Thoughts and Reflections – Page 34 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Final polish

I mapped out all the major assignments for my capstone class for the next month on my calendar. Turns out I’ve got a lot more work than I thought I did. Because of that, I decided to start work on Genesis Earth 4.0 today.

This is the final polish before World Fantasy convention. Of all the stuff I’ve written, Genesis Earth is the only ms that I feel is ready for me to send to editors/agents. With this draft, I hope to smooth out the writing, make the text more readable–basically, make this book really shine. We’ll see if it succeeds.

It’s kind of nerve-wracking, in some ways, doing this final edit (inasmuch as any edit is “final”). Previously, whenever I did a revision, I knew that I had time to come back later and fix anything that I just couldn’t get to. Now, this is where it counts. The writing has to be perfect.

Imagine how horrible it was to find a grammatical mistake on page one. I’d forgotten to capitalize the first word of a sentence in the third or fourth paragraph. Thankfully, it was the only mistake I saw on that page, but it’s enough to make me nervous about those chapters I sent out to the editors from BYU’s Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers. I know how to write–really, I do! Please believe me!

So today, every hour of the day was jam packed with classes, work, homework, and obligatory social activities. I only had two hours to write, and in that time, I only wrote about 500 words for Genesis Earth (though, to be fair, I’m measuring it by comparing documents and only counting the words that changed). Ouch. Not sustainable, if I want to finish Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home (I need to change that title) before World Fantasy. I made up for it by writing for half an hour just now in Stella, but still…

And this is where I hope I don’t mess things up. Every time I’ve tried to juggle two projects at once, I’ve found it very hard to do so. It’s something I’ll probably have to learn, if I want to write professionally, but it’s still very hard. I hope my writing quality doesn’t suffer because of it.

If worst comes to worst, I’ll focus on Genesis Earth until it’s done to my satisfaction. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks, even with school. But I’m still keeping my goal to finish Stella before World Fantasy.

In unrelated news, in my political philosophy class today, Professor Hancock mentioned Huntington and I said, under my breath, “that guy was so full of crap.” Well, it turns out that Professor Hancock is quite the admirer of Samuel Huntington and his clash of civilizations theory. This is going to make class…interesting, to say the least. After studying this stuff my entire college career, I really do believe that Huntington’s theories are utterly full of crap.

Oh, and I had a great idea for a comic: Plato’s Republic, as a cartoon! Okay, maybe I’m just a geek, but seriously, if it were done well, it could be really, REALLY cool. Really cool.

School is kicking my trash

It’s true. This is what my wordcount spreadsheet currently looks like:

Note that the seven day totals are dropping consistently. If I want to finish this novel before World Fantasy, I’m going to have to keep that number above 7,800…not including the work on Genesis Earth 4.0.

Something tells me that’s going to be very hard.

This week was particularly busy. I had a research proposal presentation for my capstone class–that was stressful–plus a writeup of the presentation. Thankfully, the full written proposal isn’t due for a couple of weeks.

Besides that, I’ve been working my two TA jobs and doing a buttload of readings and summaries for my other classes. Ugh.

The cool thing, though, is that when it’s my office hours and the students aren’t coming, I can get paid for reading Aeschylus, Plato, Sophocles, and all those other awesome Greek writers. The Libation Bearers was surprisingly good. I’d like to read The Furies, but I’ve got to read Plato’s Apology in order to keep up with the class. Still, the Apology is good stuff, too.

Reminds me: today, I went kayaking on Utah lake with the wilderness writing class. While I was there, I had this story idea: what if the Greek civilization had developed in Alaska instead of Aegea? And then I realized that it already happened: the Norse.

With school and work consistently kicking my butt, the only time I have to write EVER is between 10pm and 12pm. Every day this week (except for one time, when I drove a girl home), I’ve been in the Harold B Lee library until closing time, when the music starts to play. Every day, I come home exhausted. And then I get up the next day at 7am to get ready for class. Something tells me this isn’t sustainable.

Still, I think the worst times in the semester are at the beginning and the end. In the beginning, you’re still in the summer mentality, so the work beats you up until you get used to it. In the last half, everything gets so insane with exams and term papers that you can barely keep your head above the water no matter what you do. I’m adjusting slowly, but adjusting.

I’ll keep up with the writing as best I can, but Genesis Earth is going to be my top priority when I start that. In the meantime, I’ll just try to finish Bringing Stella Home by plugging away and catching up on the weekends.

In the meantime, I’ve got some great ideas for my next big project. Come November, I’m going to have a lot of fun.

🙂

I look forward to having a 9 to 5 job

I really do.

School is difficult, because you can never really separate yourself from your work at the end of the day. You’ve always got homework to do for the next day, or some project to prepare, some reading to do. There’s never a defined time where it “ends.”

This semester so far has been pretty crazy–not as crazy busy as some semesters, but it’s starting to approach it. I’m taking my capstone class, and it’s fairly rigorous. Today, I’m doing a research proposal presentation, and I just discovered, after looking in the syllabus last night, that a 2 page mock grant proposal is due Wednesday. On my birthday. <groan>.

I’m stressing out a bit about this presentation. Professor Christensen is a real stickler for presentations. Going over 6 minutes will dock your grade 10%+. Looking at the audience for less than 90% of the time will dock your grade about 5% or so. It doesn’t help that I’m going on the last possible day.

Now, I’m probably stressing out more than I need to. I’m just unfamiliar with this format for presentations, and that’s getting to me. The result is that when I sit down to write, I find it very hard to concentrate because my mind is on this other stuff. And since I could be using any writing time to work on my presentation, I usually end up doing that. Unfortunately, because I’m not very familiar with this kind of assignment, I don’t think a lot of that time is particularly productive.

It will be nice to have a job that ENDS at five o’clock and gives me the rest of the day to do what I want, without having to worry about the stuff that happens from nine to five. In some ways, it will probably be more conducive to my writing, even if it does require more time than my classes. It’s very hard to have the mental space for writing when you’re over your head in homework.

Climax (thank you Ennio Morricone)

Just passed the major climax in the middle of Bringing Stella Home. In a moment that I hope is as poignant to the reader as it was to me, I…well, let’s just say I’m glad I’m not my main character.

I hit the climax doing a 1,765 word sprint, with this song playing on repeat:

So awesome. I just hope that when I wake up from this daze, my writing doesn’t suck.

Next, gotta finish up the chapter, clean up the mess, give the denouement. After every emotionally poignant climax, I think it’s critical to have a good denouement to give those emotions their proper release and bring everything full circle, bring some proper closure. Best denouement of any story I know: the Throne Room from Star Wars IV:

The denouement for my story will not be nearly so triumphant. But then again, it’s not the final climax–there’s a lot more to come, a lot more pain and suffering for my main character to endure.

I’m 2/3rds of the way through this rewrite now. I hope I’m not being too melodramatic, or that the story sucks. They say it’s not enough to be good–to make it as a writer, you have to be brilliant. Does this story have that potential? Gosh, I hope it does. As it stands, though, it sure needs a lot of work.

But still–it’s been awesome writing it.

Conversations with a pedestrian

People in Utah are generally nice and easy to get along with…until it comes to traffic. That’s when all the jerks come out. I’ve seen the finger more times here in Utah than anywhere else in my life–even as a missionary in California. After living here for a while, it starts to irk you.

So tonight, as I was waiting to turn left on the corner of Canyon and Bulldog, just as the light turns green a jogger runs out in the road. Predictably, the oncoming traffic honks at him, but what does he do? He flips them off.

I turned left to cut through the RB/SFH parking lot on my way home, and realized that the jogger was running the same way. Since his disrespectful gesture had rubbed me the wrong way, I decided to slow down, roll down my window, and confront him.

So, while he continued to run, I drove parallel to him and we had this conversation:

Me: Hey, why did you flip that guy off?
Jerk: Because he was being a prick!
Me: But you were the one who ran across the road.
Jerk: Yeah, but I have the right of way!
Me: Not when you’re running a red light.
Jerk: Oh yeah? Pedestrians always have the right of way, retard!
Me: So I’m a retard? Is this how you plan to get through life, by being rude to everyone?
Jerk: <laughs> EXACTLY. That’s exactly how I plan to get through life.
Me: That’s not a very good way to live. You should control your temper.
Jerk: Yeah, whatever. <waves me off> Later, dude.
Me: So now you’re just going to run away from what you did?
Jerk: <runs up to car window> Look, do you want to make this a little more serious? <threatens to punch>
Me: Not really. I just want to hold you accountable for what you did.
Jerk: <runs off again> Whatever, dude. I’m just trying to exercise.
Me: And I’m doing you a favor. You should learn to control your temper. <drives off>

I don’t know if I accomplished anything by this (or even what I wanted to accomplish), but it felt satisfying knowing that one less jerk in Provo got away with his rude and disrespectful behavior. I hope that guy remembers this conversation for a while, even if it only makes him madder. One day, he’ll learn.

Summer roundup

Alright, with the first week of school already over, I figure I should recap and evaluate my writing progress this summer.

When school ended in April, I was still waiting to hear back from Brandon Sanderson’s agent about an internship. My backup plan (which I started as soon as classes ended) was to stay in Provo and write full time.

Sanderson’s agent ended up taking on a different intern, which ended up being the best for both of us, since I get the sense that he was looking to mentor someone who would go on to become a professional agent. Me, I was just looking to network and develop some connections in the publishing world, which I did anyway (at least in the local Utah scene). Besides, Provo is WAY cheaper than New York!

From the beginning, I treated writing as a full-time job. I set project deadlines, daily and 7-day wordcount goals, and spent somewhere around 8 hours a day working on my various projects. I submitted a full to an editor from the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference and partials to the other two editors. I also submitted to the Writers of the Future contest and to the LDS Publisher Christmas story contest (much smaller, but geared toward a niche market).

I started keeping my stats on May 25th, using a spreadsheet to keep track of my daily wordcount for each of my projects, the daily total wordcount, the 7-day cumulative wordcount, and any writing I did for synopses or revision notes. Since BYU’s summer recess begins in April, I missed the stats for the first three weeks or so, but I kept consistent records since then until now.

From May 25th to August 31st, I wrote 244,065 words in 8 projects (3 short stories and 5 novel drafts). I averaged 2,490 words per day. Adjusting for Sundays (I typically take Sundays off), I averaged 2,906 words per day.

My goals were to write 4k words per day, and to shoot for a constant 7-day total of 24k, but to never let that total dip below 12k words. In 98 days, the 7-day running total only went below 12k eleven times–on those particular days, I was either traveling, moving out, moving in, or extremely busy with back-to-school chores. For the two weeks I was on vacation, I still wrote more than 12k words each week.

Interestingly enough, out of the eight fiction projects, only one was a rough draft–a short story that I worked on for two days and never completed. The vast majority of my writing went into revising novels that I’d already written.

I completed the first draft of Bringing Stella Home in early June (my third complete novel rough draft). Later, in July, I began the second draft. I’m currently just over halfway through with the revisions and hope to finish by October 10th.

I started a revision of my first novel, Ashes of the Starry Sea, but decided midway through that I was running up against diminishing returns and decided to drop it (I completed the rough draft in April of 2008–it was my first finished novel and the reason I started this blog, waaaaay back in August 2007).

I started a new draft of Hero in Exile, making some drastic revisions, but found it difficult to juggle more than one writing project at a time and put it on the back burner. I may or may not pick it up again once Bringing Stella Home 2.0 is finished.

I completed the third draft of Genesis Earth and started to submit it. I will probably do one language/readability edit before the World Fantasy convention in late October and try to sell it while I’m there.

Overall, the summer was a practice run to see if I could write full time and survive the insanity. I always feared, as a child, that if writing became my full time job I would come to hate it. I found, however, that writing full time (8+ hrs/day, 6 days/wk) only made me enjoy it more. Now that school is back in session, I already wish I had more time and mental space to dedicate to my writing.

I miss the summer, but not because of the lazy days, or the parties, or the vacationing–I miss the opportunity to write full time! Provided I can find a way to support a family off of this, I can definitely see myself turning this into a career. In the meantime, I’ll keep honing my craft and start working on getting an agent.

Now, more than ever, I feel that breaking in is more of a question of ‘if’ than ‘when.’

🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m back!

Wow, I’m back from vacation. Not “back” as in back in Utah, but “back” as in no longer at the cape. We drove home to Western Massachusetts this evening and arrived just a couple hours ago.

Family vacation this year was lots of fun! It was me, mom and pop, and Sarah and Mykle at a local cottage for about a week. We went to Nauset Light Beach, Coast Guard Beach, Race Point Beach, Provincetown, Hyannis, Moby Dick’s restaurant, the Cape Cod Natural History Museum, and, of course, good old Sheep Pond in Brewster (Brew-stah). When we weren’t out and about, we were either watching movies or playing Hearts and Shanghai, the Vasicek family card game of choice.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with the family at Cape Cod, but after a week I’m ready to head back into life as usual. My back is fried, I’ve had enough Shanghai to make me sick (especially considering how CRAZY our family games can get!), and I’m looking forward to no longer smelling like salt water or sun tan lotion.

I’m also looking forward to writing again. I kept up the writing at the cape–about 1k to 2k each day, mostly in the evening–but man, stuff like moving and vacations and travel and having fun tends to throw out your daily routine. I haven’t had one for the last week and a half, and I want to get back to something a little more stable (not to mention productive).

Alas, the summer is just about over. I’ll be flying back to Utah on Tuesday, moving all my stuff into my new apartment on Wednesday (Ben Crowder is going to be my roommate–I think it’s going to be a fun and interesting semester!), helping a friend move her stuff out of storage on Saturday, and doing other get-ready-for-school things on the other days, including filling out the FAFSA, getting parking stickers, books, figuring out what’s going on with my double-major capstone, and blah blah blah other boring annoying stuff.

Gah! Why can’t I just write all day, every day? Looks like those days are over…<sob>.

Someday, inshallah, I’ll make that dream a reality. Someday soon, inshallah!

Slush puppy feedback

A few weeks ago, I read a submission for The Leading Edge (I volunteer read slush for the magazine) from a lady from Germany. The story was about a dwindling race of indigenous natives being driven from their lands by a corporate, high-technology society. This one girl gets lost in the wilderness and everyone thinks she’s dead, but she’s really taken by this magical demigod woman who the natives worship. One of the natives basically sells his soul to integrate with the invaders, while the main character fights them up to the end.

It was an interesting story with some poignant moments, but way too much for 15,000 words. I wrote in my comments that this lady was really writing a novel and that she should try her hand at it, because if she pulled it off with some skill the story was good enough that I’d be willing to buy it.

Well, today we got a postcard in the mail from the same lady, thanking us for our kind comments! Here’s what she said:

Dear Director,

I want to apologize for sending you “Kith and Kin” which contained some inappropriate content*…it was kind of you to permit reviewers “RJ” and “JV” to comment nonetheless, and I found their comments detailed, thoughtful, and helpful! The piece has now placed elsewhere. Thank you for your time.

Very truly yours,

Suzanne Sykorn in Germany

That was kind of her to send a note! Good to know, also, that people find my comments helpful. The editors gave me the postcard, so it will be a nice writerly keepsake to add to my collection of rejection letters (and acceptance letter!!).

For my own career, I think I’ll do like this lady and send out postcards whenever I get a personalized rejection. It’s definitely a kind, thoughtful gesture.

*The inappropriate content mostly had to with sex and drug use. It didn’t bother me, as callous and profane as I am, but I think some of the other slush readers had issues. Since Leading Edge is a BYU publication, we have to follow BYU standards in what we publish.

Fistful of words

I’ve recently developed a taste for Ennio Morricone’s music. My writing process these days consists of me sitting down and watching this youtube clip:

After that, I’m all gunned up and ready to work!

Holy crap, today I sent out the first three chapters of Genesis Earth to the other two editors from the BYU Writers for Young Readers conference. What a rush! I spent a couple hours writing a chapter by chapter synopsis, rushed out a couple cover letters, bought $4.81 in wood pulp for both copies of the work, headed on over to the BYU Bookstore for the envelopes and all, and voila! Sent ’em off!

We’ll see what comes of them–probably more form rejections. It’s funny how when you print something off to send it out, it seems ten times worse than you remembered.

Well, I sent it out anyway. With writing, good things never happen to those who wait.

The question in my mind is now: does that synopsis count towards my daily word count goal? Because I only wrote 1,072 words in Genesis Earth 3.0 today (nothing in Ashes, sadly), but that synopsis was upwards of 2,800 words and took up a good chunk of my normal writing time. Eh, I’m counting it.

In unrelated news, I saw Star Trek the other day. Found it entertaining, but wasn’t very impressed. Too many holes that stretched the believability.

<spoilers>

For example, in the beginning, Kirk’s wife goes into labor during the evacuation and the child pops out…like, five minutes later? Or the red, fleshy monster on the ice world: no visible fat, no fur…how does that thing stay insulated in such a hostile environment? Or the Romulans drilling to the core of the world to create the black hole: why don’t they just create a black hole on the surface? Gets the job done a lot easier. Better yet, when Nero realizes that he’s gone back in time and his home world hasn’t yet been destroyed, why doesn’t he save his people instead of avenging himself on the Vulcans? Or…you get the point.

</spoilers>

I was never a big Star Trek fan growing up, though (except for Star Trek Voyager–I loved Voyager!). I can understand how the nostalgia would make a lot of people enjoy the movie. And really, it was very pretty–the graphics were great. Lots of action. It was entertaining, just…not as good as everyone makes it out to be, IMO.

I could say more, but that’s enough for tonight. Have a wonderful Sabbath!

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!