Desert Stars – Page 19 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

I really love this story

I should have written this last night, but yesterday I set out at 8:00 to write in Hero in Exile, and two hours / 1,300 words later, I realized that I really like this story.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for the romantic, exotic Western view of the Middle East–stunning deserts with their rocky cliffs and enormous sand dunes, desert caravans with their exotic wares, colorful clothing and tents, etc. Desert Bedouin with long, flowing robes and headscarves, swords and horses, striking fast and then disappearing back into the desert. I know it’s not entirely true…but I’ve been over there, and it’s not entirely false either. But in any case, I just really love this kind of stuff, and it really shows in the stories I write.

I mean, both Hero and Phoenix feature relatively primitive tribal desert cultures. In Phoenix, though, the people have a very low level of technology (bows and arrows), whereas in Hero they have stuff like nuclear powered dune buggies and portable hydroponic gardens. However, in both stories, the society is very tribal, monotheistic religions with prophets play a very important role, women and men are strictly separated, and everything else is just very…Arab. Maybe not Arab 100% (because hey, I’m not an Arab myself and even though I’ve lived among Arabs for the past year+ I’m sure I still have some misconceptions about them), but enough so that a Westerner reading one of these stories will basically be like “oh, these are Arabs on another planet. Cool.”

But last night, as I finished up the first chapter of Hero, I realized that I’ve got a really interesting set of conflicts going on here. Tristen (the main character) basically crash landed on this world after his family’s ship was attacked in orbit, and he’s been raised by this group of pseudo-Arabs in the desert. He wants to get back out into space and find out what happened to his biological family, but he has mixed feelings because he’s strongly attached to his adopted family.

Meanwhile, the sheikh of the tribe (Tristen’s adopted father) doesn’t want Tristen to leave because he has no living sons to inherit after him. He wants to manipulate Tristen to keep him in the camp. And the way he tries to do it is sooo dirty! It’s going to screw up Tristen’s emotions and relationships so bad, it’s just going to be so much fun to write. Because, you see, the sheikh assumes that Tristen, like most adolescent boys, is a slave to his hormones. The thing is, though, that Tristen has a conscience and a sense of honor that he’s willing to die for. But when everything starts to go grey, and all the role models Tristen’s ever had turn out to be false, what does he do?

Oh, it’s going to torture him! And this is just the first section of the book–this is nothing!

The trouble is, if I’m already 7,700 words into this novel and I just finished the first chapter, the completed first draft is going to be WAY long. As in, maybe 150,000 words if I’m lucky. I mean, the scope of my novel here borders on epic. There is so much cool stuff I’ve got planned for this story, and I haven’t even really figured out the ending.

So, if I’m going to write this novel, I’m really going to have to focus. No more avoidance behavior or procrastination. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard.

I did that the last two days and really had a lot of fun. Friday, I wrote 1,300 words in Hero in Exile, and today I revised the first part of chapter 6 in Phoenix of Nova Terra. Trouble is, I have trouble switching between the two projects. I can work on one the one day, and the other on another day, but not both on the same day. Still need to work on that.

So anyways, since I talked about how my understanding (and love for) Arabs and Arab culture has influenced my writing, I’d like to close this post by linking to some my friends’ blogs from the Jordan study abroad this summer:

I hung out with Nikki quite a bit on the Jordan study abroad, and she’s got a pretty cool blog. She has tons of pictures on her site that you can check out. Right now she’s in Ecuador blogging about her experiences there, but if you check out the archives you can see some really interesting posts she wrote.

Gini didn’t blog very much while we were in Jordan, but she has an interesting post up right now about her feelings on Americans and the Arab-Israeli conflict. I’ll just say that I share her frustrations 100% and leave it at that (for now).

Nate’s got an interesting blog about the far off places he visits. You should check it out; he’s got some interesting stories and perspectives about the places we visited in Jordan. Plus, he can name 88 countries in five minutes.

Finally, Breanne blogged extensively about Jordan and the Middle East, probably more than me in fact. Even though her experiences were not always as positive as mine, she describes what things are like over there really well. Her blog isn’t active anymore (she’s on her mission now), but it’s worth it to check out the archives.

One last thought: I was chatting with an Arab friend of mine from Zarqa today. She’s a writer like me, and we exchanged stories and gave each other book recommendations while we were over there at the University of Jordan. I emailed her a copy of Hero in Exile (what I have so far), and it’s going to be really interesting to hear back from her. She’s probably going to think it’s ridiculous–my dreamy, romantic ideas about Arab culture as a foreigner looking at her culture–so it’s going to be really interesting to get her feedback.

Revising, outlining, and a goals adjustment

The comments on my last post were really interesting, and made me do some thinking today. When I sat down to work on Phoenix today, I decided to look at the broader picture by outlining, in two or three sentences, what is going on in each scene I’ve revised so far.

As I did this, I realized that my chapter breaks are in all the wrong places. Not only are most of the beginning chapters way too short, but the breaks just didn’t feel natural. I decided to rearrange them.

At first, I thought it would be easy, but after an hour of trying to figure it out, I realized that it was a lot harder than I’d thought.

Then, I remembered what Brandon Sanderson taught in English 318: chaptes are like miniature stories in themselves, where each one has a beginning, middle, and ending that leads to the next chapter.

Once I starting thinking of it this way, I was able to organize things in a workable pattern. While the story progresses at a steady pace throughout the book, each chapter is organized around a common theme. The chapter begins with an issue or problem, and ends when that problem either is solved or totally spins out of control.

For example:

Chapter one begins and ends with Ian’s unease about setting his feet on the surface of a planet since he was six years old. His ship, the Avion-45, gets hit by some kind of futuristic EMP and the captain decides to abandon ship. The central issue is Ian’s fear of going planetside–a fear that he doesn’t understand.

Chapter two begins with the crew loading onto the escape pods to make an emergency landing on the planet. There is an accident, and Ian’s pod gets separated from the rest of the crew. Ian, with Melinda and Ben, crash land in a desert. The chapter ends with the bandit attack, with Ben and Melinda wounded and possibly dead. The central problem is that Ian is progressively separated from his peers, and it gets worse right up to the end.

Chapter three introduces Leila, a princess kidnapped by the bandits and abused by their women. They send her out to investigate the battlefield, and she meets up with Ian. She manipulates the situation so that the bandit women think that Ian has rescued her and subjugated them. The main problem is Leila’s subjugation by the bandits, and the chapter ends with her successfully turning the tables on them.

Etc etc.

So then I used this way of thinking to outline the next chapter that I need to revise. As I wrote it out, scene by scene, I realized that the best way to develop the central focus of that chapter was to combine two events into one and reorganize how I did the perspectives. Not only would that shorten the chapter, but it would also make it less choppy and more straightforward. It would also build the suspense a lot better.

So now, even though I know that I have a ton of work to do to rewrite that chapter, I’m stoked to dive into it because I know what I’m doing. If I keep to this method, I think that the second draft will be much stronger than it otherwise would have been.

Oh, and I decided to revise my goals a bit. Here are some daily goals that I think I can actually accomplish:

Revise at least six pages of The Phoenix of Nova Terra.
Write at least 500 words in Hero in Exile OR write a wikidpad article about some aspect of the story universe.

These are goals that I feel I can actually accomplish on a daily basis. And if I think I can accomplish them, I’m sure I will.

What I really need is to keep my mind in both stories at the same time. That’s the real challenge. But if I want to write professionally, that’s a skill that I’m going to need.

Finally, here’s something cool a friend of mine just showed me. If your Meyers Briggs personality type is INTP (or if you have a significant other whose personality type is INTP), this might interest you. It’s just so hilarious that a bunch of INTPs got together and made a website devoted to their personality type. If any of the sixteen types were to do it, it would definitely be them.

I did it!

Yay! I finally hit all three of my daily goals in one night! Six+ pages of revision in Phoenix, 500+ words in Hero, and a contribution to the wikidpad notes on Hero! It may not sound like too much, but it makes me happy.

And I’m sick. Blegh. Since it’s after 1:30 am and I have a class at 8:00 that I absolutely cannot miss, I’m going to bed now. Hopefully, I will not be a wreck in the morning. Nothing gets you down like sickness.

But the sickness didn’t get my writing down! Woo hoo!

General Conference and weekend progress (or lack thereof)

This weekend was General Conference. I watched most of the sessions from friends’ apartments here in the FLSR. While I enjoyed many of the speakers and caught all four sessions, I have to confess that I slept through a lot more of the talks than I should have. I’ll definitely download the mp3s and listen to them when they come out.

As far as writing goes, this week was a lot slower than I would have liked. Yesterday was packed from the moment I woke up (10:30 am) to when I finally went to sleep, though I did get in a little bit of writing between sessions. Today, I woke up feeling sick, which didn’t help things either.

Despite all this, I’m really happy to say that I made some serious progress in Phoenix. Cut out more than a thousand words and revised nearly twenty pages altogether. Things are right on track for that story, and I’m really enjoying the rewrite.

Hero in Exile, though, is different. I didn’t make nearly the progress that I wanted to on that one. <sigh> looks like I’ll have to wait for the next weekend. That, or start writing in it more consistently.

That’s all for now. In the meantime, check out this amazingly cool picture of a solar prominence from Astronomy Picture of the Day. Or my friend Steve’s blog. Just remember, Steve claimed for the longest time that he would never write his own blog, so don’t believe a word he says. You have it from me.

Making it up on the weekend

Yesterday, as I was writing a small paper (~500 words) for PLSC 201, I realized that I would be FINISHED with classes this week today at three o’clock and I wouldn’t really have to worry about homework. What a delicious breath of freedom!

So today, after I slept through the four hour-and-a-half classes that I have today (no joke–I sat next to Gretchen Belnap in history and she doodled on my notebook!), I thought to myself “you know, I could take all this extra time on the weekend and use it to catch up on my writing.”

I was really stoked until I remembered that General Conference is this weekend. Not that I wasn’t looking forward to Conference–I really enjoy it–it’s just that it’s going to eat up a lot of time, hanging out with friends and family between sessions and all.

But regardless of that, tomorrow is almost totally open! I’ve just got work from ten to three (which, even though it sounds like a lot, really isn’t), a writing meeting at five, and I’ll probably drop in on a mission reunion sometime in the evening just for a little bit. And even though conference is all weekend, I’ll probably have time in the morning and/or between sessions.

So I’m going to take that time to sit down and do some serious writing, especially in Hero in Exile. Does 3,000 words sound like too much to shoot for? I just want to sit down and immerse myself in that story. Phoenix too–maybe I can get through ten or fifteen pages.

Everything else is going really well for me. My classload is really light, which is great because it’s leaving me time for other stuff, like a social life. Work is awesome–I have so much fun going over people’s papers! Even though I sometimes feel like I’m BSing too much, I find it both relaxing and productive at the same time (if that makes sense). Plus, all my coworkers are way cool. My supervisor is way chill and thinks that I’m really amazing for writing novels. It’s just a lot of fun. Plus, I calculated that with my sixteen hour week, I can expect to earn $280 every pay period. SWEET!

Finally, here’s something interesting I was looking at today. It’s a really cool steampunk webcomic called Girl Genius. I heard about it when Brandon Sanderson and his buddies did a podcast with the creators of this comic, and got hooked on it shortly thereafter. It’s got a really complex storyline that I honestly don’t understand yet (I’m slowly making my way through the archives), but each strip is hilarious in itself, and the characters and setting are so interesting that it’s not hard to get swept up by it all. I mean, airships…need I say more? If you like steampunk and/or good quality webcomics, this is definitely worth checking out.

And now, I’m going to finish this post because I should be writing in my stories, not on my blog.

Progress comes slowly

I feel like today was fairly productive. I finished all the homework that’s due tomorrow, put in three hours at the writing lab, went to all my classes, got up early, and now I’m going to bed relatively late, after writing for about two hours.

However, I still wasn’t able to get all the writing done that I’d have liked. Edited another six pages of Phoenix. Didn’t write a wikidpad article for Hero. Didn’t put in another 500 words in that story.

I’ve noticed, though, that I’m starting to think a lot more about my writing, especially after yesterday. While walking around on campus (and during the more boring parts of my classes) I was thinking about what I should do in the next few pages, how I should edit this particular scene–actually putting myself in the scene and trying to visualize it.

In short, the momentum is building. When I got back from working out, I was able to sit down and dive straight into the story. No procrastinating. No avoidance behavior. It was nice.

And then, what felt like five minutes later, I got this pop up message on my screen that the LRC was closing in only one minute and that I was about to be kicked off. Talk about panic! I wasn’t able to eject my disc safely, so when I got back to the FLSR I literally ran to my computer to check if I’d lost the story.

Thank goodness, it was still there, but my roommate Basseem had quite a laugh.

Now I just have to get that momentum going on my other project. If I can freaking find the time. I haven’t even figured out what I’m going to do as far as dating this week–and heck, if I don’t consciously make it a priority, I know that it won’t happen. There are a few girls I’d like to ask out, but no specifics or anything.

Man, I can’t afford avoidance activity or procrastination anymore! There’s just not enough time. But…shoot! That means I have to be constantly putting myself out there! Argh!

I’m sure that all of this is good for me. Probably a little bit more good than I’d like.

In the meantime, I don’t believe in writing boring, useless blog posts anymore, so here is something interesting I found the other day. It’s a customizable podcast for the scriptures. Basically, when you sign up you create a personalized podcast feed for any of the standard works, so that you can download the scriptures one chapter at a time (or two or three) as often as you would like. It’s basically like podiobooks, except for the scriptures.

So anyways, that’s what’s going on over here. It’s 1:30 am, and I have a class that starts in six and a half hours. G’night!

Maybe I spoke too soon…

Yeah, I thought that six pages a day wouldn’t be that hard for the rewrite of The Phoenix of Nova Terra. Well, I might be wrong.

After a really awesome and refreshing Sunday, I sat down around 10:00 pm to work on Phoenix. I thought that I’d spend maybe half an hour or an hour working on that, which would get me excited to work on the other projects. After all, six pages isn’t that much, right?

Well, it’s 2:00 am and I’m signing off, after getting through about nine or ten pages only. Man, it was difficult. Satisfying, but difficult. I didn’t even have time left over to get to Hero in Exile. Dang!

It probably didn’t help that I had facebook open the whole time. I think I spent an hour and a half just chatting with various friends. Even though it was distracting, it was fun. I found out that one of the kids from the Amman branch got his mission call…to San Jose California! Awesome! And chatted with a few other friends who I haven’t talked with in a while. It was fun…but very distracting.

A day has not gone by since the beginning of this semester wherein I have accomplished all of my daily goals. That’s kind of frustrating. I got two out of three today–six pages in Phoenix and an article on the wikidpad for Hero. I hate writing those articles, but they are actually extremely helpful because they make me think about that story. Prewriting sucks, but when you put your ideas down on paper, the exercise makes you see things that follow logically from your story elements, which affect other elements, which come back around to give you good ideas of new things to put in your story. Hero will probably be a much stronger novel than Phoenix because of all this.

But yeah, it’s late. I must sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppp.

Goals update…and it’s freaking late…

Man, I’ve been really bad about my writing goals this month. I set a whole bunch of goals right as school started, and I don’t think a single day has gone by where I’ve kept all of them. Blegh, that’s disgusting.

So today I took some time to rethink things and reevaluate. I figured that I’d have to drop those old goals I’d set, settle for something more practical and less wild and crazy. Something disssapointing like that.

The surprising (and encouraging) thing was that, when I calculated how many days I had to accomplish these things, I saw that they were still very much within my reach.

I mean, in order to finish the rewrite of The Phoenix of Nova Terra on schedule, all I’ve got to do is revise six pages a day. Six pages! That’s virtually nothing! Get me on a roll, and I can do ten to twenty pages easy–and thoroughly enjoy it.

As far as Hero in Exile is concerned, if I write 500 words a day, I’ll be at 100,000 words by March. 100,000 is more than I want to write for this novel–I want to try and keep this one relatively short, in the 50,000 to 100,000 word range. And that’s just at 500 words per day! I’m sure there will be days where I write more–where I’ll be driven to write more.

So now, I’m happy to say that even though this month has been way disorganized, I still think I can do this. I will. I’ll be consistent, put forth my best efforts, and have three polished novels by November 2009 in time for the World Fantasy Convention. And I’ll be there! For sure, I’ll be there.

The problem is that I put off writing until the last thing I do before I go to bed. Then, I run around doing all sorts of night owl type things, until finally 2:00 am comes around, and then it’s just too late to do anything but pass out. ugh. UGH.

But tonight, before running out to hang out with some friends (and then waste time upon coming back), I sat down and forced myself to write. And it worked! I made some good progress in Hero in Exile. It’s just 500 words or so, but I’m starting to think in terms of “what do I need to accomplish in this scene?” rather than “how can I get my 500 words in today?” That’s good. Progress, at least of some kind.

There is other stuff that I need to blog about, but I’ll do it in a later post. Gotta review Dune, gotta write about my new job, I’ve got a letter to the Daily Universe that I want to post up here first…all kinds of stuff.

But for now, I think I’m finished. Time to pass out for the next four or five hours. UUGGGGGHH.

Progress!

Last night I hung out with my friends Steve Dethloff and Lindsay Rowe over at Steve’s new apartment at King Henry. Had a really good time, which unfortunately involved staying up until 2:30 am. The next day I was zombified–even more than usual. I can’t keep this up much longer…need sleep…

So the day pretty much sucked. I can handle tiredness, but not too much of it. By the end of the day, I was just miserable, so I skipped my last class.

The evening was much better, though. Much better. I went out to the Smith Fieldhouse and worked out from 9pm to 10pm, riding the exercise bike while reading Dune. Fantastic book: I’m reading it for the quark book club. Working out in general is also really good because it wakes up your mind and gets your creativity flowing better. At least it does for me.

So then, I decided that enough procrastinating is enough, and if I’m going to ever write any of these novels, it’s butt-in-chair hands-on-keyboard time. Washed up, went to the library, and just sat down and wrote.

It was good! I think I’m gradually starting to get into this new story, Hero in Exile. I only got about 530 words today, but I can feel the momentum picking up. Once I’ve got momentum, things will be much easier.

So that’s what I was up to today as far as writing. Gradually getting back into it. Now, it’s 1:20 am, I’ve got a test in the Humanities testing lab at 9:00, and I really need to sleep.

Ggggggggroggy

Yes I am. No routine and lots of destractions equals late, late nights. I don’t think I’ve gone to bed before 2 am at any time this week, and now I’m suffering for it. Fortunately, though, this is the weekend, so I can recuperate a little.

The only writing goal I’ve marginally been keeping up with is the 500 words/day one. However, I’ve been off to a rocky start with Hero in Exile, and I’ve rewritten the first chapter about three times now. Fortunately, I got a lot of extremely helpful feedback from the quark meeting today, so I think that this latest rewrite is going to be the final one…for this draft at least.

Which reminds me, we had our first Quark writing meeting of the semester today! Yay! I think it went really well: Gamila, Jakeson, Cholisose, Hillary, Marissa, and John all came today, plus a new guy whose name is Steve. Also, I met a couple of people at the social who are interested in coming this year, including FYsenshi and some new guys. We’ll see if membership explodes like it did last year, but if it doesn’t, I’m sure we’ll still have fun.

So, yeah, it’s getting late, and I really, really need to get some sleep this weekend. I’ll probably be writing all day tomorrow when I’m not in church, since I want to finish the short story I mentioned earlier before I ask this girl out on a second date and get an earthshaking rejection. That would definitely freeze my creative juices on this endeavor and I think that it might actually end up somewhat decent–that is, if I can edit out all the superlatives and the melodramatic cheesiness on the rewrite. We’ll see how it goes.

One final thing: just now I saw this really cool site where you can create a word cloud for a website and/or a bunch of text. I copy and pasted the rough draft of The Lost Colony and this is what I got. Check it out!