One Thousand And One Parsecs

Why am I so #$%! unproductive?

I don’t know why, but it’s a lot harder for me to write the first draft of something than it is to revise it.  Finishing my last novel was much, much harder than any of the projects before it, and my productivity is still suffering because of it.

The root problem, I suppose, is procrastination.  While I was writing my last novel, things got really tough towards the end, and I found myself procrastinating much more than I should have.  That led me to develop a dangerous habit.  Right now, as I move into the fourth revision of Mercenary Savior, I find that I’m still procrastinating even when the work is much easier (and more enjoyable).

Or is that really it?  Maybe I wasn’t procrastinating when I was writing my last novel–maybe I was taking frequent breaks to “fill the well.” Except now, those breaks have turned into full-scale procrastination, and I’m finding it very hard to get back on a regular schedule.

I’ve been doing about 1k to 3k words per day this past week, but I feel like I should be doing around 4k or 5k.  A lot of the time, I put off even starting until around 5pm, and stay up until late hours of the night when I should be sleeping.  It’s not a sustainable schedule, and I know it.

Part of it might have to do with the fact that I’m back at my parents’ house right now, taking a short break before returning to Utah.  I guess I should just stop worrying and enjoy my time here–I’m still doing well, overall, and there’s more to life than writing all the time.  Still, it’s maddening to feel unproductive.  Blarg.

Other than that, things are going great.  I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my dad, as well as relaxing and taking time off from other pursuits.  Saw Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and loved them both.  Read a couple of good books, too.  Life is good.

In unrelated news, my sister is about to have a baby.  Everyone in the family is WAY excited.  We love you, Kate and Danny!

Worlds of our own choosing

Note: All material in this post is under full copyright.  Do not use without permission.

About a month ago, I was walking out of the plasma center when inspiration smacked me square in the face.  Two character voices, both of which I’d never heard before, started having the most fascinating argument.

Knowing that I would immediately forget everything if I didn’t stop and record it RIGHT THAT MOMENT, I pulled out my story notebook, sat down next to my bike, and started writing.  This is more or less what I jotted down:

1st voice: All of us live in the world of our own choosing.

2nd voice: What are you talking about?

1st: I mean that all of us choose the world we live in.  All of us live in a world of our own construction.

2nd: That’s crazy.

1st: Yes, but it’s true.

2nd: It can’t be.  How can it be?

1st: Because that’s who we are.  It’s what we do.  We create worlds–if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human.

2nd: Now you’re just being crazy.

1st: In the world you choose to live in, yes, I’m crazy.

2nd: Look, that can’t be true.  We all live in the same world.  We see the same things, not different things.  I can’t just choose to look out the window and see a red sky, can I?

1st: No, but you can choose whether or not the day is beautiful to you.

2nd: Yeah, okay, but the sky is the same color for all of us, isn’t it?  It’s still the same sky.  I can’t live in a world without a sky, can I?

1st: Actually, most people never look up to see it.  They live in a world where the sky over their heads is irrelevant–as if it didn’t exist.

2nd: Yeah, but look, if we were to take the same exact thing–say, a rock–and look at it under a microscope, we’d see the same elements, wouldn’t we?  The molecules and atoms are all the same, right?

1st: Of course.

2nd: Right!  So that means we live in the same world, not different worlds.  Everything is the same.

1st: My friend, you don’t understand.  A world is so much more than the sum of its atoms.  Those are just the building blocks–the true essence lies in how they’re put together.  It lies in the story we tell ourselves to explain it all.  You see a rock and think, “huh, just another rock.” It doesn’t fit into your story–into your world–except as another set piece.   A boy, however, would see the perfect, skipping stone; a geologist would see a remnant from the age of the dinosaur.  A pilgrim to Mecca would see the rock with which he will smite Shaitan.  Different worlds, my friend–their worlds are all very different from yours.

2nd: Okay, maybe that’s true.  We attach different meaning to things–I can accept that–but that doesn’t mean that we live in separate worlds.

1st: On the contrary, my friend.  You’re presuming that cold, objective reality is more important to us than subjective truth, and that’s obviously false, because none of us–absolutely none of us–can absorb objective reality without fitting it into some kind of story.  We cannot observe anything objectively, for in the very act of observation, we attach meaning to what we see, just to make sense of it.

2nd: Yes, but–

1st: This is what it means to be human.  We take pieces of the reality we observe and make up stories to explain it.  We all tell ourselves thousands of stories every day, simply through the act of living.  It comes so natural that most of the time, we barely notice it.

2nd: Whatever.

1st: The tragedy, my friend, is that most of us don’t realize that we choose the world we live in.  We make critical choices every day and aren’t even aware of most of them.  We each have the capability to change our world by changing the way we see it, yet most of us never realize it.  We go on living in a world that makes us miserable, looking for some outside force to change it, when really, change is no further than our mind.

2nd: That makes no sense.

1st: Only because you refuse to open your eyes and see it.

2nd: Yeah–because what you’re saying is impossible.

1st: Exactly!  That’s exactly what I’m talking about!

2nd: What?

1st: I’m talking about the impossible–the things that, in your world, could never happen.  But what if they’re only impossible because you refuse to believe in them?  Because they have no place in the carefully ordered reality you’ve constructed for yourself?

2nd: I–

1st: My friend, if only you can let go of the comfortable delusion of certainty and take one step into the darkness, you’ll soon find entire worlds of possibilities opening up to your view.  All you need to do is open your mind and take that terrifying first step.

There you have it.  A little rough, certainly, but that’s not important–what matters are the ideas behind it all.  And to me at least, the ideas are quite fascinating.

I tried to use some of these ideas in Worlds Away from Home, but I don’t think any of them came across very clearly.  I probably have to let the story stew a bit in my mind in order to figure out what it’s really about.  Maybe I’ll insert a slightly edited version of this dialog in there somewhere, but I won’t force it.

In the meantime, what do you think?  Did any of this resonate with you, or does it sound like so much philosophical hogwash?  Tell me–I want to know!

Worlds Away from Home 1.2 is finished!

That’s right!  Here are the stats:

Worlds Away from Home 1.2

mss pages: 536
words: 116,219
file size: 259 KB
chapters: 24
start date: 9 June 2010
end date: 16 August 2010

And here’s the wordsplash:

Also, I don’t know if this is of any significance to anyone, but this is the song that I had playing while I wrote the last scene. Thanks to Rafael for tipping me off to it.

And what are my thoughts, now that it’s finished?

1) Thank goodness it’s over.
2) Wait, it’s over?
3) Wow, the ending didn’t suck as bad as I thought it would.
4) …is it really over? Really? Like, I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and procrastinate writing all day, like I have for the past two months?
5) Huh.

Of course, it still needs a TON of work–plot holes to fill, character inconsistencies to mend, worldbuilding crap to throw in (or throw out), climaxes to resolve. I won’t send it out to any first readers until after I’ve done at least one major revision.

Still, there’s something satisfying about finishing a 120k word novel. Most of my misgivings about the story disappeared as I wrote the final chapters, and now I’m much more confident that I can make this thing publishable.

Eventually, that is. For now, it’s time to move on to the next big project.

The biggest scare of my life

I just had the biggest scare of my life.

Moments after finishing Worlds Away from Home, I opened the spreadsheet with my daily wordcounts and noticed that it was missing all the data from the last week.  All the data.  Not sure what to do, I saved Worlds Away, closed it, reopened it…and found that everything I’d written in the last week was lost.

I almost had a nervous breakdown.  I had just finished the last scene, written the last sentence, brought the story to an emotionally poignant ending–and it was all gone.

I freaked out.  Searched through all the temp folders, found the backup path for openoffice and searched that–it was all gone.

Not sure what to do, I plugged my flash drive into my other computer, brought up the document, and THANK GOD it was all there.  Everything down to the very last line that I’d written only moments ago.

Oh man, you have no idea what I was feeling right then.  I collapsed to my knees and promptly saved a two backups, one of the document, the other of everything on my flash drive.

Now I’m scared to plug my flash drive back into my desktop computer, though.  What happened?  Will I lose all my data again?

Maybe this will help: While I had my novel open, I plugged in another storage device to a jack next to the one my flash drive was plugged into.  You know the tone that windows makes when you unplug a USB device?  It made that noise twice, as if I’d just unplugged my flash drive.  Later, I unplugged the second device, I think it did the same thing, but I’m not sure.

Also, when I opened up the documents I’d been working on on my other computer, I noticed that while my novel (which I’d had open prior to plugging in the second device) had its most recent save, the other documents only had the data from my save on the previous night.  In other words, while everything I’d written in my novel tonight was saved, anything I’d written in anything opened after plugging in the second USB device was not saved.

Clearly, this must be a hardware problem of some sort.  Perhaps something on the motherboard isn’t fully plugged in?  Dang, I’ve got to fix it–I can’t afford to have another scare like this.

Sorry I haven’t posted much recently–I’ve been very busy with this novel.  Expect a post sometime tomorrow about finishing it.

Almost at four

I’ve got half a dozen things I could blog about, but it’s 2 am and cleaning checks are tomorrow, so I think I’m going to give a quick update and go to bed.

Worlds Away from Home is doing quite well–I’m only two chapters and five scenes from the end.  I’d push really hard to finish it tomorrow, but I’m still waiting on some of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior and probably won’t start that project until after I go back to Massachusetts at the end of the month.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the seven point story structure Dan Wells talked about at LTUE 2010 (which I missed, but caught on youtube), and I’ve got a TON of ideas for Mercenary Savior now.  I’m practically chomping at the bit to start analyzing this story and working out all the complex plot and character elements.  That’s very good.

While chatting with one of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior, I had an interesting idea for a direct sequel.  Basically, while James’s storyline has some closure (or should, after I finish this next revision), he’s still got a lot of growing and maturing to do.  My mind is already working it out…should I make that my fifth novel?  Or move on to something else first?  The thing about direct sequels is you can’t sell them without the first book, and if the first book doesn’t sell…

I’m applying for Redcliff Ascent; if all goes well, I’ll be participating in the November training (since September is full).  At first, I was hesitant about this (since I kind of need a job now), but looking at it now, that’s probably the best time to do it.  It’s after World Fantasy, which gives me time to finish Mercenary Savior, and late enough in the year that I can still finish that article for Mormon Artist.  Plus, I can easily get a schedule that allows me to attend LTUE 2011.  The only disadvantage is that I won’t be able to attend all of Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 classes, but that’s not such a big deal (seeing as I’ve taken the class twice already!).

Other than that, life is good.  I’m going home in a week to see my parents and get my teeth done (since my mom’s health insurance covers me until my birthday in September–why pay for a checkup when you could have it for free?), and I’m definitely looking forward to that.  And now that I’m almost finished with Worlds Away, I can see that it’s got potential, and that’s encouraging.  Not this draft, certainly, but once I fix all the holes, it could really go somewhere.

Either way, it’s going to be nice having four novels under my belt.

End in sight

Things are winding down for my current work in progress, Worlds Away from Home–or should I say winding up, since I’m just a chapter or two from the major climax?  In any case, by the end of the week, inshallah, the rough draft will be finished. <crosses fingers>

It’s been tough, but I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to salvage it, probably sometime after World Fantasy 2010.  Drafting is not my strongest point; I’m much better at revision.  My goal is to have a fully polished draft before the end of 2011.

As far as the real world goes, things are starting to come together as well.  I’m going home at the end of the month to get my teeth checked before my Mom’s insurance no longer covers me, and when I get back this temp agency should have a warehouse job lined up for a while, if I can’t find anything else.  I’m cautiously optimistic that my sister will help me get a job at the residential treatment center where she works, which would be awesome, and of course there’s always the possibility that BYU will lift the hiring freeze (pretty soon, they’ll have to).

So here’s my plan for the next few months: quit my job at the call center and go home in two weeks, then either work through the temp agency through September/October or find something better.  The wilderness job I was looking at has their training in November, so I’ll start the application process now in order to have that option in case everything else falls through.  And if all else fails, I’ll go teach English in Asia for a year.

Meanwhile, I hope to stay in Utah until at least February, preferably until April.  There are a lot of good resources here for writers, and I hope to take advantage of them.  After I finish the rough draft of Worlds, I will throw everything behind Mercenary Savior and get it polished in time for World Fantasy 2010.

And then?  Who knows.  I’d kind of like to try my hand at a fantasy novel; I’ve got the start of an idea for a magic system, and enough knowledge of Middle Eastern history to throw in a sweet medieval Arab flavor in the mix.

In terms of the real world, my plan is to reteach myself Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus using some excellent resources my Dad is sending me, then go back to school in a hard science…probably.  Still not sure what I want to do school-wise, but hopefully I’ll figure that out in the next year or two and head back soon.

That is, if I don’t get published and launch my writing career by then.

So that’s what my life is looking like right now.  If you’re still reading and aren’t bored stiff (or if you just skipped to the end of the post, which is what I would have done), here’s an excellent song from one of my favorite Celtic bands, The Rogues:

If it kills me

I will finish this novel if it kills me. At the rate things are going, it just might.

Things are kind of tough for me right now.  I desperately need a new job–the one I’ve got is slowly sucking away my soul without even paying enough to get by–and job rejections are way worse than rejections from publishers (I’ve been getting a lot of both, by the way.  Not that I’m looking for pity, but yeah.).

As if that weren’t bad enough, my current novel, Worlds Away from Home, is turning out to be a train wreck.  There are all sorts of problems with character motivations, improper foreshadowing and plot set up, etc etc.  That makes it REALLY hard to get motivated to write each day.  Yesterday, I wrote only 245 words (youch).  Today, I did about 2.2k, but that’s still way less than I need to be doing.

The thing that worries me the most is the thought that the audience for this particular story may be slim to nonexistent.  It’s solid space opera, but with a romantic element that challenges a lot of the mores of our modern, sex-saturated society, as well as many of the conventions of romance within science fiction.

The main female protagonist is something of a pushover–but she has to be, in order for her growth arc to have any umph.  The main male protagonist is an orphan on a quest to discover his own origins, kind of like a cross between Mogli and Pip.  His quest, combined with her parents’ manipulative attempts to get them physically intimate too soon, are the main things keeping them apart.

But in a genre where physical intimacy usually marks the romantic climax, how do you make it out to be the obstacle against that climax?  Will science fiction readers go for that, or will they hurl my book across the room because of it?

Well, if they hurled my current draft, I wouldn’t blame them one single bit.  So many plot holes and awkwardly written scenes–ugh.  I’ve got to seriously rethink so much about this story.  But a later draft?  I don’t know–maybe it would work.  It would probably need other hooks to keep them engaged, such as cool world building elements, but I think I could make those work.

Anyway, I suppose it’s nothing unusual.  For every book I’ve written, I’ve come to a point in the rough draft where I thought the story was completely unworkable and should be scrapped.  It’s a tortuous, masochistic process, but I suppose it’s normal.  That’s some comfort, at least.

My goal is to finish this abomination by August 15th, then move on to polish Mercenary Savior and make it really shine.

Another goal is to get a decently paying job (at least $8/hr at +25 hours per week) in order to afford to go to DragonCon in September.  Another goal is to reteach myself algebra and calculus through the math books my dad (who is a geometry teacher) is letting me borrow.  Another goal is to actually get a social life.  BLARG.

Slogging through to the bitter happy ending

Oh man.  I was hoping to hit 5k words today, and even though I must have spent five or six hours writing, I only managed half of that.  It’s progress, I know, but it’s not as much progress as I’d like; the words just aren’t coming, no matter what I do.  Blarg.

The worst part is that I know that most of these words are just crap.  I’ll get to the end of a chapter and think “oh yeah, shouldn’t these characters be doing/thinking this?” And I’ll make a couple of notes in the revision guide, or touch up what I’ve written just a little bit, but one thing compounds on another until everything’s got problems.

But you know what?  I’m almost three quarters of the way through, so it’s probably better just to write on through these problems and finish the @#$! thing.  At this point, I’ve got a good enough story that I can carry things through to the end, as horrible as it may be, and just fix everything in the next draft.

It’s frustrating, though, because I know that most of the changes I’m going to make will seem obvious.  Why can’t I just get it right the first time?

Is it because I failed to outline things enough?  I know from experience, however, that outlining too much can be fatal for me.  Is it because I didn’t take the time to immerse myself in my story?  But then again, I’ve been spending so much time on my writing, everything else seems to be suffering, including my social life…

BLARG.

I’m probably just missing the forest for the trees.  Once I get out of these woods, though, I’m sure things will fall into place.  One way or another, in two weeks this abomination will be FINISHED! …at least until the next draft.