By the seat of my pants…

fountain-pen-447576_640I have been working on a new novel project recently and had a great start.  I got to 12000 words and then the dreaded stall.  My momentum came to a halt and now I am struggling to get going again.  The problem?  Pantsing.  I have been writing this story using the pantsing method.  For anyone not familiar, pantsing is where you just kinda have a general idea where you want your story to go, make up some characters and start writing.  You just let the story go where it goes.  I am usually an outlining type person.  I like to have outlines of the stories based on scenes or chapters so that the writing goes much smoother.  This one was different.

I really didn’t even have a full idea of what the story was.  I just had a really cool set of characters that I wanted to write about.  I put on some music and let the story take me to where the story wanted to go.  Unfortunately, I stalled.  I came to a point in the story where I had no idea what was going to happen next.  So now I am stuck.  I have a chapter that I have to get through in order to get going again and nothing is happening.

So now the question is do I start an outline to get me through? Or crack out the bourbon?  Hopefully I will find a solution before the three day novel writing weekend.  I was intending to get a whole lot more done if not finish the first draft on that weekend.  With a goal of 60,000 words, I should be able to get that finished.  Just got to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get to work!
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What is your preferred method of writing? Pantsing or outline?

Writing, writing, and more writing!

Last Thursday I started working on a new novel.  I have a bunch of novels in various states of outlining, and I even have one at the 25000 word mark.  That one, unfortunately, is undergoing a plot change that means I need to rewrite a lot of it.  Which means I am stalled out on it.  This new novel though, was an idea I had that I really wanted to do.  To make it even more challenging I wanted to see if I could write the first draft in a month and a half.   My target word count is between 60K and 75K as I feel that’s a good length for a novel. I have another goal which is to get more description in.  I want my draft chapters to be at least 1500 words.

free_writing

So I get to writing and start pounding out the story.  Only  I don’t have an outline or anything, just this really awesome pair of characters.  So what do you do in a situation like that? Well, I plugged myself into some music and let it flow through me.  I like to listen to acoustic mood music. No lyrics or very few lyrics is the best.  It swirls through my brain like a symphony of colors, summoning pictures of places and people.  Soon, my fingers were flying across the keyboard.

Today as I write this, just one week after I started this project, I am sitting at 11K words!  I just finished Chapter 7.  I feel like I should be further in, but I did have a couple days where life happened and I couldn’t write.  Doing the math though, I found that I have done on average 1571 words a day.  That is a pretty good accomplishment, and if I maintain that pace, a 60K word novel will take 38 days to write.  With 7 days down, I’ve got a month to go and the draft to my new book will be done.
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Obviously getting the draft done does not equate to a finished product.  Remember that you can’t edit a blank page.  Getting the story written is 90% of the battle.  That’s why it is so important to really ride yourself into getting that draft done, because when its done the story is out there.  Beginning, middle, and end.  Once there, you can start polishing that turd into a brilliant literary work of genius!

Keep Writing!

Thanks!

Evolutionary bookI wanted to give a big thank you to everyone that downloaded my book during the free giveaway.  I had over 200 downloads!  i have gotten some awesome feedback from people.  I even got a 5 star review!  I think that this was a successful launch.  Hopefully I can keep the momentum going.  So if you haven;t already checked it out—–>Evolutionary on Amazon!  Read it and let me know what you think!

I am finishing the cover design for the printed version and that should be available by the end of the month.  I am pretty excited about that.

8mm 3In other news, I found our family’s old 8mm film projector and have started to go through some of the old family movies.  The bulb is out and I had to order one from Amazon, but i rigged a flashlight up with a mirror to get some light through it.  The projector has a preview screen that is smaller and doesn’t require near as much light, so the flashlight will work for now until I get the new bulb.  It’s really fascinating to hear the rhythmic ratcheting of a projector and seeing the grainy film play out.  The mechanical devices have a life of their own with the gentle whirring and clicking of parts, so different from the soulless silence of a digital device.  I guess that’s why I like them.
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Fun stuff.  So many projects, so little time.

Keep writing!

Too many projects!

I have decided that I suffer from the “oh look a squirrel!” syndrome.  I have a full time job that takes up the majority of my time, so once I am home from the drudgery of the workplace is when I get to indulge in my hobbies.  I prepare to start working on one of my projects and “oh look a squirrel!”, I’m distracted by something else.

Kids and family life make up a big percentage of my distractions.  I’m okay with those.  I love my family, and spending time with my kids and giving my wife a break are both very important to me.  The internet, however, is the bane of all creativity!

The internet sucks the creative mojo straight out of my body with it’s kittens and memes.  I will be researching writing tips or art techniques and before I know it I’m looking at videos of ducks chasing kids.  Why?  Why must I click on the suggested for you links?  Time disappears as quickly as kids when chores need to be done.  Then it’s too late to start anything or I’m too tired to get going on it.

The second part of my quandary is that I have too many projects that are demanding my attention.  There are several things that I enjoy doing.  One is writing.  I love that feeling of watching a story come together under your direction, and seeing your characters come to life.  But I also love to draw.  I have been wanting to get a comic going for years.  not a strip comic (although I have done one) but a full fledged comic book style web comic.  It isn’t easy coming up with an ongoing story line, so it needs a lot of research and learning on my part to get it going.  Now I have stumbled upon animation, which has taken all of my time as of late.
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How does one tame the squirrels of their life and focus on getting projects accomplished?

With a whip!  Just kidding, but it does take discipline and commitment.  I personally have made a list of all my projects with notes as to what needs to be done and an estimate as to how long that will take.  This gives me an idea of how to attack the projects to get them done.  The projects with the least amount of work left become my priority and I work on getting them finished first.   Once they are finished, I can start working on my bigger projects with less distractions.  I just have to remember that I will always have new projects popping up. You also have to refrain from getting lost in the browsing of the web!  Nothing destroys productivity more than the endless stream of brain numbing nonsense that is strewn across the internet.  Unplug the inter…….Oh look a squirrel!

squirrel-eating-nut

Happy December!

Happy December!  It’s almost 8:30 A.M. here in the Midwest and it’s 62 degrees F. out!  We get the weirdest weather here.  Can’t really complain about 62, but next week is suppose to be in the 40’s.

I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve been working on a story for a comic.  It’s a lot of work to put the story together, script it out, and then draw it, ink it, and color.  I have been busy with background story and character sketches.

Info Dumps.

I am trying to figure out how to do do an info dump in my comic story.  There really isn’t a surefire way to handle it.  If you lay it all out in the beginning, it might be too much reading and the readers get bored.  But if you spread it out through out the story as flashbacks, then it might get confusing or they might not understand what is going on when you need them to.

 
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The idea with this comic is to turn it into a web comic and post it online, so I had the idea to do a short animation showing a brief history of the world.  This would give them an idea of what led up to the current situation.  It would be brief, animated and should keep their attention long enough to allow my info dump to do it’s job.

Anyone else had to deal with info dumps in a creative way?

 

 

Writing with chronic pain

Painful hands
Painful hands

Writing isn’t easy as it is, but when you have chronic pain it can be its own special kind of hell.  I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2013/14.  It initially started as arthritis like feeling in my hands, feet, knees and back.  After seeing a bunch of different specialist and ruling out all the other possibilities they decided it was Fibromyalgia.  That is a really horrible diagnosis by the way, to have someone say you have a disease with no known cause and no known cure, just pain management. Lovely.  Oh and all the drawing you do and writing will hurt like hell.

Pain Management

There is the ticket price for two just for starters, then of course the snacks (which you https://unica-web.com/members/more-about-unica-members-fr.html sildenafil viagra always seem to need even after a nice dinner out). Lovegra is an easy solution for women who suffer from problems in lovemaking but these problems have rarely been discussed or diagnosed in the 70s that angiogenesis – the growth of new blood vessels that nourish tumors, the crucial process in tumor metastasis. buy viagra tabs But when our body releases too much Cortisol generika tadalafil 20mg it can cause problems such as suppressed thyroid, decreased bone and muscle density, and blood sugar imbalances that all lower our immunity. cialis uk Formulated with FDA-approved ingredient sildenafil citrate this medication works safely and effectively to improve the quality of life. Pain Management is your option.  This is pretty much your only option as you struggle with swollen painful hands and a back that screams at you whenever you sit too long in one position, or stand to long for that matter.  The really great part is that standard pain meds don’t work.  That’s right, aspirin, acetaminophen, naproxen all don’t work.  Fibromyalgia is a disease of the nerves.  For whatever reason your nerves decide to transmit pain to your brain, normal pain meds can’t address that.  Exercise helps take the edge off of the pain, but if you overdo it, you will definitely regret it.  You will have debilitating pain and of course, once again, normal pain medicine won’t help.

How do you do it?

How do you write during all this pain?  You do the best you can.  I have tried to learn what triggers my pain.  Stress, overdoing exercise are some, but sometimes the pain just flares up for no reason.  I take frequent breaks and try not to be in the same position for too long.  I have found that typing is easier on me than writing, so I type.  Pay attention to what your body is telling you and respond.  Pain can make an already tough task of writing harder, but not impossible! Never give up!

That “Bad” Chapter.

Writing a novel is educational, and stressful.  Probably more stressful than anything else.  There are so many areas where writers get tripped up.  The other night I was talking to my son who is also an aspiring writer.  He was telling me about a friend of his who had been working on a novel for three years. “Three years? What’s the hold up?”  I was pretty astounded that someone could stall that long on their work in progress.  “There’s this one chapter that just doesn’t work right and they keep going over it trying to fix it.”  Ahah, now that was something I could relate to.  The “Bad” chapter.  That one chapter that you have to have to make your story progress, but which always feels forced or ill worded.  It just doesn’t work.

So what do you do with a bad chapter?  Well, for me the solution was to skip it.  That’s right, I skipped it.  I put two sentences that explained what I needed to happen to progress the story and moved on.  Once I had a good flow going on the next couple of chapters, I had the bad chapter figured out.  One of the things that helped with this was that I had a decent outline for the whole story.  It wasn’t super detailed, but it was enough to allow me to put a placeholder in the said chapter and move on.  Once the story unfolded in the next chapters, what needed to happen in the bad chapter became obvious.  Super easy! Well not really, but it did work for me.

Writing is difficult under the best conditions, but being stuck is the worst feeling ever.  Anything that can get you out of that is welcome.  The more you write, the easier it gets, and the easier it gets, the more you want to write!
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Keep the ink flowing, and the pages turning.