parkerstrahn

Yessterday I managed to catch up on my friends list reading, despite being more than a month behind. This is a non-trivial exercise, considering that LJ only lets me skip back 140 entries on my flist. It meant that I had to open each of my friended journal and feeds, find the last entry of their I had read, read each one forward until they appeared on my flist proper, and then read my flist forward. Whew.

Granted, I could have said to heck with it and just bid those entries goodbye unread, but I don't like gaps in my reading on LJ that way, so I buckled down and got it read. And there was some really interesting stuff I'd have hated to miss, so I'm glad I did it. I wanted to post a "Huzzah!" last night, but I was too tired; it took something like 5 hours to catch up all the way.

Life has been pretty quiet. I confess, I look around at friends and flist-members and wonder how on Earth people manage to find so much to talk about every day on their myriad social networks. I suspect generating content like that--a surprisingly small percentage of it trivial in the "I just ate a scone" sense of trivial--is a skill one must learn.

Things I Did About Writing In May

1. Started working with Scrivener.
2. Read two books (both re-reads).

And that's it. But I'm not particularly unhappy, because I do believe Scrivener is going to be a very useful tool, and because working with it has definitely been teaching me things about my own process and assumptions I had made about my process.

I'm still poking around with Scrivener, this time with a project that's still in the planning stages. I'm liking it more for a new project, though it's fine for the existing one. The ability to create "placeholders" for scenes I know need to happen but am not sure of the details for. I like that I can move the placeholders around, and color code them as well. That way I can quickly see the difference between fully outlined scenes, placeholder scenes, and scenes needing just a bit more data. I'll probably buy it when the trial period is up.

I've finished the Scrivener Tutorial, which left me feeling pretty overwhelmed, but which I'm glad I worked through. I don't think I'd have figured out the things that would be most valuable to me without it. I'm too used to standard word processors like Word and TextEdit.

Anyway, I've imported Worlds Unspun into Scrivener and am working on splitting it into scenes and tagging those scenes with meta data. It's going pretty well so far, and I know I'm going to find this splitting thing unbelievably helpful for navigating among the story.

One thing that isn't happening that I was (futilely) hoping would is that I was hoping that the process of splitting and naming scenes would create a functional outline I could use. And it is creating a kind of outline. The problem is that the novel has changed enough as I've gone along that it isn't the outline I need. Le sigh. So although I was, somewhat irrationally, hoping that Scrivener would make sitting down and rewriting a comprehensive outline unnecessary, it hasn't.

One thing I hadn't even thought about that using Scrivener has made me decide to do is create character and location sheets.

For years and years I held firmly to the belief that I am an organic writer, not an outliner. (Quick disclaimer: I don't believe one is better than the other. I just thought that this was how my brain operated.) But over the last few months, I've really accepted that this is not at all the case. I've written the 60,000 words I had of this novel organically, and I can't tell you how often I've thought the following things:

- Wait, what does this character look like again? Argh, I wish I'd written that down somewhere separate. (i.e., character sheet)
- Where is this place again? Damn, I wish I had a full description and a map somewhere. (i.e., location sheet)
- Oh shit. What happens next? I know have to get to point C, but I'm not sure how... (i.e., an outline)

And really, I should have known. I'm a very step-by-step, methodically planning type person in every other aspect of my life. Why should my writing be any different?

Honestly, I think I was being lazy. I didn't want to do all the proper work of building the infrastructure of my book. I thought I could wing it. Or maybe I was just scared--I do remember thinking I was worried I'd never write again if I stopped to research my setting.

Either way, I really need that infrastructure after all.

I admit, it's discouraging. This means that it's going to take even longer to finish. I started it in November 2009. I originally wanted to finish it in one year. It's been 18 months now. Here's hoping I can make it in 2 years.

I downloaded the trial version of Scrivener last night and I'm working my way through the tutorial. It's definitely a powerful program, and there are aspects of it that I know I'm going to like, but it will be interesting to see how it feels when I'm using it for my own project. I'm not sure that a digital corkboard will work for me; the tactile aspect and being able to step back and see it all at once is part of the appeal. On the other hand, I don't currently use a corkboard, partly because I haven't taken the time to set one up and partly because I do most of my writing on the bus or at work on my lunch break.

We'll see how it works out.

I keep forgetting to post this! Here it is at last. Not a great month, but not terrible either.


Things I Did About Writing in April

1. Reorganized my notes file to be easier to navigate.

2. Wrote 5,192 words. That's up from last month, but that's mostly because I went up to 200 words per day. I missed six days, four of them in the last five days of the month. I tripped up there, and I'm only just getting back on board.

Sadly, I missed two of the posts I meant to make. I also took a shot at creating a note card outline, which didn't really take off.

We're having a federal election here in Canada, and I walked by an advance polling station on Friday, so I went in and voted. The only ID I had on me was my driver's license, but that was enough, although it did make the process take a wee bit longer. Ahead of me in line was a woman with no ID at all, but her neighbour was there and formally vouched for her, and that was enough for her.

I talked to my parents the next day and asked if they'd voted. They hadn't of course, since it's only the advance polls that are open. My mom said, "But we probably will." And I said, "You will vote." We laughed and chatted for a bit, but I tried to poke them towards definitely voting. I will certainly be calling them on voting day to badger them. I didn't ask who they were voting for, just tried to get them to commit to going to the polls at all.

I confess, the fact that voter turn out is so low (30% in Canada last federal election) both baffles and irritates me. Frankly, I sometimes wish that people had a magical switch in their brains that muted all political or governmental commentary if the person hasn't voted in the most recent election. If you choose not to express your preferences when given a means to do so that actually has some impact, then you don't deserve the right to express those preferences the rest of the time. Whether you vote Liberal or Conservative or Green or Communist (they were on the ballot in our riding) or Marijuana Party, you have taken the responsibility of at least attempting to guide where the government is going.

I have given the current novel a working title! Henceforth, it shall be called Worlds Unspun.

I was worried it sounded awkward, but it suits the novel in my brain at the moment, and it's only a working title.

It feels good to have something to call it. And, interestingly, as soon as I had a title some of the themes began coming clear within the narrative, which is nice.

I have a four day weekend now, so I'm going to try and get some good outlining work done. Cross your fingers that I don't just sleep in and watch TV! Must not be lazy. Well, not too lazy. I do need some recharging time.

I was watching Burn Notice (Season 3, Episode 16...yes, I'm an entire season behind) the other day and it reminded me that one of the things I love, really love, in a character is competence.

I like characters to be good at what they do. They don't have to be--shouldn't be--good at everything, of course, but I like them to be very, very good at the thing that they do, that is the focus of their life. I don't have a lot of patience for characters who screw up a lot, even if their character development arc requires them to screw everything up.

I also have absolutely no problems with characters who are near-magical (or literally magical!) prodigies at their Thing, whatever it is. I like reading about people being awesome, and I'm happy to accept Magical Prodigy status in order to get lots of that. In movies, training montages are my best friend, because they are really quick transitions from "newbie who made a mistake that changes his outlook on life" to "ass kicking guy/girl who wins the day".

Amusingly, the current novel features an apparently instant transition from wallflower type to ass kicking type. It's one of my biggest challenges to make that transition, and to make sure that the themes of the book are clear enough that it doesn't come across like a cheat, but is instead a necessary experience to the exploration of the actual central theme. The actual theme, for the record, being the attempt to find/make a place in a world that has defined a role for you that you don't actually fit into (anymore).

My personal trainer is planning to take 5 or 6 weeks off from training to do some short term summer work to build up his reserves. I've been pretty bad about getting to the gym lately, so I thought I ought to take a class to get me there at least once or twice a week.

But I didn't want to take the standard fitness classes, so I looked around and found Academie Duello. The Warrior/SwordFit classes look awesome. Exercise via learning how to wield swords! It's like going to the gym and doing writing research at the same time. *g*

The only problem is, I found them Friday, which made it too late to sign up for the introductory course. It starts the first week of the month with a Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday or Saturdays schedule. Technically I was in time for Saturdays, but I felt a little uncomfortable calling to add myself to a class the day before said class, on top of which I really wanted to go on weekdays. Which means I have to wait three weeks to start. *sighs* Once I decide to do something, I generally want to start immediately.

But still! Swords! Exercise! I am excited. 20 day to go. *wry*