The Lost Colony (Trunked) – Page 5 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

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.

I love revising

Today, after I got through with my homework for tomorrow, I figured it was time to do my writing for the day, so I opened up the rough draft of Phoenix and picked up where I left off. I didn’t really feel much in the mood for writing, but forty five minutes later the library was closing and I was getting so into it that I didn’t want to stop.

Revising is one of the aspects of writing that I really enjoy. I hate prewriting–love coming up with the story, hate actually writing it out on paper–and writing the first draft, while it has its good points, is also quite a struggle for me. But give me a rough draft of a story that I can believe in, and I’ll have so much fun making that story work. When I revise, I really feel like I’m making progress–like I’m making something better. Maybe that’s what makes the inner critic in me so less caustic when I’m revising, because I don’t find myself saying “this is crap,” I find myself saying “gotta do this, and this, and this over here…” and when it’s all over, I just feel so productive and satisfied, it’s great.

I’m finding with this novel that cutting things out can actually make the story a lot stronger than putting new stuff in. I think I read something about this by Hemmingway once in high school, how the revising process involves cutting out everything that doesn’t work. I tend to be a discovery writer, so this makes a lot of sense. I prefer to write myself into a story, which means that most of the stuff that I write is more for my own benefit than it is for the reader. It’s like baby fat that naturally comes off as the story matures and grows under my hand.

I’m also finding that revision is an excellent opportunity to practice the “show, don’t tell” mantra. I’ve heard that most beginning writers (and a lot of experienced writers) really struggle with this–they tend to tell everything in an uninteresting, unengaging kind of way, instead of incorporating the information into the story so that it naturally flows with the setting and the action. Revising helps me to see just how much I tell instead of show, which not only gives me a chance to replace it with “showing,” but hopefully will help me as I write the first draft of my other story, Hero in Exile.

Connected with all this, I’m starting to realize the importance of giving specific, concrete, almost anecdotal sensory details about the things that the viewpoint character notices. This is something that I need to work on. When it comes down to Jungian types, I am sensing, not feeling, which means that I tend to miss sensory details because I spend so much time thinking about abstract theories and ideas. However, sensory details are important, both because they enrich the setting and because they effectively develop the viewpoint character.

I was browsing through Robert Charles Wilson’s book Spin the other day, and I was surprised to notice how often he did this. Every paragraph is full of the oddest sensory details, small things that the viewpoint character notices that really enrich the story. He doesn’t spend a lot of time on any given one–maybe just a passing sentence or a phrase–but they build up in such a way that really draws you into the world, and into the character’s life. You start to care about him in ways that you wouldn’t have before. It’s very interesting.

I feel like I made some very good progress today. Edited chapter three, which was about fifteen or twenty pages. There was definitely a lot that needed changing, but that’s not bad because now it’s so much better! And not only that, I think I can see that I’m gradually becoming a better writer. Revising is definitely my favorite part of writing.

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.

Cool New Title!

Hey guess what! I finally figured out a new title for the story previously known as The Lost Colony! From here on out, that story will be known as The Phoenix of Nova Terra.

That title fits in so many different ways. Humanity is crawling out of the ashes of a near xenocidal war and Nova Terra is their greatest hope; Ian has struggled all his life to cope with the nuclear holocaust of his home world and he finds rebirth at Nova Terra; the aliens who come in WAY later in the story find the fulfilment of their prophecies and the beginning of their return to glory because of Ian’s actions, etc etc.

Many thanks go out to Natascha Faux for helping me to come up with that new title! That definitely deserves a major place in the acknowledgments page. What’s more, it makes me really, really happy.

🙂

What a freaking awesome title!

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!

New writing goals

Alright, the first week of school is behind me, I’m probably as settled in as I’m ever going to be, so it’s time I set some personal writing goals for myself this semester. So here goes.

My major goal, at this point, is to have three polished novel drafts in time for World Fantasy 2009 in San Jose, California. So far, I’ve got one complete rough draft, one incomplete rough draft, and a REALLY cool idea for a new novel that is just itching to be written. I’ve got a lot of other stuff, too, but that stuff has been dead and buried for a while, and I’m not sure whether I want to bring it back just yet.

So, if these are indeed the three novels that I want to have ready by next year, here are some goals:

Finish the second draft of The Lost Colony by January 1st, 2009.
Write at least 500 words per day.
Write one article in the wiki outline for the new story each day.

The first one is pretty straightforward. I’ve got to polish The Lost Colony and get it to the point where I feel like I can send it out. It won’t be perfect by any stretch, but polished enough to send it out. With four months to finish the rewrite, hopefully I can put this project in the backseat while I focus most of my energies on the new stuff.

The second goal is also really straightforward. 500 words per day, as I discovered with The Lost Colony, is very reasonable. It’s a good starting place, and if I feel like I’m doing well enough, I can always increase it to 1,000 like I did last year (and successfully kept it, for the most part).

The last goal is something of an experiment for me. My least favorite part of the writing process is probably prewriting–all the outlining, worldbuilding, planning, etc. I tend to do all that stuff in my head, not on paper, and I come up with as much as 60% of it as I go along. That’s just how I tend to write. However, I’ve never really tried the alternative, and I think it would be a really interesting experiment to see what happens if I formally plan things out before I sit down and write it. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe I’ll hate it. Maybe both. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.

These goals are all pretty straightforward and practical. That’s not what goals are for, however. They exist to push you. So, in order to push myself, I’m going to give myself a goal that’s just a little bit reckless:

Finish the second draft of the untitled novel by May 1st, 2009.

Wow. This is crazy. I proved this past year that I could write a 168,000 rough draft in nine months. But this? I’d practically have to finish the thing by January/February in order to have time for the rewrite! And yet, if I can churn out at least a decently polished draft of a novel every 3/4’s of a year, that’s impressive. It might just be enough to prove that I can do this successfully full time (gasp!).

They say that you need to produce a novel a year in order to make a living as a writer. Last year, I proved that I could produce a rough draft in a little less than a year, but a solid, polished draft? Didn’t happen.

But maybe, just maybe, I can prove myself with this next novel. Maybe. We’ll see. At the very least, it’s worth the challenge.

Some things to work on

I just recently moved in to a homestay, where I’ll be living with an Arab family until the end of the summer. You can read about it on my other blog. It’s nice to have a routine now, because I have time in the evenings to go on my computer and write.

The Wormhole Paradigm (I’m going to change that horrible title…ugh) is currently at 16,000 words, and I’m finally caught up to where I was by the end of English 318. There is still a LOT to work on, though, and a lot of this applies to The Lost Colony (gotta change that title too) as well. Here are some of my thoughts: