I wrote the first 1000 words of the first draft of my novel today.
I started at 8:30 this morning with the intention of working till 5pm, just writing down as much as I could within that timeframe without stopping to do an edit. That got me to about 500 words in the first hour or so written in the first person that were pretty basic and felt pretty rushed. So then I stripped down two main points I wanted to make from my 500 words and rewrote them as scenes from a movie, you know, scene descriptions and dialogue lines.
I then took those two scenes, placed them alongside the first person draft I had started and rewrote in the third person. I got to about 600 words and then stopped for what was supposed to be a one hour lunch. I took a two and a half hour lunch instead. Discipline and focus are not necessarily my middle names, though I think I read somewhere that they were the middle names of a couple of Anthony Robbins' children.
Then after lunch I wrote another 400 words surprisingly quickly and decided that rather than stick it out till five I would call it at 1000 words. So I finished at 3:45pm.
I've read a few writing tips online and in books that stress that a first draft of any novel is pretty much a load of shit. Mine's no different, reading it back I realized that it's lighter in tone than I intend and also it's pretty sloppy writing than needs tightening. I certainly don't want words like light and sloppy being associated with what I do ultimately, I get enough of that from the ladies as is, so there will be some tightening up done down the line.
I'm happy with some of it though. There's something there that's real.
Monday, 21 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Breakthrough! I have found my novel.
I've found my novel!
It's not the one based on my dragon dream that I discussed in my last post, also I didn't find it by sprinting my way through trying to piece together a first draft bit by bit.
It's been swimming around in the back of my mind for these last couple of months since I started this blog but each time it kept trying to tell me about itself I ignored it because it wasn't what I had in mind for the kind of thing I wanted to write.
I was keen on writing some sort of fantasy related thing. Not necessarily straight genre fantasy but I was pretty determined to write something that involved mythical and imagined creatures in some context.
The novel i'm setting out to write from this day forward is more of an adolescent coming-of-age story, in broad terms at least. My friend Erin commented a few posts back that she imagined me writing something along the lines of Catcher In The Rye or High Fidelity, and again in broad terms this comes from a place that's similar. But different too, possibly inspired from a place inside of me where inspirations like Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut will always live.
One of the reasons I kept ignoring this idea was because I really didn't want to write a semi-autobiographical story, and this book will be definitely along those lines.
Reading Vogler inspired the outline that i've written so far. His chapters about the world the hero lives in before the adventure starts and his outline of the Mentor archetype made an impression. Yes my story will have a Mentor character. I can see him in my mind and i'm pretty happy with him.
Also Rex Pickett's words must have had a positive influence on me. I mentioned in my last post that he thinks it's very important for the writer to have his main character living in his mind in order for the writing to be successful. I have a character in my mind, he's been with me these last couple of months and actually I was nearly going to use a version of him in the Gnome thing I set out to write all those posts ago.
He's inspired by an artist I admire. That's all I want to say on that.
This is it! I can feel it in my waters.
I've written a broad outline for myself, and i'm setting to map out the world my character lives in. The relationships and institutions that make up his world. The way i've done this so far has come naturally, and I can see a path ahead of me that has appeared amidst the fog i've been stumbling around in.
It's not the one based on my dragon dream that I discussed in my last post, also I didn't find it by sprinting my way through trying to piece together a first draft bit by bit.
It's been swimming around in the back of my mind for these last couple of months since I started this blog but each time it kept trying to tell me about itself I ignored it because it wasn't what I had in mind for the kind of thing I wanted to write.
I was keen on writing some sort of fantasy related thing. Not necessarily straight genre fantasy but I was pretty determined to write something that involved mythical and imagined creatures in some context.
The novel i'm setting out to write from this day forward is more of an adolescent coming-of-age story, in broad terms at least. My friend Erin commented a few posts back that she imagined me writing something along the lines of Catcher In The Rye or High Fidelity, and again in broad terms this comes from a place that's similar. But different too, possibly inspired from a place inside of me where inspirations like Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut will always live.
One of the reasons I kept ignoring this idea was because I really didn't want to write a semi-autobiographical story, and this book will be definitely along those lines.
Reading Vogler inspired the outline that i've written so far. His chapters about the world the hero lives in before the adventure starts and his outline of the Mentor archetype made an impression. Yes my story will have a Mentor character. I can see him in my mind and i'm pretty happy with him.
Also Rex Pickett's words must have had a positive influence on me. I mentioned in my last post that he thinks it's very important for the writer to have his main character living in his mind in order for the writing to be successful. I have a character in my mind, he's been with me these last couple of months and actually I was nearly going to use a version of him in the Gnome thing I set out to write all those posts ago.
He's inspired by an artist I admire. That's all I want to say on that.
This is it! I can feel it in my waters.
I've written a broad outline for myself, and i'm setting to map out the world my character lives in. The relationships and institutions that make up his world. The way i've done this so far has come naturally, and I can see a path ahead of me that has appeared amidst the fog i've been stumbling around in.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Move quickly and stop letting things dragon.
I did some writing!
I pulled my head out of the arse sized void of procrastination, doubt and confusion.
I wrote 1000 words that are best described as existing somewhere between the beginning of a first draft and the beginning of an outline. My story is based on my kick-ass dragon dream that I mentioned a few posts back.
It was a few random different elements that got me to actually put finger to keyboard.
1) Rex Pickett the author of Sideways, which was also an Oscar nominated film, randomly started following me on twitter. He wrote a blog post about being ripped off by the publishing industry, I in turn sent him a tweet telling him how I thought it sucked that he'd had such a bad experience. (I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this post.) He wrote back thanking me and then made a joke I didn't understand further underlining his experience. (That reminds me I have to go back and look at his tweet, i'm sure i'm capable of getting the joke, I just may have to use a dictionary that's all.) I mistook this as rapport and wrote back to him asking how he approached writing his first novel. Was he a make it up as he went along kind of guy? Was he a meticulous planner? I was looking for a nugget of inspiration that would set me off on my journey to greatness.
He ignored my follow up tweet. However not long after that he started posting writing tips as part of his twitter stream. I only started following him because he'd been following me so I don't know how long he's been doing that for, but some of his advice rang true to me. His biggest gripe it seems is with the Robert Mckee's, and by extension the Christopher Voglers of the writing world. He seems to really hate writing guru's. He's all about people finding their own stories inside themselves. Also he's a big believer in having a main character being vividly alive inside the writer when they write. I haven't yet absorbed that bit of advice. The important thing is his tweets got me believing that there is a story in me somewhere that can come out naturally.
2) Vague memories of Stephen Kings book On Writing kept swimming around in the back of my thoughts. I mentioned this previously, but to recap the main bits of advice I remember are that King is a big believer in writing without stopping too much to worry about things like grammar and research when trying to punch out a first draft. His main advice was read a whole hell of a lot and write 2000 words a day at least. I've been trying my best to read more lately, as you can see from the right-side of my blog i'm dividing my time between four books at the moment. Four books you say? Maybe I do have ADHD? An online test I took said I showed possible signs. Hook me up with some Ritalin.
3) I kept reading tweets of random writing advice about the importance of having a first draft out of the way. An idea started to form in my mind that I should just try to power through a first draft, even if it turns out to be more outline that story. Think less, do more.
4) November is novel writing month. People all over the world are currently committing themselves to, and falling short of, a goal to write 1700 words a day through November so that they have a novella to work with at the end of the month. Sprint, sprint, and sprint is the message.
I'm not entering the November challenge, but i'm trying to capture some of it's spirit, even though a few posts back I mentioned this sort of thing is not for me. I think at this point everything and anything both is and is not for me. Is that clear?
5) I started following this non-famous but published (possibly self-published) author on twitter called kendall Grey. At least I think that's her name. I'll look it up at the end of the post because i'm all about commitment to detail. She kept making posts about her daily sprinting sessions through a draft of some romance or supernatural romance thing that she's writing.
Write quickly, make shit up on the spot, and just improvise. This is my newest mantra.
Rex Pickett's website;
http://rexpickett.com/
What do you know, Kendall Grey has her own website too. I've never looked at it but she describes herself as an Urban Fantasy Author, which sounds pretty cool to me.
http://www.kendallgrey.com/
I pulled my head out of the arse sized void of procrastination, doubt and confusion.
I wrote 1000 words that are best described as existing somewhere between the beginning of a first draft and the beginning of an outline. My story is based on my kick-ass dragon dream that I mentioned a few posts back.
It was a few random different elements that got me to actually put finger to keyboard.
1) Rex Pickett the author of Sideways, which was also an Oscar nominated film, randomly started following me on twitter. He wrote a blog post about being ripped off by the publishing industry, I in turn sent him a tweet telling him how I thought it sucked that he'd had such a bad experience. (I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this post.) He wrote back thanking me and then made a joke I didn't understand further underlining his experience. (That reminds me I have to go back and look at his tweet, i'm sure i'm capable of getting the joke, I just may have to use a dictionary that's all.) I mistook this as rapport and wrote back to him asking how he approached writing his first novel. Was he a make it up as he went along kind of guy? Was he a meticulous planner? I was looking for a nugget of inspiration that would set me off on my journey to greatness.
He ignored my follow up tweet. However not long after that he started posting writing tips as part of his twitter stream. I only started following him because he'd been following me so I don't know how long he's been doing that for, but some of his advice rang true to me. His biggest gripe it seems is with the Robert Mckee's, and by extension the Christopher Voglers of the writing world. He seems to really hate writing guru's. He's all about people finding their own stories inside themselves. Also he's a big believer in having a main character being vividly alive inside the writer when they write. I haven't yet absorbed that bit of advice. The important thing is his tweets got me believing that there is a story in me somewhere that can come out naturally.
2) Vague memories of Stephen Kings book On Writing kept swimming around in the back of my thoughts. I mentioned this previously, but to recap the main bits of advice I remember are that King is a big believer in writing without stopping too much to worry about things like grammar and research when trying to punch out a first draft. His main advice was read a whole hell of a lot and write 2000 words a day at least. I've been trying my best to read more lately, as you can see from the right-side of my blog i'm dividing my time between four books at the moment. Four books you say? Maybe I do have ADHD? An online test I took said I showed possible signs. Hook me up with some Ritalin.
3) I kept reading tweets of random writing advice about the importance of having a first draft out of the way. An idea started to form in my mind that I should just try to power through a first draft, even if it turns out to be more outline that story. Think less, do more.
4) November is novel writing month. People all over the world are currently committing themselves to, and falling short of, a goal to write 1700 words a day through November so that they have a novella to work with at the end of the month. Sprint, sprint, and sprint is the message.
I'm not entering the November challenge, but i'm trying to capture some of it's spirit, even though a few posts back I mentioned this sort of thing is not for me. I think at this point everything and anything both is and is not for me. Is that clear?
5) I started following this non-famous but published (possibly self-published) author on twitter called kendall Grey. At least I think that's her name. I'll look it up at the end of the post because i'm all about commitment to detail. She kept making posts about her daily sprinting sessions through a draft of some romance or supernatural romance thing that she's writing.
Write quickly, make shit up on the spot, and just improvise. This is my newest mantra.
Rex Pickett's website;
http://rexpickett.com/
What do you know, Kendall Grey has her own website too. I've never looked at it but she describes herself as an Urban Fantasy Author, which sounds pretty cool to me.
http://www.kendallgrey.com/
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling.
It's A Bad Case of Writers Procrastination
I haven't done any writing. I've done a bit of thinking about writing, and i've done quite a lot of not thinking about writing. I watched a couple of crappy movies, Lords Of Dogtown was one of them, which most interestingly featured Emile Hirsch morph from a young pro-skateboarding pioneer to a wannabe Mexican gangbanger. I don't think he was supposed to be Mexican though? Anyway, apparently it was all based on a true story. Heath Ledger was in it as well, his character seemed like a bad Hunter S Thompson impersonation, but then maybe the guy he played was in real-life a badly lived impersonation of Hunter S Thompson, so I guess that would be make Ledger a genius again? Nah, it was a shitty movie packed with decent actors giving shitty performances.
Why am I going on about it? Procrastination, dude.
I will make this a blog about procrastination if I have to, even if it gets to the point where my stats show zero page views. I will goad myself into pulling my head out of my arse and writing something.
Anything.
I haven't done any writing. I've done a bit of thinking about writing, and i've done quite a lot of not thinking about writing. I watched a couple of crappy movies, Lords Of Dogtown was one of them, which most interestingly featured Emile Hirsch morph from a young pro-skateboarding pioneer to a wannabe Mexican gangbanger. I don't think he was supposed to be Mexican though? Anyway, apparently it was all based on a true story. Heath Ledger was in it as well, his character seemed like a bad Hunter S Thompson impersonation, but then maybe the guy he played was in real-life a badly lived impersonation of Hunter S Thompson, so I guess that would be make Ledger a genius again? Nah, it was a shitty movie packed with decent actors giving shitty performances.
Why am I going on about it? Procrastination, dude.
I will make this a blog about procrastination if I have to, even if it gets to the point where my stats show zero page views. I will goad myself into pulling my head out of my arse and writing something.
Anything.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
You down with O.C.D? Who's down with A.D.D?
I'm seriously starting to consider changing the name of this blog to It's A Bad Case Of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or even It's A Bad Case Of Attention Deficit Disorder. I say this because I am obsessed daily by my desire to write a novel, yet i'm also daily plagued by an inability to want to follow through on any writing goals that I make for myself.
In my last post I talked about summarising what Don Delillo does with his writing to help me propel my own writing forward. Well i'm not going to do that now. Why? Because I don't want to, that's why!
It's not like I made that technique up, i've read several pieces on writing tips that suggest you study your favourite writers to better understand how they do what they do. I've already lost interest in doing that, or at the very least it doesn't feel like that's what i'm looking for at the moment.
I worked today and while I was at work I played out in my mind the possibility of trying again to build more on my gnomes vs. faeries story from Septembers posts. Then I moved onto resolving to really just focusing on building up my skills more by getting back into ficly.com as much as possible. I thought about making a list of every possible story idea i've had over the years, god knows there's been a few of them. None of these felt right though.
A friend of mine texted me today to remind me that it's November writer's month. Which basically involves some website where you sign up and commit to writing a 50,000 word novella over the month, basically equating to 1700 words a day. I remember looking at this last year, but didn't even bother looking up the website for it this year as that's just another avenue that doesn't feel right for me.
I finished reading a great book tonight. Eleven by Mark Watson. A friend of mine was working at a film festival and it was being handed out as part of some gift bags, so she swiped a couple of said gift bags and gave me the book. I don't know if it would have made it onto my radar under any other circumstances, but i'm glad it did.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eleven-Mark-Watson/dp/1847379680
I'm not going to write a review, it's late and i'm tired and the less said about it the better because it's packed full of surprises. Did I mention i'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to It's A Bad Case Of Feeling Tired?
Anyway, after finishing it I was inspired by an idea that I do want to follow through with. I'm going to start with an event, sometimes referred to in literary terms as something happening. Then i'm going to start with a character that this something happened to, and i'm going to interview that character.
This feels right. I don't know why?
Let's see by the next post if this has gotten me anywhere.
Unfocused by Nature.
In my last post I talked about summarising what Don Delillo does with his writing to help me propel my own writing forward. Well i'm not going to do that now. Why? Because I don't want to, that's why!
It's not like I made that technique up, i've read several pieces on writing tips that suggest you study your favourite writers to better understand how they do what they do. I've already lost interest in doing that, or at the very least it doesn't feel like that's what i'm looking for at the moment.
I worked today and while I was at work I played out in my mind the possibility of trying again to build more on my gnomes vs. faeries story from Septembers posts. Then I moved onto resolving to really just focusing on building up my skills more by getting back into ficly.com as much as possible. I thought about making a list of every possible story idea i've had over the years, god knows there's been a few of them. None of these felt right though.
A friend of mine texted me today to remind me that it's November writer's month. Which basically involves some website where you sign up and commit to writing a 50,000 word novella over the month, basically equating to 1700 words a day. I remember looking at this last year, but didn't even bother looking up the website for it this year as that's just another avenue that doesn't feel right for me.
I finished reading a great book tonight. Eleven by Mark Watson. A friend of mine was working at a film festival and it was being handed out as part of some gift bags, so she swiped a couple of said gift bags and gave me the book. I don't know if it would have made it onto my radar under any other circumstances, but i'm glad it did.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eleven-Mark-Watson/dp/1847379680
I'm not going to write a review, it's late and i'm tired and the less said about it the better because it's packed full of surprises. Did I mention i'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to It's A Bad Case Of Feeling Tired?
Anyway, after finishing it I was inspired by an idea that I do want to follow through with. I'm going to start with an event, sometimes referred to in literary terms as something happening. Then i'm going to start with a character that this something happened to, and i'm going to interview that character.
This feels right. I don't know why?
Let's see by the next post if this has gotten me anywhere.
Unfocused by Nature.
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