Tag: writing process

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.

4

A Year

It’s been a year since I collected my last IBM paycheck.

I expected a lot of changes in that year. I’ve been disappointed.

One bitter reason for wanting to leave IBM was my unhappiness of how callously we were treated as individuals. That’s my perception. Others may not share it. The work had become routine and boring. I was rarely engaged, and my circle of involvement seemed to be shrinking. So, I was receiving less validation that I was worthwhile to the company or that anyone there appreciated my work or efforts. Hence, I wanted to leave. When they offered me the choice, I took it.

Yet, being freed from employment didn’t do anything to enhance my sense of validation. If anything, the solitary habits I employ and my social awkwardness remain, so I’m just as out there on my own now as I was when I was employed, and experience even less evaluation. It’s tested my strength and determination.

I thought my writing career would take off. It hasn’t. I didn’t appreciate the hard work required to not just prepare a book to publish but also to market. I naively thought, “If I write it, they will come.”

My year of being unemployed, the first since I was seventeen, taught me how much I require structure, goals and a vision to keep me moving forward. I’ve been forced to re-evaluate what I’d established in the past that helped me succeed, and create new structures, goals and a vision. That’s all still in progress. I also needed to educate myself more about the writing business, something also underway. Frankly, it’s wearying.

In thinking about all of this, I resolved, “I will do better.” It’s a big poster in my mind, glowing at me all the time. “I will do better.”

Today’s writing session is finished. I only wrote about fifteen hundred words and edited some. The novel is becoming hugely busy. I reached the point that I felt like a puppet master getting entangled in his puppets’ strings. Pacing across the coffee shop with impatience and frustration, I gazed out the window and recognized, I need to stop today. Regroup and marshal my energies and intentions to proceed. It’s a complex novel, with complicated plots and societies, set in the future, with unique words, and yada, yada, yada.

Those of you who write will totally understand.

 

9

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.

5

Mom’s Fault

It’s pouring rain. Soaked dark, my coat dribbled rivulets across the floor as I walked across the coffee shop.

“Did you walk?” the coffee shop owner asked. “I know you like to walk. I’ve seen you walking all over town.”

“No, I just walked a mile,” I answered. “I wanted to feel the rain and wind.”

“You like to walk, don’t you?” the owner said.

“Yes.”

Yes, I like to walk. It’s Mom’s fault. In my young life’s dawn, I’d want to go somewhere and requested Mom drive me. “You have two legs, you can walk,” she’d reply. Stories about her walking when she was a child followed. She walked to school miles in both direction, no matter what the weather was, digging trails and tunnels through the Iowa snowstorms, if necessary, fording rivers and forging trails, dodging wild animals while picking berries or nuts on the way home to use in baking, and stopping to milk the cows. If she walked in those conditions, I could walk.

I might have exaggerated about what she claimed to do.

So I walked. I walked everywhere. I didn’t have a car in high school for several years, so I walked the miles home from school after sports activities and play practices. I walked to my girlfriend’s house, miles more, and back again. Sometimes I was given rides. Sometimes, people attempted to molest me.

Once in the military, my wife and I didn’t have much income, so we walked. Over in the Philippines on duty, I didn’t have a car and had plenty of time, so I walked around the base and the town. In Germany, walking was organized into Volksmarching and celebrated with drink and food. Terrific!

By the time I began writing, walking was ingrained as part of my thinking process. I was pleased to discover that studies validated my impressions about walking. Walking ten minutes a day made most people happy besides providing exercise. Walking also enhances the creative process for most.

I was sure of that latter. Deciding I needed to put myself and my goals and dreams first, I started taking an hour out of the work day to write. Bosses, co-workers and team mates didn’t care as long as I did my share. As part of that, I observed that walking helped me shift from work Michael to writing Michael. As I walked to write, I would ask the eternal writing questions, “Where the hell am I? Where does the story go next? What do I need to write next? What did I write yesterday?” Asking these questions and thinking about it prepped me to sit down, ready to type.

Likewise, after leaving, I’d often continue working out characters, scenes and plots as I walked back to work. Then, walking to write the next day, I would recall the previous day and resume writing with little effort.

I was surprised that studies didn’t demonstrate a link to improved focused thinking, as well, and problem solving. Perhaps I’d trained myself to solve problems by walking, but I always felt leaving work for a short work, changing the scenery and releasing my brain from the work environment, was hugely instrumental in being able to see answers and develop solutions. Perhaps, though, that was still the creative brainstorming that writing seems to encourage.

My walking continued once I started working from home. I walked to take breaks and enjoy fresh air and sunshine. Then, walking to the coffee shop to write, I walked to reduce my carbon footprint and help save money and the environment.

Now, I have the Fitbit to encourage me to walk. If I haven’t walked in an hour, it buzzes me to get up and walk. So I leave the coffee shop and hustle down the steps and around the block and back. That’s enormously reduced my writer’s ass, which is when your ass goes to sleep after being almost stationary while typing or writing at a desk or table. When I’m at home, my wife and I jump up and start running around. Sometimes, we chase the cats, but they’re not into it, so we don’t do that much.

But, like many things I do and enjoy, my walking started with Mom.

4

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

Work Habits

Here we are, the six of us: writers. Meet Michael the Original and Michaels Two through Six. None want to be called a number, usually channeling Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band when that’s attempted. (“I’m not a number, I’m not a number, damn it, I’m a man.”)

Each writer has their piece to write. We’re seated around a large, round table. Each has their own space and quad-shot mochas. Each is on a computer and has their files open.

One is copy-editing the novel to date. The Original – that would be me – is doing the hard thinking to bring these drunkenly rambunctious stories together. The next four are working on the different storylines and scenes for Pram, Forus Ker, Brett, Philea, Richard, Kimi and Handley, onboard the Faux Mo, Pentagon, River Styx, and Wrinkle, on Willow Glen and the escape pod, in the stasis pod, and in the past, present and future, dealing with the Monad, Sabards, Humans and Travail Seth…and each other…. There are battles, revelations, duplicity, treachery and betrayal.

It’s a lot of work for the six of us.

Unfortunately, there is only me. Having the six wouldn’t be sufficient, either. I would need more, a committee of me to write and edit. Each story and its main character is drumming, “Write my story,” into me. I write a few lines, paragraphs, and then jump into another, tediously advancing on all fronts, advancing, but not anywhere near the desired pace. The process reminds me of a class I took decades ago, in 1988 or 1989.

I was stationed in Germany. Offered by the University of Maryland, the class was four days long, two weekends, eight hours each day. The subject was French literature. Four authors were being studied. Among them was Honore de Balzac.

Balzac was said to write fifteen hours a day. The claim presented to me in that class is that he wrote with a quill, standing up, sucking down cups of coffee. He was said to be always writing and created voluminous manuscripts, often with characters straying from one story to another, and frequently revised. How did he do it, I wondered then.

How did he do it, I wonder now.

But then I figure, man, if good ol’ Honore could write and edit so much on his own, I can as well.

Just give me more damn coffee.

Here we go: time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

0

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

The Chi Compulsion

A storm was rocking the house. Rain did a Keith Moon impersonation on the walls and roof. My wife could not sleep. She was listening to BBC World News on the clock-radio.

“Want me to talk to you about my novel in progress?” I asked.

“Yes.”

That always puts her to sleep.

So I talked to her. I told her, I just wrote the first chapter to part three of a science fiction novel, even though parts one and two are not finished. Part two needs much more work. But I ‘saw’ this chapter and felt like it needed to be written. It’s like a guidepost about where I’m going. So I wrote it and put it into the novel.

I’ve been researching and writing about Chi-particles, I said, and then talked a little about general and special theories, chemical elements and quantum mechanics. I don’t know much about them, and that part of the discussion was finished quicker than an amuse-bouche.

I went on about my current obsession, Chi-particles. Chi-particles are imaginary particles, with imaginary mass and energy, that travel faster than light, and faster than the theorized tachyon particles. They exhibit properties of light, time and mass. They gain real energy and real mass as they slow down.

Yeah.

Calling them particles is incorrect but that’s what I called them in the beginning so that’s what sticks as part of my world-building history. My imaginary physicists later investigated and theorized that Chi-particles are sub-sub-sub atomic particles.

They are the universal building blocks. Chi-particles are in everything.

My wife was now snoring.

I continued, however.

Chi-particles actually have structures with a nucleus and other sub-level Chi-particles in orbit about them. Their Chi-structure is what drives atomic structure. Everything has Chi-energy. Chi-energy directs whether something develops into a chemical element, energy, dark matter, etc. They direct when something ‘comes alive’ and direct its levels of self-awareness, growth and sentience.

They direct what species the animated, organic matter becomes.

I sketched the Universal Theory of Relativity, in which the quantity of energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared (Einstein’s theory) is equal to the square root of Chi-particles imaginary light times Chi-particles imaginary mass.

I folded the entire thinking into wave function collapse and thoughts of ‘now’, time and the past. From there, I developed several other ideas and kept talking.

One idea is a future technology called star dating. It’s still rudimentary but I see it as a small but critical point in the novel. Essentially, background radiation leaves residual energy on everything, which then can be measured, in a sort of hybrid process between carbon dating, counting the rings on a tree, and using layers of dust to establish global events or using background radiation to understand the Universe.

Next to emerge was Chi-particle entanglement. I’ve thought about this before but needed to more fully vet it. As I walked through what the hell that meant, I came to realize that Chi-particles travel in a petal pattern. I started thinking about energy fields and ley lines.

Ah, yes. Much more came together. Some stuff didn’t work, I realized. They needed more thought. Then an epiphany rewarded me. Dazzled by its audacity, I started laughing in bed. But then, I easily impress and amuse myself. It’s all far-out. Hell, it’s fiction.

The alarm went off. It was six twenty-seven. Time for my wife to get up to dress and head for the Y and her exercise class.

I pulled the covers up to my chin and snuggled into my blanket nest. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wasn’t going to get up. I was warm and drowsy. I wanted more sleep. I’d been thinking and talking, off and on, for over ninety minutes.

My wife rolled over, turned off the alarm, re-settled herself and returned to sleep.

A cat meowed in another part of the house. I wanted more sleep but…

The cats needed to be fed and tended. Taking my Chi-particle thinking with me, I went off to feed them and then, because they were on my mind, presented these posts.

Now I really want a nap. But…there is writing to do, and movie matinees later today. I need to write so I can return and do other things. Therefore….

Turn on the coffee.

I can nap later.

3

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