July 27, 2006
plotting
More background. The plot of book one (version 2.0) is starting to open up. Still no pillar story, though.
Posted by sdshaver at 02:57 AM
July 24, 2006
still here
My internet tubes are currently blocked by the mud and muck of 60 mph winds. I am blessed to have power, but cursed to have no internets. It's a bit like hell, sans dancing ham(p)sters.
I'm a little surprised by how much I rely on a live internet connection to write. Word lookup, wikipedia searches, thesaurus checking, and all of the Dead Wicked content is wiki-driven.
Despite this, I wrote almost to the end of Chapter 2 in what I'm still calling Poison to the Dead.
And now, I must admit defeat: I'm giving up on Harp of the Grey Rose. I tried, but it seems that twenty years has not improved my ability to read books that do not interest me. C'est la vie. I shall perform pennance by finding something else by Charles de Lint that I do like and read that.
Posted by sdshaver at 02:20 PM
July 17, 2006
retooling
Tinkered some more with chapter one. Demons!
That's it! Done tinkering! No more tinkering! On to chapter two!
But not until Tuesday.
Posted by sdshaver at 12:42 AM
July 15, 2006
chapter one
Reason for stopping: Gym, food.
Mammalian Assistance: A brief visit on the feet from Mr. Atticus
Cups Consumed: Dammit, I knew I forgot something.
Exercise: Soon.
Mail: None of note.
Today's words Word don't know: nocked
Words I'm surprised Word do know: spymaster
Tyop du jour: none I could find
Darling du jour: It's a toss-up between: "Trespassing in haunted forests was not Kai's favorite activity." and "He turned slowly toward her, spreading his fingers wide and holding up his hands in the universal gesture of 'blessed heavens, woman, don't kill me'."
Mean things: Everything Kai is doing.
Books in Progress: Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Other writing-related work: I'm back to stealing Elizabeth Bear's format for updates. Fun, eh?
Posted by sdshaver at 02:19 PM
when you were young
Went back and reread what I wrote night before. Tinkered with the layout a bit. Will write more tonight, which should include some sketches of the new Dead Wicked stuff I want to run past the collaborator.
Though I joke about being the world's most useless psychic, I do in fact have a pretty good intuition and a close relationship with my gut (in more ways than one). I'm inclined to believe more in instincts than so-called "psychic powers". (I detest psychic detectives, hence the reason I love the show Psych).
I see all this instinct stuff as the result of years of writing. I have a lot of characters in my head. If they were all the same, I'd be effin' bored. So I observe others, question actions and psychology, in order to understand how to shape the people in my brain down different paths.
Anyway, when I hatched the plan for this latest writing endeavor, I started by asking myself how I could change up what I felt was a good -- but flawed -- story. I liked the characters. I also liked the plot I had come up with, but I am willing to accept that both need to change to make a saleable work.
Techniques follow:
- One immediate answer was to dump half the cast. Concentrate everything down to two main characters and a handful of minors, all with distinct personalities, motives, and agendas.
- I also started to ask them questions. Sheila has great suggestions on this.
- And then there's role reversal. Sort of. In his book On Writing, Stephen King takes a lengthy news story -- it boils down to: "Man Stalks Woman" -- and reverses the gender roles of the main characters. How does that change the story?
Finally, I just finished The Hallowed Hunt by Lois Bujold, and realized that one of the things I've loved about that series is that none of the characters are plucky young teenagers on a never-ending quest to save their girlfriend. That, combined with the rest of the questions I've been asking myself, cracked open a chest of thoughts. Like: Why did Myr have to be 17? Why couldn't she be, say, 30?
So, getting back to the world's most useless psychic. After I had made the decision to try this angle was when I found the new Killers song, titled "When You were Young". I don't believe in psychic powers, but I do believe that we pick up on patterns our instincts resonate to. It resonated. I'm going with it.
And there is my haphazard reason for writing the latest iteration. I'm nuts, I know. I never said I wasn't.
In other news, I'm going to run a contest starting Monday on the ol' Livejournal This should be the start of two, count 'em, two contests for $$$free books$$$L@@K.
Seriously, though, check back on Monday. I'll announce it then.
- you sit there in your heartache
waiting on some beautiful boy
to save you from your old ways
Posted by sdshaver at 12:50 PM
July 14, 2006
bad syndicate
My apologies to anyone who woke up this morning and found a syndication dump on their LJ from this journal. I assure you, it was not my doing.
Also, I woke up with story ideas in my head again. I suspect the drought is passing. But what will this mean for my garden? Oh dear.
Posted by sdshaver at 11:25 AM
going forward
Yep. Still here. Adjusting to new stuff.
I'm back to thinking about Myr and Co. But I'm thinking about them older, because that's what I do. I don't know where it's going, but so far it's fun. 2,222 words of fun, in fact.
Dead Wicked awaits the artist. Meanwhile, I percolate.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:02 AM