Quick update

Haven’t been writing as much in Ashes these past few days. With my new goal, I need to be doing about 2.5k per day in that work, but things have slowed down considerably. I need to rekindle some excitement for this project.

I will finish it–I’ve made the goal, set the deadline, and determined that this will be one of the big three projects to get ready in time for World Fantasy 2009–but I’m working on the hard parts now, the long and tedius middle. The emotional roller coaster has begun, but I’ll hang on and see this out to the end.

It will probably need another extensive rewrite, however, before World Fantasy. Don’t know when I’m going to slip that in.

But even though I only got about 1,838 words of writing in today, I finished reading through Genesis Earth 2.0 today and completed the 3.0 draft revision notes! I’m WAY excited to work on this project! My goal is to complete it within the next two weeks. It will be a very hard, very intensive rewrite, but I’m psyched up and ready to do it!

I love revising. Drafting is when you start from scratch, with nothing but your ideas to work from. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “this is crap, this is crap, THIS IS CRAP AND I SUCK AS A WRITER!” Revising, on the other hand, is when you start with something on the page; something that needs a little (or a lot) of work, but at least you have something besides the story in your head to work with. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “it’s so much better now, it’s so much better now, IT’S SO MUCH BETTER NOW AND I AM AN AWESOME WRITER!” That’s the way it works for me, at least.

So I am very excited to start Genesis Earth 3.0 tomorrow!

In other news, I’m starting a writing group with some serious/semi-serious writer friends here in the Provo area. Gosh, this deserves its own post. More on that later.

In still other news…I totally forgot. Blegh. Need sleep.

Oh, and here’s a cool song I found. I love anime…why didn’t I study Japanese?

Oh, and I remembered what I was going to write about! I talked with an academic advisor today, and I have enough credits to finish up my Poli Sci major and graduate in April by doing an internship in Washington DC or Scotland! More on that later, for sure.

Anyway, the LRC is closing and I have to go to bed. Gnight!

If I were a character in Twilight…

I don’t know why I did this, but I saw it while wasting time on the internet and somehow suckered myself into it.

Twilight Quiz

Judging from all the advertising crap I had to go through just to get this result, I’m probably going to be spammed to high heaven for the next ten years. Fortunately, all of the personal information I provided is fake, except for the email (hehe, the guys at the Arabic house are probably going to get some pretty funny junk mail next year…).

It’s been a long time since I read Twilight, but I can vaguely remember liking this character. He probably was the one most like me.

I’m just glad I didn’t end up as Edward, because that kid is ridiculously abusive.

Goal shift for Ashes

These past few weeks, I’ve been killing myself trying to write Ashes of the Starry Sea. I’ve made some good progress, as you can see on the sidebar.  Today I broke 200 pages.  Not too bad.

However, the pace has just been killing me.  4k words per day is something I can do…but 4k words per day on the same project?  It’s burning me out.

What’s more, to keep up the pace, I’ll have to put all my other projects completely on hold for the month of July.  That, or write MORE than 4k per day, which would be excruciatingly painful.

So I looked at my calendar tonight and figured that if I pushed back my self-imposed deadline for Ashes to the weekend before school starts, I can cut my daily wordcount in that book in half.  2k per day in Ashes–not bad.  That I can do.

What’s more, with the other 2k, I’ll have enough room to work on my other projects, Genesis Earth 3.0 and Bringing Stella Home 2.0.  I’m starting to get really excited for those, very motivated.  For Bringing Stella Home, I’m practically chomping at the bit.  I want to make that story shine!

Inshallah, juggling two projects at a time will be helpful, not harmful.  During the school year, when I was juggling work, school, and writing, it didn’t work.  Now, however, with writing the only major obligation, I’m hoping that two projects will help keep my creative mind fresh, if that makes sense.  When I get burned out on Ashes at 2pm, I can switch to Genesis Earth and work on something that excites me.  When I get burned out on that at 9pm, I’ll be excited about Ashes again.  Etc etc.

Besides, if I want to be a professional writer, project juggling is an important skill I’ll need to learn.  Inshallah, I’ll get it to work this time.

Wow!  If all goes according to plan, I’ll have all three novels finished and polished before school starts at the end of August!  July to write Genesis Earth 3.0, August to write Bringing Stella Home 2.0, and both months to finish Ashes of the Stary Sea 2.1.  Yeah!

In other news, Charlie finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson and reviewed it on her blog.  I was also reading Warbreaker, but about 200 pages in found that it just wasn’t working  for me.  I’ll probably finish  it someday, but for now, it’s on hold.

I hate to say anything bad about it, since Brandon has been something of a mentor to me (and his Mistborn books are some of the best fantasy that I’ve read!), but I shared many of Charlie’s complaints with the book.

The biggest thing, however, was the way he fell into long, frequent info dumps about the world.  Every time, I felt that it stopped the action and jolted me out of the story, like reading a college textbook.  The world was okay, but the way he presented it just didn’t work for me.

That, and the way the characters acted.  When Siri got carted off near the beginning to be the wife of the God king, the fact that she hardly showed any fear or anxiety about have sex with the guy just threw me out.  She was just like “oh, well,” and was nervous about everything else EXCEPT for the sex part.  From then on, I had believability issues with her character.

Finally, let me just say that when I write my steampunk flower novel, I want to make one of the characters a Circassian janissary.  I just think it would be really cool to put a Circassian in the book, as either a good guy or a bad guy (or, more likely, a grey-area guy).  If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out the video below:

New About page

Traffic to this blog has been picking up a bit, and I decided it’s time to change my “about” page.  This was the old one:

In some ways, I live a double life. By day, I study Political Science and Arabic at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, but by night I’m an aspiring writer of science fiction and fantasy. And I have NO IDEA where all of this is going to take me.

A lot of people dream of writing and being a writer, but the motivations vary. Some people are just enamoured with vague ideas of the bohemian lifestyle. Other people are looking for fame and the joy of seeing their name on a book. It’s different for me, however. I write simply because I can’t NOT write. I wrote my first story in 5th grade and I haven’t been able to stop since. Stories just flow out of me–it’s a part of who I am. Most of them are fleeting and pretty crappy, but hopefully, somewhere in there is a story that can bring something meaningful to somebody.

And so I write, not with any illusions of the fame, fortunes, and friends it will bring me, but because it’s who I am. And yes, writing is not glamorous. It’s about hard work and consistency. It’s about rejection. It’s about realizing that the story you love so much reads like crap because you have a LONG way to go before your writing is any good. I know that. I’m experiencing it now. And I can tell you that it’s not without reward either.

So join me as I blog about my struggles, frustrations, adventures, and successes as an aspiring writer. Read about the agonizing and exhilarating process of writing a novel. Keep me honest in my writing goals. Check out my book reviews as I try to learn what I can from what’s come in the sci fi / fantasy genres before. Get caught up in my imagination as I share the story ideas that pop into my head. And please, if something strikes you, drop a comment and let me know what you think!

Goals:

  • Write and submit at least one novel per year.
  • Finish 1st draft of The Lost Colony by 25 April 2008. ACCOMPLISHED
  • Write three polished novel drafts before World Fantasy 2009 and attend the conference.

I don’t know if the new one is much better, but you can check it out.  Hopefully, it’s enough to give a good, honest impression of this site.

Also, I bit the bullet and finally signed up for twitter!  My username is onelowerlight; you can check me out here.

Movin’ along

I submitted a story to the Writers of the Future contest today.  Basically, I took the scene from Genesis Earth that won the Mayhew Contest this year, slapped just enough of an ending on it to make it feel like a coherent story (inshallah), changed a couple of universe details, and sent it out.  Time will tell if anything will come of it.

On Sunday, I home taught this girl who just graduated in astronomy!  She told me all about her capstone project, studying the variance in luminosity of a distant star getting its insides sucked out by a black hole / neutron star / something ridiculously cool.  We geeked out on stars more than on the scriptures!

Now I need to make friends with someone who works at the BYU observatory and hang out with them at their work.  With my next door neighbor the president of the BYU Astronomy club (no joke!) that might be a possibility.  And then we can order heavenly pizza and chill out reading The Leading Edge </inside joke>.

Ashes is coming along.  Did my 4k today, but it feels…like it isn’t going the way I want it to.  I’m  at 30% right now, provided the finished draft is under 150k, which might be difficult to pull off.  Lots and lots of sludging for the next month–I’m in the middle of the blue collar work of writing.  Middles are not my forte, but I think I’ll learn.

Dude, why didn’t I study astronomy in college?  I’m sorely tempted to change my major and go through another three years as an undergrad, just so that after I get my masters I can live at a place like this:

Thank you readers

I appreciate my first readers very much, even when it hurts.  Especially when it hurts.

Today I got the comments back from a longtime Quarkie friend on Genesis Earth, and she told me that, in her opinion, the book still needs a lot of work.  However, she made it very clear when (and why) she was bored, when (and why) she was interested, and where (and why) she would stop reading.  Thankfully, she kept reading and gave me useful feedback right up to the end.

My friend’s comments helped me to rethink several weak points  of my novel.  In particular, her anthropology experience helped her to pick up on some racist undertones that I didn’t intend and hadn’t realized were there.  If my story would have appeared in print like that, I would have been flamed up and down the sf community!  Without her feedback, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on that.

The feedback did more than point out problems, however; it helped me to rethink these problems and begin to find new, innovative solutions.  Rather than getting me angered or depressed, the criticism stoked my creative engines by getting me to take a step back and rethink my story from the ground up.  Though the feedback was harsh (basically, “I’d throw this book across the room at this point”) it was extremely helpful and got me more enthused than ever to write.

Receiving criticism and advice is a very delicate thing, especially for a budding writer.  If you try to follow every peice of feedback you recieve, your book will inevitably tank.  However, rejecting criticism is also tough because you don’t always know why you’re doing it.  There is a fuzzy grey area between rejecting a comment because it’s not right for your story, and rejecting it because it rubbed your ego in the wrong way.

I don’t ever want to reject critical feedback because it hurts.  After all, it’s not about me at all–it’s about the story.

Criticism is never “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” It is only “useful” or “not useful.” To pick out the useful feedback, you always have to listen to–and appreciate–every piece of feedback that you get.  Only after you’ve done this can you can say (in private!) “no, this isn’t right for my work.”

In the meantime, thank everyone who takes the time and effort to read your work and comment on it.  They’ve done you a huge service, and the last thing they deserve is to be attacked by an egocentric, peurile, self-righteous amateur.  Honest criticism, no matter how much it hurts, is the best thing any writer can receive.

On that note, I want to thank all my first readers for helping me with my novel, Genesis Earth!  I genuinely appreciate all of your comments. You’ve helped me to step back and see my work for what it is.  You are helping me to make this novel a stronger, better book, and that means more to me than you know.  So thank you!

Breaking 20k/7day and a new apartment

Today I broke 20k words for the running seven-day total.  According to my records, the last time that total was over 20k was Monday, June 8th.  Despite the fact that I moved into a new apartment today, I managed to finish with just over 4k for the day.

You should have seem me at the library at 11:39 pm.  I was sprinting. “Just let me finish this scene, just let me finish this scene!” Didn’t finish it, but I only have another 500 words left.   I’ll use it to help get me back into the  zone tomorrow.

Momentum is so important for me as a writer.  I can plow through long chapters and difficult scenes if I know I’m making progress.  Once I get bogged down for a couple of days, it doesn’t matter how exciting the next scene is; it’s going to be painful.  Once I’m up to speed, though, the book practically writes itself.

According to my records, in the 2+ weeks since I started Ashes, I’ve only surpassed 4k on three days.  That’s not good.  I should at least be hitting 3.5k every day through July in order to finish this beast by August 1st.  If my momentum is running steady at 4k, that will be much easier.

I don’t have too many interruptions planned for July–no conferences or major trips.  That’s…good and bad.  I need to get out of Provo.  I can feel it.  But…blegh.

Fortunately, I’ll be getting out tomorrow, touring some ghosttowns with Charlie and some of her friends.  I’m REALLY looking forward to that, and have been for some time.  Man, it’s going to be awesome! I’m going to check out a whole bunch of Western music from the LRC, and we’re going to have a picnic, and it’s going to be great!

In other news, I moved into a new apartment south of campus.  It’s pretty nice and spacious, and since I only have one other roommate, I’ve got a private room.  His name is Brett, and he’s from Colorado.  As of this week, he’s an elementary ed major; even though he could graduate from the Marriott School in April, he realized that that’s not what he wants to do.  He’s also engaged, to a girl he met in his freshman ward.  They’re both RMs now, which is pretty cool; kind of like my parents, they kept in contact through letters and stuff.  She’s in Atlanta now, and they’re getting married in August.  He seems like a pretty cool guy; I think we’ll get along.

Church meets at 8:30 am in the JSB.  Hehe…unless I bring a snack, I’ll probably end up sleeping through most of the meetings.  It’s going to be nice, though, having the rest of the day to do stuff.

Thoughts after finishing Legend by David Gemmell

I just stayed up a bit late, finishing Legend by David Gemmell.  Wow.

According to his  wikipedia entry, Mr. Gemmell wrote Legend in two weeks while waiting to hear if his cancer diagnosis was terminal.  After reading this book, I can definitely see how that influenced the writing.

This book is incredible, one of the most authentic, thought-provoking things I’ve read.  It is…just incredible.  I’ll articulate my thoughts better when I write the review, but let me just say that reading this book made me a better man.

I want to quote the passage that impacted me the greatest, because it has to do with some of my more existential thoughts about being an aspiring writer–no, being a writer and aspiring to be an author.

“All things that live must die,” said Vintar. “Man alone, it seems, lives all his life in the knowledge of death.  And yet there is more to life than merely waiting for death.  For life to have meaning, there must be a purpose.  A man must pass something on–otherwise he is useless.

“For most men that purpose revolves around marriage and children who will carry on his seed.  For others it is an ideal–a dream, if you like.  Each of us here believes in the concept of honor: that it is man’s duty to do that which is right and just, that might alone is not enough.  We have all transgressed at some time.  We have stolen, lied, cheated–even killed–for our own ends.  But ultimately we return to our beliefs.  We do not allow the Nadir to pass unchallenged because we cannot.  We judge ourselves more harshly than others can judge us.  We know that death is preferable to betrayal of that which we hold dear.

I don’t want to write books just to entertain.  I don’t want to fill pages with words just so I can get paid and take care of my temporal needs.  Both of those are important, of course, but I don’t want to write “good reads” that people put down and completely forget about after a few months.

At the same time, I don’t want to write just to express myself either.  I don’t think I deserve any special treatment for being a writer, and I don’t suffer under the delusion that I’m somehow gracing the world with my genius (at least, I hope I don’t).  The world owes me nothing, and I’m certainly not the most qualified person to  be out doing this kind of thing, making the world a better place by telling stories.

What I do want to do, however, is write books like Legend, or Mistborn, or The Neverending Story, or Ender’s Game, or Spin, or any number of other books.  Books that you read and remember, because they changed or inspired or impacted you in some profound way.  Books where you read the last hundred pages in a breathless sprint, because you connect with the story in a deep and personally moving way.  Books that help people to understand the world better, to appreciate its beauty, to see the people in your life in a new light, and connect with them in new ways.

I can tell you exactly when I crossed the threshold from childhood to adolescence, down almost to the very day.  I crossed that threshold by reading a book: Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech.  For what I was going through at that pivotal time in my life, that book had a profound, formative impact.  It helped me to see my family members in a new light, to understand a little bit better the changes I was experiencing in my own life, and to get through an emotional period that was particularly rocky.  When I read that book, I changed as a person.

That’s the kind of stuff I want to do as a writer: pass something on.  Something meaningful.  Something that will make this world a better place by connecting with someone, anyone, on a deeply personal and intimate level.  Something that will help peope to stand tall and live their lives more fully.

I don’t know if I’m getting this across effectively, but those are my thoughts at this time.  Legend is a damn good book.  It’s in good company, along with all the other books that have just made me go “wow.” Someday, I hope something I write will be up there on the same level for someone else.

Twenty percent, Writers of the Future, and the INTERN

I am now 20% finished with Ashes of the Starry Sea. Huzzah!  The story is definitely picking up steam.

In related news, my seven day totals has peaked higher than it’s been in the last two weeks, up above 17,500 words.  Inshallah, that number will rise to +24,000 befoore the end of the week.

In unrelated news, I’ve decided to recycle my 2009 Mayhew story for the Writers of the Future contest this quarter.  I’ve got until July 1st to get it out, but I have a plan, and I don’t think it will require too much extra work.  That was the thing holding me back (since, really, it’s not a story, it’s just a scene), but now I’ve got something that I think has a chance of working.

It’s funny how reading other people’s manuscripts motivates you to send your own stuff out.  I mean, reading the Leading Edge slushpile, I said to myself “you know, that story you wrote two years ago could probably get a pass.” Lo and behold!  With Writers of the Future, it’s definitely worth a shot.  Definitely.

Oh, and as I skimmed through Genesis Earth 2.0 today, the thought occured to me that I’ve written a kickass story here (pardon the language).  I mean, it’s far from perfect, and it’s not the best book ever written (not by a long shot), but it’s a lot more than a “stuff happens, the end” kind of story.  Maybe I’ll even see it in print someday.  And to think I almost trashed the project a year ago.

As something totally unrelated to personal news at all, check out this awesome new blog:

The straight dope on publishing from publishing’s most fearsome figure—THE INTERN.

Nice tagline!

As I read about the exploits of this publishing intern, I can’t help but think to myself, “hey, that could have been me.” Not quite sure how I feel about that, but I’m really glad to have all this time to write and work on my craft.  I definitely need it.