Writing... is... tough. What I'm doing here, technically writing, but not the book itself, more like having a conversation about the book that happens to be in glyphic format. Writing about, rather than writing. As different as studying about and studying.
let's get SMARTIST in here
I thought NaNoWriMo would just, I don't know, kind of force me to hunker down. Work has been long on the days I worked, and the days I've been home sick, well... (Seriously, the first whole day, every time I thought my nose was finished running for a while, I sat down to write and it started up again, like magic!) I've just been using everything as an excuse. It looks like it's time to take my own advice, and follow some SMARTIST goals. (A goal must be smart, and an artist's goal must be more than that, it must be smartist.)
I say "my own advice," because I've posted this up on my other blog, in a different form-- I've recently rediscovered the principle helping a friend who came to me wondering how to get out of a bit of an artistic rut (David "Elder Rose II" Rose, matter of fact.) I tidied it up from the blog post, emailed it, and was called a "lifesaver," (which I'm fairly proud of and am considering putting on my resumes, along with "the US government needs you." (Kevin.))
here is the principle as I emailed it to David:
- S for SPECIFIC. What specific thing do you want accomplished? Can you put it in words? You should be able to, otherwise it's not even a goal.
- M for MEASURABLE. In order for a goal to be "good," you have to be able to quantify your progress along it in some way.
- A for ATTAINABLE. The goal, although ideally it should make you stretch, much be relatively realistic.
- R for RECORDED. Writing down a goal changes it from a wish into an actual goal, in conjunction with the other things. I've also seen R stand for RELEVANT, whether or not your goal fits into your larger life goal or anything, but in the SMARTIST goal that's covered later.
- T is TELL someone. This gives you responsibility over your actions with the specific need to report to another person. I've also seen T stand for TIME-BOUND, but with art, well you can't rush it, and sometimes you labor with it and sometimes it flows.
- I is for INSPIRATION. Without it, no art would, be. So this is key. Why does this particular art need to exist? Out of all the ideas in this world, define why you're picking this particular idea to translate into reality. You hear a lot of artists having manifestos and stuff, which helps define their "whys" of art-- see the alternative "r" above.
- S is for SKILLS. What training or techniques do you need to know in order to maximize on your vision of what you see the art as? This is where the hard work comes in, all the practice that brought you up to this skillset.
- T is for TOOLS. The right ones for the job. You have your inspiration, but what medium are you specifically looking at that would express your theme the best? What techniques of the medium are needed, and are you proficient at those? Can you drag techniques from one medium to another? And beyond medium, what genre can you use whose tropes are at your disposal, to effectively evoke the response you want?
Well.
Writing is art, right? Right? I really intended it to be more for... like, visual arts, and stuff, like webcomics, which is what the former Elder Rose is stuck with (Pet Rock Comics/"Soapbox," coming... ever, if SMARTIST goals really work. It's going to be great. Kid's got talent. Or, um, skills. Because hard work and dedication are so much more important than talent, but, yeah, I'm just going to stick with talent for now, as PRC isn't even out yet, and we'll see the "skill" part or not when it does.)
let's get through this:
- S- Specific... um... Alright, one step at a time; I want to write, and what I want to write is the crazyamazing adventures of this supernatural intelligence officer in this crazyamazing supernatural world of intrigue. Semiautomagic, was the tentative title of the first Harry Dresden novel, which is... actually a terrible fit for this book as well. There are a lot of factors that the title needs to speak for, but that's not the issue right now. We'll give it a think or two more, maybe after this is all written.
- MEASURABLE. Do we still want to do an extrapolation of a "scene" a day, or is that a different goal? Not sure. For now, let's say "yes" and we can move on (not that I expect for any scheduling to magically clear up, but... we'll work on it.)
- ATTAINABLE. I've written... short stories... before. This is doable. It still makes me have to stretch for it, but that's a positive. I've got an outline to work from, and character notes blocked out by plot point.
- RECORDED, TELLING SOMEONE. Oh, hai, interweb!
- INSPIRATION: why am I doing this? Why do we go to the moon by the end of the decade, and do the other thing? Not because it is easy, but because it is difficult. This really taps into motivations for my entire... career. My future. What I want to be when I grow up, and... it's not really a topic I'm comfortable with. My brain shuts me out every time I try to do serious exploration of it. The whys of that, I can and have written hours on, but... it's not like I have no plans. I just, every time my dad or anyone asks about them, I clam up. The only person I was ever close to being open with was the psychologist who administered my IQ test three or four or five years ago. I'll... I'll bring this discussion over to my other blog. For now,
- SKILLS. I've thought long and hard, crafting everything to make sense, how to form a tightly formed plot around a dude whose superpower is basically to screw up tightly formed plots. I've researched try-fail cycles, and setups and payoffs, and, and I think it can be done. And I think that I can do it.
- TOOLS. In this case, that's... that's always what slows me down, when it comes to art. Putting off the "final" content creation as I, live life and do research and try to find all the perfect things to put in. Tools here, I'm interpreting as, world folklore, supernatural critters, things I can form to the plot perfectly to make the bits that seem arbitrary in the outline make sense in context. Oh, this weird vampire equivalent does this and this and this? That explains this random thing! So far I've been surprisingly effective with most major plot holes, but, like I said. Still trying to find the perfect things elsewhere.
That's... that's quite nice actually. I'm not sure where that actually got me, but it feels like a load off of my chest, having that out there now.
No comments:
Post a Comment