Success!
I trimmed away 200 words from my previous day’s writing, which is a big no-no in NaNoWriMo but I’m a rebel. It meant that while I wrote more than the daily minimum (1749 words–the minimum is 1667) it calculates the total for the day at a shameful 1549 words.
I’m not entirely sure where the story is going next but I am sticking with my guiding principle of “go nuts.” On to Day 3!
National Novel Writing Month 2014 begins today and the first pep talk of the month has been posted by author Chuck Wendig. It can be read here: Pep Talk from Chuck Wendig
Wendig misses being an awesome name by a mere single letter. But would I actually consider clicking “Buy” on an Amazon book by a Chuck Wendigo? Possibly. I imagine Chuck has long ago weighed the pros and cons of this.
Here are two things he writes in his pep talk, completely taken out of context, because they better serve as bizarre totems of inspiration this way:
Crack open your chest and plop your heart onto the page.
Donuts in an empty field.
The first brings to mind the ritual seen in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. That ritual did not end well for the heart-offering participant. I recommend plopping out a less vital organ, like your appendix, if you still have it. I’m not sure what kind of story you would write after looking at your appendix soaking into a sheet of paper on your desk. Probably not a romance.
The second conjures an image of abandoned donuts, stale and windswept. What kind of monster would abandon donuts in a field, anyway? Possibly a monster watching its waist. Those poor donuts, left to the uncaring elements or ravenous coyotes. Now imagine running into a pack of coyotes hopped up on these donuts, their blood racing thanks to the ingestion of deliciously smooth Boston creams and sticky honey crullers. Is this what Chuck Wendig wants? For would-be writers to be eaten by coyotes fueled by bakery treats? I don’t know, I can’t peer into Chuck’s heart. Mainly because he’s yanked it out of his chest and put it on a sheet of paper on his desk.
Anyway, here’s hoping I work on my novel today instead of watching clips of all the Indiana Jones movies.
After flailing about I have come to a decision on what to write for National Novel Writing month 2014 with a week to spare: Road Closed.
As with 2009, I am taking an unfinished short story and expanding it to short novel-length. There are a few differences this time. I am actively working on the story “Road Closed” while “The Ferry” had been abandoned many years prior. I also had planned on completing “Road Closed” before November 1, using it as my warm-up for the contest.
But with it already clocking in at 7,000 words and only just laying the foundation for the grisly meat of the story (ho ho) I realized I might be able to turn it into a novel by expanding certain aspects of the story while keeping the basic plot/framework in place.
I can’t say I’m optimistic about my chances of being successful, as my writing has floundered for most of the year. “Road Closed” began as a writing exercise back in January before being abandoned and it was only a few weeks ago that I dusted it off, chucked most of what I had written and dove back into it. But the intervening months did give me time to think about the story and I found a hook that eluded me. My intent is to keep the story light while dealing with alcoholism, death and dismemberment. We’ll see how it pans out in 36 days.
Something strange and wonderful happened today.
For the first time in many months I sat down and wrote. I decided to take another shot at a writing exercise I’d started on my now-moribund writing site. The story is called “Road Closed” and rather than picking up where I’d left off or polishing what I had already written, I just plain started over.
Four thousand words later I am pleased with how easily the words started flowing once I got rolling.
I’d like to thank Green Day and The Bee Gees for musical inspiration while I clacked away on my mechanical keyboard. Yes, punk and disco, back to back, just as nature intended.
My plan is to write every day and to wrap up this story before National Novel Writing Month begins in 18 days. I think I can pull this off.
engadget is described as a “news, reviews and opinion outlet with obsessive coverage of cutting edge gadgets, consumer electronics and the science and technology they’re built upon.”
The news, reviews and opinions are all presented in a chronological list without much to differentiate one from another apart from the title of the article. I read the site on a near-daily basis and appreciate that it takes a lighter and less technical approach to electronics and gadgetry than, say, anandtech.com and its half dozen pages of benchmarks illustrating how the latest Android phone is slightly better or worse than other phones at rendering blobs and bits.
Reviews and opinion pieces on engadget are always going to have a little more personality injected into them, but I’ve noticed lately the writing of these pieces seems to be skewing more informal, with some resembling forum posts rather than something you’d expect of a professionally written article.
Take this opinion piece How would you change the Nintendo Wii U? I’ve included the entire thing below, not because I’m a plagiarizing so and so, but because it’s quite short, as its main intent is to foster forum discussion (which does not justify the tone used, in my opinion):
The Wii was, undoubtedly, the success story of the previous console generation, encouraging millions of novice gamers to wave their arms around like a crazy person. The Wii U’s big gimmick, touchscreen gaming, made plenty of sense, considering the quantity of mobile and DS users out there, but it never seemed to take off in the same way. Launching well ahead of the Xbone and PS4, the general opinion of our reviewer was that it simply wasn’t ready for the big time, and sales seem to have backed that up. A year has passed now, so it’s high time that we asked you what Nintendo should have done differently? Sign up at the forums and talk us some change.
I realized as I was reading this I was mentally editing it. Here’s the version I cobbled together (with mark-up, such as WordPress allows):
The Wii was, undoubtedly, the success story of the previous console generation, encouraging millions of novice gamers to wave their arms around like a crazy person people. The Wii U’s big gimmick, touchscreen gaming, made plenty of sense, considering the quantity number of mobile and DS users out there, but it never seemed to take took off in the same way. Launching well ahead of the Xbone Xbox One and PS4, the general opinion of our reviewer was that it simply wasn’t ready for the big time [without substantiation or at least a link, this assertion is meaningless and should be rewritten or removed], and sales seem to have backed that up. More than a A year has passed since its launch now, so now it’s high is a good time that we asked to ask you what Nintendo should have done differently.? Sign up at the forums and talk to us about some changes.
Cleaned up and with a previous engadget article linked that shows the poor sales of the Wii U:
The Wii was the success story of the previous console generation, encouraging millions of novice gamers to wave their arms around like crazy people. The Wii U’s big gimmick, touchscreen gaming, made sense considering the number of mobile and DS users out there, but it never took off in the same way. Launching well ahead of the Xbox One and PS4, Nintendo was forced in January to slash sales expectations of the Wii U for 2014 from 9 million to 2.8 million. More than a year has passed since its launch so now is a good time to ask you what Nintendo should have done differently. Sign up at the forums and talk to us about changes.
Is this better? Sign up on this blog and let me know.
Please don’t do this if you’re a spambot.
It’s time for another update on my short story collection 10 Pairs of Shorts.
This thing is taking a lot longer to assemble than expected. I wish I had a sassy writing robot to help me. Or a million dollars. Both would be neat.
As of today I have these stories more or less ready to go:
Even if I add another to the list at the rate of one per week that still means the collection won’t be fully assembled until around May. Not that it’s a race. But like Kirk to Khan, it tasks me.
I’ll pick the next story for revision tomorrow and hopefully find it perfect as written.
Two items of note for my short story collection 10 Pairs of Shorts:
1. I have concept art for the cover. Even ebooks need covers. I’m hoping to have something a little more professional than some self-published books. I’m not suggesting the below is not professional by example. I mean, there is no Comic Sans used at all. Still.
2. Another story is more or less ready for the collection, bringing the total up to six of 20 or three pairs of shorts. I hope to have another half-pair ready by next week.
I decided to put together a spreadsheet that would finally collect together all of my various writing projects from over the years.
I left out anything that was little more than a sketch or idea. It had to have at least enough substance to count as unfinished to make the list. I also left out all of the treasure of my youth that were scrawled in crayon, written with a leaky fountain pen (they all leaked) or made via the incredible clatter of my portable Smith Corona typewriter, which looked very much like this one (yes, it was blue and it was awesome…at making a racket):
In the end I was somewhat surprised to have sixty stories listed, ranging from finished copies suitable for publication/framing/lining bird cages to others that were little more than a few rough scenes desperately clinging to life. Fittingly, one of these is a short story called “Writer’s Block”.
I’ll edit this post to go into a bit more detail about the genres and so on soon.
After some very good feedback on my writing within the increasingly awkward confines of the private messaging system of Broken Forum I decided to go all out and create an entirely new forum devoted specifically for new(ish) writers to receive (and give) feedback on writing projects.
It’s called slightrewrite.com (the name was coined by kerzain, one of the members of both BF and now SR). I’d forgotten how fun it was to code basic HTML and CSS, to configure a forum and get everything working just right. And then when it doesn’t the hosting company suggests you upgrade your host package ($$$) so you do and then hope it really runs properly.
The forum is only intended for a small group of people so I’m not looking to strike it big here. In fact that would almost certainly lead to more headaches than it would be worth, so just ignore this post, OK?
If it works for even one person (it doesn’t even have to be me) I’ll consider the endeavor worthwhile.
Back in the old days writers used to face hazards like getting lead poisoning from pencils, being stabbed by critics with ivory-handled fountain pens or getting eaten by a bear, as writers would often be forced to write outside to have sufficient light and bears were pretty much everywhere back then.
By comparison today’s writers have it pretty easy. We have computers to write with. We have delete keys. We have indoor lights and doors that can lock and keep out bears. But there are still perils to writing, even in this modern age of flying cars and zero calorie sodas.
This week I could not work on my writing on my lunch break, even though I took my laptop with me to work every day and it was in perfect working order. What prevented me from writing? Was it a sudden zombie apocalypse? Did aliens blanket the world with rays that prevented the normal operation of all electronic devices? A little of both?
No, it was perhaps worse than these things. The wireless network was acting flaky, forcing me to use my laptop in scary offline mode. Suddenly the world was at my fingertips but instead of offering a bounty of knowledge and diversion it offered stony silence. Not to mention plenty of “this page cannot be displayed”. No big deal normally (lie) but I keep my writing in the cloud, specifically the very popular Dropbox. With no wireless access my Dropbox folder was inert. Sure, I could have made my important stuff available for offline mode but that sort of planning (like outlines) is for losers.
The thought of writing something entirely new from scratch this early in the new year was too frightening and so I simply ate my lunch and listened to ABBA. Somewhere Harlan Ellison was laughing at me as he finished another handwritten page in one of his many legal pads.
But you wait. When the zombie apocalypse does arrive, what do you think will be more effective in braining a zombie? My computer or Harlan’s legal pad?
Exactly.
As part of a writing exercise a few years back I wrote the following. The exercise was to write something where each line used the next letter of the alphabet. It’s not a poem, really, because it has no meter or whatever it is poems have.
At the start it was just another minor medical news story.
But then I saw a man in the alley behind Tara’s Organic Foods.
Clutching a cat in his hands, he chomped on it like a burger.
Dumbfounded I watched until he’d had his fill.
Eyes turned on me and he sprinted, blood spraying from his lips.
Five days later the police shot him as he dined on a doberman.
Good news, the doctors told me, you can return to work.
Health care officials stream past my office in panel vans.
I’m told it’s nothing when I ask, nothing to worry about.
Just keep your nose down (and on your face).
Killings continue, more pets and then an old man named Gus.
Loner, outcast, found under the train trestle, no pics please.
More health care officials in their vans, DO NOT WORRY.
No suspect yet but we have leads, we have leads.
On the tenth day a woman is found on the street.
Painted on the pavement in her own blood.
Questioning a health official, I am pushed away.
Reassurances are made but I recognize the fear.
Safety will not be found here anymore.
Taking an hour, I pack what I need, my survival kit.
Under one arm I cradle a gun I just bought.
Veiled eyes follow as I go to my car.
Watching as I drive away.
X-rays revealed nothing at the time.
Yet I cannot deny the events behind Tara’s.
Zombies have come and I’m in the mood for brains.
When I next post about this (take two) it will be after I’ve turned this a poem. I expect it to be wretched, perhaps gloriously so.
Soon™.
In 2014 (one day from now, though this is not something that will actually be happening tomorrow, barring some kind of time travel trickery) I will be self-publishing my first short story collection. After looking over the collected stories I have written and weeding out those either not ready or not up to par I have settled on twenty for a collection that will be titled 10 Pairs of Shorts. Clever, eh? Here are the stories:
This list is subject to change on my whim but I am fairly certain I will stick with this selection.
Here are some broad classifications:
You can see where my wheelhouse is. I love me some weird stories.
The twenty titles are in various states of completion, ranging from ready to go to “this is a neat idea”. The breakdown:
It’s possible I may drop the two unwritten stories in exchange for others already completed, other entirely new stories or for nothing at all, with the collection re-titled 9 Pairs of Shorts as a result.
I don’t have a firm date for publication beyond 2014 but will post updates occasionally on my progress in getting there, with a big glitzy announcement when the happy day arrives and I start demanding all of my friends prove their friendship through purchasing as many copies of the collection as they can comfortably afford.