Tag: writing process

The Pirates

I’m at a point in the novel, Long Summer (sequel to Returnee) where the pirates are about to enter.

Yes, this is science fiction. Yes, these are space pirates (cue dramatic music). Or cue a Monty Python moment.

I always like ‘fly in the ointment’ tales. That’s the pirates’ role in Long Summer. They’re naturally a plot trigger to cause the stories to bank sharply into another direction, bringing the three disparate story lines into contact with one another at last, thirty-five thousand words into the novel. Creating  the pirates enabled me to embark on my favorite fiction writing activity: making things up. In this case, I was given permission to make up the pirate ship and crew. Who are they, why are the pirates, where did they come from and how did they come to have this ship?

The ship is the CSC Narwhal. CSC is Castle Corp Security, a spin-off from the original Castle Corporation that dominates the Returnee series as one a major part of the setting. (The corporation is constantly restructuring, re-organizing, acquiring and divesting.) As Castle Corporation was originally an Anglo-American effort when they first formed on Earth (with roots in 3D printing, with specific focus on home security devices…from there to space), the company sometimes invokes its heritage when naming ships. This was strongly evidenced in the naming of the security ships (the preferred nomenclature over warship). I’d remembered Narwhal from my history lessons, so I looked up Narwhal and confirmed its role in England’s maritime history, confirming it was part of the Arctic Fleet. Two Brit submarines were then named the same, along with a US sub. So, sweet, that worked out.

(I had to refer back to my Returnee notes a little as I worked out that naming, confirming corporations and financial consortiums led the way into space. Governments had little to do with it.)

I then needed to further define my new vessel’s manning, which is complementary to its role. As a security vessel, Narwhal is small, with three squadrons of droid fighters. Why droid fighters? I started with manned weaponry and realized that robots dominate my future. It would be weird to have manned fighters. But humans maintain control….

Essentially, I evolved the Droid Commander. Droid Commanders remotely oversee the flying of four droid fighters simultaneously from pods on the Narwhal. Yes, we have the sophisticated technology to do that in my future. Likewise, Droid Techs remotely manage maintenance/software/hardware, keeping the fighters armed and flying, repairing them via nano-bots, droids and automation.

Each Narwhal squadron has three Droid Commanders, each flying four droid fighters. So each squadron is twelve fighters. Three squadrons, thirty-six fighters, nine each Droid Commanders and techs. A squadron commander coordinates their activities with the ship and mission briefs.

Narwhal is structured to run silent, fast, launching quick strikes and then bailing. Their defensive systems are lightweight and automated. They’re not going to bombard a planet or take on a battleship. They’re more likely to run escort and interdiction missions.

Once I had those things in place, what did I need for manning for the actual ship, the Narwhal? Well, again, it’s automated, and lightly manned. I ended up with three defensive coordinators. Commander, DO, pilots to fly it (in the event of worst case situations), navigator (overseeing the droids and systems), intel officer, techs to treat it.

Shuttles? Escape pods? Logistics? Medical? All done by droids, except I decided the three shuttles would have human pilots. Ten techs oversee droids that do the repairs.

So there it was, forty-seven humans crewing the Narwhal and its squadrons.

Since it’s going head to head with River Styx, the stasis pod ship, I went through the  same exercise for the Styx (which has only light defensive systems). Then I mentally plotted the sequence of events as I walked over here to write today. The twists arose on their own, pleasing and exciting me, further evolving my sketchy plot.

(Quite deliberately, because the pirates are out to disrupt corporate domination of space and human activities, Castle Corporation also owns the River Styx. The pirates love the irony of a ship they appropriated from the Castle Corporation, stretching the truth, as the Castle Corp had spun off the division that owns and operates Narwhal,  attacking another Castle Corp vessel.)

This summarizes my basic writing approach. I begin with a concept or a character. In this case, three ideas came together. That gives me a bare structure. As an analogy, if my novel is a car trip, I’m getting in and pointing the vehicle in the general direction of a horizon I see, with the vaguest idea of what’s over that horizon, and what’s between here and there. That works for each chapter, story line and character arc.

Reflecting on all of this today, I recognize how much my writing approach parallels my other methodologies. As a senior NCO in the USAF, I was always imposing and maintaining order and discipline, but also loved instilling vision in my people about how to improve ourselves and our operations. To do that, I’d simply seize a direction and go for it, correcting as I went. Likewise, in my last position as a data scientist with IBM, when given a challenge, I mentally played with it until something formed, and then I launched myself into it. And in my youth, when I was taking art classes, painting and drawing, sudden inspirations would seize and carry me.

The confrontation between River Styx and Narwhal awaits. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

3

Pounding the Rock

I’m pounding the rock, you know?

Maintainin’.

Chillin’.

Keeping it real. Staying cool.

Tuning out distractions.

Focusing.

Staying the course.

That’s what’s needed sometimes. Sometimes it’s not a piece of cake, a day at the office, easy come, easy go. Sometimes the words are cold iron on the anvil. It’s like rowing up stream. Pushing a boulder up a mountain. One step forward, two steps back.

But I’m going the distance. The whole nine yards.

The whole shebang.

Playing for keeps.

I got my eye set on the prize. I’m ready to seize the brass ring.

I’m not just making promises. I’m here for the long haul.

All this comes, not from reading sports and political news, but from getting beached in a chapter. My head screams, “You’ve lost the plot,” but my tail shouts, “Stay the course.” I’m at a point where I need to go or get off the pot, know what I’m saying? I need to make the opportunities count.

So, after drifting through a QSM and an one point five hours of writing time, and editing, revising and polishing the chapter in progress to the point where I’m trapped, a decision is finally accepted.

It ain’t happening today.

Accepted, with a deep breath. The breath is not of relief nor regret, but simple acceptance that I want to move forward and I need some way around this obstacle.

So —

I write a note at the break: <TK: Bridge required.> That’s highlighted in yellow so I don’t overlook it. I use the <TK> format for convenience for anything that needs addressing. I write like crazy. In essence, that means that while I’m mildly mindful, I’m more interested in capturing lightning in a bottle and writing down the bones. I basically don’t want to be slowed down at that point, so I’ll set it up to be done later. Sometimes it’s research, or the scene needs to be cleaned up for clarification, pacing or continuity. Once in a while, I can’t remember a minor character’s name or someone’s hair color, or other small detail that I think I want to include. I put a note beginning with <TK and explain why it’s there. I also date these entries. Then, when the first draft is finished, I search for <TK, find them and fix them. I’ve usually fixed them before the first draft is completed because I hunt back and forth through the manuscript as I work, tearing out cliches and passive writing, looking for sharper and crisper descriptions, expanding on and subtracting from passages to better fit the narrative that has emerged and to accommodate the characters’ arcs. That’s necessary because my vision of the narrative changes as the story clarifies and evolves. As Bob Muslim noted in his post, “Edit Mode, Anyone?”, “As I write and the story comes alive, things change.” Right on.

This point today is a weird misery for me. A failure. It’s not the first time it’s happened but it’s not common. I don’t care if it happens to everyone, either. It’s personal.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to dial up a scene’s framework, sit down and beginning hammering it out, then shaping and re-shaping it later. It’s not always been that way, but this is what comes from establishing a discipline of writing, writing, writing, writing. Naturally, that’s what I attempted to do today — and yesterday, actually.

Some of this obstacle today is from impatience. I know how other scenes and action spreads out. They excite me, and I’m eager to get to it because that’s the fun part of fiction writing. This writing slowdown is also caused by real life bleedover. Personal matters, issues and problems arose that absorbed time, energy and thought, leaving the writer a little depleted in those areas. Hence the mock pep talk of cliches that began this post.

The thing about these moments is to not let them consume me. Andrea Lundgren had a post, “Do You Write Chronologically?” over on Ryan Lanz’s site, “A Writer’s Path” (which I highly recommend). Overall, I’m comfortable with jumping out of chronological sequence (especially in this novel, which has a, ahem, interesting chronological pattern). I think of it like other projects, like painting a room. The order that I write is only important as part of completing the entire project to my satisfaction.

Yet, yet, it’s not easy to decide, sometimes, to jump out of order. And this is because this scene is not quite coming to me, not in its entirety. And that vexes me.

So, let it go, for now. Let it go. Come back to it later. Maybe later, by the time the entire novel is completed, this scene will be overcome by events and therefore unnecessary. Maybe, even now, I know that, but I’m too intimate with it to say good-bye.

Whatever. When you’re given lemons, you make lemonade.

Or so I’ve been told.

 

 

 

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The Hip Bone Is Connected to the Tachyon

I’m having fun with science fictional physics, conceiving way out ideas for ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to ‘Returnee’. Part of this is playing with the chip. What’s a chip, you say? This is actually a chi particle. 

The chi particle is the essence of life energy, the spark that brings inanimate matter to life. In my grand theories, there is a formula of balance that I’m still working out involving the need for the universe to maintain an equilibrium between the chi energy and all of the rest. Most importantly for the entire balance of understanding, the chi particle begins in the realms of dark matter.

Additional characteristics for my grand particle begins with the hypothetical and unproven particle, the tachyon. Like the tachyon, the chip travels faster than light, traveling even faster than the tachyon. Its imaginary mass attracts tachyons. Tachyons become knotted with the chips. As knotting happens, the tachyon draws energy from the chip, slowing both the tachyon and chip. But the chip’s mass is not a direct proportion of the tachyon’s mass, but compounds the tachyon’s mass, adding to the knotted chip’s mass. As the chip-tachyon knot slows toward the speed of light, the tachyon gains more energy, slows more and degrades, giving up its mass to the chip. The chip, acquiring actual mass, begins a transition from dark matter to matter and acquires gravitons. The chi knot seeks the proper stew of atoms and conditions to develop and begins evolving as a life form.

This all is pretty preliminary. It has no math underpinnings, and no doubt many people will tell me either, you’re drinking too much coffee, or you’re fucking nuts. They’ll also grimace, appalled by my display of ignorance, but it’s fun for me, and provides further structure for developing my plot and writing the novel. I mean, this is why we call it science fiction.

Sometime, when I’ve advanced my thinking about it more, I’ll post a snapshot of tachyon telepathy. Remember, as Brett learns (eventually), what happens in stasis, doesn’t always stay in stasis.

I’m twenty-six thousand words into ‘Long Summer’. The summer’s computer issues threw me out of my writing – conceiving – imaging rhythm, and it humbled me. I gleaned how much I take for granted the ability and opportunity to sit down and write.

Got my mocha. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

9

Knots, Life Particles & Tachyons and FT…what?

So in thinking about ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to the science fiction novel, ‘Returnee’, much reading about theories of relativity and unified theories, tachyons, chronons and parity symmetry is being indulged. Fascinating that tachyons would lose speed as they gain energy…hmmm, which was a worthwhile direction for thought.And they travel faster than light, with their slowest speed being the speed of light. Hmmm…yes….

Meanwhile, watching the final final final ‘Inspector Lewis’ (and I enjoyed the ending, with its gentle knotting of different directions and issues), knots became key to me. I’d been thinking about matters in terms of valance and atomic structure, but there’s no reason for that, is there? Not when knots also exist out there as part of the interaction of existence….

It’s all coming together, stirring up that exciting stew of writing creativity. Of course, on the negative side – because, in this physical universe, we mostly live in a parity symmetrical existence, especially when dealing with social relationships (and marriage) – the positives and negatives directly affect one another and a balance is sought – I’m listing too far into the writing side, growing quieter and quieter, more distant to others as the stories unfold in the universe of my mind(s?). Greater attention and energy is needed to untangle the knots so I understand them, and then tangle them back up to make an interesting story.

Over on the sequel side of the Lessons with Savanna mystery series, things are getting darker. That’s giving me pause; do I embrace that darkness and run with it? My instincts urge me to go for it, and I usually give into them. That will make ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’ a much darker novel than ‘Life Lessons with Savanna’ and ‘Road Lessons with Savanna’. Yet, that’s where the roads are taking me, so here I go. As I conceptualize it, the fourth novel in that series acquires greater structure, too.

Other tasks remain on the todo list. ‘Everything in Black & White’ is awaiting its publishing process. Love to get it out before the year’s end, and a dozen other books require editing/revising while more clamor in my head to be written. I’ve not really touched ‘Fix Everything’ since I finished writing it, what, one, two years ago? Poor ‘Peerless’ and ‘Spider City’ have been out there longer, awaiting editing and revising. There’s the whole advertising thing for all that’s already published, too, but bleah, and people asking, what’s going on with Lessons? When is the next book coming out?

Socially, in the real world, my walking is curtailed by smoke drifting in from the Gap fire down by Happy Camp, in California. The smoke is keeping the air temperature cooler, and gifting us with glowing red sunsets. I wish all the people and animals safe passage.

Visitors are coming, and the end of summer picnic is coming up with bullet train speed. Cats are sick, with some sort of flu like problem passing among them, Meep being the latest victim. Each have endured it by not eating and sleeping long hours, but it’s so worrisome when they go off eating. This smoke is affecting Tucker, too, and he’s very snotty yesterday and today.

I must also clean this laptop screen. Apparently I sneezed while eating or something, from the evidence.

Minor problems, fortunately, knock on wood, which I do. Life is so very knotty.

 

2

Tying Lines Together

Again, so the lines follow the characters, or the characters follow the lines. First up is Pram, the Colossus, who is employed as a terraformer despite his wealth. That’s how he enjoys spending his time, turning uninhabitable planets into places where humans and animals can live and breed.

Brett has a separate story line, and we know how Pram and Brett’s paths cross. Now, we also know how Brett and Kimi originally interacted via virtual mail in ‘Returnee’, where Kimi explained their relationship to Brett as Brett coped with being shipwrecked on Earth, his lost memory and malfunctioning Backhand (who insisted on calling him Stephane, which actually made sense later). So that’s all understood. What must be sorted here and now (or sometime in the course of writing this mangled tangle) is what’s going on with Tauren and Kimi? (Keep in mind Tauren’s true identity, which Kimi suspects but can’t yet prove.) (Also keep in mind what Tauren did to Brett, although Brett doesn’t know that – yet, but that’s one of the things he’s to learn – need to define, refine and capture his learning process, too – do a snapshot.) What happens on Kimi’s mission on behalf of Tauren that takes him to Pram in search of Brett? (Oh, does he find out the truth? Interesting thought.)

Last, I must figure out the relationship between humanity’s increasing fear of death (even though they no longer die, because they’re continually resuscitated, thereby causing a proclamation that they’ve now conquered death and space (false and false)) and Tang, and his agenda.

(And what exactly did happen with Tauren? That must be clarified for myself. I need to write a Tauren snapshot. I see the need for several snapshots.)

And the next last is that other piece regarding Brett’s recovered knowledge (about the Willow Glen attack) and how that’s folded into the next sequel. (See, that’s another snapshot.)

What about the diamonds? Good question. Another snapshot is needed about them.

I think I’ll also create a snapshot of the terraforming process Pram follows so those details can be incorporated.

Okay, it’s all becoming clear-er-ish. Time to write like crazy, one more time, and see where these characters and their lines take me.

Giddy up.

3

Pram

Pram is my new character. He emerged out of nowhere while I writing “Long Summer”, a sequel to “Returnee”. 

I love Pram. This is a guy who used modern technology to make himself into a replica of the Colossus of Rhodes, because he was fulfilling his father’s encouragement to think big. Remember, this is science fiction.

But Pram and his evolving story didn’t fit into LS. LS itself was losing coherency and consistency. Floundering, I was looking for a life preserver but today’s rough waters kept throwing me about. I couldn’t find any orientation. Change was needed.

I decided to jettison LS. I would instead focus on Pram. But what was Pram’s story? I have a character I enjoy with nowhere to go.

Donning my writing gear, I headed out. The coffee shop is two miles away, my normal walk. I’d been eschewing it with the 100+ degree weather these past ten days but today is cooler. The night fell to 52F and the day is expected to rise only to 93F. It was 70F when I set out. Walking always helps my writing, and I was desperately in need of something now. Instead of taking the direct route to the coffee shop, I headed in another direction, guaranteeing I was adding another mile. I needed it.

“What is Pram’s story?” became my walking mantra. “What is Pram’s story?” I thought of what I’d already written about him, and what I’d written about LS, and my original intentions about LS and why they were no longer working. Then I went back to Pram’s background and what I’d established about him, again, and back to LS. I wove back and forth across a loom, looking for the yarn. Then,

Eureka.

With a mile remaining to the coffee shop, direction pierced my fog. Suddenly I knew, ah, this is what happened to Brett, and this is how Pram fits in, and here is the novel’s direction.

So it’s cool for today, thank the walking and writing gods. Back at the kb, drinking mocha, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

3

The Wormhole in My Mocha

Got a quad shot mocha for my writing drink today. The baristas are so earnest about their art. It’s become a habit for me to play critic with the outcomes.

Shannon finished my mocha with a central daisy, with two hearts rising on either side. Cool. I complimented her work. They always brim my drink so I always take the first swallows at the counter before walking away. This time, after doing so, I looked down to see how the art had changed, and discovered a worm hole, such as you’d see in Star Trek.

I pointed it out to Shannon. “That totally does,” she answered. “Are you going to use it in your next story?”

I laughed. “Of course.”

“I want royalties.”

I laughed more. “So do I.”

5

Jealous of Time

I’m so jealous of my time, possessive of it, reluctantly sharing it with others, and grumpy when I do. Call Mom to tell her I love her and thank her for reading my last book? But that takes times.

Takes time. Steals time. That time can’t be returned.

No, I’m not doing extraordinary things with my time. Changing kitty litter. Playing computer games. Reading. Working on the biz aspect of writing. And that is work. Not fun, trying to squeeze money out of my words. I prefer the – wait, let me look it up.

My wife’s book club’s latest reading was ‘Norwegian by Night’. I love her for the way in which she reads these offerings, makes them her own and seeks information about the writer and the book’s genesis. In this case, she was also puzzled by the book’s title. She never found a good answer.

‘Norwegian by Night’ was a debut novel and attracted the fame and fortune that I sometimes fantasize about (okay, I think about it the way I thought about sex in my teen years). Naturally, I hate its author, Derek Miller.

No, ha ha, kidding. Really.

But while she researched, my wife found an interview with him and said, “You’ll like this. Listen. ‘The easy part, by contrast, was the exuberant pleasure that came from having no rules, no masters, no demands for propriety, diplomacy, or even collaboration. And frankly no consequences.'”

Oh, yeah, baby, that’s the stuff. To go back, I prefer the exuberant pleasure that comes from having no rules and master, and no demands, rather than that icky business side.

That’s why I’m jealous of my time, of sharing it. They are demands. I’m being held hostage, forced to conform, socialize, speak coherently and be polite, watch out for zombies, and obey the masters of culture and values, and I resist.

My wife ‘understands’ it to some degree, that is, she accepts the logic of me desiring and wanting to write each day. I think she feels it’s owed to me as well. While in the second half of my military’s twenty year career, I spit frustration daily about having to endure that damn macho stilted, reactionary bureaucracy when I could be writing. But I stayed in to get the pension, which admittedly, now, is worthwhile to have. Then we stayed in the pricey Silicon Valley – SF Bay area, as she was starting a new career, putting off moving to somewhere cheap where I could use my pension to fund my writing. And I put twenty years into jobs there, paying off bills, acquiring useful material goods like computers, and accumulating a ‘retirement nest egg’. Okay, good.

But damn, I wanted to write, and still want to write, and look back on all the energy shunted into other things and wonder what might be different.

Don’t we all, though? Go back and think on something, and wonder what might be different?

I could be more intellectual about this, make up clever quotes, or find brilliant insights into the nature of time and humanity, and metaphors about time and the stages of life, and youth being wasted on the young, but —

That’s not really me. That would be a pretender. I’m bare bones, stream of consciousness, sorry, the filter is broken, sort of writer. I call it organic, but it’s really me being lazy.

Enough of this. I’m wasting time.  I need to go write like crazy. It’s really the only dam I have against insanity.

 

By the way, Book Chewing’s interview with Derek Miller is here. Go read it. You have the time.

3

Five Points

Getting ready to walk and write. Writing dominates my thoughts but other matters press in. Cats. Home improvement. Trips. Phone calls I owe people. Beer night this week, and whether to go or not.

But the walk and writing are the current play.

1. Pen; check. Ink is a little low. Take an extra pen. Notebook, check. Half full. Should be sufficient.
I’m still on paper, with my laptop returning to me tomorrow.

2. Naturally, zombies also worry me. Multiple species exist. I don’t know which zombies inhabit my region. What if I’m attacked during my walk? What will I do? They never addressed zombie attacks during my twenty years in the military.

I haven’t heard about any attacks. But the US POTUS election is underway. The Olympics are happening, and there are a million celebrities eating, drinking, farting and divorcing. Plus business news, and new movie releases. Zombie attacks might not make wide news coverage.

3. Received a royalties payment. Enough for a week of beer. That’s something. Haven’t done any advertising in July. Haven’t checked any sales reports. Awaiting the computer’s return.

Haven’t done anything with the website, either. It also awaits the computer’s second coming.

4. Five points is of major concern. I’m writing a short (5K) story to occupy me with writing until the computer returns. The short story is Merger. Science fiction. I’ve come to the point where I realize four different endings for Merger. (See, I’m on one path, and I’m coming to a point where the road splits into four directions – five points…in case you didn’t catch that.) By endings, I refer to the climax and denouement. Considering it today, I think, why not write all four endings? That would be fun.

5. The nature of my novel writing process prevents me from pursuing writing them. Two sequels are in progress. I’m eager for the laptop’s return so I can return to them.

And I also need to type up the short story.

Not having the laptop increases my awareness in the different types of writing and my approaches to each. Novel writing is a complex, organic process involving a lot of ongoing revision, like painting with oils. Short story writing is also complex but more like sketching with pencils. Emails are less complex and easy. Blog posts are generally barely edited stream of consciousness spewing. So I can do that on the iPad mini (with its keyboard cover). Not much movement and back and forth is needed for my blog posts, unlike the novel and short story writing.

6. Another novel concept’s topography is developing in my mind. I’m picturing a science fiction detective thriller, and it’s exciting to embrace it. Can’t wait to start writing it. There are always so many writing projects.

But for now, it’s pen to paper. I have my quad shot mocha. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

3

MG6

 

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My new version, Michael Gen 6, has been released to exciting reviews. Lighter, leaner, more mellow, here are some product highlights.

1. Computer issues plagued Michael G5, triggering blood pressure increases and often fracturing his calm. With the computers temporarily shelved, MG6 is a more mellow, tolerant and jovial person.

2. Carrying an iPad mini 4 and 100 sheet composition book and pen is much easier than trucking the computer in the bag with whatever support gear and accessories were packed. Losing them means MG6 weighs 15 pounds less than MG5. The lighter load has unexpected collaterals ramification. Packing less weight has resulted in MG6 having greater energy over MG5. The enhanced energy levels are being proven with increased optimism, exercise and activity levels.

3. With less frustration and irritation exhausting him, MG6 sleeps better and awakens with a greater life zest. MG6 has even planned a coast vacation.

4. Writing in a notebook with a pen has bounced MG6 to a higher creative cycle. More primitive and elemental, rawer, torrents of words pour out, although there is a shortcoming with this output, as it still requires typing.

5. As MG6 is less stressed than the previous version, less comfort food and drink are consumed. Money is saved and body weight has been reduced.

Some things didn’t change with MG6. He still answers the cats’ purrs, cries, meows, paw swipes, head butts and rub bys, doing whatever they order, from feeding to treats to catnip to extended petting sessions as they roll around, and offering a lap for napping when demanded.

MG6 still obtains most calories from organic food, having a wonderful grilled vegetable quesadilla with guac, salsa, and sour cream for dinner last night, with additional input coming via beer, in this case, a shandy of lemonade and Ashland Amber.

And though it’s a notebook, and the result isn’t tidy, MG6 still drinks quad shot mochas and writes like crazy.

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