Tag: organic writing process

So Far Beyond

Today, I believe, is the twelfth day of March, 2017. I hope my calendar is correct but sometimes I lose track of time out here. Days are full of possiblies, or possibilities. Are we going the right way? Are we lost? Will we survive? Will anyone ever know what happened to us? Will anyone care?

Possibly.

Possibly yes, possibly no. We don’t spend much time discussing these, at least not with vocal voices. I spend time discussing this in my head as I slowly cover new terrain. I think, no one else has probably been here before, before correcting myself, no, others have been here. They just left without a mark.

I correct that, too. They left a mark. I can’t see their mark. I don’t know where to look. I may have just stepped over it, a realization that makes me pause to take in the surroundings.

It remains unstable underfoot, made worse from overnight dew slicking down every surface. Frost and ice hides in some shadows. At least sunshine is showing early today, promising us the chance of warmth and light, and a day without slogging through rain.

I feel alone out here. Given the right place and moment, I can look back and see how far I’ve come. Other times, I’m just lost in the landscape’s details.

Sometimes my thoughts distract me. Songs of my youth entertain me and become backdrop to meandering questions about where I’d lived and who I’ve known. Corollary questions emerge about what happened to those people and what they became like after they grew up, assuming they reached adulthood, maturity, and aren’t dead. So many things can kill us. We are fragile. A few degrees warmer or colder can be dangerous for food, water and air. Then, others will kill us with guns, knives and other means to address their woes, fears and angers. Yes, we’re fragile. I wonder, too, what they thought of me, and if they ever look me up or try to find me. I’ve tried to find a few of them. From that I’ve learned, we are a large population and many of us share the same names. To find more information, someone always wants paid.

Sometimes the sounds of others out here like me impinge upon my awareness. We’re all out in space that’s new to us but others have often already been here. It’s tricky, messy and confusing. Shambolic. Yeah, I’ve already walked around those tracks. Time to move on.

Move on from what and to what are constant nags.

I took up this life. This is on me. There are no others to blame except those who encouraged me. “You can do it,” they told me. Maybe they were wrong. It’s time like this that I wonder if perhaps there are millions of Fates up there, spinning out the lines of our lives as we respond to their threads and wait for them to cut us free.

Enough of this. Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time. That’s the only way I’ll ever get out of here.

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Protocol Three

Pram has declared Protocol Three. You know what that means: the sierra is encountering the rotating blades.

Meanwhile, Handley and company have found their target. Fermenting in my brain cells for several weeks, I’m looking forward to writing these scenes; their plans are going disastrously awry, and they’re ignorant of what is about to happen. Love writing my characters into disasters and confrontations. Some, like Tang’s confrontation with Pram, I never see coming. Such surprising encounters are engaging, especially when they organically develop from just letting the characters carry the scene and be themselves. And then, what happened next astonished me but made absolute sense from the characters’ POV. Very cool.

After this is written, it’s back to Forus Ker, Seth Nor and the Humans, where they’ve been killing Brett, and Philea and the Wrinkle, where she’s meeting Forus Ker and Seth Nor. I can see and hear these scenes so clearly, I’m impatient to write them, but I don’t want to be hasty. Relax, I order myself; they’ll be written.

The common rule of thumb for movies is that one page equals one minute of screen time. That’s what I learned but The Working Screenwriter says, “Not so,” and gives specifics of movie scripts and running times. Anyway, I’ve noticed that scenes and dialogue take place in my head very quickly. I’ll visualize and realize them in thirty to ninety seconds.

Great, right? So they all pile on, scene after scene after scene. But writing these thirty to ninety second one bites takes a few days of writing and editing, and typically require two or three days. One, I’ll often write to capture the essence. Then I return to pad it with relevant details. In parallel, I’m editing and revising for pacing, grammar, sentence structure, et cetera. Then, I also find that something realized during the writing of such scenes trigger an impact on another scene. Sometimes that scene is already written and needs revision to add the tidbit.

The other scenes then must be held in my head or scribbled onto a notebook page, or have a brief entry typed up in a doc. All those paths fortunately work for me. Sometimes one of them stumbles but I find that with a little work, they start making sense again.

So much to write, so little time. Three…two…one. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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OMG Moment

Striding along through sun and shadow, coping with and enjoying a summer breeze, my writing mind settles in. First comes a novel concept that opens up a grin. I’ll add it to the list but — well, it is interesting. But which ones aren’t? A lot to play with there. What POV should be used? Hmmm, the POV can really open it up. Oh, boy, that’s a dilemma because there’s so much more to already write — and edit, and publish.

But – to the novel at hand. Insert chapter 2 and write it, short one, then edit and revise chapter 3 and add this information/insights/events for her POV and then the same in chapter 4 for his POV and

OMG, now I see what’s going to happen. OMG, the whole direction deluged me, the hows and whys of what’s happening now, besides HIS ongoing issues about losing his sanity and trying to learn about his past, and HER ongoing issues as a killer on the run.

Excitement rolls a tide through me. I walk faster and faster, eager to get to the coffee shop, eager to write again. And here I am, quad shot mocha on the table, ready to write like crazy, one more time.

Isn’t it a beautiful day?

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