#11 That time of year again

Once more NaNoWriMo rolls around and I return to this blog. Hmm. Getting pretty bad at posting here. I've had a lot going on, but this sort of keeps me writing and thinking about my writing. The fact I haven't posted here probably explains some things.

Anyway, NaNo. This year's plan is to tackle my EpicWIP. Finally. It needs a complete rewrite from top to bottom so this seemed to be a good opportunity. It's almost certainly going to be longer than 50K, but this will be a good start. I've had it in my head for such a long time. It'll be weird when it's gone and all down on paper. Although I have so many funny extra little skits that I play with, there'll always be something to add.

Hmm. Don't want to talk about it too much just yet - I'm sure I'll get into that once NaNo kicks off. But it is funny how things work. It's evolved from a relatively simple story into something so complex I'm not sure how I can convey all the nuances of it. And I've been looking critically at it for a couple of months, trying to condense a sequence of events into something that will work in a more concise way. I've spent ages trying to hammer it out and make it work. And then I get what I will call the Voice of Experience in my head. Something that comes up just occasionally when an idea comes completely out of nowhere, like it's been handed to you. And it pats me on the head and says "Very nice. Three acts, I like that. But you know... It would make more sense if you did it like this..."
And I look at the rearranged pieces and it works. Sure, a few other things get screwed up along the way, but I'll fix 'em. Little epiphanies are nice, but so frustrating after so long. I just wish they'd show up sooner.

I think once NaNo is done (since I'll probably be sick of the sight of the NaNo project) I might start my reading for my next project (Editing? Hahaha... Yeah, right. Still haven't finished NaNo '06 so I have no unrealistic expectations of leaping into editing...).

I have this thing that I've written the beginning for. There's a plot with it now and I think the idea is really interesting. If I can do it right, that is. It starts out and feels like something approaching high fantasy (not medieval though, a little later in technology than that) but as things go on, it becomes clear that things are very very dark. It has layers. Some characters know much more than others, but none of them are really aware of exactly what's going on. For sure, at least one main character is going to die, but I'm not totally sure which one yet.

Let's try for a synopsis. It might help my thought processes. There are three countries, each with their own god, although the all nominally worship all three. They just pay special attention to their particular deity. Travel and trade between the three is severely restricted (thriving black market though), though the clergy and those high up have access to what they want. Money and power can get you anything. The clergy don't rule, but wield enormous power within the structure of each country. Belief is more or less compulsory, and in any case, no one would question it because the gods actually appear in the temples frequently.
Into this, my little revolutionary, Oona, is born. She gets inducted into the priesthood. It could be a path to greatness, to power and wealth and secret knowledge. It also comes with institutionalised child abuse of the worst kinds, unknown to most of the population (those that guess don't care). Oona manages to get out of it after many, many years and plots her own revenge, against the priests, the politicians and the system that let it all happen.
She knows the gods aren't real, but smoke and mirror creations. She gathers people to her and has a plan to bring everything crashing down, but makes discoveries along the way that make it untenable. There is a fourth country, with a god of its own, that has a part to play. And while the temple's deities are illusions, there are real gods and they are the last thing that Oona expects.
Oona isn't the first revolutionary. Not even the second. There have been many before her, all children who initially wanted to bring the system down. But you kill a god and you take its place. Once you're a deity, the last thing you want is to bring down the system that sustains you. Power corrupts.
She's in a spot, unable to kill them but unable to let them go. I'm not entirely sure what happens here. There are a few scenarios and they all involve dead people. Hmm. Decisions. But this should serve to prompt my memory come the end of November.
*pats Oona* She's a bit of a pyschopath but it's not exactly her fault.

#10 I'm atually going to do it this time...

By which I mean editing.

Long time since I wrote here, mostly because I haven't been writing so much story-wise and so I have less cause to procrastinate. And, of course, I've been trying to edit. Still.

I was thinking of attempting Script Frenzy this month since my last NaNo project would lend itself quite nicely to radio, but then I spotted the gigantic flaw in my plan. Three characters, and sometimes an extra two, are mute and communicate by notes. This isn't a problem for two of them,. I can have the people reading the notes read them out loud. The third character, Delphine, is a problem. She need to have a real presence and I just don't think that's going to happen on a radio script if she never says a word. I can't see a way to make it work and I'm not doing a half-arsed job just for the sake of doing it. I did wonder about assigning her something like a leit motif, but I'm really not sure that will work in a way that won't sound like Mitchell and Webbs green clarinet of whatever it was.

So, with that abandoned for now I've gone back to trying to find a way to restructure A Measure of Life in a way that pleases me. I have one scene that screams to me that it's the place to start. I just have too much story before that and I really do need at least some of it. Part of my problem is that I shift POV about half way through the story. I don't see this is a huge problem. The focus shifts and obviously you need to see what's going on. Also, the story does not work with one POV. If you never see inside Zillah's head she appears to be a very nasty piece of work. Things are more complicated than that.

So... my latest plan is to divide the whole thing into three. It feels neat and as I spend a lot of time talking about threes in there it seems about right. One section for each principle character, and the story sort of work that way anyway. I still don't get to start where I want to but at least there's a structure and I have a Plan.

I'm trying the idea of writing scenes down on cards and shuffling them around, since I've heard various people say it work for them. It doesn't seem to work for me.

Ah. And I need to update my books since it looks like I've read nothing this year...

#9 It's over! Praise be to the deity of your choice!

NaNoWriMo is over. I managed 50,666 words so I've just printed out my shiny winners certificate. It gets to replace the 2006 one on the fridge.

I wasn't expecting this year to be that difficult. I don't remember finding last year difficult. I knew what I wanted to write, it was mostly just a matter of finding the time. There were occasional moments when I knew I needed something to happen before something else happened, so I had to make something up quick. There were moments of surprise when something happened that I didn't expect, or something I had put in earlier on a whim turned out to be useful.

This year was really hard work. I know people say the second year is harder, but I didn't believe them until now. It was hard work from start to finish. Most days I didn't know what I was going to write. There are occasional things that I like. I think the original idea is still in there, struggling to get out. I still like the idea. Time to leave it for a month or so now and see what I think of the execution of it then.

Should anyone want to read through it (and I realise I'm not exactly selling it) they would be most welcome. Deedee is already reading. She's brilliant because shockingly she actually likes reading my writing but will tell me if I'm just being plain stupid.

Anyway, another thing that I found different from last year was that after last year's NaNo, all I wanted to do was sit around and play computer games and read books. I had no desire whatsoever to do any more writing for months. This year I do. Maybe it's just because I didn't find it so hard to find the time. Maybe it's because while the plot for the NaNo story was struggling, I had the best ideas for things in the EpicWIP. ...Ok, some of them are cracktastic. Some of them are actually good and I will seriously use. Funny though they are, we are not having a repeat of the Pink Bunnies of Doom.

Now we come to the point of the blogpost. I want to do some writing but I don't have the most up to date version of the document I'm working on. Thus the universe thwarts me again.

#8 WGA Strike

So... Writer's Guild of America strike. It's an easy opt out to say it doesn't involve me, it's not even in my country, why bother about it?

But the fact is that Hollywood and LA remain the centre of the entertainment world, at least for the US and Europe. Many of the films and TV shows I watch originate there. And besides that, if people can get away with not paying thier writers in Hollywood, maybe other similar places like Bollywood will be tempted to follow suit.

You may not have heard much about this. You should think very carefully about who owns the majority of the papers and the news.

Anyway, lots of people who know more than I do and who say it better have been busy blogging about why they support the strike. Two of the best posts I've seen are from Doris Egan, who currently works on House and Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame. Diane Duane, a sci-fi and fantasy author has a rather good video posted on her blog.

There have been various videos... (Blogger sadly seems to have some objection to me embedding them)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ydTaPQw-c

Is quite a good one (another one Diane Duane found)

Ken Levine has written a lovely Simpson's scene on the subject.

If I haven't persuaded you to follow any of these links, a simple summary is this. Writers would like to be paid for the work they've done. In exchange for taking the issue of DVDs off the table (current rate: 4 cents per DVD is what I've heard, though not sure how accurate that is), they were promised a discussion of new media, of the internet (Current rate: 0 cents for anything.). Turns out, the various people who run these companies think that they might not make money from the internet. So... you know, why pay writers? The promised discussion never really took place.

I would like to think that most people are now aware that actors don't make up their own lines. I would like to think most people would acknowledge that writers make their favourite movie or whatever the way it is. More people are following writers these days, as a guide to TV programmes that they'll like, Joss Whedon's following being an example of that (or Aaron Sorkin for that matter). Although they are less visible and it's harder for them to do, say, what the cast of Friends did and threaten to walk away if they weren't paid more, I hope that people would notice if the writing quality of something suddenly nose dived, just as they would notice if Jennifer Aniston and co were suddenly not in Friends.

Ok, things you can do. Supporters are welcome on the picket lines, should you happen to be in the US and near one of these things. And you know, wouldn't it be pretty cool to hang out with these people, even if it wasn't for a good cause? The WGA digest gives you news and fans4writers have a list of things to do, including donating to their fund to keep the picket lines well fed. while I'm not a fan of petitions, there's one to sign.

They aren't asking for a tropical island somewhere or a private jet. They want enough to feed their kids. Think of your favourite movie, your favourite line. Somebody wrote that. Chances are, they were a WGA member. Chances are they were paid a pittance for it. How much do you think that line is worth? Now there are lots of things that contribute to a good movie, or TV show. But words are what make it. If you don't have those and you don't value those, then you have nothing but a room full of lights and people, waiting for something to happen. If the industry can't learn to value words then we have a lot of crappy TV to look forward to.

#7 Why I hate my story

This is my story so far. I'm more or less on target as far as the word count goes.

But I hate it. I keep trying to make myself like it, and there are bits that are ok, but... no. I'm bored of it. I don't feel there's anything exciting to look forward to, so I can't even make myself just get through the next bit because... there's only a lot more like it to come. Argh.

Anyway, I am going to keep writing it. I'm going to hit 50K, though the story is planned out to 80K, so it won't actually be finished then. Maybe I'll abandon that planning scheme to try and make it more exciting. *yawn*

But so far as the discipline of actually sitting down and writing nearly 2K every day goes... I've done pretty good. Way better than last year. Last year it took me most of my evening to get my writing done. This year, I sit down and do it in a couple of hours and get the rest of the day to myself.

I'm planning post-NaNo things to keep me going. This is not so much a blog post as me trying to encourage myself to open the thing up and do some more writing...

#6 The Curse of NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is nearly upon us. This year I bought a T-shirt because I liked the colour (also because I still have a lingering belief from childhood that the more stuff I have around me associated with something will somehow make me better at it... I know, I know.) and I have been playing on the forums, answering questions and generally being sociable. Should anyone like to friend me, that would be most welcome (Gem351 is my username).

I thought up until yesterday that I knew what story I would be writing. I had a retelling of Beauty and the Beast in mind, in a more historical setting than fantasy. I had named my characters. I had worked out a few plot elements, although not very many. Now I'm not so sure.

Last year, I had vague meandering plot ideas, but I had characters that I knew. I had a decent, but still vague idea of Zillah, Sam and Micheal. Red was easy as soon as he walked onstage, as it were. Flowers was... challenging for me, but it just doesn't feel like that this time round.

This year I really feel it's laboured. I don't really HAVE a plot (even last year I had a faint idea of one, such as it was). The thing is, nothing much really happens. I mean, I have complex relationships worked out between people (which I think I'm getting pretty good at, my epic WIP to thank for that one.) but there's nothing much for them to DO.

I'm seriously considering ditching it, which is a shame because I still love the title and beginning I have in mind. But it just isn't cooked yet. I think this one needs a while longer in my head.

I have various other ideas I could pull out. There's Jemima's story, but again, that's a newish idea that I think needs time to stew and needs a lot of research. I could fudge it, but I get a lot of ideas when I read non-fiction and it would be a shame to miss out on those.

So... second NaNo idea is something that I wrote the first four paragraphs of two years ago. Or so. I was never quite sure what the rest of the story was but it seems to be playing ball with me for the last week. The world is built. I need to work a little on one of the characters (Oona) but I think I could write that. It lets me play in a lot of cultures and with a different technology level than I usually write.

Lastly, the same as last year, my epicWIP which has been uncooperative over the summer, now decides it's time to get active again. I think it has some kind of weird hibernation cycle. I'm still writing the backstory thingy for Deedee (it's up to 12 pages... how did I get this verbose?) and now I have another thing I want to write quick before I forget it because it is neat and awesome in so very many ways (and also shows that last years Pink bunnies of Doom sketch had its uses...)

#5 For which I have no title

My little trip to the Criterion yesterday was very enjoyable. Neil was charming as always and does a rather good Jonathan Ross impersonation. I queued to get books signed afterwards. And it was a loooong queue, but I had a nice time talking to new people. I also got a notebook I've had for a while scribbled in, because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

I made the mistake of subscribing to a number of the NaNoWriMo threads/forums yesterday and woke up this morning to over 90 emails. I LIKE getting emails, but that's too much, even for me.

Anyway, work calls (unusually).

EDIT: Here is my notebook. It's kind of random unless... Ok. Explanation. This is a lovely leather bound notebook that the person who gave it to me described as a 'grail diary'. Think Indiana Jones. So I explained (in a rather rambling but still somehow coherent fashion) to Neil that it was such a lovely notebook it deserved something GOOD written in it but that I didn't have anything yet and I didn't want to ruin it. And he said "So you want me to ruin it first?" and well yes, I did, please. And we talked a little and he doodled this for me on the first page. Not sure if it'll make me write any more. I'm the only thing that makes me write more, really, for all I like to pretend that various acoutrements will help me. But it's sort of nice and the picture makes me smile.