Thursday, December 1
The scoop on where I'm at
OK, alright, back in action. I feel a big post coming, multi-items, much to say so let's get right to it, shall we?
My brother wants to know if I finished my novel. Short answer: no. Longer answer: no not so much. And yes, it's white tie and tails to the afterparty.
The long answer: I would estimate that this current novel, the piece of ... stuff I wrote over the past 30 days, or more accurately, about 19 of the past 30 days, is maybe 35 percent complete. The actual plot is probably through the first act and on the edge of the second act. Although it must also be said that I wrote a good chunk of the third act, too.
In other words, as I told Krell, I wrote this in a nonlinear fashion. At least so far. It's an experiment, of sort, I guess. I've also mentioned below and talked to a few of you about how I was borrowing from the music world by "sampling" things: the news, advertising, slogans, jingles, lyrics, thoughts, dreams, movie quotes, visions, lists, stream of consciousness and so on. I was capturing small collections of words that appealed to me as I went about my normal life trying to channel or 'be' my main character.
I did this many ways: carrying around a digital recorder and dictating into it while I drove or watched TV or walked through a grocery store recording all the visual/media/advertising inputs my eyes could absorb, and then typing them down as fast I could. I copied/pasted the first sentences of news headlines. I flipped through magazines and typed slogans, advertising, phrases, etc. Same with lyrics. And movie quotes. And I surfed the web and typed up long lists of things: cereals, favorite TV shows, advertising slogans and so on. I also mined my old journals and e-mail files for dreams and particularly catchy batches of text. I was trying to catch and some how deal with the vast flow of information that crosses our brain pan each day if your sentient and living in 2006. And I was curious what it would do to this novel and how I might be able to use it.
Then, I dumped and retyped and repurposed much of this copy/effluvia into my novel. I wasn't sure what would happen at first, but slowly this stuff started to become the words of the voice inside the head of my lead character, the running play-by-plan man in his head, the creature looking out of his eyeballs, which I guess is just another way of saying his consciousness, him. His internal monologue. Whatever. And this voice slowly also became the narrator, I think it might, and I'm interested to find out where this voice goes in the next month or two of writing. Because I don't really know. I'm curious.
So this morning, I pulled out all the 'sampled' stuff and dumped it into a new file and tried to organize or separate the main "real time" plot stuff so I can work on that in a more traditional fashion. And I plan to spread out and reuse all the sampled stuff in a more purposeful fashion, now that I think I know what's happening.
So work will continue. I'll report back here.
Then, my friend Jeff asked me a very, very good question, or made a statement really that kind of made me pause and think. He wanted to know why not, or maybe he phrased it in a 'you should try' sort of comment, to take the idea of NaNoWriMo (a fixed deadline and a fixed goal) and apply it to finishing another project.
Because if you've been reading this for the past year, you probably know I'm good with the grand idea, and I'm good with writing first drafts, and I'm something of a dreamer, but I'm not so good with actually finishing anything. With this latest work, I now have first drafts in various states of seven -- SEVEN! -- novels, four of which are probably mostly complete (aside from a final proofing and a clean print). And yet I still fumble and mumble and hem/haw about doing the hard work of preparing them for an agent, or of making the effort to type the one-page pitch letter to an agent about any one of them, much less all seven.
So Jeff has a very good point. And while December is no good for this sort of project, maybe January or February is perfectly good for some sort of Get Your Act Together Anderson and Do All Those Things You Need To Do To Pitch Your Novel Month, or GeYoAcToAndDoAllThoThiYouNeToDoToPiYoNoMo. So thanks Jeff.
By the way, Jeff's also the guy who points us to this interview with a really, really smart person. I like really smart people. Smart people like you, the reader. And you can listen to his music in the 'Jeff'' link over on the right side there.
That's it for now.
My brother wants to know if I finished my novel. Short answer: no. Longer answer: no not so much. And yes, it's white tie and tails to the afterparty.
The long answer: I would estimate that this current novel, the piece of ... stuff I wrote over the past 30 days, or more accurately, about 19 of the past 30 days, is maybe 35 percent complete. The actual plot is probably through the first act and on the edge of the second act. Although it must also be said that I wrote a good chunk of the third act, too.
In other words, as I told Krell, I wrote this in a nonlinear fashion. At least so far. It's an experiment, of sort, I guess. I've also mentioned below and talked to a few of you about how I was borrowing from the music world by "sampling" things: the news, advertising, slogans, jingles, lyrics, thoughts, dreams, movie quotes, visions, lists, stream of consciousness and so on. I was capturing small collections of words that appealed to me as I went about my normal life trying to channel or 'be' my main character.
I did this many ways: carrying around a digital recorder and dictating into it while I drove or watched TV or walked through a grocery store recording all the visual/media/advertising inputs my eyes could absorb, and then typing them down as fast I could. I copied/pasted the first sentences of news headlines. I flipped through magazines and typed slogans, advertising, phrases, etc. Same with lyrics. And movie quotes. And I surfed the web and typed up long lists of things: cereals, favorite TV shows, advertising slogans and so on. I also mined my old journals and e-mail files for dreams and particularly catchy batches of text. I was trying to catch and some how deal with the vast flow of information that crosses our brain pan each day if your sentient and living in 2006. And I was curious what it would do to this novel and how I might be able to use it.
Then, I dumped and retyped and repurposed much of this copy/effluvia into my novel. I wasn't sure what would happen at first, but slowly this stuff started to become the words of the voice inside the head of my lead character, the running play-by-plan man in his head, the creature looking out of his eyeballs, which I guess is just another way of saying his consciousness, him. His internal monologue. Whatever. And this voice slowly also became the narrator, I think it might, and I'm interested to find out where this voice goes in the next month or two of writing. Because I don't really know. I'm curious.
So this morning, I pulled out all the 'sampled' stuff and dumped it into a new file and tried to organize or separate the main "real time" plot stuff so I can work on that in a more traditional fashion. And I plan to spread out and reuse all the sampled stuff in a more purposeful fashion, now that I think I know what's happening.
So work will continue. I'll report back here.
Then, my friend Jeff asked me a very, very good question, or made a statement really that kind of made me pause and think. He wanted to know why not, or maybe he phrased it in a 'you should try' sort of comment, to take the idea of NaNoWriMo (a fixed deadline and a fixed goal) and apply it to finishing another project.
Because if you've been reading this for the past year, you probably know I'm good with the grand idea, and I'm good with writing first drafts, and I'm something of a dreamer, but I'm not so good with actually finishing anything. With this latest work, I now have first drafts in various states of seven -- SEVEN! -- novels, four of which are probably mostly complete (aside from a final proofing and a clean print). And yet I still fumble and mumble and hem/haw about doing the hard work of preparing them for an agent, or of making the effort to type the one-page pitch letter to an agent about any one of them, much less all seven.
So Jeff has a very good point. And while December is no good for this sort of project, maybe January or February is perfectly good for some sort of Get Your Act Together Anderson and Do All Those Things You Need To Do To Pitch Your Novel Month, or GeYoAcToAndDoAllThoThiYouNeToDoToPiYoNoMo. So thanks Jeff.
By the way, Jeff's also the guy who points us to this interview with a really, really smart person. I like really smart people. Smart people like you, the reader. And you can listen to his music in the 'Jeff'' link over on the right side there.
That's it for now.
