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  • January20th

    Publishing like it’s 1436

    Posted in: Art, Big Plans, Updates, Writing

    I am preparing to make a book from scratch. Needle, thread, glue, papers…

    I’ll sew the signatures. Glue the text block together and case it in.

    The real question is this: Do I print the pages? Do I leave them blank and make a journal instead? Do I have enough to make a finished book? Do I wait until I have enough?

    I’ve come to despise writing in a fashion. It takes so long to perfect. A simple story is bad enough. A novel is a nightmare.

    I think I’m going to do a book of Fairytales. A book of finished things. It pains me to wait. So I will continue to paint in the meantime. And if I truly mean to finish a book of finished things I had better set a word quota, so that sometime soon I can put it together.

    I am not really a perfectionist–and writing demands perfection. This may be why I’ve come to despise it.

    But it may be something else too. Perhaps I’m trying to combine what I’ve already mastered–art and hand construction—with something I have yet to master–writing.

    If a novice were to sit down and mimic my painting style–which is in some ways meticulous–it would be very frustrating. It’s not as free and loose as a beginning watercolorist must be in order to learn to paint.

    I do see the folly in my thinking.

    It’s all for the worse when you can see how wrong the course is you want to set.

    Maybe I should just set aside my big ideas and think smaller. Make a blank book or two and until the newness of the idea gets out of my system.

    This isn’t really about publishing, you understand. If it were, I’d be hot on doing two things–either sending out query letters or prepping an ebook. After writing a bunch more, of course.

    No, this is something entirely different. I’m trying to solidify my ideas. To test a theory. To see if this is want I want to say. To find out if this is the way I want to say it.

    Time on earth is limited. I have to make some decisions. I doubt I have time to do everything I’d like–who does?

    I can’t decide if this is worth my time. I keep coming back to it. But maybe it’s just a bad relationship. Don’t we tend to love the ones who spurn our overtures? Maybe trying a little harder until we find out it’s all for naught?

  • December15th

    Happy December

    Posted in: Updates

    What I have of my NaNoWriMo manuscript is cooling.

    I am editing a short piece of fiction that comes in under 10,000 words. Urban Fantasy. Completely new venue for me.

    I have returned with gusto to my Art Journal experiment. I am still trying to figure out a way to make it a daily practice, but a sketch a day isn’t going to work, so instead I spend several days designing and painting a  layout into which I write a little note here and there as  time allows. Right now the plan is monthly. A page or to that relates to the month.

    I have a job waiting on me.

    I have a call for art submission to a local gallery next month and at some point I need to decide if I am willing to commit to a show and opening next year. Everything I have is old work, but all to new eyes. Still, I’ve gone some interesting places in my personal wanderings that I’d like to explore further.

    Would the pressure of a show help or hinder I wonder?

    Anyway, this is my update for December. I will have more to say on my Nano manuscript once I read it, but just in this short episode of forcible editing I’ve already come across a large part of my problem. The reason I get stuck is because I am unwilling to write without a good amount of self censorship.

    In other words, I don’t let myself  just spew complete garbage. This is something I need to learn to do, or else I’m going to get hung up every time. Got to learn to live with the  imprecise, full of fuzzy unsure language that resorts to ham-fisted attempts all for the sake of getting a rough sketch down on paper.

    Took a long time to learn that in art. I think this is where I am in writing.

  • November13th

    Half done this week

    Posted in: NaNoWriMo, Process

    And you better believe I’m still struggling with Act One.

    The one-liner is completely written through, but a few things changed– and that in turn left plot holes that have to be patched up. And the more I think on it, the more I consider really tearing things up by adding a new scene early on. But all that is pointless–I really shouldn’t be looking back at all, except for the fact that I’m struggling to go forward.

    I’m not sure what this all means. I want to say that it means I have a good understanding of my plot already and I know when things are critically missing. For example. I feel like my Protagonist and Co-protagonist should have met by now in some sort of significant way due to the fact that Act Two is about their struggle to reach the goal. Reasonable and critical. But not in one-liner to the depth it needs to be. So then, I flounder going forward because if this hasn’t happened yet, they have to convince themselves that they need to find each other–whereas if it happens forcefully early in the storyline–much of the decision is already made through action instead of thought and justifications.

    I know. How utterly boring. I feel the same way. Meaningful word quota has been hard to come by. I’ve been purposely loosening up on what writing is about this week, because it will just take some plodding and misdirection to get to the solution.

    It reminds me of drawing really. Unless you are copying from life–you have to loosen up. A lot. Just make lines for a while. The motion of putting things down on paper, without the pressure of drawing exactly what you need is how things have to start. The problem with the Nanowrimo thing is that I felt like I had my reference already and that it should be as simple as writing it start to finish. Simple as copying a photograph.

    Well, it hasn’t turned out that way. Now I don’t have any doubt  that I will finish the Nano goal. But I do doubt the finish of this thing, in terms of all those things that typically harry my first drafts. I really wanted less subplots that drift. Less indecision in my characters about what they want and why–especially antagonists– which I have purposely decided to add a POV in to help with that. As a matter of fact, I added several POV to this story to ensure I could keep my MC on track by having other ways to push on him.

    So I don’t know. Having dreams this morning that someone stole my sketchbook and rendered all my sketches to finish and then was passing them off as their work. And another one about someone defacing my Cintiq. Anxiety in all aspects of creative life this week. Hoping it will get better soon. But I doubt it. I’ll be away from my desk with a huge quota catch up to do by the weekend.

  • November9th

    Subplots Happen

    Posted in: NaNoWriMo

    I am officially off my one-liner and now into the big huge document I made.

    One day off and boom. A subplot. Out of nowhere. This means of course that things will be wildly unpredictable and the document I made as a sort of guide, an editing guide to make sure these scenes that are going to happen have some sort of purpose in a second draft of the thing.

    Should I be disappointed that at the very first opportunity I had that did not require justification and thought as to where it might go, my imagination grabbed the reigns and added another horse to the race? I can’t help but wonder if maybe there is something wrong with my plot–in that I struggle with what seems the obvious course of action and want to throw in something more.

    Oh, it fits in with everything, don’t get me wrong. Perfectly plausible given the situation. I just have a nagging feeling that’s all.

    Writers. Writers. Writers. I am not really a writer. Well, I don’t think of myself as one of you. I’m just visiting your world, checking things out. You are a strange and wondrous breed of people. Stay tuned. I have some more to say on you.

  • October31st

    And so it goes…

    Posted in: NaNoWriMo

    Happy Halloween!

    I’m prepping my work for tomorrow. A scene that needs to becomes the basis of a chapter– a or scene as the second half of the first chapter.

    Anyway… as it turns out, no preschool for the littlest one of the household this week. Which means, morning writing sessions for the next seven days.

    The last thing left to do is clear off my desk and set up my chair. I’m not typing an entire draft with the laptop in my lap. I need a place to keep my huge binder of a battle plan out and available.

    I hope my battle plan works. I mean, it’s not so much for this first week. I have my one-liner for that. It’s for next week, when I haven’t as solid an idea about the plot–that’s when I need my battle plan to work a little magic for me.

    We’ll see if all that prep work makes it happen. I hope so, certainly.

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