Guess so. That's alright. Been a lot going on, enough to keep my mind away, enough to leave me a little unfocused.
I got married not long after my last update, about a week and a half after. That's a good thing. I have a wonderful wife.
I suppose I'm a "millennial" - as we're being labeled. The children of the Gen-Xers, those who saw the millennium change as they became adults. It'll be our millennium, but we inherit many problems with it. It seems we're destined to experience hardships our parents did not.
I spend a lot of time thinking about it; about how in many ways, I feel like a failure as a result. We grew up being told we could be whatever we wanted, if we worked hard. Opportunities would be there. For children like myself, it was even worse - we were gifted, clever, smart, whatever you want to call it. We grew up being promised the world. As we came to adulthood, the world fell apart around us, all of those promises vaporizing in an instant, the reality of a hard world caving in around us.
I'm a college-educated man and, still, a fairly clever one, I like to think. The world has changed in such a way that these things no longer really matter. They won't find you jobs or opportunities. Perhaps I have to make them; but where to begin? Writing has always been my strongest point, my special talent in life. If I was meant to "do" anything, it was write. But I've been so lost on what to write about, where to start. So I suppose I'll try to blog more. To detail not just the struggles of a young writer who has lost his voice, but to detail the struggles of a millennial coping with a changed world. At the very least, I can give it a try, to voice my frustrations rather than let them simmer and boil within me.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
It's there... somewhere.
I've taken a hiatus from writing lately. I think I might have mentioned that in a previous post, but maybe not. There's a few reasons for this, some external and some internal. The external ones are less important; they really amount to little more than thinly-veiled excuses. The reality is that I stay distracted, externally, primarily by video games, which have been a bane to my productivity for years - really ever since I started playing MMOs. But that's a whole separate post and, lately, the grip of such things is loosening on me - I don't buy many new games anymore and what I have periodically becomes boring, which puts me into better places insofar as writing or reading go. Otherwise, video games still serve a purpose - MMOs are a social outlet for someone like me who has lived in three states over the past five years and has friends scattered across the country; single-player games provide a great way to streamline my thought patterns and let them drift to other things while keeping me occupied otherwise... it's almost meditative. Maybe that's another thinly-veiled excuse.
Anyway, internally, I haven't really had something passionate to write about. It's hard to write without passion or motivation... as much as I try to work on older works, revise them to publishable form, etc... it's hard to do it because those works don't feel relevant to me right now. Doesn't mean I can't go back to them later, but right now, they just don't fit - they're square pegs and right now I'm a round hole. Or something (that's what she said?).
I have at least one great story in me. I've known this almost all my life. It's still there. But it's a slippery thing and, as a result, almost impossible to get a hold of. Whether or not I'm writing, that story is never far from my thoughts. I'm always thinking, always pondering. To help stimulate thought further, I've decided to pick up a couple books that might be more in-line with where I am now - two of Thomas Wolfe's works: Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again.
Thematically, I have two primary interests at the moment. The first surrounds the feeling of home and homesickness and homelessness of someone who has moved on from his hometown, but still yearns for it and feels a strong bond to it. The second is the plight of the young adult in today's world. For a person like me, I feel as though I was promised a world as I grew up - and once I grew up, that world was gone, changed, into something entirely new and different and challenging. The whole idea throughout school and youth was to get a degree, get a job/career, and retire eventually after a career with a company. That world appears gone. How do we cope with that? There's a sense of lost-ness in this generation, the so-called "Millenials," as a result. It's an interesting conundrum.
How do I entwine those concepts, make a story of it? I'm not sure. But it's there, somewhere. And perhaps, reading other fiction more relevant to the subject - like Wolfe's work, or perhaps Steinbeck's - will help coax it out of me.
Anyway, internally, I haven't really had something passionate to write about. It's hard to write without passion or motivation... as much as I try to work on older works, revise them to publishable form, etc... it's hard to do it because those works don't feel relevant to me right now. Doesn't mean I can't go back to them later, but right now, they just don't fit - they're square pegs and right now I'm a round hole. Or something (that's what she said?).
I have at least one great story in me. I've known this almost all my life. It's still there. But it's a slippery thing and, as a result, almost impossible to get a hold of. Whether or not I'm writing, that story is never far from my thoughts. I'm always thinking, always pondering. To help stimulate thought further, I've decided to pick up a couple books that might be more in-line with where I am now - two of Thomas Wolfe's works: Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again.
Thematically, I have two primary interests at the moment. The first surrounds the feeling of home and homesickness and homelessness of someone who has moved on from his hometown, but still yearns for it and feels a strong bond to it. The second is the plight of the young adult in today's world. For a person like me, I feel as though I was promised a world as I grew up - and once I grew up, that world was gone, changed, into something entirely new and different and challenging. The whole idea throughout school and youth was to get a degree, get a job/career, and retire eventually after a career with a company. That world appears gone. How do we cope with that? There's a sense of lost-ness in this generation, the so-called "Millenials," as a result. It's an interesting conundrum.
How do I entwine those concepts, make a story of it? I'm not sure. But it's there, somewhere. And perhaps, reading other fiction more relevant to the subject - like Wolfe's work, or perhaps Steinbeck's - will help coax it out of me.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Time, time...
Life is kind of like a constant state of confusion and chaos. Whenever we feel like it's about to get orderly and play nice, something happens to keep things in a state of relative flux. We all yearn for that feeling of stability and long-term order, but there's a good chance we'd all go stagnant if we ever attained it. I know that's the case for me... lacking a "regular" job, I manage to find even less time (or motivation?) to write than I would otherwise. I still look back to my undergraduate years and realize I was most successful and productive when I was working 40+ hours per week and taking 12+ credit hours per semester. Sounds hectic, and it was, but I was super productive.
I haven't found the time to write lately. That's frustrating on some levels, but I also think I'm going through a mental transition insofar as writing goes. I think a lot; sometimes overthinking takes the fun out of actually writing down. That's part of why I rarely journal personal events - I think them out, so no need to write them out. Feels redundant. That's why I have a problem writing Ambivalence right now - I've thought it out, hashed it out, multiple times. Even the third book (Ambivalence is the first) is mostly planned in my head... the second is a bit clouded, and would be fun to write because of it, but nonetheless... it's tough to write something that's done in your head. Writers who say that their characters help write the books aren't lying - it's a journey for the writer as well, to see what his/her characters do... they surprise even us, on occasion.
As to the transition, part of the issue is also that the books I'm working on now don't feel relevant. They tackle themes that troubled me more when I was younger, when I first set pen to paper on those books. Part of me yearns to write on things more relevant and, really, part of me yearns to try to write something contemporary. Split time depending on motivation? Maybe.
Finding time is the key, too. For example, right now, would be good. But I know my fiancee arrives home shortly and we have an appointment afterwards. It might be counter-productive, but I'd rather not write anything at all than be interrupted midway through a good stream of thought... recapturing that later is very difficult and often frustrating.
And it's been a busy time, in general. My fiancee and I have our wedding in less than a month and even though her mother has done a bang-up job planning it in short time, it's still a very stressful thing for everyone involved. This goes back to my original paragraph - I hope for a time of general stability afterwards, where nothing momentous happens to shake up life and we can finally settle into a routine of sorts (we really haven't had time for that since before we moved in together in June). But... part of me knows that it never is that simple. Just like this past weekend, which my fiancee had all three days off - she works 4 days, 10 hours per day - and on Monday, she had nothing planned on all three days. By Thursday, all three days had an appointment of some sort, just by total random happenstance. Such is life. When I was laid off from my regular job in May, I had a significant nest egg set up - then my car began leaking coolant by the tank, and my carefully-laid financial plans took a hit. Not enough to throw me off-kilter, but enough to make things less than I was hoping. Such is life.
But the best of us make time... that's a true skill in life, making time for one's loves and pursuits and cares. It's when we have copious amounts of free time that we find that skill most lacking, and when we have almost no free time we find it in abundance. There's an odd sort of balance in that, I think. And now, often inundated with unoccupied time, I must find a way to work through my own distractions and mental clouds and once again relearn how to make time to get through my self-imposed writer's block.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Beginnings...
I find beginnings difficult. This is a truth about my writing and really, about life, for me. Maybe it's that way for most people.
On one hand, you have the blank canvas - it's exhilarating and full of potential. On the other hand, you know that all it takes is the wrong start to ruin it. That's true for a story, a relationship-to-be, or even a day. We all know the phrase "got up on the wrong side of the bed," after all.
My wife-to-be went over the beginnings of my current work. She spent more time on this time, giving it a thorough examination as opposed to a read through. She marked it up digitally, using the comments feature of Word and some spiffy highlighting. She provided some good feedback - a good deal of things I knew already, but hadn't sought out to look at. Certain redundancies or discrepancies that exist in a first draft, early, as you push on. But having her point them out helped, as well as mentioning when a scene flowed really well or when a scene seemed disjointed. And after all, as a reader, I need to know if she's drawn in, or if she's distracted by an overabundance of information or a lack thereof.
I knew the first chapter needed work. We'd discussed before and really, I remain unhappy with the first chapter. It's the beginning. It has to be just right. But it's also the most difficult to write, as a result. You want to foreshadow appropriately, set up certain events, and so on. You want to grab the reader. Sometimes that's hard to do right off the bat - for me, it's nearly impossible. So I trudge through the first chapter, setting some scenes I know will be reworked, some that may never see the light of day again, some that are just fine, and some that have yet to be added. But what made me smile and, after having the first chapter appropriately eviscerated, was that as she broke into Chapters 3 and 4, the comments slowed, the highlights went away. As the plot caught on and the narrative flow took over, the story began to write itself better.
That's what makes the first chapter so hard, often. There's no narrative yet. You're establishing the narrative, but as you do so, you're also generally using character exposition and development to draw the reader in. Right away, that's difficult. It's like going up to a woman at a bar or after class or after work and introducing yourself. What will interest her? What will draw her attention, what will repulse her, etc? You want to make that lasting impression that makes her want more. I never thought I was good at that, but being that I have a wife-to-be, I must have gotten it right at least once.
Stories are easier, in that regard. Not because the beginning part is easier - it's not - but because you can shelve it. I write out the beginning, enough to establish what I want to, and then push onward. I let the narrative kick in and ride the flow of it, working on the rest as I go, knowing full well that when I'm done, I can come back to the beginning, knowing what I know from start-to-finish, and be better able to fine-tune the start. A lot of that, to me, has to do with information - you want the reader to understand your world, but the question is how and when to do that. You don't want to go all Tolkien on them and give them pages upon pages of laborious description. Sure, it's good, but let's be honest - we all skimmed a LOT of that. Do you care what color the leaves are in Rivendell? Me neither. That's stuff the imagination fills in by itself and I, personally, like to let the reader's imagination work itself. Anyway. I find that the tendency is to throw a ton of information out at first. I refrain as best I can; knowing that a lot of information comes out during the narrative, or can be added later. But you still want to impart a degree of understanding to the reader... without it being a written infomercial for a few pages. That can be tricky sometimes.
Makes me want to write a modern/contemporary set story sometime. I'm sure I shall, but I would like to get this one done first.
On one hand, you have the blank canvas - it's exhilarating and full of potential. On the other hand, you know that all it takes is the wrong start to ruin it. That's true for a story, a relationship-to-be, or even a day. We all know the phrase "got up on the wrong side of the bed," after all.
My wife-to-be went over the beginnings of my current work. She spent more time on this time, giving it a thorough examination as opposed to a read through. She marked it up digitally, using the comments feature of Word and some spiffy highlighting. She provided some good feedback - a good deal of things I knew already, but hadn't sought out to look at. Certain redundancies or discrepancies that exist in a first draft, early, as you push on. But having her point them out helped, as well as mentioning when a scene flowed really well or when a scene seemed disjointed. And after all, as a reader, I need to know if she's drawn in, or if she's distracted by an overabundance of information or a lack thereof.
I knew the first chapter needed work. We'd discussed before and really, I remain unhappy with the first chapter. It's the beginning. It has to be just right. But it's also the most difficult to write, as a result. You want to foreshadow appropriately, set up certain events, and so on. You want to grab the reader. Sometimes that's hard to do right off the bat - for me, it's nearly impossible. So I trudge through the first chapter, setting some scenes I know will be reworked, some that may never see the light of day again, some that are just fine, and some that have yet to be added. But what made me smile and, after having the first chapter appropriately eviscerated, was that as she broke into Chapters 3 and 4, the comments slowed, the highlights went away. As the plot caught on and the narrative flow took over, the story began to write itself better.
That's what makes the first chapter so hard, often. There's no narrative yet. You're establishing the narrative, but as you do so, you're also generally using character exposition and development to draw the reader in. Right away, that's difficult. It's like going up to a woman at a bar or after class or after work and introducing yourself. What will interest her? What will draw her attention, what will repulse her, etc? You want to make that lasting impression that makes her want more. I never thought I was good at that, but being that I have a wife-to-be, I must have gotten it right at least once.
Stories are easier, in that regard. Not because the beginning part is easier - it's not - but because you can shelve it. I write out the beginning, enough to establish what I want to, and then push onward. I let the narrative kick in and ride the flow of it, working on the rest as I go, knowing full well that when I'm done, I can come back to the beginning, knowing what I know from start-to-finish, and be better able to fine-tune the start. A lot of that, to me, has to do with information - you want the reader to understand your world, but the question is how and when to do that. You don't want to go all Tolkien on them and give them pages upon pages of laborious description. Sure, it's good, but let's be honest - we all skimmed a LOT of that. Do you care what color the leaves are in Rivendell? Me neither. That's stuff the imagination fills in by itself and I, personally, like to let the reader's imagination work itself. Anyway. I find that the tendency is to throw a ton of information out at first. I refrain as best I can; knowing that a lot of information comes out during the narrative, or can be added later. But you still want to impart a degree of understanding to the reader... without it being a written infomercial for a few pages. That can be tricky sometimes.
Makes me want to write a modern/contemporary set story sometime. I'm sure I shall, but I would like to get this one done first.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Being moved.
The purpose of art, as I see it, is to move another, or even oneself. To evoke emotion. To make us feel something. It doesn't have to be deep or profound necessarily, sometimes it's just the uplifting that comes from a heroic victory in an epic film, or sadness of a character's death, or the giddiness that girls get from romantic comedies.
As technology has evolved, so have our mechanisms for evoking emotions in art. In some ways, this is good, in others, it is bad. Does the increased intensity provided by film now diminish that of paintings? Maybe. Or maybe they're just different types of experience.
I miss being moved. Maybe it's because I'm older now, but I don't find things that move me very easily. This is part of why I write - to move myself, because so few others do. I might be jaded. But I feel a lack of creativity in the world these days, at least in American media. Movies are recycled - the same comic book movie, the same epic war movie, the same romantic comedy, the same goofy guy comedy. What might have moved me once, no longer does, because you can see it in fifteen different incarnations every year. Television is much the same, and even my typical bastion for creative relaxation - video games - often fails me now. Most of these industries are primarily after money and once they figure out what sells, they sell as much of it as possible.
In some ways, video games were my first true creative experience. I remember being sucked into Final Fantasy VI when I was a kid and really, for the first time outside of Tolkien's books, knew what it was to be immersed in something and to have it move me. Video games are great for this because you actually assume the role of a character - you follow them, learn with them, bleed with them. Video games also have the time to truly spin out a tale - games can take as much as 20 hours or more to complete, although at least half of that is the "gaming" part and less actual narrative. As technology has advanced, I see fewer games spinning compelling narratives. I lament back to the days of the role-playing game in the '90s, when the Final Fantasy franchise was in its prime and other, less-known, games were being churned out, like Xenogears or the first couple Suikoden games. I write this in part because I was poking around the Internet today and once again eyeing the one game I am looking forward to this year - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That series, in particular, is as immersive a single-player experience as I've ever seen and truly a beacon of light among gaming. If the game plays out as beautifully and intensely as the trailer for it shows, then it will hopefully be a landmark gaming experience, the type I crave and so rarely experience anymore.
Writing is, of course, the greatest medium for creative expression. Words are limitless and allow a more ambiguous relationship between author and reader - I can write a description of a character, or a town, but it's not down to the finest details - those are filled in by the reader, giving everyone their own unique variation of the writer's world. For example, in reading the Lord of the Rings, my Aragorn or my Frodo may have looked similar to your imagined version, but most certainly not the same. That's the magic that writing alone captures - the reader's imagination is put to work filling in those finer descriptive holes, holes which, if filled by the author, would of course be indescribably cumbersome to read.
But at the same time, because books are not visual, we're not inundated with book advertisements - not like we are for movies and video games. Books can't have trailers, as it were. It's rare to see a book release get the press that George R. R. Martin's recent release did, and you can bet the farm that it had no small part to do with the running of the HBO series based on his books not long prior to the release. I'll even admit, I started reading them because of the series (although they were on my list regardless; I just bumped them up as a result). And I know if I did, plenty of other people did, too. This is one of the difficulties of being an author that, even in the age of self-publication, I see - how do you get the book out there? How do people find out nowadays? Like so much in life, it seems it just boils down to being a lucky shot in the dark...
As technology has evolved, so have our mechanisms for evoking emotions in art. In some ways, this is good, in others, it is bad. Does the increased intensity provided by film now diminish that of paintings? Maybe. Or maybe they're just different types of experience.
I miss being moved. Maybe it's because I'm older now, but I don't find things that move me very easily. This is part of why I write - to move myself, because so few others do. I might be jaded. But I feel a lack of creativity in the world these days, at least in American media. Movies are recycled - the same comic book movie, the same epic war movie, the same romantic comedy, the same goofy guy comedy. What might have moved me once, no longer does, because you can see it in fifteen different incarnations every year. Television is much the same, and even my typical bastion for creative relaxation - video games - often fails me now. Most of these industries are primarily after money and once they figure out what sells, they sell as much of it as possible.
In some ways, video games were my first true creative experience. I remember being sucked into Final Fantasy VI when I was a kid and really, for the first time outside of Tolkien's books, knew what it was to be immersed in something and to have it move me. Video games are great for this because you actually assume the role of a character - you follow them, learn with them, bleed with them. Video games also have the time to truly spin out a tale - games can take as much as 20 hours or more to complete, although at least half of that is the "gaming" part and less actual narrative. As technology has advanced, I see fewer games spinning compelling narratives. I lament back to the days of the role-playing game in the '90s, when the Final Fantasy franchise was in its prime and other, less-known, games were being churned out, like Xenogears or the first couple Suikoden games. I write this in part because I was poking around the Internet today and once again eyeing the one game I am looking forward to this year - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That series, in particular, is as immersive a single-player experience as I've ever seen and truly a beacon of light among gaming. If the game plays out as beautifully and intensely as the trailer for it shows, then it will hopefully be a landmark gaming experience, the type I crave and so rarely experience anymore.
Writing is, of course, the greatest medium for creative expression. Words are limitless and allow a more ambiguous relationship between author and reader - I can write a description of a character, or a town, but it's not down to the finest details - those are filled in by the reader, giving everyone their own unique variation of the writer's world. For example, in reading the Lord of the Rings, my Aragorn or my Frodo may have looked similar to your imagined version, but most certainly not the same. That's the magic that writing alone captures - the reader's imagination is put to work filling in those finer descriptive holes, holes which, if filled by the author, would of course be indescribably cumbersome to read.
But at the same time, because books are not visual, we're not inundated with book advertisements - not like we are for movies and video games. Books can't have trailers, as it were. It's rare to see a book release get the press that George R. R. Martin's recent release did, and you can bet the farm that it had no small part to do with the running of the HBO series based on his books not long prior to the release. I'll even admit, I started reading them because of the series (although they were on my list regardless; I just bumped them up as a result). And I know if I did, plenty of other people did, too. This is one of the difficulties of being an author that, even in the age of self-publication, I see - how do you get the book out there? How do people find out nowadays? Like so much in life, it seems it just boils down to being a lucky shot in the dark...
Friday, July 15, 2011
On actual writer's block.
Sometimes it's just not there. Last week was a good one. Made some good progress on the novel I'm working on and rather liked it.
I made the mistake of pausing and letting my fiancee read what I'd done. Not that she's unsupportive; she's quite wonderful, actually. But I was definitely trying to satisfy some odd desire within myself about my work by showing it to her. I think I was a feeling good about it and she got home while I was working, looking for after-work attentions (understandable, typically fine). Once I had said my afternoon hello to her, I really should have returned to my work. I was in the middle of a chapter - end of a scene, but middle of the chapter. I was in a good place and should have finished the chapter. Instead, I showed her what I'd done thusfar. Her enthusiasm was there, but not quite like mine. It was tempered and she made some good points about some other areas of the book and it sort of derailed me a little.
I see why Stephen King waits to show his wife his drafts until he's done with them.
This week, it just hasn't been there. It's an uncomfortable feeling, because in actuality, that chapter is planned out, but the ability to just sit down and hammer it out isn't there. It's like mental constipation. You might laugh, but it really is. You're sitting there at the computer wondering if you should sit there and strain yourself and make the veins on your neck stick out and force out what you can, even though you know it won't be as satisfying as you're hoping. Or maybe you should just relax and let it come in its own time. I've been working the latter strategy. This has resulted in a wholly unproductive week in which I explored the job market for someone with my skills where I live (not good). That reality sinking in might actually be motivating me, because I'm starting to realize I don't have any promising job options here so I better make something happen.
I'm writing a novel that I first formed about ten years ago, in high school. I know the plot, although I'm reworking it as I go. The skeleton will stay largely the same; I'm just tinkering with the muscles and nerves, I suppose. In some ways, that's not the most compelling thing to do as a writer. As writers, we get told the stories too. If you think we know it all from the start... we don't. Our characters surprise us and take us places we don't always foresee. It's a neat, fantastic experience. Part of me misses that. Part of me feels like I'm treading old grounds and maybe my writer's block this week is a sign to work on something else, at least sometimes. I'm rewriting this novel right now because I know if I sit down and put myself to the grindstone, I can hammer out the rewrite in two months. But I'm not finding that discipline and part of it is simply because it's boring work - it's menial work, insofar as writing goes. When I get to the second book, it'll be better, because the second book is the one I have least planned out (the third I have a vague skeleton for). But for now, it is what it is.
I feel the need to write something relevant. Ambivalence, which I'm working on now, is a fun story. It's about growing up, learning oneself, with a touch of wanderlust and father issues mixed in. It's also a swords-and-sorcery sort of read. It doesn't feel relevant, though. It deals with issues and themes that were more important to me ten years ago than they are today. The theme of wanderlust/homesickness sticks with me - I miss my home, Detroit, and its people, more than I can write here. I look around at a changing world and my changing life and it seems like there're more relevant things to write about. Young people - my generation - need a voice, and I'm writing about swords and sorcery. I feel like I can do better.
Part of me is scared. That happens. I haven't written anything new in years. That's part of why I wanted to focus on Ambivalence for now. To sharpen my tools, so to speak, and learn to walk again before I started running. But maybe I'm really holding myself back, maybe I need to set that aside sometimes and work on something else - something new - while I work on that draft. It's easy to feel like a failure when you're afraid of what's in front of you and the only result is that you're finding yourself being completely unproductive. It can be a hard mentality to break, no matter how fleeting it may be when it comes and goes.
I've been wandering, myself, for a long time now. "Home" has been a transient concept for... going on five years. It's probably part of why I feel so intensely homesick as I do so often - I haven't had a home since I left. Everywhere I've been has been temporary and I've known it, so I've kept myself from getting too attached. The only piece of my adult life that's fallen into place was actually, growing up, the one I expected to happen last, or would be the most challenging to obtain - the woman to spend that life with. But I've got her. Somehow, I need to make the rest of it happen. I never thought, growing up, that'd be the hard part.
I made the mistake of pausing and letting my fiancee read what I'd done. Not that she's unsupportive; she's quite wonderful, actually. But I was definitely trying to satisfy some odd desire within myself about my work by showing it to her. I think I was a feeling good about it and she got home while I was working, looking for after-work attentions (understandable, typically fine). Once I had said my afternoon hello to her, I really should have returned to my work. I was in the middle of a chapter - end of a scene, but middle of the chapter. I was in a good place and should have finished the chapter. Instead, I showed her what I'd done thusfar. Her enthusiasm was there, but not quite like mine. It was tempered and she made some good points about some other areas of the book and it sort of derailed me a little.
I see why Stephen King waits to show his wife his drafts until he's done with them.
This week, it just hasn't been there. It's an uncomfortable feeling, because in actuality, that chapter is planned out, but the ability to just sit down and hammer it out isn't there. It's like mental constipation. You might laugh, but it really is. You're sitting there at the computer wondering if you should sit there and strain yourself and make the veins on your neck stick out and force out what you can, even though you know it won't be as satisfying as you're hoping. Or maybe you should just relax and let it come in its own time. I've been working the latter strategy. This has resulted in a wholly unproductive week in which I explored the job market for someone with my skills where I live (not good). That reality sinking in might actually be motivating me, because I'm starting to realize I don't have any promising job options here so I better make something happen.
I'm writing a novel that I first formed about ten years ago, in high school. I know the plot, although I'm reworking it as I go. The skeleton will stay largely the same; I'm just tinkering with the muscles and nerves, I suppose. In some ways, that's not the most compelling thing to do as a writer. As writers, we get told the stories too. If you think we know it all from the start... we don't. Our characters surprise us and take us places we don't always foresee. It's a neat, fantastic experience. Part of me misses that. Part of me feels like I'm treading old grounds and maybe my writer's block this week is a sign to work on something else, at least sometimes. I'm rewriting this novel right now because I know if I sit down and put myself to the grindstone, I can hammer out the rewrite in two months. But I'm not finding that discipline and part of it is simply because it's boring work - it's menial work, insofar as writing goes. When I get to the second book, it'll be better, because the second book is the one I have least planned out (the third I have a vague skeleton for). But for now, it is what it is.
I feel the need to write something relevant. Ambivalence, which I'm working on now, is a fun story. It's about growing up, learning oneself, with a touch of wanderlust and father issues mixed in. It's also a swords-and-sorcery sort of read. It doesn't feel relevant, though. It deals with issues and themes that were more important to me ten years ago than they are today. The theme of wanderlust/homesickness sticks with me - I miss my home, Detroit, and its people, more than I can write here. I look around at a changing world and my changing life and it seems like there're more relevant things to write about. Young people - my generation - need a voice, and I'm writing about swords and sorcery. I feel like I can do better.
Part of me is scared. That happens. I haven't written anything new in years. That's part of why I wanted to focus on Ambivalence for now. To sharpen my tools, so to speak, and learn to walk again before I started running. But maybe I'm really holding myself back, maybe I need to set that aside sometimes and work on something else - something new - while I work on that draft. It's easy to feel like a failure when you're afraid of what's in front of you and the only result is that you're finding yourself being completely unproductive. It can be a hard mentality to break, no matter how fleeting it may be when it comes and goes.
I've been wandering, myself, for a long time now. "Home" has been a transient concept for... going on five years. It's probably part of why I feel so intensely homesick as I do so often - I haven't had a home since I left. Everywhere I've been has been temporary and I've known it, so I've kept myself from getting too attached. The only piece of my adult life that's fallen into place was actually, growing up, the one I expected to happen last, or would be the most challenging to obtain - the woman to spend that life with. But I've got her. Somehow, I need to make the rest of it happen. I never thought, growing up, that'd be the hard part.
Friday, July 1, 2011
A Song of Ice and Fire; Otherland, as well.
Over the past, oh, two or three months, I read through George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books; those of them published so far, which comprises four books., with the fifth coming out this month. I'd heard good things and had them recommended to me before, but like any good sheeple, I waited until I heard that they were making an HBO show out of it - not one to pass up on a medieval/fantasy show that looks credible, I decided I had to read the books first, at least the first.
The books are a different take on the fantasy genre; most fantasy books are spectacular showcases of action and sword-fighting and wizardry and dragons and whatnot. Most of them feel like "fluff", the term is, meaning that they seem to lack substance. Martin's series is quite the opposite. It is decidedly not "fluff" at all and it feels that way primarily because he shifts the narrative focus away from action and keeps it on the politicking of his world. It's not uncommon for a large battle to take place and only see it from one character's perspective, if at all, and then find out the greater summary of the battle after-the-fact, from another character. It's clear that Martin seems to view battles as a necessary result of the politicking of his realm; not as the primary reason his books exist. He enjoys nuance of character a lot more and does a great job of creating a large variety of striking characters. I would argue, because he delves so deeply into the politics, that he has too many characters - everyone has a name and a title and land and eventually they start to blur together. But I give credit to someone who takes the time to create a name, title and land for every minor character who gets a line of dialogue.
Spoilers, but I'll attempt to avoid anything specific.
I'm going to reference some of the books - to keep this accessible to all readers, I will be purposely vague in my references. I won't ruin anything outright, I promise, but I may allude to characters in a way that might spoil part of the experience for you, so read on at your own peril, or skip ahead to the next bolded section.
Martin doesn't have traditional chapters. Well, he does, only instead of Chapter 1/2/3, etc, he simply divides things up into point of view - so each book has somewhere between six and eight characters whose points of view we follow. It's still written in third-person, but still from that character's perspective and we get to glimpse into their mind. This helps Martin to create particularly vivid characters who are multi-faceted. It also helps him create a world where no one is definitively evil and no one is definitively good - everyone makes hard decisions for what they perceive to be the greater good; some people like their decisions, some people don't.
The best character Martin crafts is, in my opinion, Jaime Lannister, the notorious Kingslayer. He is presented, in the first book, as a first-rate, top-notch prick. The first book is told primarily from the point of view of the Stark family and we end up with their view of Jaime - he's an arrogant asshole; it doesn't help that he grievously wounds one of theirs, either. He's also bedding the king's wife - who happens to be his sister. This isn't known to the Starks, but as readers, we're allowed enough insights to put that together. But as the second book comes along, we're allowed Jaime's point of view, something that's maintained through the fourth book. We start to get inside his head and see what his motivations are, how he views himself, and why he does the things he does - most importantly, why he broke his vows and killed the former king, earning himself titles like Kingslayer and Oathbreaker. I won't go into it here, but another event in the third book, I believe, combined with the revelations about him the reader gleans from his point of view, help make Jaime one of the most interesting characters Martin writes.
If I have one issue with Martin, it starts at the fourth book, A Feast for Crows. He breaks from the storytelling of his past three books and ends up leaving out several major areas and characters, such as Jon Snow and the Wall or Daenerys and everything across the sea. At the end of the book, he notes that they'll get their own book, to be the fifth, which comes out this month (the note was dated June 2005...). I have two issues with this. First is that the fourth book starts to bring the hammer down on people who deserve it; we're left hanging at the end and knowing that the fifth book follows other characters means that continuing the series in the fifth book, as a reader, doesn't satisfy the "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!" urge. While I know as a writer, I'll enjoy reading the other characters as they likely hear about what's happening from the fourth book, the reader part of me will cringe a little and go "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" Ah well. The other issue I have with it also comes more as a writer - why break the book into two separate tomes following two separate groups (basically) instead of breaking it into books four and five, but keeping all characters in each book? A Feast for Crows was frustrating because of the amount of new chapter/point-of-view characters it introduced. Some offered valuable insights that deepened what was going on to me; others I honestly would have trouble remembering now or distinguishing from certain other characters.
I'm interested to see how he continues the series, though, and how long it'll end up being. I also can't help but think, as a writer, that if HBO wants to keep pushing their Game of Thrones series based on his work (the series, I should note, is mediocre at best; as a show on premium-cable, also, it has a really startling amount of naked boobs a lot of the time, too), that it may become a distraction to him, an added pressure to get the series done. Then again, he might also be using that to help motivate him.
Less George R.R. Martin, more of what I'm reading now...
So, with those books done for me for now - and I'll wait on the fifth til its in paperback - I've decided to move on to a series my lovely woman recommended to me after we discussed our mutual enjoyment of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, long long ago: the Otherland books, by Tad Williams.
I've gotta say, I'm intrigued. For one, the copyright on this first book, City of Golden Shadow, is 1996. I was on the Internet, gaming, in 1996. That was the year a game called Diablo came out: my first taste of online gaming. I remember what the 'net was like back then and I remember the fun noises that dial-up modems made (BINK BINK PONG WOOOOOONK KKKSHHHHH PONG BINK BINK BINK BINK KKKSHHHHH). Snow Crash was a good read in that regard, too, and also rather startling for being published in 1992, but Snow Crash was also less about the 'net and its possibilities than Otherland is.
As I read through Otherland, I can't help but also look at it through the eyes of someone who's been playing online games for the last fifteen years. I've watched games grow from Ultima Online and Diablo to things like World of WarCraft and online worlds that aren't games, like Second Life. For Williams to foresee something like Second Life, which his 'net represents well, in 1996 is rather striking to me. He even hints at gaming addiction, something that I don't think a lot of us were thinking about in 1996 but are certainly becoming more aware of in 2011, although it's still not an FDA-recognized form of addiction yet (it should be).
I'm not done with the first Otherland book yet; I'm about 250 pages into it and rather enjoying it now. It was a little slow at first, as all books can be, but the premise was interesting and I continued. Once the action starts to pick up, it starts to get to be one of those break-neck reads, where you can't slow down and have to keep going. But then, Mr. Williams does something so many other science-fiction/fantasy authors do - he shifts perspective. Robert Jordan, in his Wheel of Time books, is notorious for this (to me), too. I enjoy nothing, as a reader, less than when a part of a book gets really, really good and in order to manufacture suspense, the author shifts you to another character, making you wait to find out what happens, even though he's primed you to REALLY REALLY WANT THAT. I think it's a weak writing device; you can't even call it a plot device.
Part of writing - and, therefore, reading - is flow. Establish a good flow and it carries the reader and they'll be happier for it. This is true for fiction and non-fiction, even for essay-writing in school. As a reader, if you get to a point of significant action, nothing is worse than a herky-jerky pacing where you're bouncing between event and event and event from character and character and character. It's like riding in a car with someone who goes really fast, then stops, then goes really fast again, and stops. George R.R. Martin (whoops, though I was done talking about him) avoids this because his books lack a great deal of action - because he focuses on the politics of his world primarily, it's less common for him to start driving so fast, so to speak, that you're bothered when he puts on the brakes. Indeed, he often moves you to another character to help accentuate what the character you've been following just did - some decision is made, and you're moving on to someone's reaction, or something they're doing that will be affected by the decision. In any case, you're not often moving away from the event in question. In many other books, you have multiple characters the author focuses on, in multiple places, doing multiple things. As all of those venues shift, it's irritating. Even J.R.R. Tolkien does this, in the Lord of the Rings, but he mitigates it by having two groups - Frodo, with the ring, and everyone else (for the most part). And it's not consistent through the entire series; in the Fellowship, there's one group and you follow it. Then in the Two Towers, as they break apart, you follow... I believe it's three groups - Frodo, Aragorn, and Merry/Pippin. Then in the Return, you follow Frodo and the others. It's manageable, as a reader. Imagine if each character went somewhere different, did different things, and you got bounced between them all. Some writers do that.
I mentioned in my introductory post that, as a writer, I critique what I read as I read it. I'm always looking for things that bother me, because I don't want to bother you when I write. I look for things I don't do as well as I might like to and read things that might help me improve on that. I tend to admire those things; the most recent highlight of that sort is mentioned above, in Martin's handling of Jaime Lannister. He does fantastic things with that character; I hope to write a character as complex and interesting, who so infuriates the reader on one hand, yet is so admirable on the other. Stephen King once said that a writer can't write without reading. It's no coincidence that when I go through periods where I don't read much, I lose motivation to write. It'd be like cooking without eating. Well, you'd starve for one, but besides that obvious point, if you're not tasting anything, how can you know what you like? How can you know what goes good together, how to experiment with your craft? Exactly. On that note, I'll try to update this on occasion in regards to what I'm reading and how it strikes me. I plan to cruise through the Otherland book series (four books) for now and after that, I'm not sure. I don't plan my reading out that far ahead. Perhaps at the end of the year, I'll log in this blog (rhyme!) the books I've completed.
The books are a different take on the fantasy genre; most fantasy books are spectacular showcases of action and sword-fighting and wizardry and dragons and whatnot. Most of them feel like "fluff", the term is, meaning that they seem to lack substance. Martin's series is quite the opposite. It is decidedly not "fluff" at all and it feels that way primarily because he shifts the narrative focus away from action and keeps it on the politicking of his world. It's not uncommon for a large battle to take place and only see it from one character's perspective, if at all, and then find out the greater summary of the battle after-the-fact, from another character. It's clear that Martin seems to view battles as a necessary result of the politicking of his realm; not as the primary reason his books exist. He enjoys nuance of character a lot more and does a great job of creating a large variety of striking characters. I would argue, because he delves so deeply into the politics, that he has too many characters - everyone has a name and a title and land and eventually they start to blur together. But I give credit to someone who takes the time to create a name, title and land for every minor character who gets a line of dialogue.
Spoilers, but I'll attempt to avoid anything specific.
I'm going to reference some of the books - to keep this accessible to all readers, I will be purposely vague in my references. I won't ruin anything outright, I promise, but I may allude to characters in a way that might spoil part of the experience for you, so read on at your own peril, or skip ahead to the next bolded section.
Martin doesn't have traditional chapters. Well, he does, only instead of Chapter 1/2/3, etc, he simply divides things up into point of view - so each book has somewhere between six and eight characters whose points of view we follow. It's still written in third-person, but still from that character's perspective and we get to glimpse into their mind. This helps Martin to create particularly vivid characters who are multi-faceted. It also helps him create a world where no one is definitively evil and no one is definitively good - everyone makes hard decisions for what they perceive to be the greater good; some people like their decisions, some people don't.
The best character Martin crafts is, in my opinion, Jaime Lannister, the notorious Kingslayer. He is presented, in the first book, as a first-rate, top-notch prick. The first book is told primarily from the point of view of the Stark family and we end up with their view of Jaime - he's an arrogant asshole; it doesn't help that he grievously wounds one of theirs, either. He's also bedding the king's wife - who happens to be his sister. This isn't known to the Starks, but as readers, we're allowed enough insights to put that together. But as the second book comes along, we're allowed Jaime's point of view, something that's maintained through the fourth book. We start to get inside his head and see what his motivations are, how he views himself, and why he does the things he does - most importantly, why he broke his vows and killed the former king, earning himself titles like Kingslayer and Oathbreaker. I won't go into it here, but another event in the third book, I believe, combined with the revelations about him the reader gleans from his point of view, help make Jaime one of the most interesting characters Martin writes.
If I have one issue with Martin, it starts at the fourth book, A Feast for Crows. He breaks from the storytelling of his past three books and ends up leaving out several major areas and characters, such as Jon Snow and the Wall or Daenerys and everything across the sea. At the end of the book, he notes that they'll get their own book, to be the fifth, which comes out this month (the note was dated June 2005...). I have two issues with this. First is that the fourth book starts to bring the hammer down on people who deserve it; we're left hanging at the end and knowing that the fifth book follows other characters means that continuing the series in the fifth book, as a reader, doesn't satisfy the "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!" urge. While I know as a writer, I'll enjoy reading the other characters as they likely hear about what's happening from the fourth book, the reader part of me will cringe a little and go "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" Ah well. The other issue I have with it also comes more as a writer - why break the book into two separate tomes following two separate groups (basically) instead of breaking it into books four and five, but keeping all characters in each book? A Feast for Crows was frustrating because of the amount of new chapter/point-of-view characters it introduced. Some offered valuable insights that deepened what was going on to me; others I honestly would have trouble remembering now or distinguishing from certain other characters.
I'm interested to see how he continues the series, though, and how long it'll end up being. I also can't help but think, as a writer, that if HBO wants to keep pushing their Game of Thrones series based on his work (the series, I should note, is mediocre at best; as a show on premium-cable, also, it has a really startling amount of naked boobs a lot of the time, too), that it may become a distraction to him, an added pressure to get the series done. Then again, he might also be using that to help motivate him.
Less George R.R. Martin, more of what I'm reading now...
So, with those books done for me for now - and I'll wait on the fifth til its in paperback - I've decided to move on to a series my lovely woman recommended to me after we discussed our mutual enjoyment of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, long long ago: the Otherland books, by Tad Williams.
I've gotta say, I'm intrigued. For one, the copyright on this first book, City of Golden Shadow, is 1996. I was on the Internet, gaming, in 1996. That was the year a game called Diablo came out: my first taste of online gaming. I remember what the 'net was like back then and I remember the fun noises that dial-up modems made (BINK BINK PONG WOOOOOONK KKKSHHHHH PONG BINK BINK BINK BINK KKKSHHHHH). Snow Crash was a good read in that regard, too, and also rather startling for being published in 1992, but Snow Crash was also less about the 'net and its possibilities than Otherland is.
As I read through Otherland, I can't help but also look at it through the eyes of someone who's been playing online games for the last fifteen years. I've watched games grow from Ultima Online and Diablo to things like World of WarCraft and online worlds that aren't games, like Second Life. For Williams to foresee something like Second Life, which his 'net represents well, in 1996 is rather striking to me. He even hints at gaming addiction, something that I don't think a lot of us were thinking about in 1996 but are certainly becoming more aware of in 2011, although it's still not an FDA-recognized form of addiction yet (it should be).
I'm not done with the first Otherland book yet; I'm about 250 pages into it and rather enjoying it now. It was a little slow at first, as all books can be, but the premise was interesting and I continued. Once the action starts to pick up, it starts to get to be one of those break-neck reads, where you can't slow down and have to keep going. But then, Mr. Williams does something so many other science-fiction/fantasy authors do - he shifts perspective. Robert Jordan, in his Wheel of Time books, is notorious for this (to me), too. I enjoy nothing, as a reader, less than when a part of a book gets really, really good and in order to manufacture suspense, the author shifts you to another character, making you wait to find out what happens, even though he's primed you to REALLY REALLY WANT THAT. I think it's a weak writing device; you can't even call it a plot device.
Part of writing - and, therefore, reading - is flow. Establish a good flow and it carries the reader and they'll be happier for it. This is true for fiction and non-fiction, even for essay-writing in school. As a reader, if you get to a point of significant action, nothing is worse than a herky-jerky pacing where you're bouncing between event and event and event from character and character and character. It's like riding in a car with someone who goes really fast, then stops, then goes really fast again, and stops. George R.R. Martin (whoops, though I was done talking about him) avoids this because his books lack a great deal of action - because he focuses on the politics of his world primarily, it's less common for him to start driving so fast, so to speak, that you're bothered when he puts on the brakes. Indeed, he often moves you to another character to help accentuate what the character you've been following just did - some decision is made, and you're moving on to someone's reaction, or something they're doing that will be affected by the decision. In any case, you're not often moving away from the event in question. In many other books, you have multiple characters the author focuses on, in multiple places, doing multiple things. As all of those venues shift, it's irritating. Even J.R.R. Tolkien does this, in the Lord of the Rings, but he mitigates it by having two groups - Frodo, with the ring, and everyone else (for the most part). And it's not consistent through the entire series; in the Fellowship, there's one group and you follow it. Then in the Two Towers, as they break apart, you follow... I believe it's three groups - Frodo, Aragorn, and Merry/Pippin. Then in the Return, you follow Frodo and the others. It's manageable, as a reader. Imagine if each character went somewhere different, did different things, and you got bounced between them all. Some writers do that.
I mentioned in my introductory post that, as a writer, I critique what I read as I read it. I'm always looking for things that bother me, because I don't want to bother you when I write. I look for things I don't do as well as I might like to and read things that might help me improve on that. I tend to admire those things; the most recent highlight of that sort is mentioned above, in Martin's handling of Jaime Lannister. He does fantastic things with that character; I hope to write a character as complex and interesting, who so infuriates the reader on one hand, yet is so admirable on the other. Stephen King once said that a writer can't write without reading. It's no coincidence that when I go through periods where I don't read much, I lose motivation to write. It'd be like cooking without eating. Well, you'd starve for one, but besides that obvious point, if you're not tasting anything, how can you know what you like? How can you know what goes good together, how to experiment with your craft? Exactly. On that note, I'll try to update this on occasion in regards to what I'm reading and how it strikes me. I plan to cruise through the Otherland book series (four books) for now and after that, I'm not sure. I don't plan my reading out that far ahead. Perhaps at the end of the year, I'll log in this blog (rhyme!) the books I've completed.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The comfort of night...
I've always been fond of writing at night. When I was younger, I imagined that to be the fancy of a teenager who didn't go to sleep until 2 or 3am, anyway, and liked it that way. As I've grown, I've found that my inclination towards creativity hasn't found its way to the daytime hours yet. That's not to say it never happens or isn't possible, it just seems to take more effort. If I establish a daytime routine, it tends to work well enough and has in the past - I wrote a novel in my senior year of high school by having an independent study hour overseen by my creative writing teacher. That was at 9am or thereabouts, as I recall. It worked. I popped in my headphones and went on with it.
In real life, it's harder to find or create time that structured. When you're in school, in a situation like that, you're left with no other purpose than to write. It's nice. Other stresses vanish and that one in particular is pushed to the forefront. I can wax poetic all I like about a writer's purpose being to write and so on and so forth, but a writer is a person and sometimes a person's purpose on a given day is to make meatloaf for dinner, take the car to the shop or have a drink with friends at the downtown bar. These are the adult responsibilities of real life and they have to be acknowledged and satisfied. But most adult responsibilities in life have one thing in common - they fall under the jurisdiction of the day.
Besides that, the day is the time of business. It's a time of hustle and bustle! Even in a quiet apartment complex, there are comings and goings, children playing, motorcycles going by. But once night falls, silence descends. Oh sure, there's still ambient noise to be had, most of it road noise from afar, but otherwise, the world tends to be mercifully quiet and peaceful. And for the writer, who has had adult responsibilities to deal with, they're melted away. Either they got completed or they became the next day's matter. And so, it's at night that the mind can better unfurl, unrestrained by daytime worries and daytime noises.
I like to do things during the day. Go for a walk. Cook. Talk to people. Run errands. Read. Play a video game. These are responsibilities, hobbies and joys of mine. Sometimes I write. Sometimes there's something pressing that I can't ignore that I need to write about - this morning was like that. Last night, as I was going to sleep, after following the Detroit Tigers game, I started to write my article for The Daily Sports Update. When I woke up, it was still there. Before I even showered or got my pot of coffee started, I got it down and published it to the blog. It felt good, felt nice. But it's not always that easy.
Tonight was a good night and perhaps there'll be more like them now. My woman works an early morning shift for her job and goes in even earlier now, so as to get in a morning workout. This leaves me with great freedom at night; she went to bed at 8:30pm or so tonight. Almost as soon as she did, as I sat at my computer pondering how to fill the rest of my evening, that creative spark struck and I finally - FINALLY - pushed through a part of my novel that I wasn't enjoying. I put my earphones in my ears, turned on iTunes and got to work. One hour and several pages later, I had another part done and a fresh feeling to myself as I realized that this particular part of my novel only has a couple more pages before I can get moving on with the primary plot, something I've been struggling to do for a few days.
Was that possible earlier? Sure. Probably. But there's a certain ease to it at night... all of my daytime worries are faded. Anything I didn't do today is firmly the property of tomorrow. So this time, this remarkably precious time between now and when I lay my head to my pillow... it's completely uninhibited, completely without hindrance. It's the blank page that the day can never be, because the day itself authors work upon us. The night makes no such impositions on us and for that reason, it's so often at night when I find myself tap-tap-tapping away on my keyboard.
In real life, it's harder to find or create time that structured. When you're in school, in a situation like that, you're left with no other purpose than to write. It's nice. Other stresses vanish and that one in particular is pushed to the forefront. I can wax poetic all I like about a writer's purpose being to write and so on and so forth, but a writer is a person and sometimes a person's purpose on a given day is to make meatloaf for dinner, take the car to the shop or have a drink with friends at the downtown bar. These are the adult responsibilities of real life and they have to be acknowledged and satisfied. But most adult responsibilities in life have one thing in common - they fall under the jurisdiction of the day.
Besides that, the day is the time of business. It's a time of hustle and bustle! Even in a quiet apartment complex, there are comings and goings, children playing, motorcycles going by. But once night falls, silence descends. Oh sure, there's still ambient noise to be had, most of it road noise from afar, but otherwise, the world tends to be mercifully quiet and peaceful. And for the writer, who has had adult responsibilities to deal with, they're melted away. Either they got completed or they became the next day's matter. And so, it's at night that the mind can better unfurl, unrestrained by daytime worries and daytime noises.
I like to do things during the day. Go for a walk. Cook. Talk to people. Run errands. Read. Play a video game. These are responsibilities, hobbies and joys of mine. Sometimes I write. Sometimes there's something pressing that I can't ignore that I need to write about - this morning was like that. Last night, as I was going to sleep, after following the Detroit Tigers game, I started to write my article for The Daily Sports Update. When I woke up, it was still there. Before I even showered or got my pot of coffee started, I got it down and published it to the blog. It felt good, felt nice. But it's not always that easy.
Tonight was a good night and perhaps there'll be more like them now. My woman works an early morning shift for her job and goes in even earlier now, so as to get in a morning workout. This leaves me with great freedom at night; she went to bed at 8:30pm or so tonight. Almost as soon as she did, as I sat at my computer pondering how to fill the rest of my evening, that creative spark struck and I finally - FINALLY - pushed through a part of my novel that I wasn't enjoying. I put my earphones in my ears, turned on iTunes and got to work. One hour and several pages later, I had another part done and a fresh feeling to myself as I realized that this particular part of my novel only has a couple more pages before I can get moving on with the primary plot, something I've been struggling to do for a few days.
Was that possible earlier? Sure. Probably. But there's a certain ease to it at night... all of my daytime worries are faded. Anything I didn't do today is firmly the property of tomorrow. So this time, this remarkably precious time between now and when I lay my head to my pillow... it's completely uninhibited, completely without hindrance. It's the blank page that the day can never be, because the day itself authors work upon us. The night makes no such impositions on us and for that reason, it's so often at night when I find myself tap-tap-tapping away on my keyboard.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Welcome to the Writer's Block
I haven't really kept an active, creative blog in a long time. Not since I was in high school, probably. Perhaps not coincidentally, I wrote more frequently while I was in high school; but I generally attribute that to the fact that I needed something to do to keep amused in class.
Anyway. Welcome to the Writer's Block. I'm Pierce Wilkinson and odds are you either know me personally or you've stumbled upon this and you have no idea who I am. That's fine. It's good to meet you or, if I know you already, it's good to have you reading. I am a writer. I've always identified myself as such, but I haven't always put forth the effort necessary to be truly successful in that endeavor. Recently, I decided to re-dedicate myself to what I've always considered to be my craft. Creating and maintaining this blog is part of that.
I plan to do a few different things with this blog. One thing I intend to do is use it as a critical outlet; I find it hard, as a writer, to get overly engrossed in entertainment - movies/literature/TV/video games; anything that's written, really - because part of me is always analyzing it, wondering how I could have done better, wondering what aspects of it had never occurred to me before, etc. Sometimes that's a simple thing - such as "well, that was a mediocre film with inconsistent character development and a flimsy plot" - and sometimes it's more complicated, such as considerations over whether or not a film is too realistic (at the cost of enjoyment) or whether an author's style annoys me. A more detailed example - coming in an article soon - is an assessment of realism vs. fun; at what point does making fiction "realistic" detract from the enjoyment of the audience? Where's the line in the sand in that regard? An example I'll use to whet your appetite is this - in the TV show 24, which I'm sure most people are at least conceptually familiar with - not once does the hero stop to eat, sleep or use the bathroom... over 24 hours. Some people have criticized that; I say I don't want to watch Jack Bauer take a dump, so I'm okay with it.
Secondly, I intend to use this as a creative outlet. It's called the Writer's Block for two reasons - first is because writer's block is a real thing and it is a problem for all writers at some point. Life gets in the way, or other problems get in the way, or there's that one little plot wrinkle you have to get out before you keep writing, or it's just that blank white page and that blinking cursor mocking you... and sometimes being able to discuss that, or being able to discuss where I am creatively, can help cross it. The other reason it's called the Writer's Block (note the caps this time) is because that sounds like it could be a place! Right? Hey, welcome to the Writer's Block. Pull up a stool or a chair and grab a beer, or a coffee, or some water, if that's your taste, and let's chat about life. Works for me.
And thirdly, I may preview some of my works here. Be it the introductory chapter of a novel, or some other snippet of a longer work, or the occasional short story - you'll see it here. I am not a genre-bound writer; I've always worked hard to avoid that in my writing. Like most writers, I have certain recurring themes that I'm sure my readers will notice over time, but I enjoy branching into different genres. At the moment, I'm working on a medieval fantasy novel - the first in a trilogy, actually - and after that, I am considering some thoughts for either a science fiction space opera type of work or a contemporary novel. Maybe taking some time out to write short, although that's never been my forte, sadly. And, of course, for blogging.
So, I'll say it one more time - welcome to the Writer's Block. Enjoy your stay and come back as often as you like. I look forward to your readership.
Anyway. Welcome to the Writer's Block. I'm Pierce Wilkinson and odds are you either know me personally or you've stumbled upon this and you have no idea who I am. That's fine. It's good to meet you or, if I know you already, it's good to have you reading. I am a writer. I've always identified myself as such, but I haven't always put forth the effort necessary to be truly successful in that endeavor. Recently, I decided to re-dedicate myself to what I've always considered to be my craft. Creating and maintaining this blog is part of that.
I plan to do a few different things with this blog. One thing I intend to do is use it as a critical outlet; I find it hard, as a writer, to get overly engrossed in entertainment - movies/literature/TV/video games; anything that's written, really - because part of me is always analyzing it, wondering how I could have done better, wondering what aspects of it had never occurred to me before, etc. Sometimes that's a simple thing - such as "well, that was a mediocre film with inconsistent character development and a flimsy plot" - and sometimes it's more complicated, such as considerations over whether or not a film is too realistic (at the cost of enjoyment) or whether an author's style annoys me. A more detailed example - coming in an article soon - is an assessment of realism vs. fun; at what point does making fiction "realistic" detract from the enjoyment of the audience? Where's the line in the sand in that regard? An example I'll use to whet your appetite is this - in the TV show 24, which I'm sure most people are at least conceptually familiar with - not once does the hero stop to eat, sleep or use the bathroom... over 24 hours. Some people have criticized that; I say I don't want to watch Jack Bauer take a dump, so I'm okay with it.
Secondly, I intend to use this as a creative outlet. It's called the Writer's Block for two reasons - first is because writer's block is a real thing and it is a problem for all writers at some point. Life gets in the way, or other problems get in the way, or there's that one little plot wrinkle you have to get out before you keep writing, or it's just that blank white page and that blinking cursor mocking you... and sometimes being able to discuss that, or being able to discuss where I am creatively, can help cross it. The other reason it's called the Writer's Block (note the caps this time) is because that sounds like it could be a place! Right? Hey, welcome to the Writer's Block. Pull up a stool or a chair and grab a beer, or a coffee, or some water, if that's your taste, and let's chat about life. Works for me.
And thirdly, I may preview some of my works here. Be it the introductory chapter of a novel, or some other snippet of a longer work, or the occasional short story - you'll see it here. I am not a genre-bound writer; I've always worked hard to avoid that in my writing. Like most writers, I have certain recurring themes that I'm sure my readers will notice over time, but I enjoy branching into different genres. At the moment, I'm working on a medieval fantasy novel - the first in a trilogy, actually - and after that, I am considering some thoughts for either a science fiction space opera type of work or a contemporary novel. Maybe taking some time out to write short, although that's never been my forte, sadly. And, of course, for blogging.
So, I'll say it one more time - welcome to the Writer's Block. Enjoy your stay and come back as often as you like. I look forward to your readership.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)