The day before yesterday I spent a lot writing, actually- just, none of it was TTDECBA-related, so I simply had no post for that day. Alright, it's okay, it's not that dire that I didn't get a post up on one day. I figured I could just explain what had happened in the next day's post... And I didn't get around to doing a post yesterday either. (The thing is, I would have, too, if it weren't for that severely poorly timed need for a restroom trip...) You start making excuses, you find reasons to make excuses... Oops.
And now I read an article about how sometimes it's actually worse for you if you publicly announce a private goal. Heh. Which makes sense-- I've done a bit of research into psychology not too long ago (a little less than a month,) and I'd even been going to do a post on the very subject, but then sort of, forgot, I just realized-- but anyway, we as people have a lot more reason to do something if our motivations for it are internal; give a guy $5 to do a task and he'll enjoy it a whole heck of a lot more than the dude you give $50 to do it, because the guy who's not being paid very much needs to come up with a reason in itself to do the task, while the $50 dude is fine just doing it for the money. What I failed at was having an internal motivation for this thing (my other blog, I've been at it so long it's not much of a problem.) Writers write because that's what they love to do, and if they get published then hey you're actually writing full-time, sweet (it's not always, the healthiest,) but as for me with this project- yes, clearly I do love to write, seeing as how I've got that excuse for not having a post the day before yesterday, but am I married to this project as much as I should be? Pshaw.
I realized a lot of my lack of motivation to get cracking and actually write is because of my own lack of definition of what the heck goes on in the plot. Sure, I've got a lot of ideas about the world this takes place in and everything, and a lot of ideas about things that happen to our hero and the trouble he gets into, but not much about what happens here specifically, here in this plot. Need to do a lot more outlining, even if I had been planning on "discovery writing" a lot of it (which is the exact opposite of my usual style, stringing together multiple ideas from sources collected over years; and which now I realize, "discovery writing," I may have been misdefining that term this whole time. It doesn't necessarily have to be writing blind! I don't think.)
Been mulling over, or whatever word you'd use for it, with Kevin, who's finally gotten the opportunity to get some time to check this project out now that it's the weekend. Kevin's already got a few aborted novels under his belt, and he knows quite a few tricks of the trade (which he talks about here a bit.) He's the one with whom I've been collaborating on Persistence of Memory, as well. In his between time of cranking out a crackling sparkling outline for a new draft of that, and toilet training his daughter, and getting set up for his new tech-support job, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff as well, he managed to check out what I've got so far. And immediately discovered a few, issues, that have been kind of bugging me too and which need addressing:
Your posts. I read them.The Whys
And man, you need a good, solid outline. And also, you should write an hour a day, during a free hour, regardless of where that hour falls. Trying to force it to a specific hour is only going to cause trouble and delay.
I know I can't talk, seeing as I never finished the damn thing, but I wrote the Three story in about a month, about an hour a day, more when I was in the zone. Most of it, regrettably, was exploratory writing, which is why the whole thing ground to a halt and sizzled out, I feel. I know some people can write that way, but not me, and the general consensus from all the writerly nonsense I've read is that most people work better with outlines.
Also, you gotta nail the whys; like why is the protag such a magnet? Does he have a high up supernatural enemy? Does he have some special kind of soul or life essence that draws in unspeakable creatures in search of it out of curiosity or hunger? And make sure you can tie in the escape ability with it in a logical and natural way, too.
Also, the most useful piece of writing advice I've ever read is this: Write. I'm incredibly bad at following this, but there it is. Writers write, or else they'd just be 'word thinkers', or something. I know I have lots of room to improve on this, too. Probably a lot more than you do.
Any other day I'd reject that first suggestion of why our protag's such a magnet (yes, yes; it's the, life essence, thing) but metasleep this morning revealed more character: Dwayne "Rabbi" Champion, who creates golems and sends them after our dude. I wouldn't call him "high up," and I wouldn't call him a "supernatural enemy," though: Champion had been looking for assistance, acquaintanceship and possible liaison with the agency, maybe our protag specifically-- and sent dangerous creatures after him, knowing he'd be able to survive them and follow the trail back to their source. Allegedly, his reason behind that. Can this Rabbi character be trusted? Did he just have it in for our protag, or is he honestly seeking liaison with the agency? And, of course, there's always the possibility that he's dishonestly seeking liaison with the agency, as well...
Mostly it is the life essence that attracts most of 'em: I was thinking a bit in church how it would feel to be some sort of thing-that-goes-bump-in-the-night, around Michael, and I'd imagine it this way: you're standing there, waist-deep in a pool. All around you you feel tiny little eddies and currents, some tugging you this way, some that way. Not tugging on you that much, not doing much other than tugging on your swim shorts. Suddenly you feel this massive tide, though-- tide is the right word for it; this thing is a force of nature. More and more currents are vortexing around you, pulling you into this swirl-- you can fight against it if you want, but it feels so right to go along; sometimes you even actively swim in the direction the water's telling you to go. And at the end... Our protagonist, guy. Who has the ability to swim against the current, duck in between it, if he knows how. That's our, hero, dude.
Names, Further Considered
Under consideration of suggestions from Kevin, I've got our protag's name semi-set as Michael Finnegan "Finn" Moone. Call him Finn Moone, or Michael Moone-- you've got the alliteration of the "m"s going by his first name, consonance of the "n"s when going by his middle. Thinking he goes by his middle: "Finn to friends, Finnegan in professional circles, Finny by those who dislike him and Mr. Moo[n]e to classy villains." The original suggestion was for "Moore," which is alright; I realized "Moone" has got a more supernatural ring to it, for obvious reasons. Maybe just "Moon," dropping the e. I don't know. Finn for now. Finnegan like "Finagle," Moon/Moone/Moore like "Murphy;" the two eponymous laws that bear sway in his life, of course.
As for the title of the book(s) he's the head of: Things that Don't Even Come Back Around is kind of an odd title, but, sure, why not, it's the name of the series. Not too indicative, though-- Agent Moon, it could be, if we want, or... Well, keeping eyes peeled, and minds open, still.
Also continuing in my failure to find that word that means "blessing" but neutral and thus also capable of meaning "curse" (the word "kluge" keeps coming to mind for some reason;) "boon" comes back again, accompanying the word "bane." Two opposites, signifying the concepts I'm after, maybe call the first book Boon and Bane.
High- and Low-Tech
If anything can happen, anything will, and so it's really not that engaging even if anything does-- it's my personal theory on the events leading up to the advent of the big bang, and one of the reasons I'm not the greatest fan of whimsy (I find Dr Seuss and Gen 1 My Little Pony existentially horrifying, as a matter of fact.) With a supernatural milieu, we're leaning dangerously close to "anything can happen," here-- and so, most of the actual espionage and action and plot is going to happen off in the boondocks of the supernatural world. That is to say, not much magic. That is to say, a low-tech setting rather than a high-tech one, treating magic as technology for terminology purposes of course. You've got one or two, well "kluges" is actually an appropriate word this time, maybe more, but other than that-- you're out in the suburbs, facing against some p.o'd gremlin with a metaphorical shotgun. Or whatever.
Feel like we've made a decent amount of headway; I will end it here for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment