Tag: organic writing

“Here we go, beast.”

Writing a novel is often an exploration for me, a visit to new, uncharted realms. Sometimes I get a little lost.

I completed three chapters yesterday. They’d been written in parallel. One of them was part of the five chapters being written in parallel.

That’s how it is. The novel in progress reminds me of math involving nonlinear equations that I once briefly encountered. They involved solving simultaneous equations and polynomials. I don’t remember much more except it struck me as a fascinating way to encounter and express relationships and awareness.

Besides being nonlinear, the novel is asynchronous, part of the idea of asynchronous epiphanies that evolve throughout the novel, something borrowed from asynchronous learning and asynchronous computer functions. This sometimes gives me a headache. The novel is and is not chronological, an apparent paradox that adds a challenge to writing it, because it may appear chronological, and I naturally revert to thinking about it in terms of a chronological approach. (I imagine readers reading it, and asking themselves, “What?” And I laugh….)

All of this was born out of the ideas that something is possible until it’s proven impossible, the alienation and isolation that develops with technology and how it affects our personalities and thinking, colonization of other planets, and how often our thinking mirrors computer operations (or is it the converse?) and work on asynchronous levels. That gave a rise to thinking about how reality works, and the creation of the chi-particles. Chi-particles have imaginary energy and mass and travel faster than light. I also throw in some soap opera, just to keep it interesting.

Along the way with all of this, I keep playing with the ideas behind reality, as to whether we create it, or it creates us, or if it’s a symbiotic process that depends upon one another. Symbiotic may not be the right term. That’s supposed to apply to biological entities, but then I think, can reality as we experience actually be a biological creature, but then that diverts me back into notions of God and creative intelligence.

Anyway, finishing those three chapters brought me back up to a specific intersection of storylines that required me to bring other chapters and storylines up to date so all may proceed. That necessitated delving back into what has been written to re-calibrate and orientate myself and my characters. I needed to read what had already been written in specific areas and review notes.

Reading what was written turned out to be a surprising and rewarding journey. My writing and its characters, setting, and stories surprised me. They distracted me from my main task of figuring out what happens next, yes, but it was enjoyable to read material written months ago and find out that it’s decent writing. Of course, it’s my child; what else would I think?

Here I am now, re-calibrated and re-oriented, quad shot mocha in hand. “Here we go, beast,” I tell my computer. “Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.”

Five hundred pages done; how many more remain?

3

During the Movie

Young Saroo ran.

“Eleven,” the writer said.

“What?” I answered.

“Saroo,” Noor called.

“Eleven dimensions,” the writer replied. “Think about what eleven dimensions mean. Add it to your research list.”

Ah, time for a back up to an explanation.

My wife and I saw ‘Lion’ at the theater yesterday. The movie began at 12:40 PM. With logistics and travel, we needed to leave for the movie at 12:10. That then, was my target time. To reach it, I needed to leave the coffee shop by 11:55 for the walk to my car and the drive home. Two hours of writing required me to be in my seat with my drink by 9:55. To do that, I needed to reach the coffee shop by 9:45 to set up and order. That meant I needed to leave the house by 9:35, if I didn’t get a pre-writing walk in, 9:25 if I limit my walk to ten minutes, etc.

The ten minute walk was a compromise but acceptable. Regardless, when it was time to pack up and head home to go to the movies, I was still writing. Just when of those days when the faucet is turned on and scenes and words pour out. Cool. I enjoy that.

But the bottom line of it is that the writing day was truncated. That happens. Except, in this case, the writer kept talking to me during the movie.

“Eleven dimensions is not key to the story but do some research for how it might fit into it.”

“Okay. Noted.”

Dev Patel made his appearance as Saroo.

“The key is chi accumulation,” the writer said. “Think chi less as energy and more as particles in this application. It’s like ice, in a manner. An accumulation is what causes a sense of ‘now’. A past and present doesn’t exist; there is only now. The greater the accumulation of chi, the more intense and certain it becomes that now exists.”

“Okay.”

“You need to remember that.”

Saroo began his class in Melbourne.

“Don’t you mean we need to remember that?” I asked my writer.

“Sure, sure, quit splitting pubic hairs. Also, everything has a chi particle variant.”

“Right.”

“But Brett’s chi is like an isotope.”

“Uh huh.”

Saroo is later considering colorful pushpins in a map. He’s frustrated. The pushpins are presented in various perspectives.

“The phenasper,” the writer said. “He needs to see the colors to understand it. Seeing the colors allows him to be an empath but not a telepath. He develops the skill sufficiently to be a hyper-empath and see the saikis but to be a true telepath, he must see through the colors.”

“Ohhhhh.”

“When he can see through the colors, he becomes telepathic. The colors are emotions and sensory outputs as experienced and filtered by others.”

“Right, right.”

“But also, as he develops, he cultures an affinity for the electronic communication spectrum.”

“Right, right.”

“And the energy the machines put out.”

“Right.” Forgetting the movie for a second, I pursued that. “Of course. The machines and their chi help create the now. And they have their own memories.”

“Yes.”

That satisfied the writer’s need for the day. I finished watching the movie without any further interruptions. This morning, then, I had to wake him up as I was walking to write. “Hey. Writer.”

“Hmmm?”

“Wake up. Time to get up. We’re going to go write. I need you to remind me what you were telling me during the movie yesterday.”

“What was I telling you?”

“About the eleven dimensions, chi as ice creating now, and, um, the phenasper and becoming telepathic?”

“Right, right.” The writer awoke.

Got my mocha. The writer is fully engaged.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Downstreams

Some mental activity racing along my axons today.

  • Love that first slurp of my quad shot mocha at the Boulevard. The baristas know my preferences and do a great job of blending everything and then topping my coffee drink with with a skim of dark chocolate powder. I love the contrasts of flavors in that first tasting. Sensational.
  • It’s National White Shirt Day! This day recognizes the end of a 1937 UAW strike at GM for better working conditions. I have my white tee shirt on, under my natural wool sweater.
  • I don’t recall any dreams from last night. That’s unusual. Wonder why. Sleeping period, six and a half hours, seems about normal.
  • I’ve been reading a series of articles on sleep and whether we’re evolving from being biphasic. The latest article was on Van Winkle and provided a brief summary of the last eight thousand years of sleep.
  • I realized Part I of my  science-fiction novel in progress requires some serious editing and revising. I first realized that about a week ago and tried rejecting it. My writer within was willing to overlook changing it; the resident interior editor was reluctantly accepting of it. However, the reader in residence said, “Oh, no. That needs work.” Trust the reader. After we argued a few days, the writer and editor agreed with the reader’s points. However, the writer came up with some interesting ideas to explore in parallel.
  • The editor, though, urged us all not to make any changes until it’s all done. He pointed out that Part I is the way it is because the stories and concepts were still being explored. True; I write to understand myself, to order and structure and expand my thoughts. He pointed out that since I’m still writing the other parts, I can save myself some potential work by fully completing an entire draft before making major revisions. I accept his contention and put it on hold until the first draft is completed.
  • The novel in progress is ‘Long Summer’. Science-fiction, it’s not quite a sequel but is collateral to ‘Returnee’, as it stars Brett and Castle Corporation, and continues with many of the same themes of technological alienation and isolation, and socializing with yourself via virtual beings you develop to help people cope with life as they live far longer.
  • Talking with the barista today. “Fun plans?” she asked. Because, it’s Saturday; in her working and school world has meaning that has left my writing world. I don’t segregate the days into weeks and weekends any longer. I barely notice the date. “Movies,” I answered her. “We’re going to see ‘Lion’.” She wasn’t familiar with it. I mentioned Dev Patel and a few of his movies. Yes, she remembered ‘Slumdog Millionaires’. It didn’t occur to me until later that she was eight years old when Slumdog was released.
  • That conversation pointed me onto new vectors of changes and the differences in my values, perceptions and experiences as a sexagenarian and the same in her as a young adult. It’s the same conversation I had as a young adult with those forty to fifty years older than me. I was twenty in 1976. Those who were sixty in 1976 had been born just after World War I ended. They fought in World War II and remembered the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Grandparents had been part of the American Civil War. The Soviet Union was founded during their lifetime and the Cold War dominated world politics.
  • It’s interesting to put into perspective. What I think of as ‘normal’ isn’t the same as the previous generation or the next generation. Besides when we were born forming us, so do our education levels. More strongly and interesting, we saw how where we live and our education and economic situations affect national politics during the 2016 presidential election. Now, this article on FiveThirtyEight tells about how where we live affects our deaths. It’s a telling insight to me.

Cheers

1

The Flight

I often have a very good general idea of what I’m about to write when I sit down to write it. That’s due to process; I typically write in my head before I sit down and visualize the piece. I do this with more than just fiction, but with almost everything that I write.

But, with fiction writing, I notice that sometimes I’ve written so much in my head that I’m a little disappointed with needing to physically write it. I also become a little lost, because, hey, it’s written in my head. Therefore, it already exists in some form.

In those instances when this happens, I drift on the eddies of my thinking and writing, just flowing along. I’m not on a stream of water but a stream of air, a kite on the breeze, wings extended, looking over the terrain. Then, seeing something, it circles back and dives.

I feel like that bird. Circling, the place where I want to begin writing is my target. If I don’t try thinking about it but instead let it return to me yesterday, then it often arrives with a powerful rush. Then, like a kite, I dive in on my target.

So it was today. Four hundred fifty pages are done. Six chapters, six of the first seven chapters of Part III, are being written in parallel. The seventh was written about six weeks ago. As the story comes on more fully realized in my thinking, I jump back into other scenes to correct details, add set-up exposition, or nuance something to foreshadow events. I’d written so much of these six chapters yesterday in my mind, though, because there were there even after I stopped for the day. They stories go on even though I’ve stopped writing. Then, I added and edited later in my head, making mental notes to myself about revisions.

That’s how it happens when I’m writing with the flow. The story is so real that I feel like I can turn and walk through a door and be in the place, or turn on the television and see it, or even pick up the book, open it, and begin reading.

Sometimes I become a little disconcerted with this. Confusion sets in as to whether I already wrote it or someone else wrote it and I’m just remembering their work.

Nevertheless, I love this organic style of writing, jumping back and forth through the stories and novel as it’s all played in my mind. It’s sweetly beautiful and amazing to visualize, hear and known. It’s something that others struggle to do. I’m sure engineers, physicists, mathematicians and software coders do something similar, along with writers, artists and musicians. Others, though, I know from conversations, are awed that it happens, that all these details can be imagined and experienced as real and then put onto something tangible that can be shared with others. It is, as our POTUS would say, a great, great, beautiful thing.

The skill, or ability, didn’t come overnight, though, which amuses me. I’ve worked on this like a batter hitting a fastball, an artist learning how to observe and interpret, a student musician, or physicists and philosophers contemplating existence. I’m always working on it but I fail as a writer to convey the fun and satisfaction of seeing, creating and meeting the challenge of realizing fiction.

Done writing for now. It was a great day of writing like crazy. Now I must go clean the shower.

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Aftermath

I arrived at the coffee shop. Only two tables were available. I grabbed one. An outlet wasn’t available but that would be okay. I could type until my battery cried uncle and then plug in or pack up.

Meanwhile, I launched into writing and editing. It was like working a loom, adding sentences, going back and changing some, back and forth, back and forth. Then, yes, boom – I checked and confirmed, the battery was getting low. As I noted the low level and wondered why I hadn’t been notified, the computer issued its low battery warning.

A dilemma loomed. Stop for the day or keep going? I’d completed sixteen hundred words, a decent day when including the editing aspect. But I felt there was more in me. I didn’t want to push but I did’t want to let it go.

So I scoped the cafe. Tables with outlets were available. I made the move and continued.

Glad I did. I didn’t expect the changes in the story arcs that took place. The characters again understand the story better than me. I thought the road through the forest I followed was clear about its path but somewhere amidst the turns, I ended up taking a sharp right that delivered me onto a new path. I ended up where I didn’t expect, yet, it completely and perfectly fit into what was supposed to be happening with the story.

It was like mental sleight of hand. “How…?” I asked myself.

I didn’t know; it’s not where I expected to be. Yet the character hadn’t jacked the novel; I was still going toward the same climax, but on a different path.

Then I worried. If I took what the characters clearly saw as the correct path, was it too damn predictable? Would readers be disappointed?

I don’t know. I think I’m too deep into the forest of words and activity to assess and understand. Just go with the flow and finish the novel.

And now, time to stop. It turned out to be one of those finest kinds of writing sessions, when you’re not an outsider typing up dictation, but a participant hiding out with the characters, furtively looking over their shoulders and listening, and writing like mad.

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I Do Not Explain

I think every writer wrestles with the balance of how much to share. Editors and alpha writers can help with the insights but while the process is ongoing, you’re mostly on your own.

I do not explain the complicated Travail social structure. I do not share Travail Mavarish Seth Ted’s vision, nor the visions of Seth Zed and Seth Mee decas later. I don’t explain decas, stellavel, vyhlla, vyhllaminiums, vyllasethin, or vhyllasetha. I don’t tell what a masq is, nor how they came to be worn. I don’t explain the history of Concentrates. You need to learn these things from the context. Some of that is too ingrained in the characters’ ways to ever be explained. It would be like Humans explaining how and why we’ve come to brush our teeth and the history of the tooth brush.

I don’t explain the involved history between the Sabards, Travail, Monad, Humans and Profemie, and the deeper history of the Travail Exnila and Travail Englis, Humans, Profemie and Monad. I know that history. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve written a great deal in the novel bible and other documents. I tell much more about the Wrinkle and its existence in the novel, and why Pram made the choice to be a Colossus, and I tell about his starship, the Pentagon. I guess I’m fond of writing about the starships.

I think about all this frequently in between beginning scenes. Should I tell more? If so, how do I tell it without becoming historian, reporting on these linkages? I think about ‘Lord of the Rings’, Asimov’s Foundation series, and Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’, Michener’s sprawling novels, television shows such as ‘The Expanse’, ‘The Colony’, ‘Dark Matters’ and ‘Stranger Things’, and older shows like ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Firefly’. Those are just the apex material of my thinking pyramid as I write this novel. Each character, era, society and culture maintains its histories. The connections weave through my head and form a substantial fabric, but how much should be shared with the reader?

I pause now to explain this because I write to learn what I think, and to confess and cleanse my writing soul. I confess because I hit the reader with these terms within the novel’s first two paragraphs. Grab on, hold on, if you can. I admit, I like writing like this. To steal one of James Tiptree, Jr’s short story titles to express my approach, it’s the only neat thing to do.

My confession is over. Half of my mocha remains. And look: the coffee shop has emptied. The staff’s voices echo across the space. The rain has stopped and sunshine is visible. It looks like it could be a pleasant walk today.

That’s for later. Time to return to writing like crazy, at least one more time.

 

3

Complications

I’m involved in the part of my novel that’s labeled ‘the dance’ in my mind.

The multiple story lines have snaked into a knot. Each of these story lines are represented by a character with a third person personal POV. You’re in their thoughts; you know their lies, perceptions, fears, histories and plans. Now, all of that is running up against the others’ realities and activities.

I end up with multiple documents open:

  • the main document, with the chapters embedded, the actual work in progress, used to confirm scenes and sequence;
  • the bible, so I can look up terms, characters, and details without losing my place;
  • a map of where we’re at and expected to go;
  • and then a document for each of the story lines in progress.

I find myself writing one of the story lines but then switching to another doc and another story line, so as to keep it all integrated and true to the character and their story line.

Then, there are complications, because I love complications. There are the secrets that I know that even the characters don’t know, and that the readers certainly don’t know. There are secrets that the writers and some characters know that others don’t know, and some secrets the readers know that none of the characters know. Complications arise from politics, visions, time and memory. Writing it becomes a breathtaking, cerebral exercise to keep the complications from running me into the ground.

It’s all so satisfying and fun.

Oh, I think, I hope some readers someday find this novel, read it, and enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. I wonder what they will see in it that I’ve written that I never noticed.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time, just for the sheer joy of it.

1

One More Time

Dreams beat me up last night. Intense, involved and convoluted, I awoke and thought them over for a while somewhere around two AM. Returning to sleep isn’t usually difficult and I was headed that way when Quinn the Black Paws went cat-crazy. He raced around the house, scratching at doors. When I went to talk to him about it, he rushed to the front door and issued pitiful mews. They sounded like, “I need out now,” to my ears. I tried soothing him but he insisted. It was thirty-three degrees out, a welcomed warmer night than that the last six days, so I released him. I knew he would demand to be let back in by beating on the windows when required and we, of course, would obey.

His antics had awakened the other three feline emperors. Each now demanded either released to the outside, food, attention, or all three. By the rules established by some crazy god, I was required to do their bidding. An hour later, returning to bed, my energy was too high to dismiss. Besides that, all that activity had summoned the writer.

He’d been thinking about where we are in ‘Long Summer’ and had some ideas to pitch. So he started pitching. Pram does this, and this happens on the ‘River Styx’  while Handley does this and this happens to her on the CSC Narwhal and that happens, and Forus Ker does this and Richard does that, and this is what’s happening to Brett and here is a part that I can’t work out, that I need to work out but this happens.

Sounds good, I told him. Keep it in mind and talk to me about it tomorrow.

But no, he wanted to write it and place it now. He mentioned a few more reveals that hadn’t occurred to me.

But really, it was dark-cold-time-to-sleep AM. Much as I enjoy writing like crazy, now was not the time.

I retreated to the recliner in the snug with a blanket. Finding a sitcom on Netflix, I set the TV timer to turn it off after thirty minutes and settled back. This pleased Tucker the Black and White Enigma, who happily landed on my abdomen. After studying me a few moments and conducting an abbreviated sniffing session for clues about what’s been going on, he gave me a nose lick and positioned himself to groom. I was probably asleep ten minutes later.

Now it’s almost touching on eleven thirty. I’m way behind. The writer appears to be asleep, but I have my quad-shot mocha.

Time to wake that rat-bastard up and write like crazy, at least one more time.

1

Finer Points

Finishing up another awesome writing day, knock on wood. I exploded with excitement here in the coffee shop, leaping up to rapidly pace with an epiphany. The coffee shop was empty so there wasn’t anyone to witness this except the security cameras.

I’m eighty pages into Part II. One of my finer parts: do I want to use Roman numerals for these parts, or Arabic?

Other finer points: had to add a reminder into the bible that Travail, regardless of sex, sound female to Humans.

More finer points.

  • Still have trouble with some words. Lay and lie today. I believe it’s because they’re often mis-used, and that ends up causing me confusion. Then I researched the differences between replicate and duplicate.
  • Dislike writing and using the expression ‘time travel’. Movement, travel, etc., indicates physical motion in the inventor’s opinion. She, as a physicist, objects to that expression. It’s under discussion and investigation.
  • After yesterday’s intense session, I continued writing in my head when I left. That’s sort of frustrating and exciting because it debilitates my ability to navigate and manage in the real world. Walking was okay, as I was on residential streets with little traffic. Behind the wheel was more dangerous as dialogue preoccupied my brain. I was able to capture this today and expand on it when I resumed my writing.
  • I had to go over where the novel is at and where it’s going. Eight major story lines exist. Each has its own presenting POV. I went over each one, re-stating where they’re at, where they’re going, what (in a broad sense) needs to be written, and how they intersect and affect the others. This was mentally done three times to sort, organize and solidify my understanding. Part of today’s session was then spent capturing that novel map into (yet another) guiding document. LOL.

They’re such intense writing sessions at this time. I love it. They remind me of how wonderful and satisfying writing like crazy can be. I can’t write fast enough to stay up with the unfolding novel.

Now, the coffee is gone, my ass is asleep, yadda yadda yadda. Besides, this new arrival at another table has an impressive stage voice. We all know that she had two glasses of wine last night. It’s been said three times as a minimum.

Time to go.

3

Where Do They Live?

Just as I had to address “What do they wear?”, I’m now addressing, “Where do they live?”

My Travail and other intelligent species have evolved far beyond my initial glances. I can liken it to glancing at a cat and thinking, “Oh, look, a cat.”

What’s the cat’s sex? Male.

Does the cat have a name? Yes, we’re calling him Meep.

What color is Meep? Um…Meep is a ginger, a blotched tabby ginger with broad swirls on his side, white whiskers, amber eyes, pink nose.

Good. What’s Meep doing when we first see him? He’s sitting on the fence. He’s displaced a half foot of snow from the fence top. No other snow is disturbed so he must have jumped up there from the other side of the fence. Flurries swirl around him but he’s not forlorn looking. He looks relaxed and in command. His attention is fixed on something in the pines, something that I can’t see or hear.

Does he get along with the other cats? Meep doesn’t trust other cats and goes on instant alert, ready to warn, fight or flee, when another cat approaches. He prefers to warn them away. If they attack, he will fight back. Fleeing is the third choice. He considers it the smart choice but knows from practice that fleeing is better as a theory because other cats will chase him. So he stands his ground until the situation is dire.

I’m going through this with the Monad, Sabards, Milennial, Humans and Travail, especially the Travail. Part of that is because I already did a great deal of this with the Humans, but also one main character is a Travail, and their part of the story and activity is told through his point of view. This has forced me to delve into the Travail history, social structure, architecture, behavior, agendas, sex…everything known about Humans on Earth is required to be known about the Travail.

They have a complex structure. Their names end up reminding me of Russian naming conventions out of Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn. But I didn’t want to just slap some Human expressions — or cats or other animals — onto my other civilizations. I wanted them to be unique.

They’ve responded to the challenge. I argue with myself about changing the naming convention and simplifying them for the reader.No; the book, the characters and the writer in me all resist this. Screw the readers. I think it was James Tiptree, Jr (Alice Sheldon) who said, “Let them catch up, if they can.” Okay.

Another big challenge was how and why did this species develop the technology to advance into space? Why did they want to go into space? That forced a deep dive into their history, as well as the history and development of other races.

It’s all challenging, daunting, and intriguing. It all builds the novel far beyond my first glimpses of it. That’s how it often goes. When you pursue a destination, details, paths, choices and accidents emerge that you never anticipated. Thinking it through enervates me as brain cells cry for mercy but afterwards, I sit in pleased satisfaction with what’s been developed and written. Each plot arc has its own beauty that touches me.

But now, yeah, my butt’s numbness informs me that time has passed. Mocha remains but it’s cold, cold, cold, with a skim of clotted chocolate like small clouds dotting its surface.

It’s been an excellent day of writing like crazy. Time to chug the mocha, take a walk and prepare for the next session. The words are already bubbling up. Were it not for my numb rear-end, I would pursue them.

But the words will keep until tomorrow, and another day of writing like crazy.

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