Joe Vasicek

Lord of the Rings marathon

Yeah! My last class this week ended at 3:00 on Monday, so I decided to borrow the Lord of the Rings movies from my brother-in-law and throw a marathon! Instead of watching them all in one day (which would probably have been really disgusting), we watched one each night, Monday thru Wednesday.

It was way fun! It’s been so long since I’ve immersed myself in this epic fantasy world. So classic! I can see how so many different fantasy stories have spun off of the genius of this man. And the films–they’re different from the books, in some ways, but still AMAZINGLY good. Especially the battle scenes!

So after finishing Return of the King tonight, here are some of my thoughts:

I wonder if it’s a requirement of epic fantasy to have some dark evil overlord as the main antagonist? Is it possible to have a world where evil exists, but it can’t be nailed down to just one person? For some reason, I can’t think of a fantasy series whose villain isn’t entirely evil. What if nobody is entirely evil, but the fact that they just can’t get along is the evil? Sci fi tends to blur the lines a lot more like that–why not fantasy?

Regardless of that, every fantasy needs epic battle scenes. There were so many awesome battles in Lord of the Rings–Helm’s Deep, the fields of Pellenor, various battles for Osgiliath, the battle at the gates of Mordor, etc etc. It made me think back to the battles in Mistborn, or the battles in the Chronicles of Prydain, or even the Chronicles of Narnia. Heck, you can even trace it all the way back to the Iliad. Every good fantasy needs some epic battles–not just the fighting and all that, but the before and after: the rallying of the troops, the “we must save our homeland” and “save the women and children,” and afterwards the mourning for the dead, various rites of burial, etc.

Man, all this Lord of the Rings goodness is making me want to write a fantasy story! That will probably wait until after November of next year, but I can start dreaming it up and figuring it out right now.

Satisfaction

Yes. I finally broke through this one scene that’s been giving me trouble for the last few days. I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I do believe in writer’s avoidance, and I’ve had that for the past ten days or so because of this one chapter. I’ve really wanted–and really needed–to get beyond this section of the book, but this one part of Tristen’s journey has really been hanging me up. Now that the climax has passed, I’ve only got a few hundred words before the next chapter. Thank goodness.

As frustrating as the last few days have been, and as frustrating as it was to slog through 1,700 words to close up the major fight scene in this chapter, it felt really satisfying to have it behind me. These last few days, I haven’t been writing very regularly, and I’ve also felt kind of…down, a little. I don’t know if it’s connected to my frustrations with this novel or with something else, but it just really feels good to know that I wrote 1,704 words today and got past a major hurdle.

Productivity. What an aphrodisiac.

If I finish the chapter tonight with another 500 words or so, then that’ll bring the 7 day wordcount meter up around 5,500 or so. If I write another 1k or 2k tomorrow, that’ll push it up around 7,000. If I write another 3k or 4k on Friday (and that’s not unreasonable–I’ve got the whole day off), I can probably be in the red. If I keep up with at least 2k for the rest of the break, I can have both counters in the red for at least three days.

And hopefully, before Monday comes around, I’ll be at that part of the book where I want to end up–with my main character offworld, headed for his mother’s home planet.

There are other things about this book that I want to talk about, but the library is closing and I have to go. Fortunately, I went ahead and bought that tiny little laptop I was talking about in the previous post, so come next week I won’t be limited to public computers outside of my apartment. I’m excited to get this thing in the mail! Now that’s going to be satisfying!

I’m still here…

I know I haven’t written much on this blog in recent days, but I’m still here, and still writing. I’m in a little bit of a slump, with some doubts about this story and whether I’m pulling off what I’m attempting to do…more on that in another post.

Tomorrow is the only day of school I have all week! Hooray! I still have to do my Arabic homework, but meh–it’s not too hard. I’m really REALLY looking forward to this break.

Also, I’m thinking about getting a laptop. Not a big clunky one, like my last one–I have a desktop, and that one suits most of my needs for the time being. Really, I just need something small and ultra-portable for my writing and internet usage. After chatting with some of my friends and looking around, I think I’ve found one–an eee pc that seems to do everything I want it to do for a mere $350 or so.

The only thing that worries me is that the keyboard will be too small for me to get used to. For that reason, I’m going to check it out at one of the local computer retailers here before I buy it. One of my friends from the Jordan study abroad had one, and he said that it was not very good for typing. I don’t know…for $350 and such a conveniently small size, I might be able to get used to it. Maybe.

playing catchup

Holy cow! I feel like I haven’t been blogging or writing hardly at all in the past week. Last year, I was so enthusiastic about the writing–and I still am, it’s just that school has freaking blindsided me. I had a 10 page history paper to write for today, and it threw off my schedule big time.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving break is almost upon us, and that means FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes, you’d better believe it! I’ll be here in Utah for the break, probably having Thanksgiving dinner with my sisters and their husbands’ families. In the meantime, though…FREEDOM!!!!!!! Ah, how sweet! I am so looking forward to it!

So, to help me catch up with the writing, here’s what I plan to do, starting tomorrow. Every day, I’ll wake up early (I hate sleeping in anyways) and start off the day with some writing.

If I can get in just 500 words each morning, that will be awesome. I always put off writing until the end of the day, after I’m already tired from running around juggling fifty different things at once. By that time, I don’t want to write–I want to veg out on a computer game. As a result, it’s been hard to keep a schedule–something I absolutely must do if I’m going to be anything more than a hobby writer.

If I start each day with writing, that will help me in a couple of ways. Not only will I tackle the day’s wordcount before I’m too tired to do anything except rot in my unproductive disgustingness, but I’ll be thinking about the story a lot more throughout the day. That will help me to keep the story moving.

Right now, I feel like I’m still in the first third of the story, not even halfway through with the thing. I really, really want to finish this before the end of January–if I don’t do that, it’s going to be really difficult to have three polished novels by World Fantasy 2009. So, that means that before the end of the month, I need to get Tristen off of the planet and into the Mormons-in-space society that I have envisioned.

Except, I really don’t have it envisioned yet–nothing concrete, anyways. Augh! So much to do!

So this whole break, I’m going to try and hit 4,000 words every day. If I can’t do that, at least I can do 2,000. And before school starts again, I want Tristen to be off of this planet and into the next section of the book.

Oh, and I’m going to blog more. There’s so much that I want to discuss here that I just haven’t been able to post for lack of time (as well as general disorganization and disgusting unproductiveness). So, more updates during the break.

I’m playing catchup. Let’s hope that the vacation is awesomely productive as well as refreshingly liberating.

I’m being responsible (for once)

I’ve got this history paper due on Thursday. It’s the big research paper for the semester, and it counts for a large portion of the final grade. Because the deadline is coming up, it’s really pressing on my mind right now.

Earlier in the semester, we had smaller assignments related to the paper–for example, we had to get our preliminary bibliography together, write a preliminary outline, etc. I…pretty much did the bare minimum on all of those. Yeah. Didn’t do so well.

So for this final paper, I decided to finish it early, so that I could bring it in to the FHSS Writing Lab where I work and have one of my coworkers help me with it. That means, of course, that I can’t wait until the night it’s due to write it (which is pretty much how I’ve done every other paper of my college career). I need to be responsible and get it done early.

I woke up today thinking “crap, I’ve got a paper I’ve got to write.” I decided that I’d sit down and write the whole d*** thing today after dinner. I had the urge to play Genghis Khan II, but I resisted it and went to the library. I worked really hard–I only spent about 25% to 35% of my time there chatting with friends and engaging in avoidance activity. It was tough.

I started out hating the paper, but once I had a thesis and an outline, I started to really get into it. History is kind of like storytelling, and I like storytelling. When I figured out how to insert footnotes on Word 2007, I started to get the urge to just insert a ton of them everywhere because it’s so cool. Gamila was chatting with me, and when she mentioned something from her Latin class, I said “hey, you could be the Franks and I could be the Saracens–after all, Saladin’s given name was Yusuf!” (my paper is on the crusades–can you tell?)

The coolest thing was that when I came back to the apartment, I just felt so FREEEEEEEE! I mean, yeah, the paper is still due on Thursday, and yeah, there is still a ton of work that I have to do for it, but it’s half done, and the rest is easy! I’m even starting to really enjoy this subject. I can’t wait to tell the story of Reynauld de Chatillon and all the things he did to piss off Saladin! That guy was so smug, sitting in his castle in Kerak. He even defied the orders of the king in Jerusalem to break the truce between the Franks and the Saracens! If it wasn’t for that, perhaps the Battle of Hattin would never have happened–perhaps the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have survived. Who knows?

So, yeah, I was responsible tonight…and dangit! It’s 1:45 am and I haven’t written at all for today! I would crank out a couple hundred words before going to bed, but I’ve got to get up at freaking 7am…holy cow, it’s going to kill me.

But yeah, I’m just really happy to have that burden at least partially lifted from me. Being responsible can have its perks–I should try it more often.

Bring, brang, brung

Ok, I have an idea for a language system. Well, really, it’s not much of a language system, just a quirk that if done right could make one character feel like they’re from a different place/culture. Or…it could make them sound very childish or annoying. Regardless, here it is:

I work at the FHSS Writing Lab, and when we don’t have much going on (like now, as I write this), I sit around doing online grammar lessons. The one I was working on today had to do with irregular verbs, and their present, past, and “have” forms. For example:

ring, rang, rung

as in, “I ring the doorbell,” “I rang the doorbell,” and “I have rung the doorbell.”

Well, what if you changed all these verbs to make them regular–or at least, to make groups of them regular? Could you use this principle to form a useful dialect in a fantastic world? Here are some ideas:

ring, rang, rung
think, thank, thunk
weep, wept, wupt
swing, swang, swung
strike, strake, struck
sting, stang, stung
sting, stank, stunk
bring, brang, brung
teach, taych, tawch
sweep, swept, swupt
tell, tale, tole
sleep, slept, slupt
sit, sat, sut

Etc. Or you could try and do some other rule, like bring, brought, brought to run, rought, rought. But I’m finished working now, so I’m going to take off and leave that to you to figure out.

Pay no attention to the wordcount meters

That’s right. It’s 2:40 am and I just finished up for tonight. 1,924 words–that should catch me up a bit for missing the past couple of days. At least chapter four is finished right now. Some of you might throw the book across the room if you were reading this in print, but I don’t feel bad about it. At least I can always cut stuff out.

And now, since I’m operating under the illusion that I can get all my homework done tomorrow in the morning, I’d better go to bed. Goodnight.

No writing yesterday…but there is a reason

Well, as you may notice, I didn’t write at all yesterday. My wordcount meters are both down significantly, especially the 7 day one. Grr…I will get them back up before too long! New goal: get both meters in the red by the end of the week.

However, I have a reason for not writing, and it’s not a lame excuse that such-and-such happened outside my control and I had to put my writing on hold. It’s a lot more complex than that.

Basically, the scene that I’m stopped at has some graphic content, and I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate to write that scene on a Sunday. At the same time, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t write this scene at all. In terms of the story, I think that this scene is necessary, but I can see people taking it the wrong way when they read it. I can also see myself feeling somewhat embarrassed when my friends read it. I’m not usually the kind of person that avoids controversy, but this is something where I’m not sure how to proceed.

Basically, here’s what I have in mind: Tristen, the main character, is on a mission to find his birth family. He’s left behind this futuristic Bedouin camp that’s raised him, except that the sheikh of this camp will do anything to get Tristen to stay. The first leg of Tristen’s journey is a pilgrimage to this famous temple, and the sheikh sends his daughter with Tristen, ostensibly because she want’s to make the pilgrimage too, but won’t have the opportunity in the future. Really, though, the girl has conspired with the Sheikh to try and seduce Tristen to convince him to stay.

That’s the background, but it really has nothing to do with this specific scene. In the scene I have in mind, Tristen and the girl are in a bar/restaurant halfway around the world, way far away from home, when this graphic performance occurs on the stage at this place. Basically, there is this major religious cult in this part of the world whose priestesses are basically holy prostitutes, like many Ancient Near East goddess cults.

The scene would involve some suggestive nudity and would raise the already existing sexual tension between Tristen and the daughter of this Sheikh. Basically, he’s been raised in this ultra-moralistic conservative environment, so the dance of this temple prostitute shocks him to the point where he doesn’t know what to think about it. He gets these images in his mind that he can’t get out, and he feels confused, guilty, passionate, and just…well, weird. This confusion gets him to the point where he doesn’t know what he’s doing with this girl who’s supposed to seduce him, so that she is able to break through his resistance and almost succeed in getting him to stay (and all that that implies).

Also, I want to throw this scene in to show the moral depravity of the society that Tristen passes through. By demonstrating just how graphically immoral the mainstream society has become, I’m hoping to show who Tristen really is–a morally upright person. I want to have this contrast in the story, even if it does mean writing a scene that might cause a lot of LDS readers (and even some of my friends) to throw the book across the room.

So how do I do this? How can I write a scene that is graphic and yet not pornographic? What do you think about my ideas here? What should I do–and not do? Why?

Destiny

A couple of weeks ago, we started learning about the Seljuk Turks in History 240 (History of the Middle East to 1800). This band of rugged, horse-riding nomads went from mercenary warriors of some Persian dynasty to the de facto rulers of nearly half the Muslim world. In an era when radical Shi’ism swept across North Africa and the Levant, and people thought the rise of the Fatimid Empire marked the end of the world, the Seljuks, self-appointed defenders of Sunnism headed the Fatimid conquest at Baghdad and pushed them back to Egypt. Fascinating stuff!

Then we learned about the Mongol invasion and the sack of Baghdad in 1258, when the world really DID end from the point of view of the Arabs, and I knew that Central Asia would never be boring to me again.

The Turks and the Mongols were both nomadic peoples who lived on the steppes of Central Asia–basically, an enormous stretch of grassland like the prairie in the American Midwest. These guys lived in camps, with their cattle and horses, and looked down on the thought of settling down in cities and living a civilized, sedentary life. To them, the nomadic life meant freedom–the people of the cities were voluntary slaves and beneath the hardy nomads.

Genghis Khan, born Temujin (“Genghis Khan” is a title that basically means “ruler of the world”), united the Mongol tribes and built the largest empire the world had ever seen. Bigger than Alexander’s Hellenist Empire, bigger than the Roman Empire, bigger than the Babylonians, Assyrians, Sassanians, Umayyids, or Abassids. The Mongol Empire was BIG–it stretched from Korea to the Black Sea! If it weren’t for the Mameluks (one of the few Arab kingdoms that wasn’t mismanaging itself to death), the Mongols might have swept North Africa and the Mediterranean!

The coolest part of the story was the religious justification behind Genghis Khan’s ruthless, bloodthirsty conquest. When Temujin was a young boy, the shaman of his tribe told him that the great sky god Tengri had given Temujin the world. By conquering millions of people, massacring hundreds of cities, and building an empire of blood, death, and fire, Genghis Khan was only fulfilling his destiny!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been practically obsessed with all this history. It’s fascinating! Like reading a really good novel–except it’s real life! Orson Scott Card often says that anyone interested in becoming a writer should study history instead of English in college, and I can see what he means.

All this stuff I’ve been learning about the Mongols has given me dozens of story ideas, many of which I plan on including in my current novel, Hero in Exile. I’ll write a separate post to explain it all, but basically it involves the Mongol Empire in space. Just like the Mongols considered themselves the only free people in the midst of sedentary urban dwellers, so the Hamejis in my novel (a spacefaring people who live entirely in their spaceships) consider themselves free in comparison with the billions of people living under continent sized domes across nearly a hundred settled planets. Just as the sky god Tengri gave Temujin the world, so the god of the epistellar jovian in the Hameji home system has given them the universe. It is their destiny to take and rule it by blood and fire. Bwahahaha!

(photos taken from Genghis Khan II by Koei, a 90s DOS game)

The week is OVER!!!

I am so happy. Yeah, I’ve got a current events paper I’ve got to write for MESA 201…but I can do that in like twenty minutes. Especially since the paper itself is not due, just the stuff that has to be peer critiqued. And really MESA 201 is like a flashback to high school, so it’s really not that hard.

As for Arabic homework…I’m trying hard not to think about it…was trying…dangit!

This is the main issue I had with this past week. Every time I thought I was free, some assignment or deadline that I’d forgotten would pop up and smack me across the head. Today, it was the Poli Sci 201 midterm (take home, open book). There was no other time except today (when it was due) that I could take it, so I ended up clocking out at work and doing it then. Freaking test probably cost me $30 to $40.

But this blog isn’t supposed to be about my frustrations with school, it’s supposed to be about my frustrations with writing. And other life stuff. So I’ll write about something else.

I’ve started to think about what I want to do after I get my bachelor’s degree(s?). Which is to say, I’m completely clueless at this point, but I’m trying to get a feel for my options. Yesterday there was an information session for the Masters of Public Policy program at BYU, and it looks interesting. I would like to go to grad school, and it looks like this program would take me in a direction I’d be interested in following.

Basically, the program prepares you to work as a policy/research analyst, which seems like an interesting skill set I could take to a non-profit / NGO / lobby group / think tank, which is a career path (or set of paths) that I find intriguing. I’ll bet I could find some real satisfaction putting my mind to work for a social cause that I really believe in.

But is this really what I want to do with my life? Do I want to spend 90% of my time working behind a computer at a desk, crunching statistics? And what about Arabic? How would I be able to use that? These are questions that need answering.

As for writing, the plan at this point is to do it on the side if/until it becomes lucrative enough for me to support myself and my family. In other words, for the next five-ten-fifteen years / forever, I’m going to be a mild-mannered man in a conventional (at least partially) career by day, and a super-power world-saving writer by night. Writing, at this point, is a given, a constant–I know what I’m doing as far as my writing career. I just don’t know if/when I’m going to make it my primary, so I have to make other plans like grad school / career path / whatever.

I guess that’s one thing I find reassuring about all of this: writing leaves me a means of escape from being pegged down in a boring career for the rest of my life. And my pursuit of a career feeds my writing by giving me new and exciting ideas and perspectives to bring into my writing. I’m glad I’m not studying English.

And…that’s about it for tonight. Holy cow I’m tired!