Part of this can be explained by a very strange modern word: NaNoWriMo. Those familiar with it (and in my Interweb journeys over the past seven years, I've discovered few communities unaware of it) know that these letters stand for National Novel Writing Month, which rolls around each November, and is a challenge to write 50,000 words within its thirty days.
This was something I first did back in 2004. The story as I famously recall it goes that I had been intending to write one story for weeks leading up to November, but came up with something else entirely on the 1st. This is fine, because as part of the challenge you're supposed to do all of the work during the month, including outlining. Somehow I survived that first NaNo. Naturally, when I repeated the process during the next two years, I cheated, by continuing the same story (which eventually became The Cloak of Shrouded Men).
My method for success was simple enough. I calculated the exact number of words I would need to write each day, assuming that I was able to set time aside each day, in order to end up with 50,000 at the end of the month. With that total (1,667) in mind, I started writing. At some point I started figuring out what I wanted to do with the characters I'd created, where they needed to go, what needed to be revealed about them, but in such rough sketches that I wonder how I survived and succeeded. There was only a small amount of additional planning in succeeding Novembers.
The interesting part is that the daily wordcount became something of a guidepost. I regularly missed days and had to catch up. By 2006 I wrote far fewer than thirty chapters (one a day with that specific wordcount) because I ended up doubling up so often. By that method I started to realize the potential to get away from the wordcount goal and to simply start writing.
If that sounds simple, then I'm only half-serious about my success in that regard.
In 2007 I had my first unsuccessful NaNo. I got behind early and tried to catch up, but it just wasn't working. I gave up and walked away from the story, and still haven't gone back to it. Perhaps tellingly, I never officially participated in the event again.
As far as writing goes, I should probably admit at this point that I had never written a novel, or attempted one, before NaNo in 2004. I'd written short stories, and not the short stories that I tend to write now. I even started writing short stories in installments, which is something I still do now. Yet it had never occurred to me to try a novel. When I graduated from college in December of 2003, I had the vague notion of writing one, but other than what I wanted to write, I had no idea how to start. (It probably explains my general lack of success.)
NaNo gave me all kinds of inspiration, and confidence to know that I could actually do it. I wrote my first non-NaNo novel (although come to think of it, shouldn't Chris Baty, or someone else, launch the imprint National Novels already?) in 2009. It was Finnegan, and I wrote the same general length and in the same general increments that I'd learned writing Shrouded Men, but instead of over the course of three years, over the span of months. I made all the plans in the world on this one, or so I thought, and it ended up being almost completely different than what I'd expected. This was how I learned what kind of novel writer I really was. It directly informed my experience writing Ecce Homo (or, Minor Contracts as I've since renamed it) the next year.
Last year I wrote Yoshimi, but this time I was determined to rewrite my own rules. I wrote it with a publisher in mind, and knew that some of my old tricks wouldn't fly. One of the rules I rewrote was the wordcount per chapter, and for me it was a radical change that took a learning curve to master. Once I did, I surprised myself again. As I've said, I tended when I started to write a relatively small amount of words per day, and that would be a chapter. With Yoshimi I determined that each chapter would be 10,000 words. You see the difference?
Well, trust me, it was a big difference. I had another outline for this one, and I was determined to stick to it. I'd put a lot of work into it, and thought for sure that I knew exactly what I was going to write this time. (I was wrong, mostly, about that, too.) I rewrote the opening of the book several times. I'd done that before, with short stories. The tone, the approach, doesn't seem right. (I've even redrafted after completing a manuscript, for the record, changing chapters after the fact.)
Eventually (and let's be honest, because at the time I had the time), I struck on the ability to write each 10,000 word chapter in a single day. It completely revolutionized the writing of that book. I'd never done anything like that before, not even on those desperate days when I thought writing a mere two 1,667 word chapters in a single day was a big deal.
(I don't remember exact wordcounts for any papers where I wrote in similar marathon sessions at college, so we'll just pretend I'm awesome and leave it at that.)
This year and since last month I've been writing Seven Thunders, a novel I've been planning since 1998. I realize now that the book I needed to make of it wouldn't have been possible if I'd attempted to write it earlier. The learning curve I've been describing has been absolutely essential, plus many other things I've learned since that year. I've cut the 10,000 chapter wordcount by half, and so far that has been going fairly well. I cannot lie and say writing novels isn't still scary at times, not the least for the fact that I still have not successfully made a career of selling these manuscripts as easily as I've learned to write them. There are still moments where I ask myself if I'm still just pretending to do it rather than actually succeeding. I'll find out eventually.
I've learned that for me, the idea of writing every day is not only not possible, but counterintuitive. You don't force writing. If you do you probably should regret it. The approach you need will not always be apparent, and writing without that inspiration and hoping to revise around it later...to me sounds like the worst idea imaginable. Give yourself a timetable and the way to reach it, and you'll get there. Unless you're on a specific deadline, it doesn't even matter if you miss that timetable anyway, but it'll make you feel good to hit it. The writing will work itself out. The story will shape itself. Even if you have the most comprehensive outline possible, if you stick only to that, then you've probably again sabotaged your own efforts. Novel writing should surprise you. I don't know how to emphasize that more. If the shape of your story isn't organic, your reader will notice. If they don't, they're not much of a reader. So I just said that.
It seems as if most writers I read about these days depend on beta readers more than they do their own abilities to know if they've succeeded. A beta reader is still a reader. They can suggest changes, but they're still a reader. Unless you're in a position where you absolutely must satisfy someone else's perspective, yours is the only one that counts. You're the writer. Deal with it. If you can't, you ought to find another calling (though that's a funny thing to say, isn't it?).
That's it, then. That's my thoughts on how to write a novel.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
Digital proof that my comics career is moving forward
I've been mentioning my work with Bluewater Comics, a couple of biographies that I've written for the publisher. One of them is getting that much closer to becoming a reality.
See here, here, and here for digital proof that I've got a profile of Mikhail Prokhorov, Russian superstar, in actual comics reality. (There's also an American version of the Amazon UK listing here.)
Not only do I have digital proof, but for all you digital fans, it's also in digital format, which is apparently what all the budding writers are doing these days. (I'll remind you that all my books are also in digital format, even if I myself prefer actual real material that's more than just a piece of plastic that you're reading off of like you think you're in Star Trek or something, with less Okudagrams.)
I guess that means I really will have to do that Dr. Seuss bio for Bluewater. It's the one I'm most interested in, because I plan to do it in true Dr. Seuss style, all rhymes, so I've run out of excuses. I hope they didn't find someone else while I procrastinated...
See here, here, and here for digital proof that I've got a profile of Mikhail Prokhorov, Russian superstar, in actual comics reality. (There's also an American version of the Amazon UK listing here.)
Not only do I have digital proof, but for all you digital fans, it's also in digital format, which is apparently what all the budding writers are doing these days. (I'll remind you that all my books are also in digital format, even if I myself prefer actual real material that's more than just a piece of plastic that you're reading off of like you think you're in Star Trek or something, with less Okudagrams.)
I guess that means I really will have to do that Dr. Seuss bio for Bluewater. It's the one I'm most interested in, because I plan to do it in true Dr. Seuss style, all rhymes, so I've run out of excuses. I hope they didn't find someone else while I procrastinated...
Sunday, October 21, 2012
This Is No Time to Talk About Time! We Don't Have the Time!
This is to say that I've been accepted into Martin Ingham's The Temporal Element anthology, to be published by Hall Bros Entertainment. I'm quite pleased to say so, because this involved something that I rarely do, which is completely rewrite something I've previously written. Sometimes I'll rewrite chapters or restart chapters or stories based on previous ideas about how to approach it, but a strict rewrite usually isn't something I'll do. I nearly wrote the anthology off when the initial version was rejected, even though Ingham encouraged a rewrite. I gave it some time and eventually decided that it was worth doing. The story remained much the same, except for a perspective change. And yet Ingham still wanted to make a few changes, which I decided was okay.
There seems to be a lot of controversy in the comics industry about accepting direction from editors, anger at rewriting or following a certain mandate. I've always considered myself to be adaptable, but have rarely had the chance to demonstrate this as a writer. As someone who would love to work in comics, I find it a little ungrateful to complain about certain things that ought to be understood when writing some of the most well-known fictional characters in modern fiction. It's something fans of Star Trek have always had a hard time understanding as well. They will sometimes have some pretty wild ideas about what should be possible. Complicating this belief is the trend from Pocket Books to execute all of these ideas in its fiction, which has led to a splintering of the fanbase in the past. I figure that there will always be certain things that should at least be reconsidered when generating stories for established characters. It comes with writing something that a lot of people feel they have a certain amount of ownership of, a familiarity that negates some of the distance between an original vision and predetermined notions.
My short story is not Superman. It isn't even Benjamin Sisko (much less Benny Russell). Yet I think I had a personal breakthrough in my decision to rewrite it. I was forced into a situation where the integrity of something I had written was called into question. Over the summer I had a chance to examine how my fiction flies with a broad audience. It didn't seem to connect so well. This story was different. Ingham simply requested another pass, and I decided to make that happen. Usually when rewrites are necessary, it's to streamline and simplify a concept so that more people will be able to understand it. In fiction this is a trickier deal. Ingham rightly suggested that it needed to be more relatable, which I suppose is similar to what I was just talking about, but different in a crucial way. I didn't change too much. I simply made it easier to identify with what was happening, which was Ingham's original point.
It should be noted that you should read the title of this post whilst poking something, preferably someone. It's funnier that way.
There seems to be a lot of controversy in the comics industry about accepting direction from editors, anger at rewriting or following a certain mandate. I've always considered myself to be adaptable, but have rarely had the chance to demonstrate this as a writer. As someone who would love to work in comics, I find it a little ungrateful to complain about certain things that ought to be understood when writing some of the most well-known fictional characters in modern fiction. It's something fans of Star Trek have always had a hard time understanding as well. They will sometimes have some pretty wild ideas about what should be possible. Complicating this belief is the trend from Pocket Books to execute all of these ideas in its fiction, which has led to a splintering of the fanbase in the past. I figure that there will always be certain things that should at least be reconsidered when generating stories for established characters. It comes with writing something that a lot of people feel they have a certain amount of ownership of, a familiarity that negates some of the distance between an original vision and predetermined notions.
My short story is not Superman. It isn't even Benjamin Sisko (much less Benny Russell). Yet I think I had a personal breakthrough in my decision to rewrite it. I was forced into a situation where the integrity of something I had written was called into question. Over the summer I had a chance to examine how my fiction flies with a broad audience. It didn't seem to connect so well. This story was different. Ingham simply requested another pass, and I decided to make that happen. Usually when rewrites are necessary, it's to streamline and simplify a concept so that more people will be able to understand it. In fiction this is a trickier deal. Ingham rightly suggested that it needed to be more relatable, which I suppose is similar to what I was just talking about, but different in a crucial way. I didn't change too much. I simply made it easier to identify with what was happening, which was Ingham's original point.
It should be noted that you should read the title of this post whilst poking something, preferably someone. It's funnier that way.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Eating Plain Old Arby's Roast Beef
Over at Good Reads, I get John Marko's blogs fed into e-mail updates, and he recently talked about his opinion of Arby's.
I was intrigued, because I had previously made it a habit to eat at Arby's before seeing movies at one of my local theaters. It's right next door, so the convenience alone was always a draw. Truth is, growing up Arby's didn't impress me much. I remember not being all that impressed by its signature roast beef sandwiches, in fact, so I never made it a point to go to Arby's.
The truth is, all that time I regularly went to Arby's before the movies I wasn't eating the roast beef sandwich, either. I was eating one of their chicken sandwiches. I love their curly fries, and the special Arby's sauce and horseradish sauce, too. In fact, it was as much the fries and sauces that kept me going back. But I also sampled the roast beef sandwiches again. And I liked it better this time.
Sometimes we can be a little quick to judge, thinking we know exactly what we're doing when we say something, when sometimes we're only fooling ourselves, posturing and being, basically, a fool. I will admit to that kind of behavior myself. I wish everyone could. Sometimes the ego won't allow it.
I still wish that writers weren't like that, but the truth is they are. They may be some of the most egotistical bastards out there. In some ways, they have all the reason to. Writing can look pretty glamorous on the outside, but when you dig into it, it's anything but. It's one of the dirtiest professions there are. Yeah, jobs are pretty dirty on the whole (and thank Mike Rowe for adding new layers of grime), but few jobs are as dirty as writing. People have a lot of expectations about writing. Most people seem to think it happens spontaneously, as if there aren't even people involved. It's the one job where the fantasy and reality of it have no relation at all. Ironically, writing is all about fantasy.
How do you survive as a writer? By compromise. By admitting your ego probably isn't deserved. That your elaborate defense only seems like it's helping you out. Writers are like actors. The more you pretend the more you'll lose yourself. No wonder Pynchon has kept himself out of the public eye. Of course, that's another pretension in itself.
I was just talking to my brother. He was in a horrific car accident on Sunday, but he survived it, and with injuries that were not nearly as bad as they could have been. The conversation still turned to me, because we hadn't talked in a while. I found myself using my defenses. It wasn't until we hung up that I realized what I'd been doing. There are plenty of excuses writers can have, but none of them should conceal the truth from themselves.
It's a tough life, even if you're not a writer. But as a writer, you have a certain amount of responsibility to the truth, even if you spend most of your time in fantasy.
Have an Arby's roast beef sandwich. You may just be surprised.
I was intrigued, because I had previously made it a habit to eat at Arby's before seeing movies at one of my local theaters. It's right next door, so the convenience alone was always a draw. Truth is, growing up Arby's didn't impress me much. I remember not being all that impressed by its signature roast beef sandwiches, in fact, so I never made it a point to go to Arby's.
The truth is, all that time I regularly went to Arby's before the movies I wasn't eating the roast beef sandwich, either. I was eating one of their chicken sandwiches. I love their curly fries, and the special Arby's sauce and horseradish sauce, too. In fact, it was as much the fries and sauces that kept me going back. But I also sampled the roast beef sandwiches again. And I liked it better this time.
Sometimes we can be a little quick to judge, thinking we know exactly what we're doing when we say something, when sometimes we're only fooling ourselves, posturing and being, basically, a fool. I will admit to that kind of behavior myself. I wish everyone could. Sometimes the ego won't allow it.
I still wish that writers weren't like that, but the truth is they are. They may be some of the most egotistical bastards out there. In some ways, they have all the reason to. Writing can look pretty glamorous on the outside, but when you dig into it, it's anything but. It's one of the dirtiest professions there are. Yeah, jobs are pretty dirty on the whole (and thank Mike Rowe for adding new layers of grime), but few jobs are as dirty as writing. People have a lot of expectations about writing. Most people seem to think it happens spontaneously, as if there aren't even people involved. It's the one job where the fantasy and reality of it have no relation at all. Ironically, writing is all about fantasy.
How do you survive as a writer? By compromise. By admitting your ego probably isn't deserved. That your elaborate defense only seems like it's helping you out. Writers are like actors. The more you pretend the more you'll lose yourself. No wonder Pynchon has kept himself out of the public eye. Of course, that's another pretension in itself.
I was just talking to my brother. He was in a horrific car accident on Sunday, but he survived it, and with injuries that were not nearly as bad as they could have been. The conversation still turned to me, because we hadn't talked in a while. I found myself using my defenses. It wasn't until we hung up that I realized what I'd been doing. There are plenty of excuses writers can have, but none of them should conceal the truth from themselves.
It's a tough life, even if you're not a writer. But as a writer, you have a certain amount of responsibility to the truth, even if you spend most of your time in fantasy.
Have an Arby's roast beef sandwich. You may just be surprised.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Skippy Was Here
I recently finished reading the book Skippy Dies by Paul Murray. It's a wonderful book. The character Daniel Juster (nicknamed Skippy by his classmates) is an Irish lad attending a boarding school who finds himself caught in a perfect storm of emotional turmoil, eventually killing himself.
I can't help but wonder if I walked past Skippy a few nights ago. This kid stopped me to ask directions. It was pretty late on Tuesday. In hindsight, so many things occurred to me that was wrong about the situation. Initially, I only kicked myself for the poor directions I gave. But did I just abet Daniel Juster?
As a writer, I'm constantly wondering about these things. I wonder about them in my head. I wonder about them in my writing. I wonder about them when I consider other people's writing. I'm something of a Daniel Juster myself. I'm not good at processing things that bother me. And a lot of things bother me.
But I'm a writer. Having a rough emotional life comes with the territory, right? Except it's one thing to read about Hart Crane tossing himself off the side of a boat and quite another to be living the life yourself. It sucks. There's a whole group of writers I'm very loosely affiliated with who write about it. But I don't feel like I'm connected to them. I don't feel like I'm much connected to anyone, really.
I'm not asking for pity. I'm simply explaining this writer's life. I tried participating in some writing groups over the summer. Well, got all the way through with one of them. Quit the other. This did not help me. I cannot for the life of me figure out why I should be alienated from what seems to be my own kind. This is some of what's bothered me in my writing career for many years.
But I get that not all writers write the same way, write the same things, have the same thoughts. That would probably be more than a little boring. But I keep thinking that it should be easier to find actual kindred spirits. Maybe my kind really doesn't play well with others, even among our own kind. Maybe that's it.
Murray wrote a 600+ page book about a bunch of characters who are experiencing very similar problems, and they all end up converging thanks to Skippy (well, I don't think anyone thanked him). Maybe that's a little of what life's really like, even a writer's life, a life that seems predestined to misery.
Again, not looking for sympathy here. This is what my journey is really like. I figured it ought to be documented on the blog, is all. This week I thought I would feel a little more triumphant. I started writing my next book. I got in my last book, which I had to order myself because of the way it was published. I loved looking at it. I loved holding it. I loved starting to write the next book.
But the steps in the process are lonely, no matter where they might lead. That's a little of what God (or whatever you might believe in) must experience, knowing how everything turns out but unable to change anything. What happens happens. It's not fun to experience. The arc of it might work out better than the individual moments, but what can you do? You're stuck in those moments. Even God can't change that.
(A special assist to David Maine, whose Fallen I'm now reading.)
I can't help but wonder if I walked past Skippy a few nights ago. This kid stopped me to ask directions. It was pretty late on Tuesday. In hindsight, so many things occurred to me that was wrong about the situation. Initially, I only kicked myself for the poor directions I gave. But did I just abet Daniel Juster?
As a writer, I'm constantly wondering about these things. I wonder about them in my head. I wonder about them in my writing. I wonder about them when I consider other people's writing. I'm something of a Daniel Juster myself. I'm not good at processing things that bother me. And a lot of things bother me.
But I'm a writer. Having a rough emotional life comes with the territory, right? Except it's one thing to read about Hart Crane tossing himself off the side of a boat and quite another to be living the life yourself. It sucks. There's a whole group of writers I'm very loosely affiliated with who write about it. But I don't feel like I'm connected to them. I don't feel like I'm much connected to anyone, really.
I'm not asking for pity. I'm simply explaining this writer's life. I tried participating in some writing groups over the summer. Well, got all the way through with one of them. Quit the other. This did not help me. I cannot for the life of me figure out why I should be alienated from what seems to be my own kind. This is some of what's bothered me in my writing career for many years.
But I get that not all writers write the same way, write the same things, have the same thoughts. That would probably be more than a little boring. But I keep thinking that it should be easier to find actual kindred spirits. Maybe my kind really doesn't play well with others, even among our own kind. Maybe that's it.
Murray wrote a 600+ page book about a bunch of characters who are experiencing very similar problems, and they all end up converging thanks to Skippy (well, I don't think anyone thanked him). Maybe that's a little of what life's really like, even a writer's life, a life that seems predestined to misery.
Again, not looking for sympathy here. This is what my journey is really like. I figured it ought to be documented on the blog, is all. This week I thought I would feel a little more triumphant. I started writing my next book. I got in my last book, which I had to order myself because of the way it was published. I loved looking at it. I loved holding it. I loved starting to write the next book.
But the steps in the process are lonely, no matter where they might lead. That's a little of what God (or whatever you might believe in) must experience, knowing how everything turns out but unable to change anything. What happens happens. It's not fun to experience. The arc of it might work out better than the individual moments, but what can you do? You're stuck in those moments. Even God can't change that.
(A special assist to David Maine, whose Fallen I'm now reading.)
Monday, October 1, 2012
The Revolution Will Be Televised
One of the new shows I'm watching this fall TV season is Revolution, which posits a future where technology has been rendered worthless by the nullification of electricity. Some commentators have suggested that it's a little silly to suggest that 1) electricity can be blocked like that and 2) people won't be able to work around that without going medieval.
For one thing, it's not uncommon for apocalyptic visions to view people having a hard time getting technology back up and running even when electricity hasn't been tampered with (see: The Stand). For another, if society went to heck in a hand basket, who do you think would have a better chance of surviving the initial chaos, the big surly bullies or the puny little science geeks? This week's episode had an anecdote about that very scenario, by the way.
Considering that the purpose of this update has nothing to do with Revolution, there's very little point in continuing to talk about it except to note that failure of the imagination can be catching. As a writer, I come across this more often than I expect, in more ways than I'd like. The world can be and in fact is very screwy like that.
If you'll recall, I put myself on a schedule for the end of September, hoping to round up some lingering projects before finally tackling a book I've been meaning to write since 1998. I finished up "City of Tomorrow" at Sigild V as planned. Tweeting a few of the chapters got me more readership than usual, so that was nice. Overall, I think it was a more rewarding writing experience than other serialized stories I've blogged, because although I plotted the story, I let most of it develop as I wrote it. That's nearly the opposite of what I hope to accomplish in the next three months as I write Seven Thunders. Today I wrote the 5,000 word prologue (every chapter will be that length, half of what I eventually mastered writing in single-day marathons last year working on Yoshimi). As I've mentioned, this is a story I've been developing for some time now, but even in recent weeks I've discovered new things that needed to be incorporated. So although most of it is indeed planned out, I expect to have a few more surprises yet.
That's something of what's happened with my Top Cow/Ji Xi script sample. I've known for weeks what I expected to do with it, but the original plan to have it written by yesterday didn't happen. I wrote the captions today, however, as I continued to warm up for writing another book. I only have dialogue and panel descriptions to go! Normally I write all of that at once, but this is my second chance with a Top Cow talent search, and I don't want to foul it up again. During my Digital Webbing days, I think I was more confident about my comic scripting abilities (this was several years after losing the first Top Cow contest), and I've been out of practice for a while. I wrote two biography scripts for Bluewater early in the years, but there's been little word on progress in turning them into actual comics, and a graphic novel with an honest-to-god collaborator is still getting its sample pages illustrated. (I know how this sounds like I'm almost a glimmer of a big shot! But I don't feel like one, so don't worry about it.) As I've mentioned, there's more Bluewater work I may hit this month in a Dr. Seuss biography, which I plan to do in Dr. Seuss style. (But I've been dallying so long on that one, will someone else have been given this theoretical book?)
Anyway, the most important bit to take away from this is my excitement over finally beginning to write Seven Thunders!
For one thing, it's not uncommon for apocalyptic visions to view people having a hard time getting technology back up and running even when electricity hasn't been tampered with (see: The Stand). For another, if society went to heck in a hand basket, who do you think would have a better chance of surviving the initial chaos, the big surly bullies or the puny little science geeks? This week's episode had an anecdote about that very scenario, by the way.
Considering that the purpose of this update has nothing to do with Revolution, there's very little point in continuing to talk about it except to note that failure of the imagination can be catching. As a writer, I come across this more often than I expect, in more ways than I'd like. The world can be and in fact is very screwy like that.
If you'll recall, I put myself on a schedule for the end of September, hoping to round up some lingering projects before finally tackling a book I've been meaning to write since 1998. I finished up "City of Tomorrow" at Sigild V as planned. Tweeting a few of the chapters got me more readership than usual, so that was nice. Overall, I think it was a more rewarding writing experience than other serialized stories I've blogged, because although I plotted the story, I let most of it develop as I wrote it. That's nearly the opposite of what I hope to accomplish in the next three months as I write Seven Thunders. Today I wrote the 5,000 word prologue (every chapter will be that length, half of what I eventually mastered writing in single-day marathons last year working on Yoshimi). As I've mentioned, this is a story I've been developing for some time now, but even in recent weeks I've discovered new things that needed to be incorporated. So although most of it is indeed planned out, I expect to have a few more surprises yet.
That's something of what's happened with my Top Cow/Ji Xi script sample. I've known for weeks what I expected to do with it, but the original plan to have it written by yesterday didn't happen. I wrote the captions today, however, as I continued to warm up for writing another book. I only have dialogue and panel descriptions to go! Normally I write all of that at once, but this is my second chance with a Top Cow talent search, and I don't want to foul it up again. During my Digital Webbing days, I think I was more confident about my comic scripting abilities (this was several years after losing the first Top Cow contest), and I've been out of practice for a while. I wrote two biography scripts for Bluewater early in the years, but there's been little word on progress in turning them into actual comics, and a graphic novel with an honest-to-god collaborator is still getting its sample pages illustrated. (I know how this sounds like I'm almost a glimmer of a big shot! But I don't feel like one, so don't worry about it.) As I've mentioned, there's more Bluewater work I may hit this month in a Dr. Seuss biography, which I plan to do in Dr. Seuss style. (But I've been dallying so long on that one, will someone else have been given this theoretical book?)
Anyway, the most important bit to take away from this is my excitement over finally beginning to write Seven Thunders!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
A Brief Update
Since I last checked in here, I mentioned some projects I hoped to finish by the end of the month. I'm happy to report that progress is looking good.
"City of Tomorrow" over at Sigild V is shaping up well. Seven chapters done and five to go, just the amount of days I need, since I'm writing one a day, what amounts to a page in the formatting I normally use. All the major characters have been introduced now. The first chapter I posted to Twitter spiked interest to half a dozen reads instead of one or two (or none!), so that's pretty good. I tweeted today's, just to see if history repeats itself. As per my previous description, the story explores uncharted territory in the history of Metropolis, influential figures in the folklore that exists outside of Superman (all created by me), who is never referenced by name, nor is Lex Luthor, the Daily Planet, or anything but the location name and its popular nickname. Keeps most of it under my control.
I wrote my entry for Martin Ingham's upcoming anthology, around 2,400 words, which is still not too many, but still respectable. I had a roadmap for the story, but actually writing it was still pretty surprising, the way it turned out. I'm pleased with it. The good thing is, if it's not selected I always have Sigild as a forum.
So just the five chapters and the Top Cow contest script and maybe Dr. Seuss bio to go!
"City of Tomorrow" over at Sigild V is shaping up well. Seven chapters done and five to go, just the amount of days I need, since I'm writing one a day, what amounts to a page in the formatting I normally use. All the major characters have been introduced now. The first chapter I posted to Twitter spiked interest to half a dozen reads instead of one or two (or none!), so that's pretty good. I tweeted today's, just to see if history repeats itself. As per my previous description, the story explores uncharted territory in the history of Metropolis, influential figures in the folklore that exists outside of Superman (all created by me), who is never referenced by name, nor is Lex Luthor, the Daily Planet, or anything but the location name and its popular nickname. Keeps most of it under my control.
I wrote my entry for Martin Ingham's upcoming anthology, around 2,400 words, which is still not too many, but still respectable. I had a roadmap for the story, but actually writing it was still pretty surprising, the way it turned out. I'm pleased with it. The good thing is, if it's not selected I always have Sigild as a forum.
So just the five chapters and the Top Cow contest script and maybe Dr. Seuss bio to go!
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