Thursday Thoughts: Back on Track

 

Hello Blog-babes,

Today is a little blog about the state of my novel and a problem that I doubt is unique to me.

I’ve actually been struggling to write recently. My struggle hasn’t been in terms of putting words on metaphorical paper, it has been in an acceptance that the words are the right ones. Or even good ones.

For two weeks I have been writing small sections of prose. Where I had once managed to average about 5,000 words a day I was suddenly having to drag myself to reach 1,000. Each day I would read back over the previous day’s efforts and rip it out and try it again. It was torturous, slow and demoralising. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I was writing, but I was falling into that trap of writing without saying anything. Actions would come and go with ne’er a purpose between them. It’s frustrating reading your own work and realising that you are not reaching the potential you know is there.

Aside from the story/character exercises I’ve previously blogged about – which did help! – one other invaluable tool to the writer is: discussion. If something is knotted up and you know that no matter how you try you can’t work around it… talk to someone. We have an amazing capacity, when we really need to, of making ourselves understood to other people. By trying to explain the beats and narrative of what you are trying to write to someone else, if they are not understanding it you will find yourself instinctively rephrasing your point for clarity, this continues until the other person understands. You are refining and streamlining your problem to its clearest form so that it makes sense to another, and importantly also to yourself. If you’ve got a good friend who is willing to be talked at, sit them down with a nice cup of tea and have at it.

I did this last week, set out what Evin is going through, what actions I’m writing and thematically what the section is about. And lo, I set about writing again and the words are flowing clearly and the action is moving purposefully forward.

Let your inner editor come out for a while when you both need space to breath, it will help.

I’ve also been exploring options for presenting the short stories I publish on this blog in a form that allows for them to be read on e-book/smart phone/tablet devices as an alternative to you only being able to read them on the blog itself. I had a play with Apple’s iAuthor, but I’m not sure if it’s the tool for me. I’m not sure if I’ll get anything finished before the next story is published, but hopefully soon after. And there’s one other thing that I have planned. But more on that at a later date.

– Andrew

(Also, Blog-babes?! Oh dear, that won’t do. I gotta think up a good collective term for you fine folks)

 

Thursday Thoughts: What My Book Is About…

I’ve been teasing this for a long time, so it’s perhaps overdue that I talk a little more about the novel that I am writing. This is not part of NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month to those that maybe don’t know), though I am considering taking part next year. A recent change in lifestyle has made me examine my creative output and I decided that the best course was to write a book. It’s slow going (I’m marvelling at the NaNoWrMo writers who have surpassed my word count already) but I’ve not felt so creatively liberated in a long time.

I’ve spoken around the subject since I started this blog, revealing the main character’s name (Evin) and I published the first paragraph a while back. So here, finally, is what it is about…

They’re Here tells the story of Evin van Wijk in her own words. Written in the months after she wakes up to find that her parents are missing. Not only are they missing, but their belongings have vanished and they have been erased from any photographer or drawing that featured them. A letter on her doorstep tells Evin that her parents have been taken and that she should never speak of them again.
With the disappearances occurring world-wide, Evin must survive on her own and look for somewhere safe to live. But is the fear of being taken worse than the reality of what is left of the world?

There you have it. I’ve nut-shelled my story for you. I’m having a lot of fun writing this book. Some of it has gone to places that I hadn’t anticipated when I started. I’m looking forward to getting to the end (please see: https://ardavidsonwrites.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/monday-musings-the-end/ for more details on that).

Let me know what you think.

Just a reminder that you can get involved with this blog in other ways. facebook.com/ardavidsonwrites and ardavidsonwrites.tumblr.com

AND there is one week left to add your short story suggestions here: https://ardavidsonwrites.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/november-short-story-submission/ I want you to challenge me.

– Andrew

 

Monday Musing: What’s In A Name?

I have a terrible time naming characters. I always have. I was reminded of this the other day when I decided to play Mass Effect 3 again using my second character. I played through the previous two games twice, once trying to do it properly, the second time just being the galaxy’s biggest dickbag. If someone asks nicely for something, I tell ’em where to stick it! If I have the choice of saving someone or letting them die, it’s adios unnecessary baggage. If I’m trying to extract information from someone, they are gonna get a broken face. Throughout the second game in the series I worked hard to maintain the deep red scarring that was representative of being a total dickbag. As the first name of Commander Shephard is never said in the game it’s irrelevant what you call the character, my second character is called Girl’s Name Shephard (the other version was called Fucknut).

This naming fiasco is as a result of putting no thought into it at all, and not representative of my usual naming process. The problem is that my usual naming process is part of the reason why it takes me so long to write anything. To me, the name of a character is defined by who the character is, not the other way round. I don’t write for a while and think, “Well, she feels like she’s a Trish.” It gets to the point that I can’t write anything for the character until I have named them.

Admittedly I will name ancillary characters after friends and family, and whenever I made a short film with the actor Darren McAree (from Autumn Heart onwards) his character’s name always started with a J. I wish I could tell you there was some great story behind that, but there isn’t.

I struggle every time, and I hate it. I hate that I have to trawl through name books every time I start writing because I can’t do anything until the character can identify themself. Yet, and this is what’s important to me, once I have named the character it is easy to write for them, I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction having named them. The process is hard and seldom instantaneous, but it is worth it.

I don’t think that a reader should notice or think much at all about what the character is named. I don’t believe that I’ve ever felt that a character in a book I’ve read, a movie or television show I’ve watched, has had the wrong name. I’ve never spoken to other writers about this so I can only speak for myself, but the name of a character to me defines who they are, what they represent in the story, and only when their name fits them like a thing that is really well-fitting, can I begin to let them live.

There is power in a name. As long as that isn’t “Girl’s Name”.

– Andrew

(oh, just leaving this here… http://www.kabalarians.com/m/andrew.htm)

Healing The Heartache

Hello,

At the beginning of the week I blogged about the loss of 74% of my writing. That was 25,000 words lost in an instant because I was being a little careless. I can’t blame the computer, it only mindlessly did what I asked it to do. Ironically I get peeved at computers when they double-check meaningless activities: ‘Are you sure you want to print that?’

I had a rough night sleep on Monday, I was angry at myself for wasting a lot of work. I joked to a friend that I was more upset on Monday night at the loss of my book than I had been the last time I broke up with someone.
At least I think I was joking.

When I got up for breakfast on Tuesday morning I was sore and tired. My back hurt and my eyes felt foggy. I was still in a bad mood and didn’t want to think about my book and writing any more. The task of starting again seemed too great. I didn’t think that I would be up to the job.

This made me more angry at myself. Now I was angry for daring to think of letting this moment of idiocy ruin what has been one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling months of my life in a number of years. Yes, I was scared of re-writing what I had already done. Of course, I was worried that I would not be able to recreate what it had been. Obviously, I was anxious about the moment I would start again. I’m not a good starter of things, I rarely have that planned out. As it stands the first paragraph of my book is:

I think the exact words I said to my mum were, “Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do.” I’m sure that the second ‘fucking’ was lost to her by the thunder of my door slamming. I’m not proud of it and in hindsight it was probably not a proportionate response to her saying encouragingly, “Evin, you really should be doing more to get a job.”

So, yeah.
I don’t think that will last beyond editing, but at the time it was all I had to get the ball rolling on the book.

The same principle applied to the rewrites. I had made a bullet point list of what I remember the key moments of the plot were and the order that they came in. I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and started typing. It was difficult at first, I was conscious that I was trying to recreate something while trying not to copy exactly what it had been. I finished the day having written 5,000 words. I have been hitting that as a standard target each day since. I wrote 6,000 words yesterday because I had to finish what was happening.

I am currently at 18,000 words and in most places I am pleased with how it’s coming together. There are definitely places that are more concise now than they had been previously, and there are some moments that have been stripped right back and are less overwritten.

In essence I’m pleased that I didn’t wait, that I didn’t allow myself to become overwhelmed by rewriting. I’m pleased that I got straight back to it.

I would not recommend this process of writing.

– Andrew

 

Heartache

The interactive aspect of my blog begins tomorrow, but I thought I’d share a little true life short story.

A terrible thing befell me today, something I imagine a lot of you have possibly dealt with. Today I lost 25,000 words of my book. And my heart is broken.

It was such a stupid mistake. I was copying the file to Dropbox so that, laughably, I would have a backup safe from any computer problems. Rather than copying the file I moved it, when I moved it back the Dropbox file was an old backup.
It’s all gone.

My intention is to write a bullet point breakdown of what I remember of the book and more or less where things were (the more recent work will be easier to do) and then work from that to rewrite it. I think it’s going to be painful as what I want to do is rewrite it exactly how it was, but what I need to do is use the blueprint of what I remember to find it again. I figure it’s all in my head, I’ve just got to unlock it again.

The short story part of this blog will be a good diversion.

Remember, always make backups. But do it properly so that in doing so it doesn’t RUIN EVERYTHING.

– Andrew

Convenience, Contrivance and Cliché

Hello,

My novel-writing has been coming on well recently, the note I made at the start of the week unlocked a huge amount of content and I hit the 20,000 word mark yesterday. I’m still in the early part of the book and have been surprised that I’ve gone to some of the dark places that I have. I knew there would be some unpleasant moments along the journey but, well, I’ve surprised myself.

I have been thinking about conveniences, contrivances and clichés. To me all narratives are a series of conveniences, events that happen to characters are times that propel them forward through the story. Luke buying 3PO and R2 is a convenience. I also feel that these events fall under the suspension of disbelief umbrella and are protected from deep scrutiny.

Contrivances on the other hand seem like false godlike manipulation, forcing events to occur in a particular way to further the plot (I’d throw almost all of the Bond films into this category).

Clichés are a strange thing because they only become such through familiarity. I don’t necessarily believe they are a bad thing and can allow for some clever subversion. I’m particularly fond of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 4, Episode 12 – A New Man) that finds the character Ethan Rayne hiding in a crypt and performing a sinister monologue after Giles leaves, only for Giles to pop back in and interrupt saying, “Is someone…?”. Buffy always worked best when it dissected the tropes of cliché.

This is a lot of talk about film and TV, my apologies.

My protagonist is called Evin and late in the story I intend for her to meet someone who I’m not looking forward to writing. He has always been there and is built into the final part of Evin’s story. Yesterday I wrote a section where she met an unpleasant character, intended to be a bit throw away role. I gave him a body, named him, surrounded him with people, and let him speak. And I really like the character, in the way that he’s a total bastard and I hate him. This left me wondering, would Evin meeting the same character again later spill awkwardly into contrivance? Would you read his reappearance and not believe that he would be there? The world I’ve created would not limit that sort of character to one person. My gut is that it would not be the same person she will meet again later, that I will work out a different personality and try to find a different way to be sinister.

Part of me is sad though, this horrific human got two pages and I can’t stop thinking about him.

– Andrew