Developments

It turns out that Sandy G has been making a lot of mistakes lately, so she is being put on the back burner, so to speak.  This means, obviously, more time for me to be out, so here I am!  I won't be able to use this time for writing, unfortunately, since Aramelle wants G2 to finish his sci fi story.  He has been working on getting all the background material updated and corrected, so hasn't actually written very much.  But he is working on it.

In the meantime, I have a lot of stories that I need to edit and finish up.  I will try to use some of the time I have out to do that.  I am not sure how much I can get done, but I will do my best to utilize the time as productively as I can.

Background files

I have spent much of the past week updating my character profiles and background descriptions for my Tonia Jackson series.  It has turned out to be a lot more work than I thought, and while I find it greatly gratifying to play God and determine how long people live, who they interact with, and what their personality is, it is also exhausting.  Add to that the fact that each character is intertwined with other characters in the story, making changes and developments in one character's profile the start of a chain reaction in many other profiles, and the amount of work suddenly seems to explode.  And, to make it even more difficult, as I flesh out a character, like a Frankenstein monster, he or she begins to take on a life of their own, wanting to change things, be in control, and thwart all my God-like plans.

I also have to update and explore the background data.  For example, I have a couple who got married in the early 1940's.  So what was going on then?  Well, there was Pearl Harbor, for one thing.  So where was this couple living?  How were they affected by the outbreak of war?  What did that do to their plans to start a family?  All these things come into play.  And these are just minor characters!  Yet their decisions affect one of my main characters quite directly, since they are his parents.

But it is fun weaving such complicated tapestries, isn't it?

Sticking My Toe In The Water

When I went to work on my story yesterday, I discovered that I first had to organize a lot of my character and background files.  That is really annoying!  You think you are about to plunge into the water but when you test it with your tootsie, you discover that it is frigid!  It takes time to recall who your story was about, what their motivations, fears, and actions were, or where you wanted to take the story.  While there is something to be said for putting something down and coming back to it with fresh eyes, this is a bit extreme.  I need to find a way to get back into my story a lot more quickly.

One way is to have a set of notes on your characters, the plot, the theme, the conflicts, and so forth.  This is what my background file contains.  I just spent yesterday putting it into a HTML format so that eventually I can post it on the web.  Not sure why, but that seems to be our standard practice on the Estate.

Cycle Six

Ok, let's hear it for enthusiasm!  Optimism!  A new start!

Cycle Five was a dismal failure for us.  Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  At least in terms of writing.  I think we got nothing of serious import accomplished during that ten week period. 

But this time, it will be different.  We are all entering this cycle with a new attitude, a can-do attitude.  It is getting cooler outside, so we will be spending more time indoors, and hopefully more time glued to our computer.  We are also working on this new eating program, and although we are at a plateau right now, we are still optimistic that it will work.  We plan on losing a lot of weight and getting ourselves into better shape. 

It is time to take charge of our lives and move forward.

Set-backs

I am a bit disappointed with myself.  I thought I had the drive and the will power to turn our dismal writing performance around, but I am as lackadaisical as everyone else.  I blame it on the heat, but that is a lame excuse.  The truth is, I am tired.  I am frustrated by everyone trying to establish a "social" life or even a love life, at the expense of what is really important - our writing.  All the lovers and even the friends will drop by the wayside, but the writing remains.  We should be focusing all of our energies on that.

I am also discouraged by my weight.  I've gained another five pounds in the past month, and I have almost no chance of getting rid of it.  My sedentary life does not bode well for burning calories, and my lousy dietetic choices only add to my weight gain.  I need a lot more discipline, and I simply don't have the drive and will power to do that.

I need to make a change in my life.

The Painful Part of Procreation

I like to compare the writing process to the stages of development of a life.

Coming up with a snappy idea for a story.  Well, that's like the excitement of seduction, meeting someone for the first time, getting to know him and discover all his charms.

Solidifying the snappy idea into a meaningful structure for a story.  Clearly, this is the act of conception.  Messy, exciting, wondrous, mind-boggling.  Tender, yet stimulating.  So full of potential, it almost hurts.

Writing the story.  For me, this is the time of labor.  Seeing the idea develop into a real, living thing.  It's not a story yet - it won't be a story until it is finished, the day it is born, but you know it's there.  You can feel the pulsation of life as the story develops and develops.

Editing the story.  This is comparable to delivery and birth.  It can go fast, it can take forever, and it is always painful, difficult, tense, frightening.  It is during the most intense moments of editing that you wonder, why am I still dealing with this story?  Don't I have better ones to work on?  But it's your story, and so you keep at it.  Besides, what choice do you have?

Selling and marketing the story.  This is the long, difficult process of raising your child, helping her become the person you dreamed about in those moments of seduction and conception.  You experience periods of great joy at your off-spring's accomplishments, days of sorrow when you are confronted with bad news, until finally the day comes when your story stands on its own merits and your job as creator is finished.

Most of us like the first two stages of writing - coming up with the idea and developing it into a possible story.  Only a few of us have the courage and determination to go the rest of the distance.  And even then, the writing universe is littered with still-births, abortions, and abandoned babies.  And sadder still, there are even a few really great stories that just don't get the nurturing and development they need to make them into living examples of a person's creative urges.

Measuring The Hard Part

The hardest part of writing is always at the end of the story.  This is when you have to go back through the entire novel, finding all the typos, erroneous words, poor grammar, plot screw-ups, factual errors, inconsistencies, character flaws - all the things that ruin a great story.  It's hard, tedious work.  And all of us hate doing it.  It is also hard to measure your progress when doing this type of activity.  But we now think we have a solution.

From now on, we will keep track of the number of words we add (or delete), since knowing the total size of our book is still important to us.  But we will also track the number of pages we go through.  This might actually give us a better indication of how productive we have been.  We don't care if a page has a correction or is already perfect - it is important that the page contributes to the story's structure, tone, style, and content.  If we were brilliant enough to write the page so well that it doesn't need any corrections, that's just peachy.  If we have to make a lot of corrections, then that means our story was just not that well constructed.

Further, we can take the total size of the novel, divide it by the number of days we intend to edit, and get a daily target.  That way, we can see how productive we really are.

And that is how we will measure the hard part.