Pardon my absence yesterday. It was a sick day.
The question on my mind this week for writing is with regards to vampires, specifically as they appear in Thunderstruck. I have been toying with the outline to see if there is some way to sub out vampires with some other entity.
It just seems like vampires are starting to get really overplayed. I can't keep track of all the vampire shows, movies, and books out there now. I don't watch/read any of them, and I'm still sick to death of them. Especially the vampires of the romantic teenage variety. Can you imagine a worse hell than being stuck in high school for all eternity?
Still, there are advantages to using them. The familiarity with vampires means you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining them to the reader, which is convenient. And in terms of Thunderstruck specifically, it's hard to find a substitute that will cause the least damage to the plot. Not that I mind making changes, but the element where Gail looks like she would be capable of curing a vampire is pretty critical, not to mention Bella's contingency plan...
And if I take out the vampires, does that mean that Stephanie Meyer wins?
So I think I'll stick with them, and just make sure they don't ever show up as anything like the teenage romantic variety that's so popular.
And no werewolves or zombies. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Progress Report: 6/21/2010
A report on the Critters Experience so far.
I am currently a member of the Critters website, which is a kind of large online critique group for fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Every week, people contribute, on average, 10-20 stories. These are chapters of novels or short stories. As a member, you're required to critique at least one submission per week (and very short submissions count as only half a credit). If you decide to critique someone's whole novel, you will get a large number of critique credits based on the length of the book.
There are two other basic features of Critters that it's best to know about.
The first is that it uses a very archaic formatting standard -- pure simple text. This can be a little frustrating. You have to filter out any special characters (smart quotes, accents, stuff like that) for anything you submit. You also can't use italics or other advanced formatting, though there are various ways to indicate formatting in pure text. All commentary is done in old-school email style, like this.
>Fred noticed the bat circling his head had suddenly
>begun to fly counterclockwise. He wondered what that
>could possibly mean.
You might consider using "widdershins" instead of "counterclockwise."
The other thing about Critters is that you are required by the rules to be very, very, very polite. Now, I'm all for being polite and considerate. I've known a number of people who seem to think there's a virtue in being harsh with their criticism, and relish "tearing into" another writer. This kind of criticism is usually accompanied with something like, "Hey, I'm just calling it as I see it," or "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." I find there's generally a way to phrase any sort of reasonable criticism in a way that isn't deliberately savage.
But in Critters, it goes to a pretty serious extreme. The rules state that you need to be ultra-polite even when correcting basic grammar. So instead of this:
>"Don't feed cinnamon to the lungfish" he shouted.
"lungfish," shouted
... where you just indicate the placement of the missing comma, you have to go with something like this:
>"Don't feed cinnamon to the lungfish" he shouted.
I believe there should be a comma after "lungfish" here, as in "lungfish," he shouted.
Because, after all, everything is just your opinion, even basic grammar, apparently. And you have to make it clear that you're just offering you opinion every time.
So that gets a little tedious. I suppose erring on the side of politeness is not the worst policy to have on the Internet, but still. Sheesh.
Anyway, there have been some good stories and some pretty rough stories that I've critiqued so far, as one might expect. I think it's a good place, and I'll keep with it until I find a more intimate critique group that I can be a part of, either in person or online. We'll see what happens when I submit something for critique, though.
I am currently a member of the Critters website, which is a kind of large online critique group for fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Every week, people contribute, on average, 10-20 stories. These are chapters of novels or short stories. As a member, you're required to critique at least one submission per week (and very short submissions count as only half a credit). If you decide to critique someone's whole novel, you will get a large number of critique credits based on the length of the book.
There are two other basic features of Critters that it's best to know about.
The first is that it uses a very archaic formatting standard -- pure simple text. This can be a little frustrating. You have to filter out any special characters (smart quotes, accents, stuff like that) for anything you submit. You also can't use italics or other advanced formatting, though there are various ways to indicate formatting in pure text. All commentary is done in old-school email style, like this.
>Fred noticed the bat circling his head had suddenly
>begun to fly counterclockwise. He wondered what that
>could possibly mean.
You might consider using "widdershins" instead of "counterclockwise."
The other thing about Critters is that you are required by the rules to be very, very, very polite. Now, I'm all for being polite and considerate. I've known a number of people who seem to think there's a virtue in being harsh with their criticism, and relish "tearing into" another writer. This kind of criticism is usually accompanied with something like, "Hey, I'm just calling it as I see it," or "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." I find there's generally a way to phrase any sort of reasonable criticism in a way that isn't deliberately savage.
But in Critters, it goes to a pretty serious extreme. The rules state that you need to be ultra-polite even when correcting basic grammar. So instead of this:
>"Don't feed cinnamon to the lungfish" he shouted.
"lungfish," shouted
... where you just indicate the placement of the missing comma, you have to go with something like this:
>"Don't feed cinnamon to the lungfish" he shouted.
I believe there should be a comma after "lungfish" here, as in "lungfish," he shouted.
Because, after all, everything is just your opinion, even basic grammar, apparently. And you have to make it clear that you're just offering you opinion every time.
So that gets a little tedious. I suppose erring on the side of politeness is not the worst policy to have on the Internet, but still. Sheesh.
Anyway, there have been some good stories and some pretty rough stories that I've critiqued so far, as one might expect. I think it's a good place, and I'll keep with it until I find a more intimate critique group that I can be a part of, either in person or online. We'll see what happens when I submit something for critique, though.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Progress Report: 6/14/2010
So here I thought this would be good time to take a day off from work -- have a nice long weekend, get some writing done, enjoy some hiking, that sort of thing. Then I pinch a nerve in my neck and spend most of the weekend in considerable pain. Plus, it rains all weekend.
Well, so much for that plan.
The old mutant healing factor does seem to be repairing the damage, so pain is diminishing today. It makes concentration difficult, this pain stuff. I'll be relieved when it finally subsides.
Given the circles I run in (such as my work place), it's no surprise that I run into the Gaia philosophy a lot. Roughly expressed, this is the idea that the planet has a consciousness, or the "Earth as God" (Goddess, perhaps). This is expressed in all sorts of ways, great and small, and people believe it to various degrees.
So let's go with that for now. Say there is a Gaia consciousness -- I certainly can't say with certainty that there is or isn't. With regards to the Gulf spill, it would seem to me that the question is not: "Why are we doing this to the planet?" I've heard variations on that one a lot, along with the idea that the planet is suffering, crying out, being raped, etc.
If one does accept the Gaia consciousness idea, then I think the question should be: "Why is the planet doing this to itself?" Because we are, after all, a part of the planet. We would be an agency of Gaia. Like every other animal, we try to spread our population, we consume things that give us energy, and we affect the environment through our behavior. The planet, if it is acting at all, is acting through us, as much as it acts through any ant colony, kelp bed, or volcanic eruption.
This is not to absolve us of responsibility, nor to suggest that we shouldn't try to avoid things like the Gulf spill. It's not to imply we couldn't do great harm to ourselves through our actions, or even drive ourselves to extinction if we really go overboard (extinction is an essential part of the planetary history). It's just that the mindset of separation from the Earth doesn't seem to do us much good. Even Gaia believers seem to hold this separation, as if our actions are somehow distinct from the consciousness of the Earth. Which, I think, undermines the whole idea of Gaia in the first place.
Well, so much for that plan.
The old mutant healing factor does seem to be repairing the damage, so pain is diminishing today. It makes concentration difficult, this pain stuff. I'll be relieved when it finally subsides.
Given the circles I run in (such as my work place), it's no surprise that I run into the Gaia philosophy a lot. Roughly expressed, this is the idea that the planet has a consciousness, or the "Earth as God" (Goddess, perhaps). This is expressed in all sorts of ways, great and small, and people believe it to various degrees.
So let's go with that for now. Say there is a Gaia consciousness -- I certainly can't say with certainty that there is or isn't. With regards to the Gulf spill, it would seem to me that the question is not: "Why are we doing this to the planet?" I've heard variations on that one a lot, along with the idea that the planet is suffering, crying out, being raped, etc.
If one does accept the Gaia consciousness idea, then I think the question should be: "Why is the planet doing this to itself?" Because we are, after all, a part of the planet. We would be an agency of Gaia. Like every other animal, we try to spread our population, we consume things that give us energy, and we affect the environment through our behavior. The planet, if it is acting at all, is acting through us, as much as it acts through any ant colony, kelp bed, or volcanic eruption.
This is not to absolve us of responsibility, nor to suggest that we shouldn't try to avoid things like the Gulf spill. It's not to imply we couldn't do great harm to ourselves through our actions, or even drive ourselves to extinction if we really go overboard (extinction is an essential part of the planetary history). It's just that the mindset of separation from the Earth doesn't seem to do us much good. Even Gaia believers seem to hold this separation, as if our actions are somehow distinct from the consciousness of the Earth. Which, I think, undermines the whole idea of Gaia in the first place.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Progress Report: 6/7/2010
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a professional writer. That being said, "professional writer" describes a very large territory. I'm in one region of that territory now, writing copy for a living. Since I love the company and (most of) the products, I'm happy to be here.
And there are some dark regions of being a professional writer that I would fear to explore.
I say this because I see they have created Marmaduke: The Movie. My mind reels when I think of having to write the script for such an entity. This was assuredly a studio decision: "What property have we not mined yet? What about that comic about the dog? You know, the big one that gets up on the couch and drools... that stuff is golden. I want to see a script treatment by tomorrow morning!"
This would be nothing but a paycheck job. Sure, life is full of them. We all have to do them. Writing such a script would be the soul-level equivalent of filling out your tax forms. It would be a chore to complete as soon as you possibly could, hopefully under a pseudonym. I feel for the people who were stuck with that job.
And, thinking about it, I'd probably do it. If I were a professional screenwriter and hadn't made enough of a name to say "no" to projects I didn't like, or if I was in a dry spell for work and needed something to pay the bills. Marmaduke? Sure, why not. It's a lousy job, but low pressure. Nobody's expecting the next Inherit the Wind here. If I manage to actually shoehorn in a few genuinely funny moments that don't get lopped out by the director, maybe I can look back on it without grimacing.
I think I'd use the pseudonym, though.
Still waiting, waiting, waiting on Rose & Jade. I can see that light there at the end of the tunnel for work, though, so I'm optimistic about more good writing time in the near future.
And there are some dark regions of being a professional writer that I would fear to explore.
I say this because I see they have created Marmaduke: The Movie. My mind reels when I think of having to write the script for such an entity. This was assuredly a studio decision: "What property have we not mined yet? What about that comic about the dog? You know, the big one that gets up on the couch and drools... that stuff is golden. I want to see a script treatment by tomorrow morning!"
This would be nothing but a paycheck job. Sure, life is full of them. We all have to do them. Writing such a script would be the soul-level equivalent of filling out your tax forms. It would be a chore to complete as soon as you possibly could, hopefully under a pseudonym. I feel for the people who were stuck with that job.
And, thinking about it, I'd probably do it. If I were a professional screenwriter and hadn't made enough of a name to say "no" to projects I didn't like, or if I was in a dry spell for work and needed something to pay the bills. Marmaduke? Sure, why not. It's a lousy job, but low pressure. Nobody's expecting the next Inherit the Wind here. If I manage to actually shoehorn in a few genuinely funny moments that don't get lopped out by the director, maybe I can look back on it without grimacing.
I think I'd use the pseudonym, though.
Still waiting, waiting, waiting on Rose & Jade. I can see that light there at the end of the tunnel for work, though, so I'm optimistic about more good writing time in the near future.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Progress Report: 6/1/2010
It's said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. June, I would have to say, comes in like a ninja.
As in, "What, already? How did this happen?" That tends to be my reaction to June.
In terms of progress, there isn't much to report this week. I took the long weekend off, and I was happy to do it. Now it's back to work, back to plotting and scheming and writing.
See you guys next week.
As in, "What, already? How did this happen?" That tends to be my reaction to June.
In terms of progress, there isn't much to report this week. I took the long weekend off, and I was happy to do it. Now it's back to work, back to plotting and scheming and writing.
See you guys next week.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Progress Report: 5/24/2010
So I wrote the agent who's looking at Rose & Jade, and nothing terrible befell me. A crack did not open up in the ground to swallow me up, and I was neither struck blind nor covered with boils. Peculiar, isn't it? I do have a sore shoulder, but I think that can be traced to a more obvious cause.
Anyway, the agent says that he is now showing my story to a few other readers to get a consensus. He tells me that this is a time-consuming process and apologizes for the slowness. All this sounds fairly promising to me. My limited experience with agents so far is they don't need any kind of consensus to tell them what they don't like, and it's not time-consuming when they're telling you to blow off (generally, they're very polite about it, so don't take that to mean they're deliberately mean. It's still no fun). I know that a project has many chances to de-rail and it could easily happen any time, but it is kind of encouraging to have gotten a little farther down the tracks this time.
Also: I now have a laptop! A fine Mac laptop inherited from my good friend Andrew, and much more potent than anything I could have afforded to buy. Now it's a matter of getting some writing done on it. Work continues to dominate, but the end of this stretch is in sight. Perhaps a couple more weeks before the schedule settles back into something that permits breathing and a re-channeling of creative energy.
Work itself can be very rewarding, at least. Sometimes I get to work with material that is simply outstanding, as was recently the case. I have been writing the copy for an audio program with Howard Thurman, and it's been amazing to listen to him. He was Martin Luther King's spiritual mentor, to create the historical context, and I thought that the hook for the package copy would be about Thurman's legacy, his place in the Civil Rights movement, and that sort of thing. What I realized is that if someone walked into the studio and recorded the same material off the street, it would still be awesome.
Anyway, the agent says that he is now showing my story to a few other readers to get a consensus. He tells me that this is a time-consuming process and apologizes for the slowness. All this sounds fairly promising to me. My limited experience with agents so far is they don't need any kind of consensus to tell them what they don't like, and it's not time-consuming when they're telling you to blow off (generally, they're very polite about it, so don't take that to mean they're deliberately mean. It's still no fun). I know that a project has many chances to de-rail and it could easily happen any time, but it is kind of encouraging to have gotten a little farther down the tracks this time.
Also: I now have a laptop! A fine Mac laptop inherited from my good friend Andrew, and much more potent than anything I could have afforded to buy. Now it's a matter of getting some writing done on it. Work continues to dominate, but the end of this stretch is in sight. Perhaps a couple more weeks before the schedule settles back into something that permits breathing and a re-channeling of creative energy.
Work itself can be very rewarding, at least. Sometimes I get to work with material that is simply outstanding, as was recently the case. I have been writing the copy for an audio program with Howard Thurman, and it's been amazing to listen to him. He was Martin Luther King's spiritual mentor, to create the historical context, and I thought that the hook for the package copy would be about Thurman's legacy, his place in the Civil Rights movement, and that sort of thing. What I realized is that if someone walked into the studio and recorded the same material off the street, it would still be awesome.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Progress Report: 5/17/2010
I just did something that I was advised not to do, which is to bug the agent to whom I sent my manuscript to see how it's coming along. It occurred to me after sending the email that I never did confirmation from him that he'd gotten the manuscript in the first place. I just assume it went through, but sometimes with large attachments, things don't work properly.
So we'll see.
Sometimes, you have to ignore advice. Actually, I'm getting to the point right now where I've hit advice overload. How to get published, how to write for the mass market, the rules of dealing with agents, the rules of contacting editors, the rules of structuring a story, the rules of character, the rules of dialogue, the rules of... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!
Many bits of advice contradict one another, or at least don't line up properly. Many other bits of advice seem sound, and then you see exceptions littered all around. So I think it's time to put a bit of a hold on advice. It can get paralyzing after a while.
So we'll see.
Sometimes, you have to ignore advice. Actually, I'm getting to the point right now where I've hit advice overload. How to get published, how to write for the mass market, the rules of dealing with agents, the rules of contacting editors, the rules of structuring a story, the rules of character, the rules of dialogue, the rules of... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!
Many bits of advice contradict one another, or at least don't line up properly. Many other bits of advice seem sound, and then you see exceptions littered all around. So I think it's time to put a bit of a hold on advice. It can get paralyzing after a while.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Progress Report: 5/10/2010
Still deep in the busy stretch for work, and that looks like it will last well into June. Which means that my blog updated here will probably be pretty light, barring some kind of wonderful agent news or something like that.
George R. R. Martin just invited a pretty hearty debate about fanfiction over on his blog (link here), and I think we got down to the heart of the matter on his third post. I haven't read all the replies, but judging from how his tone has changed, enough people must've told him that he was overestimating the issue about legal fears. Many authors have made a peaceful relationship with the fanfic community. Indeed, if you read Free by Chris Anderson, you can easily see how a robust fanfiction community can ultimately help the profits of the creator by creating free publicity and interest. It certainly happened with a lot of anime and manga.
It's not really a legal issue, it's a personal issue. The short of it is that he doesn't want his view of characters or a story poisoned by some writer's crappy or disrespectful version of things. And since most fanfiction (though not all) is pretty bad, it's a legit concern. Once you strip away his reason-based arguments, which can be refuted or challenged, what it boils down to is an emotional response from a man who takes stories very seriously. And I respect that.
(I find it fascinating that Martin brings up Alien 3 as an example of how stories can get spoiled by a bad installment. I can't think of a movie I hate more than Alien 3, so I really sympathize with his point on that.)
Martin also says that "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds," which accounts for his own ventures into the grey areas of fanfiction. He contributed pretty heavily tot he whole Suduvu character battle thing, including some pieces of fanfic all his own. And yes, it was supposedly all done with permission (I have my doubts about that... Aragorn and Gandalf were in that contest, and I don't see Christopher Tolkien as giving his blessing for that sort of thing). It was still fanfiction. Publishing a RPG based on your world and characters is also entering some fuzzy territory, since it's basically giving permission for people to play in your world with your characters.
What it boils down to is that his real emotional objection is to bad fanfiction... and indeed, bad fiction in general. Not poor writing, but existing characters abused by authors who either don't understand them or don't respect them (a problem that exists whenever you switch writers -- he brings up both comics and the Alien movies as examples). Since there's no way to police fanfiction quality, and since much of it is indeed quite bad, Martin is pretty much against it as a rule.
I can respect that. Even when I was writing fanfiction, which I don't really do now (I dabbled again with the Suduvu thing), there were only some things that I felt like being a part of. Mostly I did Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, of course. I thought Ranma was the perfect subject for fanfiction, because the original material was both good enough and bad enough. The author, Rumiko Takahashi, never took it very seriously. In fact, some of the storylines she wrote were embarrassingly stupid, and would've been scorned as fanfiction if they hadn't actually been part of her canon. This is to say nothing of the anime version, which got unwatchably bad after a while. So while you had a core group of fun characters and wide-open possibilities in Ranma, it was also hard to abuse it much worse than the original creator already had, unless you went for something really depraved.
I may differ with Martin in vehemence about fanfiction, but I've pretty much gone off it myself. It's more fun to play in worlds of my own.
George R. R. Martin just invited a pretty hearty debate about fanfiction over on his blog (link here), and I think we got down to the heart of the matter on his third post. I haven't read all the replies, but judging from how his tone has changed, enough people must've told him that he was overestimating the issue about legal fears. Many authors have made a peaceful relationship with the fanfic community. Indeed, if you read Free by Chris Anderson, you can easily see how a robust fanfiction community can ultimately help the profits of the creator by creating free publicity and interest. It certainly happened with a lot of anime and manga.
It's not really a legal issue, it's a personal issue. The short of it is that he doesn't want his view of characters or a story poisoned by some writer's crappy or disrespectful version of things. And since most fanfiction (though not all) is pretty bad, it's a legit concern. Once you strip away his reason-based arguments, which can be refuted or challenged, what it boils down to is an emotional response from a man who takes stories very seriously. And I respect that.
(I find it fascinating that Martin brings up Alien 3 as an example of how stories can get spoiled by a bad installment. I can't think of a movie I hate more than Alien 3, so I really sympathize with his point on that.)
Martin also says that "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds," which accounts for his own ventures into the grey areas of fanfiction. He contributed pretty heavily tot he whole Suduvu character battle thing, including some pieces of fanfic all his own. And yes, it was supposedly all done with permission (I have my doubts about that... Aragorn and Gandalf were in that contest, and I don't see Christopher Tolkien as giving his blessing for that sort of thing). It was still fanfiction. Publishing a RPG based on your world and characters is also entering some fuzzy territory, since it's basically giving permission for people to play in your world with your characters.
What it boils down to is that his real emotional objection is to bad fanfiction... and indeed, bad fiction in general. Not poor writing, but existing characters abused by authors who either don't understand them or don't respect them (a problem that exists whenever you switch writers -- he brings up both comics and the Alien movies as examples). Since there's no way to police fanfiction quality, and since much of it is indeed quite bad, Martin is pretty much against it as a rule.
I can respect that. Even when I was writing fanfiction, which I don't really do now (I dabbled again with the Suduvu thing), there were only some things that I felt like being a part of. Mostly I did Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, of course. I thought Ranma was the perfect subject for fanfiction, because the original material was both good enough and bad enough. The author, Rumiko Takahashi, never took it very seriously. In fact, some of the storylines she wrote were embarrassingly stupid, and would've been scorned as fanfiction if they hadn't actually been part of her canon. This is to say nothing of the anime version, which got unwatchably bad after a while. So while you had a core group of fun characters and wide-open possibilities in Ranma, it was also hard to abuse it much worse than the original creator already had, unless you went for something really depraved.
I may differ with Martin in vehemence about fanfiction, but I've pretty much gone off it myself. It's more fun to play in worlds of my own.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Progress Report: 5/3/2010
At work, there are three basic speeds:
Such times of Option Three are traditionally not very good for writing, since there's so much energy being dumped into work. However, if I let stuff like that derail me completely, I'll never get anything accomplished. So I signed up for Critters.org.
I haven't had much luck with finding a critique group, though I've been testing options since late last year. Ruling out the local, face-to-face options, none of which seem to work, we're left with the Internet. Critters.org is a big online critique community for Fantasy and SF writers, so it seemed like a good place to start.
My feeling right now is that I would eventually like to narrow it down and develop a smaller, more personal critique circle, where all the writers know each other and commit to supporting and improving each others' work. For now, it seems the best option is to make some contact with other authors through a larger site and see who clicks.
In laptop news, my good friend Andrew offered to pass along his old Mac laptop to me, which is terrific. The sole hurdle to this is prying it from the clutching hands of his psychotic tenant. Have you ever met someone in real life who was such a walking, talking stereotype that you would never dream of writing that person as a fictional character? That's what this tenant is like. She is, in many ways, stranger than fiction.
- Busy
- Very Busy
- Mega Hyper Super-Overdrive Busy (in a white wine sauce)
Such times of Option Three are traditionally not very good for writing, since there's so much energy being dumped into work. However, if I let stuff like that derail me completely, I'll never get anything accomplished. So I signed up for Critters.org.
I haven't had much luck with finding a critique group, though I've been testing options since late last year. Ruling out the local, face-to-face options, none of which seem to work, we're left with the Internet. Critters.org is a big online critique community for Fantasy and SF writers, so it seemed like a good place to start.
My feeling right now is that I would eventually like to narrow it down and develop a smaller, more personal critique circle, where all the writers know each other and commit to supporting and improving each others' work. For now, it seems the best option is to make some contact with other authors through a larger site and see who clicks.
In laptop news, my good friend Andrew offered to pass along his old Mac laptop to me, which is terrific. The sole hurdle to this is prying it from the clutching hands of his psychotic tenant. Have you ever met someone in real life who was such a walking, talking stereotype that you would never dream of writing that person as a fictional character? That's what this tenant is like. She is, in many ways, stranger than fiction.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Progress Report: 4/26/2010
With regards to agent news... still no sign of land. Fortunately, the supplies are in good shape, so I don't think we'll be resorting to cannibalism any time soon.
Got some good work done on the Thunderstruck outline this week. I also got bashed in the head by another story. Sometimes, a story comes bubbling up in a dream, and it's sufficiently compelling that I have to pursue it. I was asked by a friend if this happens often. Hmm... how often does it need to happen to be considered "often"? Once or twice a year seems about right, at least for the amount of time I have right now for writing.
Sometimes, these stories don't actually hold up that well when they start to appear on paper, which only makes sense. Dreams have their own weird internal logic. Sometimes, there's no fixing a dream story's inherent "dream-ness."
The one thing I almost never seem to get from a story that comes to me in a dream is an ending. This can be a real challenge. The first novel I got seriously going with is called The Boy in the Glass, and it came from a dream. The first several chapters were all right there with perfect clarity, to the point that I was practically able to transcribe them verbatim from memory. Neat! They set up an excellent character and a fascinating mystery that changes her life... and then, I don't know what it means. The agony is that I'm sure that in the dream I did know what it all meant, and I lost it.
I want to get back to that novel again, damn it. I know there's a solution in there somewhere.
Got some good work done on the Thunderstruck outline this week. I also got bashed in the head by another story. Sometimes, a story comes bubbling up in a dream, and it's sufficiently compelling that I have to pursue it. I was asked by a friend if this happens often. Hmm... how often does it need to happen to be considered "often"? Once or twice a year seems about right, at least for the amount of time I have right now for writing.
Sometimes, these stories don't actually hold up that well when they start to appear on paper, which only makes sense. Dreams have their own weird internal logic. Sometimes, there's no fixing a dream story's inherent "dream-ness."
The one thing I almost never seem to get from a story that comes to me in a dream is an ending. This can be a real challenge. The first novel I got seriously going with is called The Boy in the Glass, and it came from a dream. The first several chapters were all right there with perfect clarity, to the point that I was practically able to transcribe them verbatim from memory. Neat! They set up an excellent character and a fascinating mystery that changes her life... and then, I don't know what it means. The agony is that I'm sure that in the dream I did know what it all meant, and I lost it.
I want to get back to that novel again, damn it. I know there's a solution in there somewhere.
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progress report,
The Boy in the Glass,
Thunderstruck
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