Tag: Quark

Okay, a new direction

I owe a lot to Aneeka.  She is the one who motivated me to write The Phoenix of Nova Terra back in 2007 when I didn’t really think I could finish a novel before the end of the school year.  Like I said in the last post, I’ve hit something of a wall in my writing life recently, and a couple of days ago she was the one who pointed it out to me.  The conversation went something like this:

Empress: lol – okay, okay!
how are your stories going?
me: very slowly
frustrating
mostly just because of personal disorganization
Empress: yeah, that can happen. tired of school? or just a lot of things you want to do?
me: school is pretty easy right now
it’s just hard to get back into writing regularly
I dunno
I’m trying to juggle two projects
Empress: maybe that’s the problem?
it’s hard focusing on two stories at once
(says the girl that does it all the time – the irony!)
but it really is hard to get all focused on two projects at once
me: it probably is
Empress: I flit between projects because I’m not that into them and write because I’ve been inspired (and tend to be inspired on different stories all the time)
when I get into a project though, then it’s best that I leave the rest behind and just focus on that one
get out all that I have and see how far I can go before I get distracted again
me: yeah
I’m trying to be 100% into two projects at the same time
trouble is, I can’t keep the momentum going on both
Empress: yeah. looks like you’re human, after all 😉
me: dangit!
Empress: you should choose one to focus on and then, if inspiration hits for the other one, focus on that one for a bit before turning back to the main project
me: grr
Empress: think of it this way. You could struggle for 6 months trying to work on two projects and arrive halfway done with both
OR you could focus on one project for 6 months, finish it, and then have plenty of energy to finish the next one
me: that’s true I guess
Empress: it’s better than wearing yourself out
then you’ll be left with no project finished
and just a heap of frustrated dreams
me: I guess that’s right
question is, do I revise my old novel or do I go ahead with the new one?
I’m more excited about the new one, but I want to get the old one finished
Empress: how long would the old one take to get finished?
wait…and you’re having problems with them right now, right?
you know, I would think it’s easier to edit two stories then to write two stories at once. maybe you could finish up the new story and then edit both of them at the same time?
me: that’s an idea
Empress: and NaNoWriMo is coming up. you could finish up the first draft by next month and whallah! only have 2 stories to edit 😀
me: ugggggggggggh
I coooooooooould
that’s intense, though
Empress: well, doing two projects at once is intense as well
why not just switch it around and do this kind of intensity instead? 😉

So, after mulling it over for a couple of days, I’ve decided to do things a little differently.

Instead of trying to do two major projects at once, I’m going to put the revision of Phoenix on hold for now and focus all my energy on Hero in Exile.  For November, instead of doing nanowrimo, I’ll try to get 50,000 words deep into this novel instead.  After that, if I do roughly 1,000 words a day, I should be in good shape to finish it before the end of January.  I don’t anticipate this novel going over 120,000 words, and if it tries to, I’ll do my best to reign it in.

So that’s my goal: Finish Hero in Exile before the end of January.  Oh, and write 50,000 words in November.

I’ve noticed that I tend to either be too focused or too distracted.  Trying to balance two projects at the same time has taught me that…well, I can’t do it very well.  But I do know that once I have one project that I can focus on, I can focus on it until it gets done.  That’s what I’m going to do now.

In the meantime, I was chatting with Drek from the writing group, and found out that he could program a way cool widget for my sidebar!  It’s going to be a pair of speedometers that show my daily wordcount and my wordcount over the course of the last seven days.  Oh, and if I’m nice, he might program a widget that displays my writing projects as status bars!  I’m way excited!

Drek recently designed a website for nanowrimo this year.  The idea is that every minute, it displays a new word from his novel.  Something like that.  It’ll be really interesting to see what happens once november starts up.

I can definitely say that the goatee gives Drek programming +2.

New job!

This past week I just started a new job at BYU.  I’m a writing advisor for the FHSS (Family of Home and Social Sciences) writing lab.  It’s GREAT!  I help students work on their papers and work on their writing skills, and I really love it.

How I got this job is an interesting story.  Honestly, it was really just a series of flukes that ended up working beautifully.  I was just in the right time at the right place and fell into it.

It began when I went to the BYU Bookstore to talk with my old boss in the stockroom and figure out all the paperwork for getting rehired.  I’d talked with him at the end of the winter semester, and he knew my schedule and had told me that everything was fine for me to work in the fall–we just had to fill out the paperwork and go through the formalities.

Well…long story short, when we finally got into the rehiring interview and I told him that I could only work MWF, his face dropped and he gave me a card with a number on it to call and check on my job application the next day.  He said that he wasn’t sure if they had a place for me because I couldn’t work TTh, but that he’d try.

It wasn’t hard to see, though, that I wasn’t going to get rehired.

Here’s a funny thing.  I tend to get really worked up and angry over little things, like slow drivers or computers that don’t work or paperwork that I didn’t know I had to fill out.  But when it comes to major things–like my old boss dropping the ball, leaving me without a job–I’m really mellow about it.  Even though I needed money and didn’t know what I’d do without a job, I figured that this had happened for a reason and that everything would work out in the end.

It did.  I was walking through the Wilk on my way home one day and decided to check the job boards.  I skipped over all the custodial and dining jobs (those are dead ends anyways) and looked at the academic ones.

Usually when I look at these jobs, I feel that I’m much too underqualified.  However, as I was skimming over them, my eye fell on the ad for being a writing advisor.  I love writing, so I decided to read a little more closely.  To my surprise, as I read over the qualifications, I found that I met almost all of them.

I picked up an application, selected some writing samples, and wrote a cover letter.  I was a little bit worried because I spent so much time talking about my experience as Quark writing VP, since that’s a non-academic setting, but that ended up being one of my most attractive selling points.  When they asked me what my greatest weakness was, I said “procrastination,” but then I was able to turn around and say “but I set a goal to write a novel last year and achieved it” through consistent, daily writing.  Even though the advisor position is for academic writing only, my experiences with creative writing made me look surprisingly attractive.

The thing that sealed me the job was my schedule.  They needed MWF and practically all my classes are TTh.  So not only were they excited because of my qualifications, they were excited because I was available when they needed it.  Getting the job wasn’t that hard from there.

So now I’m a writing advisor, and I LOVE it!  I sit around the lab, chatting and hanging out with all the other cool people who work there, and every once and a while an MFHD or Psychology major comes in with a paper and we look over it. Good people, low-stress work environment, work that I actually love doing, really good pay for an on-campus job, and best of all, it’s the kind of job that looks REALLY good on a resume.  This has got to be the best job I’ve landed since I came here at BYU.  I’m so happy and thankful that things worked out the way they did!

Awesome weekend!

This was a really good weekend for writing.  We had a REALLY fun writing meeting with Quark and I got some very helpful feedback for the first chapter of The Phoenix of Nova Terra (aka The Lost Colony), and now after another rewrite I feel really happy with it.

On Friday, as I was walking between the FLSR and campus, I thought about the fact that I haven’t really been getting into my new novel, and wondering what was holding me back.  I realized that it’s this game that I just recently started to play through for the second time, Final Fantasy Tactics.  Excellent game–one of the best in the series, IMO–but as I reflected on it, I realized that it’s been distracting me, both in terms of how I use my time and how much I think about my stories.  It’s hard to immerse yourself in an imaginary world when your mind is fixated on something else.  So, I decided to drop FFT and erased all my saved games.  Now, I’ll have a lot more time to think about and write in the worlds of my stories.

The writing meeting on Saturday was great!  We had about eight people there, which was cool, and joked around quite a bit.  The best thing I think is that the new people aren’t afraid of criticism, so we tore into their stories and everything was still fine.  We went a little over time, but I think it was ok because we spent a lot of time bantering and getting to know each other.  That’s important too, I think–to get a sense of community and friendship going.

I rewrote the first chapter of The Phoenix of Nova Terra for this meeting, but something was wrong with it and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Well, the meeting helped me to see what it was–the action didn’t start soon enough and the protocol between the officers on the ship wasn’t all that interesting.  So I took another look at my story and realized that I was trying to give too much of the big picture, the grand overarching “this is how the main character’s mission is going to help mankind,” and not enough of the concrete details as seen through the eyes of Ian himself. Man, even after writing for so long, I still make mistakes like this!  But once I saw the problem clearly, it wasn’t that hard to fix it.

Now, I’m really excited about this story, and I’m ready to move on and edit everything else.  Really, about 70% of the work is going to be cutting out all of my “discovery writing,” the stuff that was really just me figuring out the story by explaining it to myself.  There is a ton of that on every page, and it all has to go.  But once it’s gone, I really do think that I’ll have a sweet story underneath it all.

I just want to have it done so that I can say, once and for all, that I have a novel under my belt–a novel that I can be proud of.  It’s not enough to say “I’ve written a rough draft”–I want to be able to say “I have written and finished a novel.”

Three novels by fall 2009…it’s going to take work, but I’m going to do it.  The momentum is building, and I’m getting back into writing.

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!

Three day weekends!

Ok, this is going to be a quick post because it’s late and I CRAVE sleep.

I tried this semester to schedule all my classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and because of that I wasn’t rehired at the BYU bookstore because I didn’t have mornings open TTh.  Suck.  What’s more, I ended up having to schedule a couple of classes on Monday and Wednesday, so I wasn’t even able to have the awesome MWF free schedule that I wanted in the first place.  Double suck.  HOWEVER, I DO have Fridays free, and it is heaven!  Three day weekends all semester!  Woot!

Also, you know what?  Every time I get fired and/or lose my job, it ends up being a great blessing–exactly what I needed at the time, even.  I lost my job in the MTC cafeteria right before the start of a really killer semester, and I know I would have been horribly overwhelmed if I’d had to work as well as study.  And the next semester, when things cooled down, I got the bookstore job, and it was awesome.  While it lasted, that is.

But even though I wish I could still be working for the bookstore, I think in the long run it’s going to be a blessing.  Today as I was looking on the job boards in the wilk, I saw three openings in the FHSS writing lab.  They pay fairly good–about $8.95/hr–and I was surprised to find that I met and/or exceeded all of their qualifications for the job.  So I dropped by the lab, picked up an application, and tomorrow I’m going to drop it by and hopefully get interviewed.  Inshallah, everything will go well and I’ll soon be getting paid to help students in my college write their papers.

Man, I’m just blessed.  Life is beautiful and I love it.

As far as writing goes, I painfully rewrote the first chapter of Hero in Exile and sent it off with the rest of the Quark submissions.  Yes, the Quark writing group is starting up again.  I hope that this year it will be better than ever!  We only got three submissions for our first meeting, but once we get on a roll I think things will really take off.  Inshallah, we’ll get plenty of new members this year to keep the club going strong.

The short story I mentioned in my previous post is off to a rocky start, but it’s going fairly well.  I’m going to try to finish it in the next week or so–before life shifts again and I lose the perspective that impelled me to write the story in the first place.

And now, SLEEEEEEEP!   Why?  Because tomorrow is the last day of the BYU Bookstore’s progressive booksale, where everything is 90% off, and I want first dibs!  And after that…THREE DAY WEEKEND!!!

Summer goals revision

So, it’s getting towards the end of the summer, I’m having a TON of awesome experiences out here in Jordan, I’ve practically abandoned the Quark writing group (for the time being…I’ll be back…), and I’m only 16,000 words into Genesis Earth, which I was hoping to finish before the end of the summer.  My daily routine has definitely been flipped upside down since the end of winter semester, and I need to figure out how what I’m going to do with regards to my writing…

Continue reading Summer goals revision

cool idea for nanowrimo

Now that I’m gone in the Middle East, the Quark writing group has to find its way without me at the helm.  So far (as far as I know) it’s been going really well, with Travis moderating the online meetings–from what I’ve seen, we’ve even got a few new people coming out, which will be really awesome if they keep coming into the fall.  But sadly, he’s gotten too busy to handle things, so I had to find another replacement yesterday.

I thought: who would be better than Aneeka to head off the writing group? Turns out, she was up for it, so now I can rest well knowing that the club is still alive and still in good hands, even with me on the other side of the world and COMPLETELY out of the loop.

But the whole thing got me to thinking about what’s going to happen in the fall, when I get back to Utah and I’m back in charge of the writing group again…there is a lot that needs to be done.  One of the things that a lot of people wanted to do was NaNoWriMo, something I haven’t done before but has become a really big thing among aspiring writers.  It would be a good thing to bring us together, to bring in some new people, to build connections with the wider writing community out in Utah, etc etc…

Trouble is, if we’re going to be doing it as a club, that means that as writing vp, I should probably participate in it this year.  And in order to participate, I need to come up with some idea for a story…

Continue reading cool idea for nanowrimo