Thoughts and Reflections – Page 29 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Am I an “emerging adult”?

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times today about “emerging adulthood”– basically, the modern trend of twenty-somethings (such as myself) who aren’t growing up and settling down. Says the article:

It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be…we’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.”

The debate goes like this: on the one extreme are those who claim that the age range of 18 to ~30 represents a distinct stage of life, similar to adolescence, in which people are still developing their goals, plans, and worldviews, and should not be expected to take on the full weight of adult responsibilities. They use neurological studies to back this up, showing that the brain is not fully developed until roughly the age of 25.

On the other extreme are those who basically argue that such a definition would give twenty-somethings just another excuse to postpone growing up–that they need to stop leeching off of others and face the real world. They point to the fact that those who skip this phase, starting careers and families in their early twenties, don’t miss anything “universal and essential” for their development.

Of course, the debate is much more complex than these two extremes. I won’t describe it in depth here: do yourself a favor and peruse the article for yourself.

My own views on this issue are mixed. I tend to think that most of my peers are putting off adulthood more because they’re scared or lazy than because of anything else, but at the same time, I do believe that there are others who would like to grow up and move on, but don’t feel like they have a secure footing on this slippery thing we call the “real world.” I’d put myself in that category.

As an example, let’s examine how I’m doing with the transition to adulthood. The five traditional milestones of the transition, according to the article, are:

1) Completing school
2) Leaving the home
3) Achieving financial independence
4) Getting married
5) Having a child

How am I doing with each one?

1) Completing school

I graduated in April of this year with a bachelors in political science and a bachelors in Middle Eastern studies & Arabic. If that’s sufficient schooling to consider my education complete, then I’ve passed this mark.

In today’s world, however, many career paths require an advanced degree. Political science especially is considered little more than a stepping stone, either to law school or a masters in public administration or public policy.

Middle Eastern studies is the same; most students go on to study Arabic at a graduate level, or else work in Washington DC for a while before getting a masters. The only path that bypasses further education is the military, though I’m not sure if you can start working at the State Department with just a bachelors. I doubt it.

None of those paths appeal to me, so as far as education is concerned, I’m basically stranded on a stepping stone in the middle of the river, unsure where to go. I could get a generic job that only requires that you have a bachelors, but without an advanced degree, my career possibilities at this point are extremely limited.

Of course, in terms of my writing career, the educational requirements aren’t quite so stringent–you just need to write well. However, I don’t think my creative writing is going to pay the bills anytime soon. Eventually, I hope, but not yet.

2) Leaving the home

This is one I can solidly say that I have achieved. I officially left home in 2003 and I have never stayed there for more than a couple of months since. I have my own apartment and don’t plan on ever moving back in with my parents.

This is a very important thing to me. When I was nineteen and preparing to leave on my two-year LDS mission, I remember thinking distinctly to myself that I was ready to leave home and set out on my own. Saying goodbye was tearful and emotional, but I never struggled with homesickness on my mission (except in one apartment where I couldn’t bring myself to use certain silverware because it was the exact same kind we had at home). In college, I never experienced homesickness at all.

I love my parents, but I will never move back in with them. If I did, I would consider myself a failure. That’s not that I consider others who move in with their parents to be failures–their circumstances are not mine–but I would never do it. I’d go to an old family friend who occasionally takes in transients before I went to my parents.

3) Achieving financial independence

This is a milestone that I’m working to achieve. For the past three months, I’ve been living completely independent of my parents, but I’ve just barely been able to make ends meet. I have yet to find a mid- to long-term job, and a significant portion of my income currently comes from donating plasma.

In absolute terms, however, I am currently 100% financially independent. I graduated from BYU with no debt whatsoever and a significant sum of money in the bank. Right now, I’m paying for my own car and health insurance, my own rent, my own groceries, and from month to month I’m not losing any money.

Of course, I’m also living in a 6-person student apartment in Provo, which (hopefully) isn’t going to be the case a year from now. When I move on, will I still be financially independent? That’s certainly the plan, but only God really knows.

4) Getting married

Ha. Ha. Ha. Definitely not there yet.

Not that I don’t want to be there. Finding and marrying the right girl is definitely on the agenda, but it generally requires three things: 1) another person, 2) finding that person, and 3) winning that person over.

Historically, I have a remarkably poor track record on the “winning over” variable of the equation–it’s one of the reasons why Chloroform by Flickerstick is my favorite love song. However, I think the faulty variable in this case is the “finding,” and that’s totally my fault. Here in Utah, there is no shortage of girls my age willing to get married–I just haven’t been putting in the effort to find them.

Why? Because I’m lazy? Because I’m scared? Because I don’t know what I want? Because I’m naturally independent and don’t feel a compelling need for an intimate relationship? Probably some combination of all four.

The truth is, I just can’t see myself in a married relationship yet. I can’t envision it. How can you set goals when you lack any kind of vision?

I don’t blame anyone but myself for any of this. Regardless, marriage is a milestone that I have yet to reach.

5) Having a child

To my knowledge, I haven’t done this yet. Considering certain laws of biology, as well as the fact that I’m saving myself for marriage, it would be extremely disturbing (to say the least!) if it turns out that I have.

But even if I were married to a female of the human species capable of assisting me in accomplishing such a thing, is this something we would really want to do at this stage of our lives? Raising children requires a lot of time, energy, maturity, and money. The first three, we could probably manage, but is it really a good idea to start a family when you don’t have a steady, well-paying job?

Regardless, this milestone is so far ahead on the map that I haven’t given it hardly any thought. The last time I tried to imagine what it would like to be a father was probably on my mission or shortly thereafter.

Is that a bad thing? A sign of immaturity? Maybe. I don’t know.

Conclusion

I suppose, if there is such a thing as “emerging adulthood,” I would fall squarely in that camp. Does that mean I just need to stop being irresponsible and grow up? No–it’s much more complicated than that.

So many factors in the transition to adulthood depend on outside factors over which I have little control. Financial independence, for example, hinges on getting a steady job. Marriage depends on the right person saying “yes.” Responsibly having children requires both a spouse and financial independence.

At the same time, there is more that I could be doing–indeed, more that I should be doing. The danger of society treating emerging adulthood as a legitimate stage of life is that it will inadvertently create a comfort zone that keeps otherwise capable adults too sheltered to deal with the real world.

I don’t want to be sheltered. I want to do battle with this elusive “real world” on its own terms and kick its backside. But am I ready to settle down? I’m not sure.

I suppose the only thing that can be said for certain is that according to the five milestones, my younger sister Kate is more of an adult than me. Ouch. But if she can do it…I’m not even going to finish that statement.

One of these days, I’ll get there. In the meantime, I’ve got a long way to go.

End in sight

Things are winding down for my current work in progress, Worlds Away from Home–or should I say winding up, since I’m just a chapter or two from the major climax? In any case, by the end of the week, inshallah, the rough draft will be finished. <crosses fingers>

It’s been tough, but I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to salvage it, probably sometime after World Fantasy 2010. Drafting is not my strongest point; I’m much better at revision. My goal is to have a fully polished draft before the end of 2011.

As far as the real world goes, things are starting to come together as well. I’m going home at the end of the month to get my teeth checked before my Mom’s insurance no longer covers me, and when I get back this temp agency should have a warehouse job lined up for a while, if I can’t find anything else. I’m cautiously optimistic that my sister will help me get a job at the residential treatment center where she works, which would be awesome, and of course there’s always the possibility that BYU will lift the hiring freeze (pretty soon, they’ll have to).

So here’s my plan for the next few months: quit my job at the call center and go home in two weeks, then either work through the temp agency through September/October or find something better. The wilderness job I was looking at has their training in November, so I’ll start the application process now in order to have that option in case everything else falls through. And if all else fails, I’ll go teach English in Asia for a year.

Meanwhile, I hope to stay in Utah until at least February, preferably until April. There are a lot of good resources here for writers, and I hope to take advantage of them. After I finish the rough draft of Worlds, I will throw everything behind Mercenary Savior and get it polished in time for World Fantasy 2010.

And then? Who knows. I’d kind of like to try my hand at a fantasy novel; I’ve got the start of an idea for a magic system, and enough knowledge of Middle Eastern history to throw in a sweet medieval Arab flavor in the mix.

In terms of the real world, my plan is to reteach myself Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus using some excellent resources my Dad is sending me, then go back to school in a hard science…probably. Still not sure what I want to do school-wise, but hopefully I’ll figure that out in the next year or two and head back soon.

That is, if I don’t get published and launch my writing career by then.

So that’s what my life is looking like right now. If you’re still reading and aren’t bored stiff (or if you just skipped to the end of the post, which is what I would have done), here’s an excellent song from one of my favorite Celtic bands, The Rogues:

If it kills me

I will finish this novel if it kills me. At the rate things are going, it just might.

Things are kind of tough for me right now. I desperately need a new job–the one I’ve got is slowly sucking away my soul without even paying enough to get by–and job rejections are way worse than rejections from publishers (I’ve been getting a lot of both, by the way. Not that I’m looking for pity, but yeah.).

As if that weren’t bad enough, my current novel, Worlds Away from Home, is turning out to be a train wreck. There are all sorts of problems with character motivations, improper foreshadowing and plot set up, etc etc. That makes it REALLY hard to get motivated to write each day. Yesterday, I wrote only 245 words (youch). Today, I did about 2.2k, but that’s still way less than I need to be doing.

The thing that worries me the most is the thought that the audience for this particular story may be slim to nonexistent. It’s solid space opera, but with a romantic element that challenges a lot of the mores of our modern, sex-saturated society, as well as many of the conventions of romance within science fiction.

The main female protagonist is something of a pushover–but she has to be, in order for her growth arc to have any umph. The main male protagonist is an orphan on a quest to discover his own origins, kind of like a cross between Mogli and Pip. His quest, combined with her parents’ manipulative attempts to get them physically intimate too soon, are the main things keeping them apart.

But in a genre where physical intimacy usually marks the romantic climax, how do you make it out to be the obstacle against that climax? Will science fiction readers go for that, or will they hurl my book across the room because of it?

Well, if they hurled my current draft, I wouldn’t blame them one single bit. So many plot holes and awkwardly written scenes–ugh. I’ve got to seriously rethink so much about this story. But a later draft? I don’t know–maybe it would work. It would probably need other hooks to keep them engaged, such as cool world building elements, but I think I could make those work.

Anyway, I suppose it’s nothing unusual. For every book I’ve written, I’ve come to a point in the rough draft where I thought the story was completely unworkable and should be scrapped. It’s a tortuous, masochistic process, but I suppose it’s normal. That’s some comfort, at least.

My goal is to finish this abomination by August 15th, then move on to polish Mercenary Savior and make it really shine.

Another goal is to get a decently paying job (at least $8/hr at +25 hours per week) in order to afford to go to DragonCon in September. Another goal is to reteach myself algebra and calculus through the math books my dad (who is a geometry teacher) is letting me borrow. Another goal is to actually get a social life. BLARG.

Wolverton interview and more

The interview with Dave Wolverton was a resounding success! We had a fascinating conversation about science fiction and the gospel, his latest book In The Company of Angels, self-publishing, the English 318 class at BYU and the profound impact it’s had on the LDS writing community, and much, much more.

On that, I suppose I should disclose my full reasons for going down to St George and meeting with Dave. I’m putting together an article for the December 2010 issue of Mormon Artist, where I hope to give a brief history of BYU’s “class that wouldn’t die” and explore the impact that it’s had on both the LDS writing community and on mainstream sf&f.

The “class that wouldn’t die” was the group of students who signed up for the first English 318R science fiction creative writing class at BYU, back in ’78 (I think it was ’78…gotta check that). After the semester was over, the students banded together through forming a writing group, which they called “Xenobia.”

They didn’t stop there, however. As Xenobia grew and matured, the students decided to form other organizations designed to help new writers (especially sf&f writers) improve their craft and build their writing careers. Specifically, they founded Quark, BYU’s science fiction and fantasy club; Leading Edge, a student-run magazine that gives written feedback to every story submitted; and LTUE, an annual science fiction and fantasy symposium (like a convention, only no costumes).

These organizations, as well as the 318 class, led directly to the explosion of LDS writers in science fiction and fantasy. Several bestselling LDS authors, including Stephanie Meyers, Brandon Sanderson, and Dan Wells (among many others) can trace the launch of their careers back to this class. In turn, these authors are having a tremendous impact on mainstream sf&f literature.

The article is slated to come out in next December’s issue of Mormon Artist Magazine, just in time for LTUE 2011 (which I hope to attend). Right now, I’m in the research phase, meeting with some really amazing people and gathering some fascinating stories. This article is going to be awesome.

In parting, let me share one of the more interesting things Dave said in the interview. As we talked about all these amazing resources available for sf&f writers in Utah valley, I asked him why this happened in this community and not elsewhere.

His answer was extremely insightful: for many writers, the mentality is that once you break in, you have to close the gate behind you. It’s something of a zero-sub game, where people horde their ideas, compete with each other to break in, etc.

Not so in the LDS community. As Latter-day Saints, we have a deep-set mentality of helping each other and building each other up. That’s exactly what happened with the “class that wouldn’t die”–they did everything they could to foster other writers. The proliferation of Latter-day Saints in mainstream sf&f is a direct result of this.

That’s Dave’s take on it, anyway. It will be interesting to hear what others think.

Oh, and FYI, Mormon Artist is 100% volunteer run and free, so when the article and interview come out, you won’t have to pay anything to read them. I’ll certainly provide links on this blog–stay tuned!

And as one final note, check out this piece of Xenobia history: the original Quantum Duck, as featured in the first issue of The Leading Edge. Why a quantum duck, you ask? Because that’s where the club’s name came from: a bumper sticker that said: BEWARE THE QUANTUM DUCK THAT GOES ‘QUARK,’ ‘QUARK’!

Slogging through to the bitter happy ending

Oh man. I was hoping to hit 5k words today, and even though I must have spent five or six hours writing, I only managed half of that. It’s progress, I know, but it’s not as much progress as I’d like; the words just aren’t coming, no matter what I do. Blarg.

The worst part is that I know that most of these words are just crap. I’ll get to the end of a chapter and think “oh yeah, shouldn’t these characters be doing/thinking this?” And I’ll make a couple of notes in the revision guide, or touch up what I’ve written just a little bit, but one thing compounds on another until everything’s got problems.

But you know what? I’m almost three quarters of the way through, so it’s probably better just to write on through these problems and finish the @#$! thing. At this point, I’ve got a good enough story that I can carry things through to the end, as horrible as it may be, and just fix everything in the next draft.

It’s frustrating, though, because I know that most of the changes I’m going to make will seem obvious. Why can’t I just get it right the first time?

Is it because I failed to outline things enough? I know from experience, however, that outlining too much can be fatal for me. Is it because I didn’t take the time to immerse myself in my story? But then again, I’ve been spending so much time on my writing, everything else seems to be suffering, including my social life…

BLARG.

I’m probably just missing the forest for the trees. Once I get out of these woods, though, I’m sure things will fall into place. One way or another, in two weeks this abomination will be FINISHED! …at least until the next draft.

Looking for work (and possibly an adventure)

Ever since graduation in May, I’ve been doing my best to support myself and be 100% financially independent. I haven’t gotten a steady, well-paying day job yet, but fortunately summers in Utah are cheap and I’ve more or less been able to make ends meet.

That’s not to say it’s been easy, though. I’m operating under an extremely limited budget, and things are only going to get worse in August. My current employment is more or less a dead end job, and I’m going to need to find something else if I want to stay in the black (and keep myself mentally sane).

Here’s what I’m trying to do to change that, in order of priority:

1) Apply for full/part time positions at BYU. My ideal job at this point would be to use my writing/editing/mentoring skills as a BYU employee in some capacity. Not only would I be able to stay in Utah Valley where all my writing contacts are, I’d be able to take classes at BYU for free! Besides, BYU is an organization behind which I can completely throw myself. Having graduated from there, I believe 110% in the university’s mission and the value of a BYU education.

The trouble is that there are probably hundreds of other graduates in my position trying to do that right now. More spots might open up quickly if the economy improves, but the competition is still going to be fierce.

2) Apply for a bookstore job in Utah Valley. Working in a bookstore might mesh very well with my aspirations to become a full-time writer. It would give me a chance to see a useful side of the publishing/bookselling industry, as well as opportunities to network with authors, readers, and booksellers. The pay might not be great, but as long as it’s full time and pays at least minimum wage, it would be enough.

I hear that a lot of local venues are going to be making hiring decisions later in August, as the summer term at BYU comes to an end and the students start moving back to Provo. For that reason, I’ve been holding out contacting places like Chapters (formerly Pioneer Books) and Barnes and Noble–the last thing I want is for my resume/application to get swamped under a huge pile of other applicants.

3) Apply for a Wilderness Therapy job. There are a lot of these in Utah, and I hear that they’re always looking for new staff. The work is strenuous–one to three weeks out in the wilderness with a bunch of troubled teens, living in survivalist conditions–but the life experience may well be worth the extended time commitment. Besides, considering how much it will cut down my living expenses (since I won’t be spending money in the wilderness), the pay should be pretty good. I may be able to save up a sizable amount.

The main reason I’d want to do this is because of the adventure. I feel that at this point in my life, I need to do something big–something I can look back and point at as a major milestone or accomplishment. For this reason, I almost want to take a wilderness job more than a BYU or bookstore job, but the tradeoffs are pretty serious. My social life will probably suffer, as well as my daily writing schedule.

Redcliff Ascent has their next staff training session in September. If I’m still looking for work by then, I’ll probably take it.

4) Try to find some opportunity in the Middle East. When I came back from Washington DC in April, I decided to hold out for a year before returning to the Middle East to see how the tensions between Iran, Israel, and Lebanon play out. While I still think there will be a war, however, I’m less worried about getting caught up in a bad situation if I’m in, say, Jordan or Egypt.

This would also be an awesome adventure. The trouble, though, is how it may cut into my writing career here in the states. I’ve already bought tickets to World Fantasy 2010 in October, so I probably won’t be leaving before then. Besides, most Middle East jobs only pay enough to cover living expenses–not enough to save up, or even buy a ticket back. Getting stranded in a developing country might not be so fun.

5) Take any part-time retail/labor job I can find in Utah Valley. This is the last option, because I don’t want to end up with a job that, for all intents and purposes, isn’t going to lead to anything bigger and better. If it pays the bills, though, might as well take it.

That’s what I’m currently trying to do to improve my employment situation. In the meantime, I’m looking up part time jobs and gigs on craigslist and trying to be as resourceful as I can. It’s not fun being poor.

Inshallah, though, something big will come my way. I have every confidence that things will work out for the best, whatever happens.

Image courtesy Postsecret.

Story notebook #2

A while ago I rediscovered my first story notebook and wrote a few posts on it. I promised I’d do the same for my other story notebooks, so here’s the next one.

For those of you who may be surprised that I’m sharing all my story ideas, let me explain why I’m doing this. First, ideas are cheap, especially in genres as imaginative and inventive as science fiction and fantasy. What really matters is the execution, and any two people’s take on the same idea is going to be different. For that reason, I’m not too worried about anyone “stealing” my ideas.

Second, and more importantly, I believe that the only way for ideas to grow in value is for them to be shared. Ideas that get horded only worsen with age, because they’re not being explored. Only by exploring ideas can they come into their full potential, and the best way to explore ideas is to share them. When we fail to share our ideas, we inevitably fail to explore them from all angles, because working alone in a vacuum, we’re so much more likely to miss something crucial.

Enough of that. Here are the story ideas from my second notebook, roughly covering the fall of ’08, right after I finished my first novel and got back from Jordan.

How will myths arise in the space exploration age? Previously, myths formed perhaps because people had very limited means of communication and limited means of world awareness. Now, technology allows much better spread of information and science, but in isolated spacecraft, will [the conditions of isolation that lead to myth formation] return?

An interesting and somewhat complicated thought. How do myths form, anyway? I suppose that at the very least, the extreme isolation of space will lead to a proliferation of wildly different cultures and worldviews.

Just as the Catholic monks set up a monastery in Iceland, so people will go beyond the explored universe in the age of space travel and set up a religious order there.

Fascinating–and I think it runs somewhat counter to the grain, too. Most people tend to see space explorers as either adventurers or absolute believers in pure science–but what about the devoutly religious? If the Catholic monks set up a monastery in Iceland, is it possible that the monks of some other religious order may set one up on Mars, or Alpha Centauri, or Gliese?

And…that’s all I’ve got in this notebook. Sorry–there’s lots of scribbling and calculating for Genesis Earth, as well as library call numbers for books about Saladin and the Crusades, but not too much else in the way of story ideas. For more, you’ll have to wait until story notebook #3.

Forward to new ground

A couple days ago, I finished writing through the material I’d written for Worlds Away From Home back in 2008 before I dropped the project. For the first time since March, I find myself drafting entirely new material.

It’s a little bit unnerving; I’m a much better reviser, I feel, than straight up writer. Revising is awesome because I know that the book is getting better, whereas drafting is frustrating because the written story never turns out as awesome as it was when it was in my head.

At the same time, it’s really fun to play fast and loose with your book. Need a new character? Throw him in! A new romantic subplot? Go for it! A new planet for the characters to visit? Sure, why not?

I will say, though, that it’s much harder to keep up a steady writing rate when you’re drafting new material. My daily word count has fallen to about 2k, give or take a few hundred words. In order to finish this by August 15, I just need to do 2.2k per day, but I’m sure something will come up and I’ll find myself in a crunch by the end.

One thing that might throw a kink in the works is getting a new job. Being underemployed really sucks, and I want to move on to a new job by the beginning of August. Easier said than done in this economy, right? Well, there are some options open to a young, single college grad in my position: namely, a wilderness job. I’ve been holding out on that because eight days in the wilderness for every six days off seems like a lot of time away from other pursuits, but the more I look at it, the more appealing it seems. Six days completely off, with no money problems…hmm…

Which reminds me: would it be lame to put up a donate button on this blog? One that said “buy me a (non-alcoholic) drink” or something like that? I don’t want to ask for money, but if you guys feel like throwing it at me, who am I to hold you back? I don’t expect it to earn much, but something is better than nothing, especially these days.

Thoughts on the convolutions of discovery writing

It’s been forever since I posted, so I figured I’d put something up and let you guys know what I’ve been up to.

I’m happy to say that Worlds Away From Home is going well; I wrote just under 20k this week, which is more than I’ve written in a long time. I hope to keep a steady 15k to 20k for the next three weeks as I finish this draft.

I think I’m through the roughest parts (famous last words, right?), and I’ve got a fairly clear idea where I want to take this. That is, I have a target ending that’s both specific enough to give me direction and vague enough to give me some flexibility. If I’m doing things right, I expect these characters will surprise me before the end.

When I first started this novel almost two years ago, I hit a bad rough patch right around my current spot and had to put it on hold for a while. At the time, I thought it was because of a particularly difficult scene (which I just rewrote), but now I see that the problem was much bigger.

I thought that I was telling a story about a guy who nearly falls for the wrong girl and ends up with the right one in the end, when really the first girl was the right one. Once again, I found myself telling a very different story than the one I set out to tell.

Interestingly, in order to see what I needed to do to fix the problem, I had to write a completely unrelated novel in the same world about the same overarching world events. My problem, I think, was that I spent so much time world building that I stopped paying attention to what the characters were doing.

With the current draft, I’ve discovered that this story is very solidly a science fiction romance. There’s plenty of sf action, but it’s the romance that drives the plot.

While this discovery comes as a pleasant surprise, it also worries me because the potential audience may be very small. Traditionally, science fiction has been anathema to romance, and while that may be changing (as evidenced by this interesting post at tor.com), I wonder how well this book will sell, especially because it’s not your typical romance. In some ways, it’s actually a critique of our typical ideas of romance.

Oh well. I suppose there isn’t anything I can do about it except finish the damn thing and worry about selling it later. These types of thoughts tend to be counterproductive to the creative process, especially when you’re more thank 50k into the draft.

Overall, though, I’m optimistic. I like this story that I’m telling, and while I may cringe at the mistakes I make as I go along, I know that I need to resist the urge to fix them until the rough draft is complete.

Writing for me is like wandering around blindfolded with a Polaroid camera and taking a picture of something that sounds cool. When I take off the blindfold and check the picture, it takes a while before I can see the coherent whole. Usually, though I have some idea what to expect, the end result surprises me.

I love it, though. That element of surprise and spontaneity is well worth the lack of control, because usually (if I handle things right) it helps to give the story depth, meaning, and honesty that my conscious mind simply could not give it.

I’m very optimistic about this novel. Now that the world is solidly built, I can focus everything on the characters, and that’s where the true story lies. I’m currently having a lot of fun torturing them, but I know where their headed with their growth arcs and how all of this ties together (well, most of it, anyway). If I can pull it off, it should be quite satisfying. In the meantime, I’m excited to seeing where it takes me.

Falling back into the groove

Today I surprised myself and wrote nearly 4k words, some of which might actually be good enough to keep. Huzzah!

The novel is coming along very nicely, and I’m starting to get really excited with where it’s going. That’s huge, because up to this point, the nagging “this is crap, what are you doing with your life?” voices have been getting me down. Yeah, the draft I’m writing will need a lot of work, but the story’s got potential, and I can see it. That’s the most important part.

The interesting thing was that after pounding out the first thousand words, the writing started to really flow. The right words and phrases started coming quite naturally, almost on their own, instead of waiting for me to mercilessly hunt them down.

An example:

The weather was perfect–sunny, clear, and neither too hot nor too cold. Upset by the sound of their engines, flocks of pretty white birds took to the air, filling the sky around the green banks like noisy, low-flying clouds. Down in the cabin, Kariym began to sing a lilting ballad about a young boy in love with his brother’s betrothed. His deep bass voice bellowed over the roar of the engine, lifting Jalil’s spirits. It was a very good day to be alive.

They rode upstream over the river for the next hour. Almost immediately they left the main body of the convoy far behind, taking the reconnaissance position for the advance guard. Occasionally, they passed a town or a bridge–magnificent works of steel and stone that soared over their heads, spanning the entire vast width of the river. Mostly, however, the banks were empty and unsettled–nothing but long, straight stretches of thick green bush, with the occasionally rocky outcropping to break the monotony.

Of course, the writing’s not perfect–I’ll be the first to say that it needs considerable work–but at least it’s decent. Decent for a rough draft.

One of the most annoying things about writing is when I unconsciously break into alliteration. I’ll write a sentence, only to realize that I can’t let it stand as it is because every noun, verb, and adjective starts with the same sound. Like that last phrase: “starts with the same sound.” Augh!

I’m finding, though, that when used in moderation, that tendency towards alliteration can be somewhat helpful. There’s nothing quite as pleasurable as reading a good story with delicious, flowing prose, like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed or Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin. Excellent books. I’d be more than happy if I could write as beautifully as them someday.

In the meantime, though, I’m just plugging away, trying to make the next chapter, scene, paragraph, and sentence better than the last. Fortunately, now that I’m excited about the story again, things are going very nicely.

Oh, and happy fourth on the fifth. I spent most of the day with family (not writing), bouncing around Provo and doing various stuff. I’ve got a ton of chores to do tomorrow, though, so I’d better get to bed. Night!