Tag: novel writing

Dissatisfaction

I remain in my editing process, working on Book Five of the Incomplete States series. I’ve edited sixty percent of the book, An Undying Quest, but I wasn’t pleased with what I was reading and editing yesterday. In fact, I found myself dissatisfied.

That was ironic, because the chapter’s title is Dissatisfaction. As I read it, I found myself pausing to frown. The coffee shop was empty except for me (the baristas were in the back room), so I went back and read the chapter aloud, trying to feel the flow and understand what seemed wrong.

Too wordy and cumbersome, I concluded. Some cutting and editing is required.

I began reading it again to identify what bothered me, but it just bogged me down. Let me tell you, it’s not reassuring when you, the writer, finds that what you’ve written makes you wince. I gave up for the day, but continued thinking about it.

I thought, well, one, it’s just too wordy. Two, I’m re-hashing what’s already been said and done, so it’s not advancing the story. That’s also killing the pacing. I think I need to cut and perhaps write a brief summary – one, two short lines – to capture the sentiments.

With that in mind, I came back to it today and began anew. It wasn’t simple, but doing this, I’d discovered that the writing was passive. I told, and then told again. Little showing was there. Ugh.

And, interesting, it was too wordy for the character’s perspective. The series is told via several perspective. Each character has their own voice, and this character, Kanrin, is spare in thinking and speaking. He dislikes complicated, rendering things to basic and simple conclusions, and here he was, in convoluted thinking about what was going.

Now seeing how the complexities were entwined and the issues understood and clarified, I could process and edit more thoughtfully. Took time, though. All of today’s session was about reading and editing that chapter.  No summaries were required, just cutting and editing to reduce wordiness and tighten the pace.

I feel I need to edit it again, and will tomorrow. I’m too deep into it now to clearly perceive it. Then, I’ll see what happens on the next editing go-around, planned for the entire series has been edited. For now, it’s been another good day of editing like crazy.

Time to re-join life.

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A Little At A Time

I’ve mentioned before that in writing Incomplete States that I’ve written over one million words.

Thinking about that today as I’m almost finished with editing the fifth novel in the series, I decided to do more quantifying about it. I began writing the series in July, 2016, and completed it in July, 2018. I write almost every day, often even when on vacation and traveling. While it’s not exact, I guessed that I wrote about seven hundred twenty days since I began writing the series.

Dividing one million by seven hundred twenty, I estimate that I wrote less than fourteen hundred words a day.

That’s not a huge word count, but it shows what can happen by just keeping at it.

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Laughing All the Way

I found myself laughing as I edited today, because I was dealing with the holes.

Still editing Book Five, An Undying Quest, of the Incomplete States series, I have half of the novel edited. The thing about the holes and the society that use them is that I hadn’t planned these holes. The holes in discussion are worm holes, but small, controlled to some degree, such as the way that we control water by channeling and funneling it, and managing levels and temperatures, etc., that are located in a cavern on another planet. The people use the holes to travel to other places, and sometimes to other times, and, if they’re brave enough, to visit the dead.

As noted, they were completely spontaneous when I was writing that section, and created a history and structure on the go. Reading, editing, and revising it today, this society’s depths, history, and complexities surprised me. There’s a sense in reading it that it’s historic fiction, and that you have some sense of what’s meant by the terms and relationships because that’s your history.

I quite enjoyed reading it. Will it work for others? Maybe, maybe not. I think it was James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) who said something like, “Tell the story, and let the reader catch up, if they can.” That’s what I’m employing in this instance.

I must admit, one aspect of the holes was inspired by a scene from Field of Dreams (1989), when Terence Mann (James Early Jones) accepts the invitation from Shoeless Joe (Ray Liotta) to enter the corn. Love that scene.

Done writing and editing like crazy for another day. Off to join the real people, the real world, and the real sunshine.

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Stopping

I’m in such an editing and writing zone, enjoying reading what I’ve written, surprised by the characters and settings. I wrote this? Are you sure? Because I don’t remember it. Yet the notes tell me that I wrote it last June. Ah, where is my mind?

Now I need to stop. Plans were made and time has flitted past with a hummingbird’s speed. I’ve been busy for hours, and sad about stopping. That’s how it sometimes goes, but I take satisfaction in that it was a good day of writing and editing like crazy.

Cheers

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The Challenge & Reward

I read so often about how hard fiction writing is. I won’t lie, it offers some challenging times. Writing will drive you mad with character and plot choices, word decisions, and problems with story-telling and pacing. It’ll daunt you with the eternal question, “What comes next?”

But when it all comes together, when you’re in that flow, whether it’s writing, editing, or polishing, when you finally encounter your results, it can be so sweet and fulfilling. I encountered that today, another moment of being surprised by what I’ve written.

It’s all not pages of gems or brilliance. I have read my writing sometimes and gagged in revulsion over what I’d written, using up adjectives to describe how sickened I felt with my attempts.

It’s so rewarding, though, when the opposite is encountered, as it was today while editing the fifth book in the Incomplete States series, An Undying Quest. There’ll be many readers, critics, and other writers who won’t like it. I know that from talking to readers. I’ve heard them say about best-selling novels, “He’s a wonderful writer, but I didn’t like the format.” Or, “She creates beautiful characters. Her writing is like poetry, but there was no ending. The story didn’t make any sense.”

Writers bring intent to their efforts to write. Our intentions as writers often morph as our brains develop insights into what we’re thinking and attempting to show. The story we were originally telling becomes another story. The ending that we stumble upon changes how the entire novel and its concept is regarded.

Through it all are the words and the mechanics of being clear, and the effort to keep the reader engaged, rolling the dice on telling too much or not enough, hoping that the readers see what you’re doing, even though you know that they will find and take away meanings that you, the writer, never saw or intended.

Our brains just don’t work the same way. Our brains depend upon our individual knowledge, emotions, and experiences to find and assign meaning to the words that we read and hear. Although we have standardized agreement about words and their definition, each of us have our own twists and tweaks.

I write about this subject often, the joy of writing, editing, and revising one’s own novel. The process is engaging. It’s a daily escape for me, and today’s editing session kept me glued to my chair and deep in the novel. People came and went as the minutes raced passed. My coffee went untouched. A loud noise finally startled me out of my focus. Then I was shocked by how much time had passed.

It was a good day. But, there are other days…

There are days when he process can drain my soul, obliterating my good mood. Sometimes ideas and words begrudge coming out. Gritting my teeth, sighing, and gulping coffee, I just keep working it and working it, knowing that I’ll re-work it later, probably several times.

I’m pleased that I’ve progressed as a writer (at least in my mind), but I know there’s much more to learn, and so many more ways in which I can progress. I have more ideas, concepts, stories, settings, and characters idling in my mind. I look forward to my attempts to write them. I look forward to progressing as a writer, editor, and story-teller. Then again, effort, hope, and determination don’t promise anything as a result. I could end up flaming out.

It becomes an interesting loop, though — despair, effort, struggle, results, inspiration, hope, despair, effort, struggle, results — and so on. Trying, and finally succeeding with writing something that doesn’t cause me to choke with disgust inspires me to try again, and again. I tell yourself, “You did this once. You can do it again.” So I try, and try, and try.

That’s what it’s all about for me.

It was a good day of writing and editing like crazy. Time to chug down my cold coffee and return to life.

Cheers

 

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Killing Time

It was an excellent day of editing, with little re-writing or revising required. Five chapters were edited. Although I kept part of myself separate as an objective measure to ensure continuity and clarity, reading my work was a reader’s delight. This was the sort of book I enjoy, and I was pleased with myself for what had come of my efforts of drinking coffee, staring out windows, talking to myself, dreaming, thinking, and typing. So, congrats to me.

Meanwhile, this evening, I had spare time to kill. It happens often when the daylight hours grow shorter. It suddenly seems like, hello, it feels like eight at night but it’s four P.M. I have energy but the darkness discourages activities.

So I’m reading. I’m usually reading several books. To pass time this evening, I resumed reading Carlo Rovelli’s book, The Order of Time. 

His book is a slow read for me. I typically read a few pages a week. Sometimes I don’t read it for a week or two. His book gives me a lot to think about. As I read, ideas stir in me like mice creeping out in search of food. I begin pacing, hunting for the handle about what I’m thinking.

And suddenly, I realize, there is a potential sixth book in the Incomplete States series. There is something else that can happen, that can be done. It seems like it should be done.

Drawing out a notebook that I kept for scribbling about ideas, I confirmed that I’d formed the basis for this final book back in March, 2017. There it was, in the musings about Chi-particle states as they decay and transition from being imaginary and traveling faster than light to gaining mass and energy as they slow to less than FTL, to interacting with a wave-function collapse to establish arrows of time. In those fourteen pages of thoughts, written over three days, was the answer that could be the basis for the final book.

I’m astonished that I overlooked something that I think is sort of obvious, now that I see it.

Naturally, a muse leaps out to take charge. Words flow like lava from an erupting super-volcano. Opening a new doc, I type. As I do, ideas accelerate. Scenes expand. Dialogue rushes in. Plot points follow. Pages are typed.

Of course, I was writing at home. That’s fraught with interruptions as my wife laughs aloud at things she sees and reads on the Internet, plays videos, and talks to me about the news. The cats come in to see why I’m making that noise with my fingers and whether it’s something that they can eat, and if it’s not, can I give them something to eat?

All this puts me on edge. I’m frustrated with the interruptions, excited about the ideas, and pensive about writing another book in the series. Knowing me, one book can easily become two, or three. I’m almost finished with editing book four, A Sense of Time. Do I really want to pursue a sixth?

It’s anguishing. It feels like, I’ve envisioned the framework for the book so I’m now compelled to write it.

I didn’t know how to finish this post. I write to help me understand what I think. I write to channel my thoughts and enthusiasm. I write to wonder…

I returned to the new document to read what I wrote. More ideas and arcs are squeezed out of me. I’m reluctant to agree to the muse and write a sixth book but the writing fever has me, again begging the question, who is in charge here? Is there a master?

I’ll see what I think tomorrow, when it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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How

I was at a social event the other night. I encountered some casual friends. They knew I wrote fiction and asked questions. 

Now, I’d vowed not to talk about writing, particularly my writing, because once that faucet is opened, it seems to break, and nobody can turn it off. I’d planned succinct, polite answers for the questions that are usually asked.

But these folks persisted in inviting torture. One answer led to another question and requests for expansion and clarification. 

Basically, they first asked, “How do you start?”

I understand that question. I get it often. I know that people read a book and think, this was written from beginning to end. That’s what I thought when I first began writing. 

That works for some writers, but not for me. I explained to the others, I just begin writing. I see a scene, I hear a voice, I met a character, and I begin. I usually have little idea about what’s going to happen or who the characters are. I’m learning this, along with the story. I’m usually beginning in the middle, or toward the end. It’s only after I learn the characters and situation more that I start to see how the novel starts, because then, when I see what happens, I ask, “Why do that happen?” Questions like that take me backwards, toward the beginning.

They also wanted to know if I outline.

Generally, I don’t. I’m an organic writing. But sometimes, a scene all comes in at once, or scenes and the story becomes complicated, requiring some process of clarification. I’ll sometimes outline that aspect, just to help me handle the information, find gaps, and fix them. I also use snapshots to do thinking outside of the novel’s context. These are documents that aren’t included in the novel, but help me grasp what’s going on. That helps me make sense of what I’m trying to convey, but it also helps me track information that I don’t share with the reader, usually because I don’t want it revealed too soon.

Generally, I don’t. I’m an organic writing. But sometimes, a scene all comes in at once, or scenes and the story becomes complicated, requiring some process of clarification. I’ll sometimes outline that aspect, just to help me handle the information, find gaps, and fix them. I also use snapshots to do thinking outside of the novel’s context. These are documents that aren’t included in the novel, but help me grasp what’s going on. That helps me make sense of what I’m trying to convey, but it also helps me track information that I don’t share with the reader, usually because I don’t want it revealed too soon.

“Do you ever get writer’s block?”

Yes, and no. I don’t embrace the expression. It’s too glib and provides a false impression about my process.

I sometimes struggle with a scene or direction and don’t know how to take it. I’ve learned that I can overthink things, so I tell myself, don’t overthink it. I’ve learned to trust my subconscious mind and instincts, and that I just need to get out of my own way. I’ve learned that I don’t need to write everything in sequence, so write something else and come back to the problem later. I’ve learned to take a walk or read a book or do something to let my mental resources work without my attention. 

“How do you know when it’s done?”

When I, as a reader, think that I, as a writer, have explored and answered the questions and problems put up throughout the novel, within the context of what I set out to do, then I think it’s done. That’s part one. Part two, I write for myself, and my pleasure. If I take pleasure from what I’ve written, including the ending, I’m satisfied that it’s done. 

I admit, sometimes the ending that comes surprises me. “Is that it? Really?” Upon further review, sometimes it isn’t, but sometimes it is. It’s a process.

I also give the finished manuscript to people I trust to tell me their thoughts about the novel, including the ending, and there are editors. Novel writing is generally an individual endeavor, but finishing a novel often requires several minds, especially if you’re driven to get it right.

Scheduled events then began, saving them from more explanations. 

I took a break from my editing to write and post this. The process actually went, I’ve been editing and writing for hours. My butt’s asleep and my neck is stiff. I need to stretch and take a walk. While taking that break and walking, I remembered and thought about this conversation and decided to create this post.

Time to get back to it.

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Incomplete States

What’s –

  • Known
  • Suspected
  • Established
  • Doubted
  • Explained
  • Said
  • Happening

The complexities are a challenge to keep aligned. Just when you think you have them, they –

  • Change
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The Character Dream

Kanrin came to me in my dreams.

Kanrin is one of the main characters in my current work in progress, a series called Incomplete States. I’m editing the last book in the series with dreams of publishing them next year.

I’ve recently been dealing much with Kanrin. A fully-fleshed character who is well-understood, he’s the main character/star of the current chapters being edited and revised. It’s going well, meaning no problems have been discovered.

In the first dream, Kanrin and I were there, and he was talking about his situation. We were outside for this, and I was watching him in profile. The day was late, with night’s purple shades being drawn. A chilly wind and dropping temperatures had Kanrin in a jacket with his hands in his pockets. Wearing a hat pulled low, he was looking out over a rough, rolling green landscape as he talked. Past him in the dimming light were pastures, fences, and stone walls. I don’t know if he was aware that I was there. He didn’t deliver anything that I didn’t already know, but he did put it in some new way.

Awakening, I considered going to the computer and working on the ms. As it was four thirty in the dark and I was still groggy with sleep, I declined and nestled in for more zzzs.

Imagine my reaction when I dreamed of Kanrin again, essentially talking about the same thing that he addressed before. Okay, odd. I must be really into those chapters. Perhaps something bothered my subconscious.

About thirty minutes had passed since I’d awakened from the first dream to when I awakened from the second dream. It remained too early to go to work. I went back to sleep.

Which gave Kanrin a third opportunity to visit me, addressing again the ideas, concept, and story that he’d addressed before.

It was seven thirty when I awoke from the third dream. I got up now, but didn’t go to work. I went into my usual routine of feeding the rug floofs. If whatever Kanrin was sharing was important, I was certain it’d come out when I was editing and revising today.

Got my coffee. Time to write edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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