Tag: writing process

Pram

I reached that point. I went into the novel, strolled around the forest of words and found the trails I’d marked. One was marked Pram.

What was I to do with Pram? No, that was a flawed position; what will Pram do and what will happen to him? Walking about after writing yesterday, I reviewed what he’d done and what had happened.

Then Pram spoke up. He knew what was to happen, what he was to do, his role in the greater arc. He understood how he’d not understood himself, how he’d sheltered himself and hid, safely in the middle despite his colossal size, happy to be considered above average but just far enough above average to gain some trust and some attention, but not too much. He saw better than me how his personality and quiet choices of non-choices dictated his endpoint, and he saw how others saw him and had recognized, accepted and planned for his inadequacies. That directed his destiny. He saw it as not giving up, but as acquiescing.

He dictated a few thoughts to me. These sentences were the seeds that sowed the scene and grew into a chapter, becoming a turning point.

I compared him to me afterward, seeing the similarities and differences, how much of myself was vested in him. He’d been a good corporate soldier but could not stretch himself enough to seek another beginning. He didn’t fear new beginnings but didn’t care for them. He’d had new beginnings before. They hadn’t worked out. He was tired of trying.

He lived almost one hundred years. His parents remained alive and together, and the latter was unusual in Pram’s era. He’d been born well-to-do and had been comfortable in his role. He thought he loved his work. Turned out he’d been placating himself about what he believed and accepted. But then came an unfolding of his protections, welcoming a new understanding of himself. Gladly he went on, happy to understand who he was.

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“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

Smarter Than Me

I was back with Philea in ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to ‘Returnee’. Her part in the novel and her situation are complicated and unique, and I struggled to write the most recent chapter featuring her. I tracked the problem back to several causes.

  1. Philea is a woman. I’m not.
  2. She resides several hundred years in the future.
  3. She’s been time-traveling.
  4. Her intelligence is higher than mine, and she’s educated. She’s the only Human (on the Earth side of the split) that has the grayware to dismiss needs for external augmented memory.

Contributing to my problem is that, complicated as the story’s part is for her, I’d not written about her and her parts recently. The situation straddled my strengths and weaknesses. Strengths: imagination and analyzing abilities. Weaknesses: inability to recall what I’ve written and over-thinking matters. The last paralyzes me.

The complications inherent in her story arc forced me to re-acquaint myself with those arcs for continuity. That took some time to do. Then, once caught up, I thought, now what happens with her? What does she do?

Fortunately, the character knew what to do. No doubt she resides in some sub-conscious cubicle in me. My strengths and weaknesses were constraining her. She couldn’t get out of the cubicle and onto the page. Meanwhile, I’m struggling to write, wondering, what’s going on?

She finally made it to the page yesterday afternoon. Boom, once she was there, she carried the scenes forward. Out of her cube, she kept going later in the day, pointing out changes needed to progress.

So, yea, rollin’ again. Once again, I’ve concluded I need to get out my way and let it happen. As the writer, I’m the least important part of this process. I hesitate to confess this realization, but I’m…just a tool.

Now it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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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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Pushing

It’s good to push sometimes. For me, that’s especially true for physical activities.

Feel that burn, baby. Feel the muscles demanding, cease and desist already. Meanwhile, you make promises. “Come on, just five more.” You count them down and your muscles and joints respond. Then you urge, “Five more!”

“No,” they shout back, but still they try, damn it, and you go on like this with the sweat beading, streaming and dripping, stinging your eyes and flavoring your lips with a salty essence as your heart attempts to free itself through your sternum and your pulse thunders in your temples, until the end is reached and you are spent, and you sit, limp, breathing hard, but smiling.

I used to do this, too, with projects in the military and with my various employers. One more hour, I’d promise myself, my wife, my friends as the work day ended and darkness fell, but I’d need to keep working, keep going, chugging coffee, concentrating, head down and all in, until, fini. All would be amazed, asking, “You did that in one day?”

Yeah. I was ‘ate up’ as we liked to say in the military.

I don’t do that with fiction writing. Yesterday was a beautiful, glorious writing day. Finishing and editing one chapter, I saw the sources for five chapters – this is where they begin. I saw the chapter titles and the essence of their chapters and how the five flowed to form the confluence of the novel’s climax. So I wrote notes to capture the gist. As I did, specifics for the chapters came into my head, so I wrote random paragraphs for each, capturing scenes, dialogue exchanges, and sharp special moments. This went on and on. It seemed like an endless stream. I thought, “If I push this, I can write these five chapters today.”

But no; I don’t do this with my writing. After debating it and accepting the decision, I wondered why. I knew the why but I wanted something more tangible for me to understand. As I walked après-writing, I concluded creative energy is different from physical, mental and emotional energy (or time energy, but that would be a huge other post). I can only address it from my point of view, but I have my writing history, along with my drawing and painting history, to see how I approach creative activities differently than other activities. Yes, in my employed life, I often used this creative approach to decide how to tackle issues and situations, but once engaged, the creative energy was no longer required.

Perhaps it’s only me; we’re all different. Even though the end results, words in some media, look the same, we came to it in unique, individual ways. For me, the creative energy is deeper and more taxing to draw out, even when it starts gushing. I’ve come to understand, accept and respect that.

But this is a new day. Fortunately, I can draw fresh creative energy almost every day. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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A Day Off

I took the day off from novel writing yesterday. OMG, I hated doing so.

I hated taking time off from work back in the days when I worked or was in the military. Even when off, I checked in, kept in touch, monitored things and was ready to take care of problems. I was never really off.

The same goes on with my writing efforts. I frequently write in my head and love sitting down and writing a few hours every day. Writing provides me with intense joy and satisfaction. That’s great, I love that I receive emotional and intellectual rewards for my efforts. But, I’ve conditioned myself to write every day. I love that structure.

I cling to that structure.

I knew all that.

I hated knowing because knowing means I could either be willfully ignorant and act in bad faith, or I could ‘do the right thing’.

A Resist Trump march going on in Medford was the wedge issue. My wife wanted to attend and felt it important to attend. I wanted to attend but I wanted to write. I’d put off a lifelong desire to write and pursue my dreams to provide us security and help her pursue her career. Surely I deserve to pursue my dream.

Besides that, Michael, I told myself. You’ll be in a crowd, with all that this means. I’m not a social person. People are energy sucks for me. I’d be waaay out of my comfort zone.

Being out of my comfort zone is supposed to be good for me. Supposed to help me grow.

Yeah, but I don’t wanna grow. Can’t I just stay as I am? Can’t I just be selfish? Damn it, no.

Damn it.

The other aspect of this was working around the march period. We were meeting up at 11:40 AM. The location was thirty minutes away by car. The march itself was to be from noon to 1:30. Basically, I consider that the meat of the day. I could push, get up early, wiggle in some writing time beforehand. I considered the logistics and issues with this, knowing the Boulevard opens early enough, but is busy early and very full. Chances of finding a table were low.

I could write afterward. If I was truly dedicated, I would, but here is where my crutches were employed, things like my energy levels and writing preferences.

I could try writing at home.

Yes, I’ve tried that multiple times. It’s hugely disappointing and frustrating, partially because its silence highlights the interruptions, and the interruptions are of a personal nature.

That left me with not writing.

This so bothered me that I didn’t sleep Monday night. According to Fitbit, I achieved a little over three hours.

I understand myself, and I don’t understand myself. I can control myself and I can’t control myself. I’m such a conflicted person.

Worse, and not surprising, was that since I didn’t write, my writer wasn’t happy and kept pushing words and scenes into front center stage during the march. Apparently nobody notified him that I was taking the day off.

As if he’d care. He and the muse have independent contracts. The contracts stipulate they’re required to use my mind and body to do my writing, but they don’t always accept the limitations incumbent in that arrangement.

TG I’m back here today, coffee at hand, free and ready to write like crazy again, at least one more time.

Here I go. Three…two…one….

Blast-off.

 

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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.

0

It Gets Exciting

I’ve been struggling with Handley, which is uncharacteristic of me. In a key scene, a pirate vessel, the CSC Narwhal is going after the stasis ship, the River Styx. I knew the scenes, having visited them in my head, writing some aspects in my mind. I’d been looking forward to writing the scenes because I knew what a keystone scene they were to the novel’s arch. Yet, they suddenly fell through a hole in my brain in the last three days. I’d bring the doc up to write once, twice, thrice, and then wrote or edited other scenes and chapters.

Yesterday, I’d had enough. I spent several minutes castigating myself. Has to be done, you idiot. Just write it, I told myself. Suspecting I was worried about how it would go or that I was overthinking it, I told the writer, just fucking do it. Get it done.

I began just writing the essence of what was supposed to be happening. It’s been so long since I’d struggled to write as I did then. The process felt like I was plucking eyebrow hairs.* My God, those were clumsy, awkward, lifeless sentences. The writing was so dense and abstract, and not in an interesting Kafka way. After sipping coffee, I walked away, shaking my head at myself, appalled by the moribund words on the screen. Then, deep breath, try again.

Thank God the cafe  was almost empty and nobody was near me. I’d hate to have to apologize to others for the awful smell that the shit on the screen was surely exuding.

Work it, work it, work it. Ever shape model clay or work bread? Felt exactly like that. This was a lump. I kept kneading the scene, trying to form something out of it. After twenty to thirty minutes of this, the scene suddenly became emerging from the material. After an hour, two hours plus into the writing session, I had two pages written.

That was all.

But it was enough. Showering and shaving today, I envisioned the rest of the scene and the chapter’s subsequent scenes. They grew alive in my mind. I became eager to write. I hurried through feeding cats, harvesting potatoes from the litter box, cleaning up in the kitchen, and getting ready to leave. Consumed by the mind writing, I forgot to put my Fitbit back on after my shower, misplaced my glasses and vacillated about what walking shoes to wear. My focus was too far into the novel.

But here I am, quad shot mocha with fine latte art by Meghan at hand, at the coffee shop, ready to rock.

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

 

*NOTE: Yes, I have plucked my eyebrows, or tweezed them, if you prefer. Once upon a time, I was said to resemble a smaller version of Tom Selleck when he was doing ‘Magnum, P.I.’ If you recall him from then, he had a uni-brow going on; so did I, and my wife convinced me to pluck it because she was certain Tom Selleck plucked his.

Yeah, that was long ago.

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