's an excellent heuristic
This heuristic breaks down a bit for unpublished, unsigned fiction authors, i.e. A) you're unsigned, so nobody is going to tell you when you're done, B) you're unpublished as well as unsigned, so your deadlines are completely unfixed, so C) you're pretty much reduced to...
(b) if every chapter heading has content following it,
..which isn't so helpful, is it? Or is it?
Tonight, I finished the first major rewrite of my first [unpublished] novel. For those just tuning in, it's a fantasy genre thing, so if that's not your boat, then you can just ignore this post. I like the fantasy genre (plus, it's important to note that I'm one of those annoying buttheads who thinks that most of what passes for "science-fiction" these days is merely fantasy with an extra helping of techno-babble to fool the rubes), so I've been writing a fantasy. Next, I might try my hand at something more contemporary. But first, I have this huge pile of unread books that have been waiting for this milestone...
This novel has been in the works for a long time, but it spent a lot of that time sitting untouched on the shelf because I wasn't sufficiently motivated to finish it. The first draft has been sitting on my hard drive since I sent it around to a select group of friends, most of whom reacted with variations on "it's kinda interesting, but it's full of problems— here let me show you them!" Some of that was useful, so I took the plunge and dove into a full rewrite from the ground up.
The second draft is quite a bit different from the first. It still has most of the same characters, and the story bears a strong resemblance to the one in the first draft, but there are a lot of major departures. The world is more than a little different. I think the second draft is much better plotted. The characters are stronger, too, I think. All in all, I'm not terribly ashamed of this draft.
I will be giving it another quick pass in the next couple of days, looking for howling discontinuities and other vermin. Then, I will be fulfilling my promise to Gee by sending off query letters to the appropriate literary agents. (She won't believe it's unpublishable until I collect the rejection slips that prove it. I suppose that's what spouses are supposed to do, but it still feels weird. I've never been terribly concerned over whether a publisher ever develops an interest in it. I just wanted it to be of commercial quality. I think I've succeeded at that, whether a publisher ever makes an offer or not.)
Those of you who are on my LiveJournal friend's list (editors and agents excluded): if you're interested in reading it, send me an email or post a comment in the LJ version of this thread, and I'll add you to the group I'll be using to post the chapters.
Received my brand-spanking-new copies of Advanced Topics in Types and Programming Languages (edited by Benjamin Pierce) and Garbage Collection: Algorithms for Automatic Dynamic Memory Management (by Richard Jones). The combination of these two books has unscrewed the lid off my head and poured unfiltered caffeine directly onto the grey matter. Short summary of my reaction: I suspect I really can make my own systems programming language.
Also, outlined the final chapter of my unpublishable unpublished fantasy novel. Need to tear myself away from all this code wankery and finish the damned thing.
So, it's NaNoWriMo... and yeah, I know, I really should quit writing while I'm still unpublished, but I'm hoping I can finish up the second draft of Arts Of The Wize this month.
I just finished chapter seventeen (of twenty-three). The manuscript is currently 339 pages long, which is down from about 470 where the first draft was at this point in the story. I'm thinking the finished manuscript will come in right around 450 pages. Still longer than I hoped, but not too bad.
The story is really benefitting from the rewrite. I've pitched a lot of dross, and I've added a whole lot of additional grief for my protagonists to manage. (A comment from DCJ about one of the conceits I used in the first draft gave me an idea for a different one that I'm now finding works a metric truckload better...)
I'm in the process of cleaning up the mess of a final act I wrote in the first draft. Pretty much all my volunteers who read it complained they had no idea why anybody was doing what they were doing. Too many factions, with not enough clarity in what they wanted to accomplish. The fix for that was to stop trying to be so goddamned clever.
In the rewrite, I just show how there are really only two factions, with some individuals more or less committed to their respective causes than others. The jam my protagonists are facing is a lot more clear— they're basically caught between two powerful factions, and the only way for them to get out of it is to do something everyone thinks is impossible. To do it, they'll each have to cooperate in ways that neither of them ever through they would do. (Yes, this means I have to insert a twist in the climax that wasn't there in the first draft. It's going to be a pretty satisfying twist too, I think.)
I'm also eliminating a useless character (I might bring him back in another story), and using another existing character in his place— one that wasn't given enough room to play in the first draft. This has the effect of making one of the subplots Rone complained about into a much more relevant aspect of the story. As a result, I get to keep one of the other characters I really, really don't want to lose. Rone will probably still complain, but that's because it's just his way to complain about something.
There are four weeks left in NaNoWriMo. I have six chapters left. I doubt I'll finish before the end of the month. I'm pretty certain I'll finish before the end of the year. If I pick up the pace, and write every morning and evening on the commuter shuttle, I might make the goal. We'll see.
I may post more as the month rolls forward. If you don't hear from me, it's because I'm busy writing.
My employers have started operating a commuter coach service that runs between the Park And Ride center in Colma / Daly City straight to the corporate campus where my office is located. It only adds about fifteen minutes to my commute time, but it saves me about seven dollars per day in gasoline plus additional maintenance costs. The huge extra benefit to this is that I sometimes have time to spare while riding the coach to work on personal projects, and not company business.
This means I can write again. Progress on Arts Of The Wize is now proceeding at a completely reasonable pace. I feel certain I will finish the second draft by the end of the year, and probably not long after the Thanksgiving holiday.
I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.
Sadly, Michael Jackson has died. A brief moment of silence, please.
...
I bottled the Too Many Secrets porter today. Naturally, I had to forget something. This time it was to put the priming sugar into the fermenter before beginning the bottling procedure. So, that means spooning measured quantities of sugar-water into the bottles by hand before putting the caps on. The last time I did this, it mostly worked okay. Some bottles were more carbonated than others, but none of them were over- or under- carbonated.
I also cracked open a bottle of the latest Tumultuous Uproar imperial stout. It's excellent. This is my best batch yet. Smooth, perfectly carbonated, not a hint of off flavors, goes down easy, and rings your skull like the liberty bell. If you're a lucky recipient of one of these bottles recently, then feel free to open it whenever you want. No need to wait until October or November.
I'm participating in a Lexicon game run by my friend Dan Johnson. No, not the Dan Johnson you're think of— this one. The theme is epic, dark science fiction "in which rival clergy vie for influence in the creation of a new religion - one that will serve as the True Faith of all sentient life in the known and civilized universe. Will they succeed in forging a new creed, or will long-held dogma and ancient disagreements prove too bitter to overcome? Will they come together in the hopes of building a better civilization for the future - or does dark and dangerous blasphemy still secretly lurk in hearts and souls?"
If you're a friend of mine, and you'd like to follow along as we play it out, send me an email, and I'll send you a link to the server for you to bookmark. It's hosted by a friend of a friend on his personal home DSL account, so we don't want to publicize it very widely.
Finally, I'm not sure I'm going to be successful at keeping my dirty mitts off Arts Of The Wize much longer. Leopold is almost sort of starting to be manageable again. I'm getting hints that I might start having time off on Sundays again.
I shelved it today. I don't know when or if I will be able to return to it. I'm not optimistic.
This hurts a lot. I'm angry and very depressed over having to do this, but I don't have a choice. I simply don't have the time to devote to the project anymore. I've been ->this<- close to completion of the revised draft for five months now. In that time, I've been able to write three chapters. Three badly structured and desperately in need of rewrite chapters.
The reason? I've been trying to make progress by stealing little bits of time— an hour here, a half-hour there, usually when I'm least able to concentrate on what I'm doing to keep the narrative big picture straight— and it hasn't been working. I've been making a mess of it. Without reliably having blocks of time when I can write for at least four hours uninterrupted, I just can't work.
I don't have time like that anymore. Not like I used to, anyway. Work is more demanding than usual, and promises to be so for the next year at least (unless I get fired or something). I have to look after Leo full time on the weekends both days, and by the time he's asleep in the evenings and I've done all my other housework chores, I'm exhausted and I can't write. I've used up all the vacation time I can afford giving Gina the time off she needs to keep herself together, and there isn't any left for me. I thought I might have some time to write while I was in Chicago, doing IETF work, but that didn't happen. I was up to my eyeballs in work work work from morning to night.
What little time off from work and childcare and housework I get is structured from start to finish by obligations to extended family and close friends. This weekend, I was in Mt. Shasta visiting relatives. No time for writing. Last weekend, I got Sundary off to brew. No time for writing because Gina insisted that I brew. Other times, when I've been free from work and childcare and housework, have been assigned to similar non-writing activity. I'm not getting any time to write. I'm just not. I can't even get enough time to read other works in the genre I'm trying to write. Looking at the calendar, there won't be any time for writing between now and the end of the year, and I see no reason to believe there will be any time after that until Leo is old enough that I can start having Saturday mornings (or something) all to myself again.
This is maddening to me because I feel like an awful failure. For once in my life, I'd like to start a serious attempt to create something of lasting artistic nature (however pathetic and awful Arts Of The Wize would have eventually turned out to be, that's what I've been trying to do) and to finish what I started.
I continue to slog along slowly and pitifully. Leopold is eighteen months, and not yet leaving me with enough time to devote to writing at a decent pace. I'm also up to my eyeballs in work these days— I have a busy week in Chicago scheduled next week. That's not helping me very much, either...
Still, I reached a minor milestone this evening. I completed the draft of Chapter Fourteen in the rewrite of Arts Of The Wize. This is good news because it means the forklift upgrade to the middle of the book is basically complete. I had to rip out a whole bunch of stuff that went off the rails in the middle of the first draft and replace it with stuff that manages better to keep the overall story coherent. Chapter Fourteen needed to be totally thrown out, and a wholly different chapter needed to be dropped into the gaping void left behind. I've done that now.
Chapter Fourteen is longer than I'd like by about five pages, but it might shrink in further revisions. We'll see. In the meantime, the new story is plumbed up properly now to where the old story started to go interestingly non-linear in the ramp up to the climax in Chapter Twenty-two. The remaining divergence requires a lot less creativity to implement, so look for my pace to pick up at least a little bit. The last bit of major revising comes in Chapter Twenty-two, but I don't think it will require a whole new chapter. Just ten or fifteen whole new pages.
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