A slight problem with 2 books at once.

It's been a bit since I've blogged. I've been pretty busy with work and play. I've still done a fair bit more writing though. The catch being that most of it has been on BookB, including ~1000 words added to the worldbuilding outline and details this afternoon.

That's the problem I'm running into with having 2 books on the go at once. I'm flip-flopping between them at this stage far too often. I'm going to have to limit one to just notes, while pouring actual work into the other. With my recent inclination to work on BookB and the feel I've had for the characters, it's going into Primary mode for the next little while. We'll see how far I get.

Thankfully I've been keeping any sleep-interrupting work to point form notes. Oddly those notes seem to be more coherent when reviewed during waking hours than any "fully formed" ideas I'd written previously during those early morning sessions.

I'm trying a few writing exercises to try and put some sense of productivity into my what little writing time I have. More than anything, I'm spending the time writing, whether I feel particularly inspired or not, just to get myself into the habit of it. Some of it actually turns out well enough and may be usable, the rest I'll just consider time well spent increasing my typing speed and thought processes.

I've been informed that a good rule of thumb for your first submission to an editor or publisher should be over 150,000 and under 300,000 words. 300,000! Three Hundred Thousand! Bloody hell that's a lot of words! Here I am happy pushing out about 2500 a day, and not even achieving that every day.

It's going to take some really inspired writing to have to worry about going over the limit. I'll just focus on being over the minimum without cheap filler for the time being.

-Grimm

Fantasy vs. Science Fiction

I don't know about you, but I've always been somewhat bothered by the lumping of Fantasy and Science Fiction by most book-sellers. The two really don't belong to the same category, unless you go so far as "Fiction" as a category, but then Mystery and most certainly Romance novels fit in there too. Of course, Mystery and Romance get their own section, in just about every book-seller.

I think the point is that Science Fiction and Fantasy generally have the largest overlapping audience. I like to think that means we're the more intelligent readers. Most likely it means we're a "niche" and only deserve so much shelf space. Either way, we're still the more intelligent audience.

So, I've pounded out about 2000 words (not much really) about BookB, mostly just getting some thoughts and information down so I don't lose it or confuse it. It occurred to me that writing Fantasy could be considerably MORE difficult than writing Science Fiction. I know what you may be thinking! OK, maybe I don't know what you may be thinking, but let me presume, I'm presumptuous like that. Anyway you may be thinking that Fantasy should be easier than writing Science Fiction, you can make up your own rules.

That right there is the problem.

With Science Fiction, you can fall back on science to assist you in making tough decisions: Anti-matter propulsion? Absolutely possible, but very dangerous! Great, I can build on that! Bio-engineering an all-in-one food-source? Absolutely possible as well, in fact it's likely being worked on to some degree right now. Flashy lasers and noisy space explosions? No, neither is really possible, you can't see lasers, you can't hear explosions that occur in space. See? Simple! Consider disbelief suspended by the power of science!

With Fantasy, Bloody Hell!!! I can create whatever I want really, but you have to still manage to suspend disbelief to some degree or you're going to fling the reader right out of your book and likely off of their sofa, where they'll get a nasty bruise on the underside of their elbow and curse your name, never reading one of your books again. That there is bad business for an aspiring writer. Which I apparently am, since I titled my blog to that effect.

I'm quite looking forward with glee to working on both BookA (Sci-Fi) and BookB (Fantasy) and the processes involved in these two very different and separate genres.

Concerning Timelines

Timelines are very important to planning a story (I think... well, they seem important to me). Some of today was spent nailing down several aspects of the timeline leading up to the introduction of the main characters. Worldbuilding if you will, though, this being BookA, is science fiction (with as little fiction to the science as I can possibly muster without having it BORING!), so it's not so much world"building" as world"expanding".

I chalked up about 3000 words of point form setting up a chronological series of events to go from a "now" that's slightly further down the road than "now" to "then" when the main characters' stories begin.

It was an interesting exercise, and will be the opening of the book. Originally meant to just be a prologue, I may have to transform it into a full first act! There's so much substance and emotion I want to dig into in those 3000 words.

Progress (of sorts).

Since posting the first post, and directing a few eyeballs to my little text-spew here I've added about 2000 words and done a few hours research on some background information. So far so good.

I've had the luck of work being a bit slow while people are on vacation, so beyond a bit of Patent work and research today I've got a reasonably clean slate for my working hours. On top of that, I'm working at home, so that's an added bonus. I have to stay chained to my desk anyway in case anything happens.

Of course, I still have to figure out the narrative voice and tone of BookA, at the same time, perhaps I'll throw a bit down on a second set of notes for BookB since it's rattling the bars in my cavernous dungeon of a skull and trying to be heard.

A little tech aside: How did writers ever get by without computers? Even in the typewriter days it must have been mind-bogglingly frustrating spell-checking, editing, and compiling notes. I've rewritten paragraphs 5 or 6 times and still not been happy with them. Though perhaps that's actually a benefit, you can't niggle and pick at little bits and pieces as you go, granting more opportunity to get the overall narrative out.

Perhaps I need some instruction on good writing habits, who knows.

Oh, one more thing, I simply LOVE DropBox (yes, that's a referral link, not the point). I used to keep my notes on a USB key to allow me to work on multiple machines, which is incredibly stressful if you think you've lost it, now I have what's essentially a folder based SVN repository that keeps in sync between all my various internet enabled devices. It's far more efficient and stress free.

First!

Alright, I don't know if it's a bad sign, but I've almost hit a block on my first blog post. Figures.

Well, how about an introduction? I'm 31 and currently employed working R&D/Strategy for a cable MSO. I have a fantastic wife and 2 daughters who don't think I'm crazy (most of the time).

It's always been my dream to be a writer. Well, almost always! I went through the usual boyhood dreams of being a police officer, a fireman, an art thief (still have that dream on occassion), and I'd love to make a living at it. Writing, not grand theft, though, I do still daydream.

I have so many ideas bumbling about in my head, crashing into each other, bouncing off and going about their merry way and at some point I want to get them out there, not because I think they're brilliant or amazing, or even what the world wants to read. You see, if I don't get them out, they won't go away. They keep me up at night, adding little tidbits to my notes (and boy do I have lots of those).

The catch is, they have to hit critical mass for me to take them beyond notes and into the realm of an actual narrative, and writing that narrative seems to take a bit more discipline than I've been able to muster. Between work, family, World of Warcraft (my personal guilty pleasure), and keeping up on my own reading, all my writing thus far has happened in little fits and starts.

Back in highschool I wrote a short story (60 or so pages) and it was a monumental achievement for me, it was the start of the dream. 60 pages! It seemed huge! Now I have nearly that just in outline and character notes. I think that's nearly critical mass for that story right there. So that's what this blog is going to be, not the story, but a place for me to vent. A place for me to unwind, track, and hopefully keep myself on track to getting this thing done.

You see, I've found that keeping others aware of what I'm doing, and my percieved weight of their expectations helps keep things going. I probably over-value what others think of me and my work. I'm going to use that as a motivator.

Anyway, pushed the first blog post out. It's a mess, but I can't exactly get an editor for blog posts, and they'll tend to ramble and go off topic, much like this closing. I expect they'll get better the more comfortable I get writing them.