Genesis Earth – Page 20 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Slow but steady

Okay, quick post before I go to bed.

Things are progressing in this novel, slowly but surely, as you can see from the wordcount. Unlike past weeks, I’m not pushing myself too hard, mostly because I’ve got a lot of schoolwork right now and if I were to spend much more time on this novel, I would neglect a lot of the more important stuff. Even though my course load is relatively light this semester, I’m a senior and I’m really not as motivated to do this stuff as I used to be. I get done what needs to get done, but just barely.

I have been successfully getting up early, however. And I’ve discovered something very interesting: I’m more productive when I have less free time. Thursday, I didn’t have class until noon, so when I got on the computer at about 6:30 to write, I opened up the email, opened up facebook…and, by the time I had to leave for class, I had only written about 430 words. Disgusting. But today, when I had class at 9:00 am and still had my Arabic homework to do, I got in about 700 words in half an hour.

I still have a lot of self discipline to learn, I guess. 😛 The scary thing is that my idea, up to this point, has been to keep my time open in the summer so that I’ll be able to write. Err…yeah. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve been getting a lot of comments back from my alpha readers on Genesis Earth, and it’s been REALLY fun! Even the criticism–as long as it’s helpful criticism, I really appreciate it. This one girl in my ward asked me if she could be an alpha reader, then read the whole thing in only a couple of days. She had a LOT of positive comments–in fact, almost all of her comments were positive–and she said she really loved it! So much so, in fact, that she said she was having withdrawals, so I sent her The Phoenix of Nova Terra v1.2. Hopefully, getting her comments back will give me motivation to pick up that old thing and rework it…goodness knows it needs it. Needs it bad.

My first two novels, The Phoenix of Nova Terra and Genesis Earth are completely different in some ways, but very similar in others.

<spoiler alert>

They both have an important romantic element, and they both have generally positive endings. The book I’m writing now is something of a tragedy, at least at it’s core, and there is a completely different dynamic there. No love stories, no happy resolutions–lots of pain, lots of violence, lots of grappling with difficult issues.

</spoiler alert>

I suppose it’s good to try out a lot of different things early on in your writing career. That’s what I’m doing. At the same time, though…I get feedback on the one novel, and I kind of want to work on it instead of the one right in front of me! And when I think about what I did right in the one I finished, I look at the one I’m currently writing and I think “man, this is crap.” Of course, I keep working on it because I recognize that I ALWAYS think “man, this is crap” at some point before I’m done. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier, however.

Jason from the FLSR writing group said something interesting about that, however. He said that writing a draft of a novel is like climbing a mountain: you do it three times.

The first time, you climb it in your mind as you plan it out. You’re excited and motivated, and busy with all the preparations.

The second time, you actually physically do the work of climbing. It is long, hard, and frustrating, you get lost a few times, the summit is anticlimactic, and the return is boring. You can’t wait until you’ve finished and it’s all over.

The third time is when you look back on the experience after you’re safely back down. No matter how excruciating the climb was, you look back on it fondly and remember all the best parts. You thrive on the memories and wish that you were back up there, standing on the summit, enjoying the experience.

Right now, I’m on my third climb for Genesis Earth and my second climb for Bringing Estella Home. I can remember how miserable I was when I was still in the middle of Genesis Earth–for a while I seriously thought about throwing the whole thing out and doing something else. However, now that I’ve been letting it sit for a while, I’m getting really, really excited about it! I can hardly wait before I can get back and write the second draft.

But that’s not going to happen until I finish Bringing Estella Home. And, no matter how difficult it gets, I swear I WILL finish this book! I’m a chapter away from act III, and that’s too deep into the thing to quit and start something else! This book WILL be finished–if not by April, then by sometime in May!

I love writing

Man, I love writing. I wrote 1,617 words today, and when I wasn’t writing I was thinking about what I was going to write. I only regret that I waited until about 10:30 pm to start writing; it’s 2:10 am and I still haven’t started my Arabic homework 😛

When I started Hero in Exile, I tried to plan everything out before I started writing. As a result, writing was a real chore, and to make it more of a creative exercise than merely transcribing what I’d already worked out in my head, I played around a lot with the language and writing style. It was still a chore, but I think my writing improved quite a lot. I’ve gotten some really interesting comments back on my writing style for Genesis Earth, some very encouraging comments about the way I played around with the English language.

For this story, Bringing Estella Home, it’s both completely different and more of the same. I’m going into chapter 4 without any planning or preconceptions, so practically all the world building is on the fly. It’s wonderful. This is the chapter where Estella enters the harem and gets assimilated, in a certain way, into Hameji society. It’s basically her discovery of this new world, and it is so much fun creating it as I go along. Lots of room for a creative outlet, and yet at the same time, I’m also playing around with the language aspects of the narrative like I did in Hero in Exile and Genesis Earth. The result, I hope, is good quality creative writing.

Of course, one of the side effects of this process is that it sucks up a ton of my time. A ton of time, and not just time–since I’ve got internet access here, there is no shortage of distractions to tempt and indulge me. This is actually quite a serious problem–and yet, if I forced myself to focus, would I really have been more productive? It’s hard to say, because taking little breaks every once and a while can actually help you think of better ways to phrase things. Still, I know that I worked a lot slower because of all these distractions; perhaps a little more self-discipline would have really helped me out.

When I move out on my own and make my own writing space, it’s going to be in a secluded corner of my house somewhere, with an old desktop computer that has no internet access, just word processors and perhaps an electronic encyclopedia of some kind.

I’m going to have an overstuffed easy chair pulled up to the desk where the computer is, the kind that I can just lay back in and get absorbed by the sheer comfort of it. I’m sitting in a chair kind of like that right now, and it is wonderful.

I’m going to have lots and lots of music on this computer, especially trance music because it helps drown out a lot of outside distractions. This room is going to have a skylight, but it’s also going to have a door with a lock. There will be no phone in this room, and I’ll probably leave my cell phone outside.

There will, however, be a bookshelf on the wall behind me (at least one, perhaps two), filled with all kinds of books, most of them sci fi paperbacks, but also with a few key books on various interesting and miscellaneous subjects, as well as books with quotes about writing.

Sitting prominently on my desk, between a couple of bookends, I’ll have a few copies of my own books in print, just so that I can look at them and think “wow, that’s my name on those books! My very own name! I’m in print!” And, at least for the first few years, it will not get old, no matter how many times I look at them. 🙂

It’s going to be great. In the meantime, I should do my Arabic homework. 😛

Productivity breakdown

I’ve been thinking a lot about the writing I accomplished in the past few semesters. In some ways, I worry that I’ve become a lot more disorganized and a lot less productive than I was a year ago.

Back in winter ’08, I took a couple of really difficult classes, got up early each morning to work in the BYU Bookstore stockroom, wrote a handful of very difficult research papers…and still managed to write about 120,000 words. Oh, and I wrote on this blog almost daily. I finished my first novel, started my second, read a dozen other novels, wrote reviews of them all…
I accomplished quite a lot.

In fall ’08, however, my workload was much lighter, my classes were ridiculously easy, I didn’t have to get up early to work…and yet I only wrote about 70,000 words, didn’t hardly write for this blog, only read a couple of books, etc etc. Much less productive.

Though, I guess you could say that I made up in other areas. I started working for the FHSS Writing Lab, and that took a lot of my time and mental energy. Also, I think the quality of my writing improved quite a bit, and I experimented a lot with things that I hadn’t tried previously. Right now, I feel that Genesis Earth, my second novel, is a much better work than The Phoenix of Nova Terra.

So maybe all of this “oh my goodness where did my productivity go” is just me worrying for no reason. It’s hard not to worry about it, though.

I know for certain that I could be much more productive with my time. I come home tired, with less than an hour before dinner, and I usually squander the time on the internet or with video game emulators. I tend to put off homework, and only do the stuff that will get me in trouble if I don’t do it (though some would say that that’s a life skill…hmmm…). On any given day, the last two hours before I go to bed is filled purely with time wasting activity. I could use an extra two hours of sleep…

Meh. I guess it’s always a struggle. A year from now, I’ll probably be saying “I can’t believe how productive I was back in winter ’09!” That, and “holy cow, what am I going to do after I graduate??”

It’s done!

205 pages, 57,499 words, thirteen chapters and an epilogue–Genesis Earth is FINISHED!!!

It really did get more and more difficult the closer I got to the end. The last part of the last chapter, in particular, was very difficult. I can’t exactly tell you why, without giving away the story, but…let’s just say, it was hard. I’d write a paragraph, lie down on my bed for a while, write a few lines, chat with some friends, write a little bit more…torturous. Ugh.

Man, it feels so good to have the rough draft finished now! I sent it out to thirteen people, seven men and six women, so I think I’ll have a good sense of how it appeals (or doesn’t apeal) to each gender. That’s something I’m really interested to find out about; how the different genders react to the story. It’s sci fi, so the audience is predominantly male, but I tried to put in some stuff that tend to appeal more towards women as well, and I want to know if I pulled it off or not. I hope I did.

This novel is completely unlike my first one, The Phoenix of Nova Terra. It is much, much shorter–three times as short, roughly. It is much less epic–90% of the story is just two characters alone, talking with each other and struggling to figure out what’s going on. The conflict is much more local, much more internal, and has nothing to do with the rise and fall of civilizations…well, maybe I spoke too soon.

I’ll stop talking about the novel, because I don’t want to give too much away. 😛 Needless to say, it just feels really good to have my second novel finished! GENESIS EARTH 1.0 — that’s what the file says on my flash drive now. So good. It’s done–the rough draft is finally finished!

Now I can focus all my energies on that other novel, Bringing Estella Home. If I can finish that one by April–holy cow, that would be so awesome!

Gah! Almost there!

Ok, so I didn’t finish my novel yesterday like I said I would. Instead, I went with a couple of friends from the old capitol house and went up to Salt Lake. Of course, Aneeka and I were in the midst of a race to see who would finish their novel first, so I invited her to come along with us. It just wouldn’t have done well to let her have a lead up on me. 😛

Of course, the next morning I was all busy with the quark writing group and all that, so I didn’t have a lot of time to write in the morning. Then, just as I sat down after lunch and was in the middle of finishing up this last chapter, I get a text from Aneeka saying “I’m done!”

GAH!

This novel is so crazy! But I WILL finish it tonight! I WILL! I’ve worked all afternoon on it and I’m 2323 words from where I was last night–no thanks to a random computer shutoff that made me lose the first 1000 words or so. #$%@!

If this novel has been like the 2nd choice girl you always come back to because she never says no, she’s got to be one of the most passive aggressive girls out there. Reaching the ending is like trying to climb an asymptote–it just keeps getting steeper and steeper, harder and harder, and you wonder if you’ll ever finish it. I swear, I am no further than 2 pages–less than a thousand words, even!–and I can’t finish the thing.

Maybe I’m just burned out for the moment. Maybe if I lie down and rest for a bit, I’ll have the energy to pick it up in a minute and pound out those last few words. I just need to replenish the well.

So close…

I am so close right now to finishing my second full novel, Genesis Earth. Just two more scenes. One final scene to wrap up the chapter, and the epilogue to finish the book.

Am I excited? Am I pumped up? I guess. Right now, the thing that’s on my mind the most is getting this story out to my first readers. I’m eager to hear their reactions to the story, and the fact that I have about a dozen people waiting for me to email them the completed draft gives me a lot of motivation to finish the thing.

To be honest, though, this novel has always been like…I don’t know, the second choice girl you always go back to because she doesn’t say no (speaking theoretically, of course, and not from experience (A) ). Up until the last month, it’s always been the project I worked on when I didn’t have anything else to do–and now that 318 has started again, I’m trying to get rid of it as fast as I can so I can focus on that one.

Still, for the weird fluke that it’s been, I’m pretty satisfied with it. I know it’s a rough draft–it still feels like one–and it’s going to need a lot of polishing, but I’m happy to almost have it finished (how weird is that? like being engaged to be engaged?) I guess, I just mean that the thought of having another novel under my belt is something I’m looking forward to.

I guess I’m not in a position to sit back in the overstuffed easy chair in my library and expound on the process of writing this novel, especially since the rough draft isn’t even finished. But it will be finished within the next 24 hours, even if I have to kill myself (or at least sacrifice my homework) to get it done! And when that’s done, I can do all the expounding I want! Yay for motivation.

Oh, and there’s other stuff I should write about, but it’s 2:30 AM and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m feeling rather loopy. Gnight.

It’s a novel!

Genesis Earth is now officially over 50,000 words. That means, by most standards, that it is officially novel length.

What’s more, I’m on the verge of finishing it. I’m only about 2,000 words from the ending, and despite the fact that this story has hung me up so many times (including right now, in the last chapter), it’s exciting to think that it’s almost complete. When it’s done, it will be the second novel that I’ve followed through to the very end. Excellent!

Now, I need a group of first readers. I’m looking for friends who are willing to read the whole thing (it’s only about 200 pages double spaced), write down their comments, and be honest in their reactions to the story. The comments need to be written (preferably electronically) because I won’t start the rewrite for a few months.

If you want to be one of my first readers, please drop me a line or post a comment here. I’ll get in contact with you.

Assessment

Well, it’s a new year now, and English 318 has started! We had a wonderful class yesterday, getting things set up, figuring out our writing groups and all that. I am so looking forward to this semester!

With all of these changes happening, I thought I’d do a little recap and assessment of the last six months. I tried out a lot of new things over this time, and learned quite a bit about myself as a writer. I wish I could say that all of my experiments were successful, but at least I know a little bit better what works for me and what doesn’t. Here goes.

Experiment #1: Extensive planning and prewriting

About three months before I started Hero In Exile (the book I was writing last semester), I downloaded wikidpad and wrote a huge collection of articles, all about the world and the story plot. I spent a lot of time in worldbuilding before I’d even written a single word. I wanted to try this because I’m a discovery writer, and in my previous writing I tended to figure out the details of my world on the fly, as I wrote out the story.

This experiment was largely a failure, I think. I stopped writing Hero In Exile because it became too massive to write. As I wrote the story, I kept receiving story ideas and tried to integrate those, but towards the end of the first part, I realized that I was trying to doo too much. Planning didn’t stop me from discovery writing like I always do, and by the end everything was just too cluttered.

Experiment #2: Extensive prewriting of characters using Meyers Briggs personality types

I remember how a few months ago how I wrote a long post describing my characters using the Meyers Briggs typology (INTP, ESFJ, etc). I did this because I wanted more depth to my characters, and I supposed that by planning them out a little more, I would be in a better position to fully develop them.

My assessment on this is mixed, but overall I would tend to call it a failure. There were a handful of descriptions in the personality profiles that helped me to better understand these characters, but once I sat down and started writing, the characters started to do things that surprised me and that didn’t fit into what I had planned. By trying to describe their character before writing them, I wasn’t giving them enough room to show me who they really were; I didn’t give them enough space to act on their own and surprise me.

Studying the personality profiles was good in that it got me thinking more about my characters, but not a good way for me to conceptualize them before writing. I was simply trying to structure too much and not giving myself enough room to discover them and let them act on their own. By the end, I felt as if I were forcing my characters too much, and that made things very difficult.

Experiment #3: Waiting for the ideas to accumulate critical mass

For Hero in Exile, I felt all of my ideas reach a critical mass and converge while I was studying in Jordan. I then waited for nearly a month before sitting down and writing chapter 1. I did this for a couple of reasons: first, it simply wasn’t practical to start the project while I was studying abroad, and second, I had heard that a good novel is built out of a synthesis of several ideas, not just one, and I wanted to have all my ducks in a row before I started.

This also proved to be a mistake. Yes, it takes more than one idea to make a novel, but you don’t have to have all the ideas lined up before you start. I guess that planners do, but I’m not much of a planner, I’m more of a discovery writer. By waiting too long to start the book, I had too many ideas to work with.

However, with Genesis Earth, I had the exact opposite problem. I started way too early, before I had enough ideas to work with. Now, a year later, I’m struggling to wrap it up. The ideas have come, but the writing process was very choppy.

How do you judge when you’re ready to start? I have no idea how to measure it. It’s very touchy feely. I think I started Phoenix at the right time, but Hero was too late and Genesis was too early. At least I’m in a better place now to tell when is a good time to start.

Experiment #4: Spend more effort on detailed physical descriptions

When I wrote Hero in Exile, I found myself spending a lot of time on the aesthetics and physical descriptions of the world. I did the same in Genesis Earth. In doing so, I always tried to show, not tell, by giving some visceral or sensuous detail of something the viewpoint character was sensing.

I think this was a success. Whenever I brought in an excerpt from Hero into the quark writing group, everyone always complimented me on how how full and engaging my world was. The descriptions really added to the sense of wonder and helped them to feel that they were there.

Experiment #5: Avoid info dumps at all costs

Related to #4 was my decision to completely excise all info dumps from my writing. Anytime I found myself telling instead of showing, I stopped and focused on what was happening in the here and now of the story. I also withheld information to create curiosity and intrigue within the reader’s mind. Throughout this, of course, I always tried to keep my writing as clear as possible.

This, also, was a success, I think. At times, the readers became confused, but the withholding of information did create a lot of curiosity and desire to read more. Many times in the quark writing group, people said that they were sucked in by the writing and very much wanted to read on to find out what happened next!

Experiment #6: Create difficult ethical dilemmas and have the characters wrestle with them

I wanted to try writing stories that are more thematic and deal with controversial and difficult issues. For Hero, I had the main character struggle to keep his honor and chastity, where the people he trusted and loved the most try to manipulate him by tempting him to give in to his sexual urges.

I’m not sure if this was a success or not. I think that it was, but it was like pulling teeth, and some of the scenes are a little bit graphic. I guess that without giving my story out to some alpha readers, I have no idea whether it was a success or not. I have learned, however, that it’s not a good idea to sacrifice entertainment for a message. It’s possible to do both, and if your own story is something you’re not excited to tell, it’s not going to be easy to write it.

In short, last semester I wrote about 75,000 words total, without much to show for it except the unfinished rough draft of a flawed book, and a partially finished novel that I started last year. Still, I think I’ve learned quite a bit from the experience.

Back in school

So, school has started again! As fun as the vacation was, it’s good to be back.

I think I’ve more or less finalized my schedule by now. I’m taking an Arabic grammar class, a poli sci class on Islamic politics (taught by an Arab guy who drove ambulances in Lebanon during the Israeli invasion/occupation in the 80s), a class on modern Middle East history, a class on Islam and contemporary society, and…English 318! The one taught by Brandon Sanderson!

I took this class last year, and it was a lot of fun. Brandon Sanderson is the best selling author of the Mistborn fantasy series, as well as the Alcatraz YA series and Elantris. He also teams up with Howard Taylor and Dan Wells for the excellent writing podcast, Writing Excuses. Genesis Earth, the novel I’m currently working on, is a novel I started in his class last year.

Last semester was really miserable for me because few of my classes were challenging or interesting; most of them were easy, boring classes that I was only taking because they were required. Not so this semester. Even if two or three of my classes this semester turn out to be tedious and draining, English 318 is going to make it all worth it.

Here’s the thing, though; I’m not sure if I should rewrite one of my older novels or start a completely new one for English 318 this year. Brandon tends to encourage us to start with something fresh, but I would really like to revise the novel I wrote last year. I was originally planning on doing that, but then I thoought about it for a little bit, and realized that I wanted to do something with the Mongols in space idea before it drifts out of my mind.

In some ways, though, this throws a wrench in the works for my long term plans. I want to have three novels polished for World Fantasy 2009, and I was originally thinking about doing The Phoenix of Nova Terra, Genesis Earth, and Hero in Exile. However, if I were to start something completely new, that would mean throwing out all the work I did last semester for Hero in Exile and doing something completely new.

I don’t know, but before I can do anything, I’d better finish Genesis Earth, and fast. The first English class is in two days, and I don’t want to juggle two novels. That means I’m going to have to sprint these next two days to finish this novel.

Happy New Year!

There must be a law that states that the climax of your story takes three times as long to write as you thought it would take. Back on Monday, I finished the previous chapter and thought I could bang out the major climax of the story in a day. Look how time has flown since then–and I’ve been writing regularly.

As far as resolutions, well, I’ve got a few. As far as my writing is concerned, I’d like to consistently hit at least 500 words a day (probably more like 1,000), so I can get some solid momentum going. I’d also like to start reading again. I plan on reading 3 novels a month and reviewing them here on this blog.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t blog much here anymore, except to whine and moan about my frustrations and other stuff. That must get really tedious and boring to read after a while, so I’m going to try to blog like I did last year, where I would finish writing around 1 or 2 in the morning and then hastily throw a cheerful blog post together about whatever was on my mind. Those posts are a lot of fun to look back on, and were probably a lot more entertaining to read.

As far as my goal to finish this novel, Genesis Earth, by January 5th? Well, I’m cutting it close, no doubt about it. But I still think I can do it. I’ve been thinking about the storyline in my spare time, and I’m starting to get enthusiastic about it. I know how I want it to end, and I know how to get there. The only trouble, really, is slogging it through.

Every time I sit down to slog it out, it seems to get longer and longer and longer…but I will do it! If I don’t finish it by January 5th, I will at least finish it before the first week of school is over. The main idea is that I don’t want to split my time between finishing the rough draft of this novel and rewriting Phoenix. I found out this September that that doesn’t work (especially after I revised what I’d written–I kept mixing up the main characters’ names for both the stories! This led to some entertaining comments and discussions in the Quark writing group; “What’s Ian doing in this story? I didn’t know he lived in the desert and drove nuclear powered dune buggies!”).

Anyways, I’d better get to bed. I’ve got lots of things I could write about, but that’ll have to wait for another post-midnight rant another time.Happy New Year! May 2009 be filled with at least as much awesomeness as 2008 and a whole lot more fun and success!