The funny thing about New Year's Day is that it comes whether you want it to or not. And the more you don't want it to arrive, the more likely it is to get here sooner. Time works in mysterious ways.
I am both dreading and excited for New Year's Day. Excited for obvious reasons, as the start to a new year is always a good reason to be excited. So much can happen in 12 months and it's all before me.
Dreading because 2016 will start off no different than 2015 ended, and I'm not in a happy place right now. To be fair, I'm not miserable either, but this year is not ending as I hoped it would, and 2016 is not starting as I hoped it would. In fact, is starting very close to how I dreaded it would.
Hense my conflicted feelings on the matter. But 2016 will come, whether I wish it or no, and so, like most things in life, you learn to make the best of it.
On that note, I have certain New Year Resolutions. Though I hate that term 'resolutions'. I resolve to do this, this and this. Resolutions are about intention, not outcome, and by the definition far too easy to break. Like promises. I am resolved is a good turn of phrase, but it does not necessary mean follow-through.
Instead, I make determinations. I am resolved in decision yes, but I am determined in process.
So my New Year Determinations are:
Follow-through on the internship I created for myself. That means six months self.
Go to the gym regularly.
Eat fewer white carbs.
Eat less processed sugar.
See friends at least once a month.
Write a query letter. Send it out. [Freak out.]
Finish the novels that are in progress. To not start anymore.
Edit two novels. [Well, one and a half.]
Travel as much as your bank account will absolutely allow.
Walk camino.
Graduate.
Be excited about 2017.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Two for One
This year I am doing back-to-back NaNo, although it remains to be seen how December will go, with family commitments and such. I aim to try, at least.
I am writing two very different novels. This is the only way to do it, I feel, much like reading two books at once. If the books are similar, you may confuse the plots if you go back and forth between them. With two very different stories, that becomes less of an issue. And so too with writing. I chose two plots that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, in two different genres, for different ages.
The first novel I started at the beginning of November got me through 19000 words, before I hit a block. It's okay, because I'll get back to that one in December, and if I manage a full NaNo I will have completed the necessary word count.
The other novel that I started in on when I hit writer's block on the first will be longer, but I've been 'cheating'. That is, I've been writing the required 1667 words a day, but several days a week I've been doing extra words. It means I'm at about 45k now, which is where I should be for a NaNo novel if I'd started it on November 1st. I'll hit 50k for this month, and then will have to write another 15k or so to finish it off. Perhaps between writer's blocks in December. I may just spend the first week of December finishing this one off so I can focus on the other one (and not get distracted). We'll see. It's only the 28th.
What are the novels about, you ask? You didn't, but someone reading this is wondering. You'll have noticed I don't really talk about what I'm actually writing on this blog, and there are reasons for that. Until my stories are 'finished' they are very personal for me, and I don't like sharing something that isn't complete.
Still, no harm done in a short plot synopsis.
The first book I started was junior fiction, about a young girl who has to move to a new city when her mother gets a job transfer. She keeps hoping and wishing that her parents will decide to move back home. But then her mother is killed in a car accident, and the young girl blames herself, because she wished so hard that something would happen that would let her go home. The only person she feels understands what she is going through is her bedroom's resident ghost. A young boy named Timothy who died a 100 years before.
I've never written junior before, so it's been an interesting lesson in language and kids stuff. We'll see how it goes, but I wanted to branch out and see if I could do it. And also, the hook for it was brilliant.
The second book is a memoir and it is entirely a selfish pleasure. After I got back from Spain I wrote a guidebook for the camino, that was half guidebook and half memoir, but I've never been particularly happy with it. For one, it's not fiction at all. So I decided to try my hand at making it fiction. It worked for Cheryl Strayed. And it's kind of going alright, although it may be entirely unmarketable. It will certainly not be the first novel I query. But they say write what you know, and I know this more than anything, because I lived it.
If I can make 100k by the end of the year, I'll be quite happy. Since I finished That Winter Book this year too, and edited it. Not bad for 2015.
Oh yeah, and I got my PhD too.
I am writing two very different novels. This is the only way to do it, I feel, much like reading two books at once. If the books are similar, you may confuse the plots if you go back and forth between them. With two very different stories, that becomes less of an issue. And so too with writing. I chose two plots that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, in two different genres, for different ages.
The first novel I started at the beginning of November got me through 19000 words, before I hit a block. It's okay, because I'll get back to that one in December, and if I manage a full NaNo I will have completed the necessary word count.
The other novel that I started in on when I hit writer's block on the first will be longer, but I've been 'cheating'. That is, I've been writing the required 1667 words a day, but several days a week I've been doing extra words. It means I'm at about 45k now, which is where I should be for a NaNo novel if I'd started it on November 1st. I'll hit 50k for this month, and then will have to write another 15k or so to finish it off. Perhaps between writer's blocks in December. I may just spend the first week of December finishing this one off so I can focus on the other one (and not get distracted). We'll see. It's only the 28th.
What are the novels about, you ask? You didn't, but someone reading this is wondering. You'll have noticed I don't really talk about what I'm actually writing on this blog, and there are reasons for that. Until my stories are 'finished' they are very personal for me, and I don't like sharing something that isn't complete.
Still, no harm done in a short plot synopsis.
The first book I started was junior fiction, about a young girl who has to move to a new city when her mother gets a job transfer. She keeps hoping and wishing that her parents will decide to move back home. But then her mother is killed in a car accident, and the young girl blames herself, because she wished so hard that something would happen that would let her go home. The only person she feels understands what she is going through is her bedroom's resident ghost. A young boy named Timothy who died a 100 years before.
I've never written junior before, so it's been an interesting lesson in language and kids stuff. We'll see how it goes, but I wanted to branch out and see if I could do it. And also, the hook for it was brilliant.
The second book is a memoir and it is entirely a selfish pleasure. After I got back from Spain I wrote a guidebook for the camino, that was half guidebook and half memoir, but I've never been particularly happy with it. For one, it's not fiction at all. So I decided to try my hand at making it fiction. It worked for Cheryl Strayed. And it's kind of going alright, although it may be entirely unmarketable. It will certainly not be the first novel I query. But they say write what you know, and I know this more than anything, because I lived it.
If I can make 100k by the end of the year, I'll be quite happy. Since I finished That Winter Book this year too, and edited it. Not bad for 2015.
Oh yeah, and I got my PhD too.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
And good heavens, how time flies
The 11th already, where does the time go? Oh, right. [Never mind, I remembered what I spent the last week doing.]
But onwards and upwards are the mottos of National Novel Writing Month, and so we go on (unless you've given up already, which I wouldn't recommend). I've discovered a small advantage to deciding to do back-to-back NaNos. When you get stuck on one novel, simply work on the other. You still hit your word count, you still get further along in the plot, and you still contribute the success of both.
One of these is so much easier to write than the other, and there's a simple reason for that. They say 'write what you know' and I've usually taken that to heart. Or at least 'write what you love'. But this time, this time I'm challenging myself and it's not going so well. Oh, I hit 18000 words or so, so it's not a total disaster, but it's not been easy. I'm way out of my comfort zone here (a worrying fact, if you knew what my last novel had entailed). So, I went back to the 'easy' one. The one that's me. The one that's my story. This is literally writing what I know. And who I know. And how I know it. And, for now, that's just going to have to be good enough. I'll get back to the other one later, even if later is December.
But onwards and upwards are the mottos of National Novel Writing Month, and so we go on (unless you've given up already, which I wouldn't recommend). I've discovered a small advantage to deciding to do back-to-back NaNos. When you get stuck on one novel, simply work on the other. You still hit your word count, you still get further along in the plot, and you still contribute the success of both.
One of these is so much easier to write than the other, and there's a simple reason for that. They say 'write what you know' and I've usually taken that to heart. Or at least 'write what you love'. But this time, this time I'm challenging myself and it's not going so well. Oh, I hit 18000 words or so, so it's not a total disaster, but it's not been easy. I'm way out of my comfort zone here (a worrying fact, if you knew what my last novel had entailed). So, I went back to the 'easy' one. The one that's me. The one that's my story. This is literally writing what I know. And who I know. And how I know it. And, for now, that's just going to have to be good enough. I'll get back to the other one later, even if later is December.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Muses
Writers often talk about their 'muses'. Their inspirations. Or, quite often, their motivation.
There may be 9 muses but all of them have been unkind to me at one time or another. And all of them have been helpful too, at one time or another.
Occasionally, however, my muses (one or more) get a little over eager. They always do this when I can least afford to devote time to writing.
Like right now. Right now I have at least one muse whispering in my ear and so far she's written 4500 words of a book I promised myself I was not going to writethis year until Christmas. Part of me is ecstatic, because it's a bloody good idea for a book, and part of me is horrified because I really don't have the time to spend on this.
Life at a Walking Pace; journal, history and guidebook to the Camino de Santiago.
I may actually try to publish this one.
[Maybe.]
[Next year.]
[...2016.]
There may be 9 muses but all of them have been unkind to me at one time or another. And all of them have been helpful too, at one time or another.
Occasionally, however, my muses (one or more) get a little over eager. They always do this when I can least afford to devote time to writing.
Like right now. Right now I have at least one muse whispering in my ear and so far she's written 4500 words of a book I promised myself I was not going to write
Life at a Walking Pace; journal, history and guidebook to the Camino de Santiago.
I may actually try to publish this one.
[Maybe.]
[Next year.]
[...2016.]
Friday, March 5, 2010
Language
I watched an interesting segment on the morning news. For one, it was Good Morning America, which I normally avoid for obvious reasons, but happened to catch this while channel flipping.
The segment was about the made up language of Avatar. I find this incredibly interesting for many reasons. It's not the first movie universe to create it's own language or the first literary one either. Today, it's quite popular for fans to 'learn a new fantasy language'. I've done it myself with Tolkien's languages before (I have a basic ability to understand both Quenya and Sindarin, which is useful...you know for fanfiction writing). What I find interesting is how quickly this Avatar language developed. It's only been around, as a language with grammar and vocab, for about three months, and the news station managed to find half a dozen people who could sit down and have a conversation.
Cleary, made up languages are popular. But why? Is it the ability to say to the geek sitting next to you 'Well I speek such-and-such, don't you?'. Is it really just bragging rights, or is it something more? I think it is.
The greatest books of the past 1000 years have been those that have created a complete universe. By this I mean books written by the likes of Tolkien and Lewis and even Rowling; not your run of the mill fantasy series. People love these books for a lot of reasons. Some of the simple ones are because it's a good story and they're well written. Some of the more complex reasons are because these books are entire worlds so unlike our own. People read fantasy to get lost in it; to have a break from the real world. The more complete that fantasy world is, the more they can get into it. I've done it myself on more than one occasion. It's the only reason I re-read LOTR every single year.
But what makes a fantasy world complete? Is it the fact that it's set on it's own planet? Is it a whole range of people that fulfill all the appropriate roles and leave no gaps? Is it a world where you can write your own gap-fillers? Is it a universe with it's own politics, religion, language, social customes? I think it's closest to that last sentence. The best fantasy worlds are the ones that are entirely complete. We fall into them because everything is there for us for the believing and we only have to enjoy.
Which brings me back to language. It's part of our world. It's part of what makes us who we are. It's just as important to most people as their political views and their religion. So, to have a fantasy language makes a fantasy world complete. It allows the reader to immerse themselves completely in that world and then bring that world back into our own, for a little while. You see this at fan conventions where people go around dressed in character, speaking in language. I've done it myself. (Yes, I have). Language allows for that extra little step, which explains why it's so popular.
And it's becoming more and more common. Tolkien was not the first to create languages; though he's definitely the most well known, having more than four languages that contain vocab lists and grammar in his books (though some are more developed than others). But is it becoming easier? How do you create a language from scratch? I tried one; I gave up. It's so hard to be original these days. So my congratulations to the people who spent the time and effort to create Na'vi, specially as it already contains 1000 words after only 3 months.
The segment was about the made up language of Avatar. I find this incredibly interesting for many reasons. It's not the first movie universe to create it's own language or the first literary one either. Today, it's quite popular for fans to 'learn a new fantasy language'. I've done it myself with Tolkien's languages before (I have a basic ability to understand both Quenya and Sindarin, which is useful...you know for fanfiction writing). What I find interesting is how quickly this Avatar language developed. It's only been around, as a language with grammar and vocab, for about three months, and the news station managed to find half a dozen people who could sit down and have a conversation.
Cleary, made up languages are popular. But why? Is it the ability to say to the geek sitting next to you 'Well I speek such-and-such, don't you?'. Is it really just bragging rights, or is it something more? I think it is.
The greatest books of the past 1000 years have been those that have created a complete universe. By this I mean books written by the likes of Tolkien and Lewis and even Rowling; not your run of the mill fantasy series. People love these books for a lot of reasons. Some of the simple ones are because it's a good story and they're well written. Some of the more complex reasons are because these books are entire worlds so unlike our own. People read fantasy to get lost in it; to have a break from the real world. The more complete that fantasy world is, the more they can get into it. I've done it myself on more than one occasion. It's the only reason I re-read LOTR every single year.
But what makes a fantasy world complete? Is it the fact that it's set on it's own planet? Is it a whole range of people that fulfill all the appropriate roles and leave no gaps? Is it a world where you can write your own gap-fillers? Is it a universe with it's own politics, religion, language, social customes? I think it's closest to that last sentence. The best fantasy worlds are the ones that are entirely complete. We fall into them because everything is there for us for the believing and we only have to enjoy.
Which brings me back to language. It's part of our world. It's part of what makes us who we are. It's just as important to most people as their political views and their religion. So, to have a fantasy language makes a fantasy world complete. It allows the reader to immerse themselves completely in that world and then bring that world back into our own, for a little while. You see this at fan conventions where people go around dressed in character, speaking in language. I've done it myself. (Yes, I have). Language allows for that extra little step, which explains why it's so popular.
And it's becoming more and more common. Tolkien was not the first to create languages; though he's definitely the most well known, having more than four languages that contain vocab lists and grammar in his books (though some are more developed than others). But is it becoming easier? How do you create a language from scratch? I tried one; I gave up. It's so hard to be original these days. So my congratulations to the people who spent the time and effort to create Na'vi, specially as it already contains 1000 words after only 3 months.
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