Welcome to the inaugural post in my writing blog. So it is the end of October, and I'm rolling up on my last month in Dresden, Germany, and I thought, What better way to spend my last month in Germany than to be chained to my laptop trying to bang out 50k words in 30 days? I had no answer. But I've decided to become a writer. I was once a technical writer, and I spent a lot of time translating ancient Greek, so my technical ability should be as flawless as I need it to be. But I know that when I write fast and don't edit, my writing can be horrible, and the endless editing that comes from wanting something that I feel represents me and my abilities makes the process take forever. So NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a exercise in self-restraint and possibly self-inflicted torture. But I'm trying to think of it in terms of the other art that I create, and this is going to be my underpainting. Nobody looks at an underpainting and says, "Wow, that's great and totally finished." I probably will go ahead and polish the shit out of the first chapter, just so I have something I can show people, and because I'm pretty sure that won't be changing much.
So what have I done in preparation? Well, in typical cart-before-horse fashion, I brainstormed, pre-wrote, and then couldn't stand it any longer and wrote chapter 1. Then I stopped. I had to stop, because while I had about the first four or five chapters planned, after that I had tons and tons of big question marks, and not the type I think I could discovery write my way out of. I'm going to use all the lingo I picked up from the Writing Excuses podcast, so while it may sound like I know a thing or two about creative writing, it's largely just me parroting things I've heard on those shows. If you're writing fantasy or science fiction, and to a lesser extent, anything else, it's a great podcast. It's 15 minutes long, so it doesn't ever get too far off track, and what's more is that at least one of the guys goes from being an unpublished writer to a professional novelist in the course of the series, and Brandon Sanderson goes from writing like mad and publishing to taking over the Wheel of Time books and publishing so much he has to leave the show to go on tour from time-to-time. So anything that you read here that sounds like I know what I'm talking about, I got there.
So I guess I'll share a little about my first novel and then I'll get to work on physics, which is what I presently get paid to do. So, I had a great idea for some scenes and a few characters and all sorts of different scenarios, and I decided to try to write this. I grabbed those characters and wrestled them into place and when I would think I was getting close, something would pop out of alignment. Wait, if this guy does X that means there would've been no reason for Y to happen... I really wanted to write these scenes and characters, but the problem was that they weren't in a story. And then something hit me, which was an idea that was almost completely fully-formed at the time. It had just a small handful of characters (only three viewpoint characters), a hook that I think isn't half shabby, and a clever, yet inevitable twist. I have been prewriting and brainstorming to thicken this stew since probably back in August.
So here's my idea: There's a prophecy, and a hero is chosen to fulfill it. He sets off with his chronicler, a bookish kid that the hero used to pick on. The hero is going to save the world; his chronicler is going to keep a record of the events so that there will be an eye-witness account of the deeds in this pivotal time. This chronicle is also a dissertation of sorts. It's his way of becoming a Keeper (that's just a placeholder until I can come up with something I like better). The problem is that the hero goes and gets himself killed. Now it's up to this academic to try to get the job done himself, but to keep it a secret lest the world be plunged into further chaos, and finally to falsify an ending to the chronicle so he can pursue his own studies.
The first of the other two characters is the hero's betrothed. A woman who is on the verge of losing her claim to a throne and has agreed to marry the hero to secure it.
The second is the 'relationship character' if you're talking in terms of the Hollywood Formula. I'm actually having trouble with this character's main motivation. He's an actor. As such, he's good at spotting lies and even better at telling them. I've got some trouble in that I currently have some motivations for him that feel contrived. I guess I have 3 days to work something out, right? That should be doable. I'm actually not far from really hammering this guy out, I think. I just have to really sit down and work at it.
All right. That should be enough meat for a first post. I hope to find enough words to blog a few lines every day or three about my NaNoWriMo experience, and then later, of course, how I pick up an agent and a publisher and sell two copies for every person on the planet and buy the moon... But I'll go ahead and start with 50k words.
So what have I done in preparation? Well, in typical cart-before-horse fashion, I brainstormed, pre-wrote, and then couldn't stand it any longer and wrote chapter 1. Then I stopped. I had to stop, because while I had about the first four or five chapters planned, after that I had tons and tons of big question marks, and not the type I think I could discovery write my way out of. I'm going to use all the lingo I picked up from the Writing Excuses podcast, so while it may sound like I know a thing or two about creative writing, it's largely just me parroting things I've heard on those shows. If you're writing fantasy or science fiction, and to a lesser extent, anything else, it's a great podcast. It's 15 minutes long, so it doesn't ever get too far off track, and what's more is that at least one of the guys goes from being an unpublished writer to a professional novelist in the course of the series, and Brandon Sanderson goes from writing like mad and publishing to taking over the Wheel of Time books and publishing so much he has to leave the show to go on tour from time-to-time. So anything that you read here that sounds like I know what I'm talking about, I got there.
So I guess I'll share a little about my first novel and then I'll get to work on physics, which is what I presently get paid to do. So, I had a great idea for some scenes and a few characters and all sorts of different scenarios, and I decided to try to write this. I grabbed those characters and wrestled them into place and when I would think I was getting close, something would pop out of alignment. Wait, if this guy does X that means there would've been no reason for Y to happen... I really wanted to write these scenes and characters, but the problem was that they weren't in a story. And then something hit me, which was an idea that was almost completely fully-formed at the time. It had just a small handful of characters (only three viewpoint characters), a hook that I think isn't half shabby, and a clever, yet inevitable twist. I have been prewriting and brainstorming to thicken this stew since probably back in August.
So here's my idea: There's a prophecy, and a hero is chosen to fulfill it. He sets off with his chronicler, a bookish kid that the hero used to pick on. The hero is going to save the world; his chronicler is going to keep a record of the events so that there will be an eye-witness account of the deeds in this pivotal time. This chronicle is also a dissertation of sorts. It's his way of becoming a Keeper (that's just a placeholder until I can come up with something I like better). The problem is that the hero goes and gets himself killed. Now it's up to this academic to try to get the job done himself, but to keep it a secret lest the world be plunged into further chaos, and finally to falsify an ending to the chronicle so he can pursue his own studies.
The first of the other two characters is the hero's betrothed. A woman who is on the verge of losing her claim to a throne and has agreed to marry the hero to secure it.
The second is the 'relationship character' if you're talking in terms of the Hollywood Formula. I'm actually having trouble with this character's main motivation. He's an actor. As such, he's good at spotting lies and even better at telling them. I've got some trouble in that I currently have some motivations for him that feel contrived. I guess I have 3 days to work something out, right? That should be doable. I'm actually not far from really hammering this guy out, I think. I just have to really sit down and work at it.
All right. That should be enough meat for a first post. I hope to find enough words to blog a few lines every day or three about my NaNoWriMo experience, and then later, of course, how I pick up an agent and a publisher and sell two copies for every person on the planet and buy the moon... But I'll go ahead and start with 50k words.
