Hoo boy, it’s that time – I’m entering the end of my book and this is a first for me.

I had a general idea all that time ago, of where this little story would be going but now that I’m staring it in the face, I’m finding it tricky (but interesting) to pinpoint exactly how I want it to all round out. I’ve a few logistics that I’m fighting with, and I’m not at all happy with what I’ve written over the last few days… I’ve been incredibly tired, fatigued and generally in the middle, neither up nor down, but round and round. Call it the weather, call it work, but my mind has just been foggy when it comes to writing actual, workable, sentences. My word counts have reflected this, and yes, even the 1k + I did a couple of days ago. When I think about it, I shake my head because I know that A) It’s not as good as the rest of the book, and B) I’m not at all sure it’s even going in the right direction I want to go. Sure, I may not know where I actually want to go, but I sure as hell know when I’m on the wrong path.

The beginning – that’s where I felt this before. A heavy eh about the whole thing (not the book, just the current scribblings), which probably means I’m on the right track and listening to my inner-author. Yet still, it’s taking a bit to shake the daze out of me and actually figure out what’s going on. The last thing I want/need, is a decent story topped off with a tepid close. The bulk of what I’ve been writing feels like filler; that horrible, mediocre-ness you feel when you think about what you’ve just written. You wonder, and not altogether briefly enough, whether you can even cut this all out and just do a couple of sentences, and when those sentences would work better than the paragraphs you have, you know you’re spit-balling your story out.

I’m a panster, yes. But that doesn’t mean I literally make it ALL up as I go along. I have a road map, I’m just not too fixed on a road to get there: over the hills, through the valley, on a plane or walking on leather; it’s the journey, not the means to me. In saying that though, sometimes that can lead you to a few dead ends and you need to ask for directions (and I’m a guy, so I suck at wanting to ask for those things – give me a bottle of water and a pair of sunglasses, and I think I can find Casablanca from the Pacific Northwest).

And thus… yeah, so… here I am. Not stuck, but unsure, uneven and completely too knackered to pump out the ending I want. So what do I do? Take a break, hellz no! What’s that going to accomplish: Write Write Write, that’s the routine I have found and I’m not a fan of switching to all kinds of trajectories, this can be evidenced from my previous attempts to force a rhythm instead of just getting on with it and producing the words.

The End <— this is where I want to be. For now I have to keep moving forward, but I’d rather lighten the editing/revision process by not creating a NaNoWriMo-sized pile of crap to deal with by February. How did anyone out there feel, did you have issues, or little smudges of indecision by the end? How did you figure out what felt right, beyond, well, it feeling right…

Should I write one?

Not right now though, of course. I was doing the rounds yesterday and came across the Web Serial Writers section on Merrilee Faber’s weblog (incidentally, I saw that my link has a scroll-over with: “Ryan blogs about not very much these days…” Nice, hehe, though I am currently attempting to correct that little slip.) It struck me as interesting because I had considered one of my WIPs as somewhat of an episodic notion, but never delved into turning it into just that. Then I had just forgotten about the idea and begun on ‘Ran Red. Well, in having it presented before me again, I am finding the idea intriguing enough to consider it a possibility after I have finished my book.

I need to look into ‘web serials’ a bit more, read a few of them a bit more and generally, find out a bit more. Wikipedia explains three different versions that seem to be most prominent:

1) Self-contained. This kind of web serial tends towards stories that share the same universe, but otherwise differ in arcs. This allows for ease of introduction for new readers, and the option of character-swapping, but draws away from a larger – continuing – story.

2) Loose Continuity. The stories may be from differing characters, but they ultimately tie into a grander story – maybe even containing small arcs that contain the same characters and span a few chapters before introducing anew. Good for building angles on a greater epic, and introducing new readers, but may jump onto characters you’re not such a fan of and stick with them a while.

3) Tightly Cohesive. This seems to be the most common type of text-based web serial; the kind that centres on specific characters in a specific universe and doesn’t change. It’s basically a novel broken into chapters and served up bit by bit. The upside is a great continuing story with recognisable characters and growing appreciation, the down… well, if you’re new, you need to start at the beginning.

Personally, I like the idea of a tightly cohesive narrative as that’s what I’m used to with novel-writing, but changing it up could obviously factor into the interest and draw. I’ve never really published anything I have worked and worked on for a considerable amount of time; polishing and nurturing, and again, of course there is some sacrifice in that when serialising a story, but I do like the thought of something that can grow – in quality and fan base (one would hope).

If I were to venture into trying my hand at this kind of thing, I would get some ideas together and shoot for starting around the time I am finished with my current project. It could be an efficient way to both show my hand at writing, whilst also keeping the creative juices flowing… just in time to start editing that novel of mine and begin a brand new manuscript.

Dec 12 @ 9:16pm: 399 words

As Saturday is the NPI ‘Snippet Day’ I felt the need to join in and post something from this month’s writing sessions. The following is a once-over (I have not gone back and looked much since I wrote it) of a scene about the discovery of a discovery. It’s rather ambiguous given the level of removed-context, but hopefully – if anything – it reads well:

What remained of the cockpit surrounded the sitting form of Forrest. With one foot resting on the knee of the other, he watched the black beyond the reinforced glass screen. It was hard to glean how quickly the ship was moving, or how long they had been travelling thanks to the simple nothing outside; if not for the odd anomaly that blinked in and out of view within a second, perhaps even impossible with the naked eye. They were moving quickly though – he knew as much from the data that had been scrolling across consoles in the navigations bay. Maybe half the speed of light, or just a little more. The Jezebel was an outfitted ship – built for shuttling Plotters around sectors for years on end – so she moved a little quicker than most might.

To ascertain any specifics, he could have asked Fox, but something compelled him otherwise.

Forrest rubbed the side of his face absently, feeling the rough bulge of a slight bruise around his cheek. No doubt his eye was still ridden with burst capillaries, even given the time since it had been subjected to the vacuum of space, especially if his somewhat blurry sight was anything to judge it by. The Judgement… his mind wandered. What had happened to them? That was a fair question to ask of a mysterious ship inserted into the side of a rock. After their discovery of the Serpent, they hadn’t thought to dig deeper than the surface. It was a mistake in hindsight; they had gotten too excited by their discovery to find out anything more, and left immediately on their new course. Then there was the radar readings in the Judgement’s navigations bay – again something he had taken an interest in before Quint had called him and excitement had taken hold.

I‘m taking part in Mr. Enlowe’s Novel Push Initiative once again. Although I am writing quite steadily and honing in on the end of my yet to be universally and critically acclaimed first novel (…) I think this will be a nice opportunity to keep myself regular in regards to putting pen to metaphorical paper during this busy, Santa-riffic month.

So, without further adieu:

Dec 1 @ 7:41pm: 1,311 words
Dec 2 @ 8:29pm: 807 words
Dec 3 @ 5:42pm: 290 words
Dec 4 @ 10:23pm: 652 words
Dec 5 @ 8:19pm: 462 words
Dec 6 @ Mid pm: 357 words
Dec 7 @ Late pm: 400 words
Dec 8 @ 7:03pm: 1,846 words
Dec 9 @ 10:34pm: 515 words
Dec 10 @ Ahhh! I was too tired to write… is that a reprieve, or just life?
Dec 11 @ 8:50pm: 418 words
Dec 12 @ See Here
Dec 13 @ 9:08pm: 828 words
Dec 14 @ 7:56pm: 332 words (Dealing with twisty plot logistics)
Dec 15 @ 7:40pm: 1,077 words
Dec 16 @ 9:32pm: 484 words
Dec 17 @ 8:55pm: 600 words
Dec 18 @ No dice today, just didn’t have it in me.
Dec 19 @ 10:42pm: 293 words (I had to wrap PRESENTS! :D)
Dec 20 @ 9:04pm: 349 words
Dec 21 @ 6:41pm: 1,042 words
Dec 22 @ 8:42pm: 265 words
Dec 23 @ 7:52pm: 300 words (This. Is. SPARTA!)
Dec 24 @ Family fun stole me away.

aka; ‘It’s not you, it’s me’

Quite often I have to take a moment to appreciate how little writing I get done. For someone who boasts of being an aspiring author and categorises it as somewhat of a modus operandi, I find myself living an ironic existence. If a mountain climber never soared to any height but that of his local park’s jungle gym, I doubt he could classify himself as such – or even as an aspiring such. Therefore, I guess I find myself curling the corner of my mouth into some form of a wry smile whenever I think about it happening (the ‘it’ being publication, of course). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe it can’t happen, or will for that matter never happen. I just wonder how long it’s going to take me. Authors write, and write, and write – it takes them years to get something on a shelf and that comes from not just having issues in getting the damn novel finished, but in just finding a good agent, and someone who wants to publish it. But what about me? How long will it take someone like me who, for want of a better euphemism, is going at a rather unproductive snail’s pace.

Of course there are those who do draft, after draft, after draft and four years down the line, are just about ready to try taking that quad-annum perfectly formed transcript to an agent. It’s going to be perfect (in the author’s mind) but what if that four years has just been spent detailing and re-polishing a book that just doesn’t cut it? One could say, well at least they are doing something and I give kudos to that because, as I mentioned prior, it’s currently more than I can feel accomplished about.

For what it’s worth, I think the previous paragraph is just an example of my lack of commitment to one, single, story. I am writing a book, but I don’t want it to take up to much of my life. Is it supposed too? And I don’t mean in a day-to-day form, I mean in a yearly – decade-y sense. I began writing ‘Ran Red in February 2009 and I want it will be finished by February 2010. Come hell or dangerously high water I will have a finished draft that needs a re-visit and a going through of the editing machine. But after that?

Then I’ll start something new and fresh and different. But of course, before all of that, I still have to actually write, which means time, which means (though I am using time now to write this, grant me that) actually standing up for the importance of pretty much my single goal in life at the moment – writing a book; becoming an author of more than just short stories and sarcastic one-liners on comment threads. I have to take, steal, find, nurture, snare some me (writing) time and for realz. Not just a notion to commit the wheels to motion and get the juices flowin’, but actual locked-in, eyes-focused on the words time.

Something I’ve always had an issue with is taking time for me and not feeling like I am shirking my responsibilities, being selfish and/or acting anti-socially towards my family. When aligned with the fact that my family does understand, I have to imagine it’s more than just a temporal thing, but moreover – perhaps – an issue I have always had; family or no. When I confront myself with this fact: that I am trying to be something which, by its nature, requires isolation at times, and yet I have issues with freeing myself of not having to be there at all times, I have to find that wry smile. Because it’s ridiculous, I am my own worst enemy.

I guess that’s it in a nutshell. It’s not finding the time; it’s not forcing myself to create a pocket where I can vanish with it being (O)ll (K)orrect, it’s just me and my own, unfounded, guilt complex. Does that mean that ultimately I am a writer aimed for disaster, or a flawed individual who just happens to have a specific issue that doesn’t help such an isolated career path? Well, we’re all fucked up in one way or another, but at least with it being an emotional… no, that’s not right. With it being a trait, or even an infected-algorithm, I can try and change things. I’m an adaptive individual, and I’m perceptive – at least with others, though perhaps with my own self not so much as I might have thought.

To better take on this battle of ‘me time’ and by extension, any time I wish to write, or perhaps do anything for me and me alone, I need to fine-tune my strategy and look more at it more from the inside. Creating something as pliable as the opportunity to sit down and create, I need to exclude all exterior influences and not think of it as pressure from without not to go do it, but the pressure from within that I can go do it. It is fathomable that I can teach myself to do this without feeling like its not allowed, that by nature it’s selfish and ignorant of those around me.

Pursuing an accomplishment such as writing is something a lot of people don’t understand. It’s less impacting to those around you and the world at large, but it’s one every artist suffers with. It’s somewhat of a selfish ideal to aim for, but a noble one. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do something you are drawn towards, and it helps to have those around you who understand. My family understands this in me, and my need to do it. “It’s OK!” They say… I just think in the end, I was the only one who didn’t know it.