Category: My Writing

My writing. This is distinct from the “written word” tag, which covers writing both mine and others, and the “Stories, Packaged and Sold” category, which covers the stories of others.

Like pulling teeth. With marshmallow pliers.

I have been picking away at a story. It is currently at four thousand words and change.

I would guess about thirty-eight hundred of them need to be rewritten, and of those, right now, I feel like it would be optimistic to say that only two thousand need to be burnt outright. Burnt. And there’s a subplot or merging course of events or what-have-you that I know how I want to involve but haven’t actually done anything with, and a creeping embarrassment at the prose and the setup, and…

I am torn right now between calling it off, hammering out a final scene so that there’s something to tear apart later, or sketching out a point form list of what I need to have happen next. (I am bravely putting off sinking into a funk of “oh my god I can’t do this”, since it always knocks my schedule for a loop, really.)

Have you been here? What do you do?

Slightly surprised.

I could have sworn I’d written something here in the last month.  Looking over where I’ve actually been typing, though, I can see how I didn’t manage that.

I’ve been chipping away at a couple of stories–one handwritten, one typed up, and it’s interesting to see how the pace is slightly different.  I’ve also been working on a story for a game–the Story Nexus engine’s open to the public, now, and it’s got the potential to be a huge timesink.  (You can check it out online over here.)  And there were some repairs at home, so there’s some work putting everything back into place.

And I’m job-hunting, too, since my contract was not renewed.  That last is probably the most draining of everything, to be honest.

Quick thoughts.

Two things have been rattling around my head today:

A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist!’
‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.’
     — Stephen Crane

and

“It has been said that writing comes more easily if you have something to say.”
      — Sholem Asch

I thought I had something to say.  I’m just having a little trouble placing it, right now.

Excuses to not write

So!  I ended up hearing from my friend; we got about 1300 words written, actually.  But I haven’t gotten anything else written, and it’s starting to… not worry me, exactly.  Make me wonder if I’m avoiding it.  Because writing with her, it’s fun and it’s engaging and I get what Stephen King (well, Paul Sheldon) calls the gotta; I gotta keep reading, I gotta keep writing, I gotta get more of this done.  And this is a really good feeling, don’t get me wrong.

Just beginning to wonder if I’m paying so much attention to writing this way because it drowns out the fact that I’m not writing for myself.  Or writing out my own ideas, rather.  There’s the morgue story, there’s that crime one I was hacking away at (well, plinking away at, really), there’s the mushroom story, there’s the other mushroom story, and none of it is getting done.

(Heh.  Came in to work an hour early.  Half an hour left before I can actually start.  Fiction writing done?  Zilch.)

I get upset when I don’t get things done, and the light of my life occasionally reminds me that it’s okay.  What’s the worst that can happen if I go out and try to write and get distracted?  I don’t write and I read or play video games instead.

I think I might be forgetting that the worst is I don’t write.  Okay, yes, not a tragedy.  But I don’t write, and then another day’s gone by and I’m no closer to finishing anything and closer to not having any more time.

I just wish that was motivational, rather than depressing paralyzing.

Achey and tired.

I’ve had a headache for about ten hours now.  I mean, I realize I am having this headache on a day when a good friend of mine is having a migraine, and that does a lot to put it in perspective.  But it’s starting to wear on me.

I got a story rejection today.  I was expecting it, and it was very polite.  Still… what can you do?

(ObAnswer: Pick up and carry on.  I know, I know.  Goal for tomorrow: two new pages.)

Watching Game of Thrones and comfortably hating Theon.  I do love the Greyjoys and the Iron Islands; they make me think of King Hagrid, cold and drawn and grey, standing by the sea and watching the waves they rule. Blood and salt and iron.

And the Cthulhu shout-outs don’t hurt either.

Started two new anthologies–End of the World and Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead–and neither one is really grabbing me yet.  I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will clear things up.  Whether or not the extension goes through tomorrow (and I expect it will; early next week if not), at least there’s only six work-hours left until the weekend.

I’m very sorry.  I wish I could come up with something more interesting to say.

Sunday already

Work on Friday was a bit of a long day.  One of the people I worked with last time is thinking she might want my help for summer, so that could be useful.  The hour and a half commute each way is very annoying; John has suggested a few things.  Heading in early, hitting the gym or a coffee shop, and working out or getting writing done.

Both would be nice. Either would be nice, honestly, although I admit I am lacking faith in my carrying through with either.

Reading Sarah Monette makes me hopeful.  Sone of the things she writes are like the kind of things I would like to write.  It is just nice to see that it can be done, although its a leap from there to my being able to do it. The words I got out yesterday are annoying me; I’m trying to work myself up to finishing the damn thing. Maybe I will come across a tone or style that makes sense for it and then I will at least know how to pare down and shape up what I have.

I know what I want it to be about. It is just a near-impossible jump from there to plot, apparently.

Still. Better done than not done? And if I make progress I can celebrate by taking an hour to go find Harold or something. Fallout 3 is not as good as New Vegas, I am finding, but Harold and Dogmeat help a lot.

First, the hook…

A brief digression on story hooks.

There’s this thing Fallout does–all four RPGs, I mean.  I can’t speak to Tactics.  You start out with an important goal, and once you’ve done it, the elements of the world you were travelling through coalesce and you have the second bigger goal.  (You find the water chip, but the important thing is now to deal with the Master. You find get the GECK for your village, but the important thing is now to deal with the Enclave. You find out who shot you and why, but the important thing is now the second Battle of Hoover Dam and the ultimate fate of New Vegas.)

What’s important, I think, is that the first goal is not irrelevant; you do not fail at it, you never discover it didn’t matter.  But the process of achieving it results in you learning about the world, and gives you a chance to care about the second goal.  It’s interesting; and as far as I can tell, it’s fairly unique in video games.  I mean, I need to play more of them, but…

I’m not sure the technique would work as well in written stories or movies; the involvement is a bit more distant.  Still, possibly bits of it are adaptable.  Will keep an eye out for examples.

Settling on Sundays.

I want to say it’s been a long day, but it really hasn’t.  It’s been mostly a very pleasant day.  I’m just tired drained.  I’m anxious about work, and hoping it’ll be done soon.  And I ache, and I don’t know why I’m still hungy.  I made a decent dinner, even if it ended up taking nearly two hours from start to finish, and I was getting upset at trying to juggle everything.

I just want a day to stay home and sleep.  Instead I’m going to turn in early enough for a full night’s rest, show up cheerful and enthusiastic about the job tomorrow, and quietly count down the days until I’m done.  I believe this is called being a grown-up, or something, and is closely tied to finding work and making people not curse your presence.

(Meantime, the friend I’m writing a story with has been busy lately (which is fine!) and so have I, but from the time we’ve had to talk I can’t help but feel that while being busy she’s getting more actually done.)

Despite coordinating schedules, I am actually too worn to pay attention to American Horror Story or Walking Dead, so we’re catching up on Supernatural.  It’s nice to sit back and watch characters deal with a monster of the week, and I like the openly fake psychic who is pleasant and reasonable about her job.  It’s still clever rather than creepy, though, and I can’t remember when it last managed to be creepy–

(That said, the meta-commentary about brothers working together made me laugh.)

I suppose it’s hard to sustain tension, which is an essential element of creepy, when you know characters are either going to survive (Winchesters, Bobby) or else can’t be expected to be there for longer than an episode (everyone else).  Should keep that in mind when writing, I suppose.

I’m rambling, I know.  I think I’m about due to turn in.

I sit and watch the clouds go by…

Someone I know just got published.  It’s actually (I think) quite a good story, and you can read it here, at the latest issue of On the Premises.

I think this is teriffic for her, and I am happy to pass along good things I have heard people say about it.  And it’s paid-published, which I suspect adds an extra element of awesome to the whole thing.

I can’t even feel properly jealous, and someone I’m writing with said something that had me figure out why.  I’m not jealous because I’m not in the same situation.

Because Rachel Verkade?  She actually finishes her stories.  And then she sends them out.

If I did that, I could feel jealous.  As it stands, I read her stuff.  And the things some of my friends write.  And I follow the people I know about who are getting their stories out, or getting a collection out, and I just look at the progress they are making, and I think…

I don’t know what I think, actually.  It’s not very detailed or coherent, it’s sort of a slow sad wishing that I was there.

That I was focussed enough to try to get there.

What the hell am I doing with my life and my time, anyway?

Oddly awake.

Yesterday I was up until four in the morning. And then I was up and functional by eight. Somehow I’m still not tired. Admittedly there was a nap in there, but…

One of the people I write with a fair bit of the time is doing NaNoWriMo. It’s rough going so far (mind, that doesn’t mean much yet), but she’s doing it. I, meanwhile, have written the hundred words of fiction in trip fragments this week.

I mean, it’s just been Hallowe’en; I practically feel guilty about not trying. It’s the time of year for (proper Lovecraft) ghouls and curiously meaningful scratches and shapes standing in the dark in the still of your room and just watching you.

You think.

You can’t see their eyes, after all.

(Oh yes, this is absolutely going to help me get to sleep. Because I needed a chaser after reading a third of the way through the House of Fear anthology. It’s a nice mix; part actual ghosts and part haunted houses (which are subtly different, but I fear I repeat myself), with a side order of the weird.)

Beginning to get sleepy, at least.  The nice thing about the phone is that I can post in my room and don’t get distracted by the joys of the internet or the horror of the Sierra Madre. Much easier to lie down and go to sleep if you don’t need to tear yourself away from a computer motor.

(That’s the Sierra Madre from Fallout: New Vegas – Dead Money. Which is a quite well-done little horror story set in a haunted house… one which both corrupts its victims and is inhabited by ghosts, now that I think of it.)

Tomorrow I’ll try and get my books sorted, I suppose. And maybe I’ll hear back about work. The estimated start date just keeps creeping forward; at this point I’d be surprised if anything happened before Monday.