As of yesterday, my total word count for "final" chapters (all six of them) is 9,884.
(By "final" chapters, I mean the documents/text files that will eventually evolve into final drafts. I have many, many .docs and .txts that hold pieces of Liam & Jer, but these are older drafts, some dating back to my junior year of high school. These have either been drastically changed in to new chapters, stripped for parts, or scrapped altogether.)
Anyway. A word count of under 10,000 is...kinda pathetic. If you also keep in mind that I set myself a goal of adding 50,000 words this month in honor of NaNoWriMo...*gulp* I'm actually pretty confident that I will NOT meet this goal, but that's okay. I'd be happy if I had 20,000 words, or even 15,000. Anything that meant I actually added to it.
I recently took my outline and transferred them to index cards. My plan is to take the cards and figure out the exact order of events. This would seem easy--A then B then C, right?*--except that I'm toying with the idea of a few of the chapters being flashbacks, looking at Liam's or Jer's past to get some insight as to why they're doing this or acting like that. I'm afraid that it could make it messy, complicated, confusing, etc, but I'm also concerned with what might be missing if I don't include them. I currently suck at "looking back" in the middle of a scene, although you'd think the fact that I'm writing it in present tense would help. Of course, the fact that I'm thinking of trying to fit this big, messy puzzle piece into the whole thing instead of, you know, growing as a writer and learning to fix what needs fixing in my toolbox may also say something about me. That something may start with an "l" and rhyme with "hazy."
I'm also trying to find a time to dedicate to writing. I set on the task of finding this piece of time months ago, and I even had one for, oh, two weeks, but it's gotten harder. The free time I do have has to be divvied up between school assignments, errands and chores, seeing Mom, seeing Dad, being social (HA!), and getting some quality time with Ryan. These pieces of free time are currently: Sundays and Mondays until 4, and Wednesdays and Saturdays after noon. Sunday is currently my day to catch up on Mom-home chores and see Mom, and Monday is currently my only day to sleep in, which is very precious to me. Wednesdays and Saturdays, Ry and I do one of two things: do chores and errands, or have a few hours of dedicated WoWing, basically my only WoW time the entire week. WoW might sound like something worth sacrificing to get some writing in, and maybe it should be, but it's also a great stress-reliever, and a little bit of being social (getting friendlier with the Guildies).
Keep in mind that Writing Time would more or less HAVE to be at Starbucks, where I'm disconnected from the internet, and able to just plug in to my music and my little world. Sometimes just the act of Going To/Being At Starbucks is almost enough to click in to Writing Mode. So it's not just a set time I pull out the laptop and get down to business; it's a set time that I drive to Starbucks, get myself a drink and a snack, and settle down at a table. On Mondays and Sundays, there would have to be travel time built in to get back in time for work or D&D.
So, there. My current writing status/predicament. I'll try to post something opinionated and ranty tomorrow.
*Yes, Dad, I know about time not being linear, but in this particular story, it's going to be, okay? ;)
Showing posts with label Liam and Jer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liam and Jer. Show all posts
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Writing is writing...except when it's not.
Last night was Session 1 of Glory of the World, a 2nd Edition (aka AD&D) campaign I'm in with a few friends. It was chaotic, with lots of disconnect between events as people tried to develop their characters and connect with each other. It was also a lot of fun. Part of it was the playing, part of it was the camaraderie going on between friends. Of the seven from last night, four of us were in a campaign together back in high school. The commentary felt like old times.
The campaign started coming together almost a month ago. When it first came up, I thought up a rough idea for a character, then decided I was going to wait until the in-person character-making session to flesh it out. Ryan kept pestering me, and I started thinking about it more, and ended up with a pretty good picture. I had the physical picture and the attitude...but not really anything else. Nothing behind her.
Michael (the Dungeon Master, aka DM, aka God in the campaign) sent out lots of background information for the world we would be playing in, along with how 2nd Edition works in comparison to 3rd Edition (what our old campaign had been in). One thing that he wrote stuck out and stayed in my head: in 2E, under the right circumstances, just about ANYBODY could end up in an adventure.
This brought to mind an image, a housewife in this civil war-torn world, on the edge of panic from not knowing what's going to happen or when, overhearing plans of an adventure and throwing herself into it, desperate to do anything that would make her feel like she's fighting back against uncertainty and hopelessness.
The character I'm playing now is a slight spin-off of that first image: Ona Amaethwr, a farmer's wife who has spent her whole life tilling fields and milking cows, now stealing to stay alive after her entire family is stolen from her as they try to escape the fighting taking over their home.
I've spent the past two or three weeks whittling Ona down. I know when she, her husband, and her children were born, when two of her children died, which gods of Michael's pantheon she worships, the jewelry she wears and what it means, her personality and attitude and beliefs. It's been..exhilarating, really.
Roleplaying as her will be a different kind of rush, I think. Crafting her down to the final detail was wonderful, but will be very different from talking in her voice, moving in her body. I'm looking forward to it, to using all those details and finding out which ones matter and which don't, not to mention making some up on the spot.
The whole thing has also been frustrating. Making this character has been SO MUCH FUN. Meanwhile, I have a story (Liam & Jer) sitting on my laptop that needs attention, but hasn't seen so much as a read-through in over a month. I even had a small epiphany lately that will help shape the ending, which has been very sticky to deal with...nothing written from it so far.
The details of the person are fun and games, enough to suck me and take all my attention. Writing the story, the dialogue, the individual scenes...that feels more like work. I'll spend hours on Ona, then turn to Liam & Jer and just stare at the blank page. I can't figure out where the disconnect is, and it's driving me mad.
I almost think I need to look at Liam & Jer as a D&D campaign...except that I really don't think that would work. Maybe I'm just afraid that I'll need to start over. Maybe I just need to let the story go, scrap it as one of those Never Got Off The Drawing Table ideas that I'm sure every writer has.
It's just hard to let it go.
The campaign started coming together almost a month ago. When it first came up, I thought up a rough idea for a character, then decided I was going to wait until the in-person character-making session to flesh it out. Ryan kept pestering me, and I started thinking about it more, and ended up with a pretty good picture. I had the physical picture and the attitude...but not really anything else. Nothing behind her.
Michael (the Dungeon Master, aka DM, aka God in the campaign) sent out lots of background information for the world we would be playing in, along with how 2nd Edition works in comparison to 3rd Edition (what our old campaign had been in). One thing that he wrote stuck out and stayed in my head: in 2E, under the right circumstances, just about ANYBODY could end up in an adventure.
This brought to mind an image, a housewife in this civil war-torn world, on the edge of panic from not knowing what's going to happen or when, overhearing plans of an adventure and throwing herself into it, desperate to do anything that would make her feel like she's fighting back against uncertainty and hopelessness.
The character I'm playing now is a slight spin-off of that first image: Ona Amaethwr, a farmer's wife who has spent her whole life tilling fields and milking cows, now stealing to stay alive after her entire family is stolen from her as they try to escape the fighting taking over their home.
I've spent the past two or three weeks whittling Ona down. I know when she, her husband, and her children were born, when two of her children died, which gods of Michael's pantheon she worships, the jewelry she wears and what it means, her personality and attitude and beliefs. It's been..exhilarating, really.
Roleplaying as her will be a different kind of rush, I think. Crafting her down to the final detail was wonderful, but will be very different from talking in her voice, moving in her body. I'm looking forward to it, to using all those details and finding out which ones matter and which don't, not to mention making some up on the spot.
The whole thing has also been frustrating. Making this character has been SO MUCH FUN. Meanwhile, I have a story (Liam & Jer) sitting on my laptop that needs attention, but hasn't seen so much as a read-through in over a month. I even had a small epiphany lately that will help shape the ending, which has been very sticky to deal with...nothing written from it so far.
The details of the person are fun and games, enough to suck me and take all my attention. Writing the story, the dialogue, the individual scenes...that feels more like work. I'll spend hours on Ona, then turn to Liam & Jer and just stare at the blank page. I can't figure out where the disconnect is, and it's driving me mad.
I almost think I need to look at Liam & Jer as a D&D campaign...except that I really don't think that would work. Maybe I'm just afraid that I'll need to start over. Maybe I just need to let the story go, scrap it as one of those Never Got Off The Drawing Table ideas that I'm sure every writer has.
It's just hard to let it go.
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