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Writing to reach you
I’ve been in a writing zone lately. Every day, writing. In the car, in the house, upstairs and downstairs. It doesn’t seem to matter. As I’ve mentioned over at the Aldersgate Cycle blog, I’ve been so busy that blog writing isn’t really a possibility (except um, obviously right now). I realized I’ve clocked about 70K in the last month and three days. Which is impressive. But what really got me is that I’ve written 35K in the last ten days. Though I’m typically very, um, unpredictable when it comes to writing, I have little in the way of explanation for this one. To my knowledge no one has spiked my…
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Going for the jugular: killing characters
These days high-profile writers get a lot of press for doing awful things to characters. Yes, killing a protagonist can be a very effective way of adding a hint of surprise to your novel. But it’s by no means unusual or original. I mean, if you ever have read any George R. R. Martin or heck, even J.K. Rowling, you know that people make a very big deal about killing characters. It even becomes some writers’ defining characteristic. The weird thing is that it’s not new. Take the “Song of Roland”. Hint: everybody dies. Well, Roland and Oliver die. And everything falls apart. Pretty much the same story in Arthuriana.…
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Giving GoogleDocs a second chance.
My husband has always been a huge supporter of using GoogleDocs, and I have always been skeptic. There’s something about writing in your own program and having everything just where you like it. I’m possessive, I admit. I tried writing in GoogleDocs a few times, and was always put off by myriad formatting issues. I can tolerate lots of clunkiness in the way of a word processor, but if it can’t do a handful of things I toss it out entirely. Well, I’ve been contemplating novel storage, and as a backup, I’ve been importing stuff into GoogleDocs. Then I decided to give it another try, just to see. And I…
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More process than product.
I have been editing a book for longer than I’ve been writing it. Such is the way of things. But I am seven chapters from the end of The Aldersgate, and looking at my collected chapters in Scrivener gives me a very warm sense of accomplishment. I’m hitting the home stretch, and yesterday when I went to visit my husband at work, I was listening to the radio and tying up loose ends in my head for the last few chapters; everything sort of rushed and me, and I realized about ten minutes into my thought process that I was going the wrong way on the highway–i.e. north and not…
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Living with a writer.
I sometimes wonder what it’s like dealing with me. I mean, being a writer and immersing yourself in imaginary and weird worlds (and sometimes… universes, omniverses, and fractalverses) is by no stretch a “normal” thing to do. My kid, sure, he’s two, and he probably thinks what I do is normal. But how do I explain to him what’s going on in my head? So, in a nod to my husband for putting up with me, here’s some things you might notice if you live with a writer: Incoherent mumbling. This is usually reserved for writers in the process of thinking a novel out. You may hear quips of dialogues,…
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The creativity curve, and time for the cure.
Creativity is a fickle little brat. You know, I try my best to be disciplined. Okay, that’s a blatant lie. Let me try this again. I’m not good at being disciplined, but I occasionally make the effort to do more than write whenever I feel like it. I write when I can. And what exactly the magic mix that entices me to write thousands of words at a go might be… well, damned if I know. Sometimes opening up my laptop and staring at Scrivener is akin to a holy experience, the story unfolding in front of me faster than I can type. Other times, I feel like a dried…
