Merinda's Meanderings

I started reading “War of Art” the other day by Steven Pressfield. I don’t want to talk a lot about it until I finish it, but so far the whole first part is about resistance. As a writer I know a lot about that, and I’ve been fussing with it all week.

I’ve been writing some stuff, mostly background stories. And it’s important to write it so I get a better grasp of the character for what will probably be the fourth book. Yes this series won’t go away. Looks like this story will focus on Norman, the youngest Berger brother, though I haven’t completly thrown out the idea of Charlie tagging along.

But I’ve been putting off the editing. I also need to send out another round of query letters so I can get more rejection. Plus the short stories still haven’t been sent out again. So, less naps, more work.

Okay, great that draft is done. I even have some gears turning for another book in this universe (A fourth book? yes). So, what am I doing about it? not a heck of a lot.

This is that dangerous time when you’re a writer. You need to let a story rest a bit so you can look at it with fresh eyes when you start editing and cutting and turning a mushy first draft into a solid second. But at the same time you really can’t afford to get out of the good habits of writing every day and letting your creativity loose.

Like any other endeavor or positive habit, taking a day or two off is okay, more then that and inertia works against you. Same reason I need to resurrect the gym habit that was derailed by a week and a half’s cold and I just haven’t done it.

So, I’m at least kicking at some more background stories, trying to get a feel for things. But I think today I’ll blow off the dust thats threatening to collect and at least give that 1st draft a run through.

I’m actually a bit floored. We just finished the first draft of our collaboration. In a week. And it’s just over 50k.

Thats a nano (not amore).

Now the fun hard part. Taking our separate parts and making them a whole. I think we’re still arguing discussing over how best to do that. I am throughly impressed with ourselves and look forward to mashing it all together and whipping it into shape. I think this is the most fun I’ve ever had writing anything, and certainly some of the easiest.

Autumn wrote about her experience with it on her blog too.

Or as I keep wanting to call it: Google Ducks. I’m weird, I know that.(Google docs sounds a little bit like geoduck (pronounced gooeyduck))

So I’ve been collaborating. It’s actually going quite fast and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a first draft by the end of this week/start of next. Course then the fun bit of stitching it together happens, but I think that’ll be relatively painless. Editing, however should be interesting.

But i wanted to talk to talk a bit about Google docs. I don’t think we actually set down and talked about using it, it just made the most sense. We’ve both been writing our own plot lines, and this lets us easily read over each others shoulders. Autumn hasn’t really had any problems, but I keep getting a network error where it says it can’t save. Usually i can just copy the last bit i wrote, quit and come back and its fine, then pasting in. But its still kinda a pain in the butt.

That said, Google docs is a very useful tool. We live half a country away from each other. Collaborating any other way would be a pain. Google docs is great for that. Whenever this draft is done I’ll still pull it into Open Office to do the mashing and the printing and all that. Plus it fun to actually read over someones shoulder, and a little less annoying for the person doing the typing. I think you can chat in Google docs now (at least with spreadsheets) but we just communicate via IM.

About the only other drawback to Google docs is the size limit. I know from nano experience that you can only fit about 50k words in a doc, though I think it’s based on characters not words. And I find the spell check kinda annoying. But really, thats minor. If your looking for place to collaborate, or just a way to work on your stuff from any location, Google Docs is the best way I’ve found.

Monday i talked about humor. Today I thought I’d mention the other end of human emotion. Actually tears and laughter are notoriously close together sometimes. I think the goal of most writers, even if they never say it out loud, is to evoke emotion. If I can make you really cry over a scene, or a character, then I’ve succeeded in forging a connection between you and my book.

Well either that or the writing is so gawdawful…but then I’d think that would more make you laugh…or throw it across the room.

Anyway, I confess to being somewhat proud of the fact that at least one of my stories seems to consistently bring the tears, no matter who reads it. I still can’t get an agent to give it the time of day, but at least that tells me that the quality is there. Maybe thats part of why I find myself still writing stories in this world; the connection is there, and strong, even for me. I’m not yet sick of these characters anyway. Heck there is probably even room for a fourth book, if I wanted or more. But I’m not looking at that right now.

Ultimately, as an author, I want you to care. I want you to come away from one of my stories changed. Maybe not in any significant way, but I believe the best stories leave us with some fragment of something special. Not that I’m all that and a box of cookies. I’m not Tolkien, or Heinlein or Gaiman or anybody else. But I am me, and I bring my own unique voice to the table. And, hopefully, someone reads my stuff and comes away with something they didn’t have before. Maybe even with some tears.

I have a minor confession to make. Generally, I suck at humor in my stories. I might have a funny moment here or there, but usually it’s blind luck if I pull it off. That said, I’m finding it a little bit easier this story, maybe because I know these characters so well and because I’ve got a collaborator. So I thought I’d bother ya’ll with a short scene I found really really funny. All you really need to know to get this is that Mark’s a big tough dude. Think Aragorn, only more hardcore.

Sarge took first watch, Mark said he’d take second, and McCarthy third. At least with three of them no one would have to stay up half the night. Mark pulled open his pack before he settled down to sleep. What the hell, he thought. And pulled out the teddy bear.

McCarthy stared at him. Sarge bit back a laugh. “Mark, why do you have a teddy bear?” asked McCarthy.

“This is no teddy bear,” growled Mark. “This is Mr. Scruffles.”

Sarge did laugh then, though he tried to keep it quiet. McCarthy shook his head. “Are you sure you haven’t cracked, Mark?”

Mark smiled as he looked at the bear. “James sent Mr. Scruffles with me. James is my son,” he said to Sarge. Sarge smiled knowingly. “And besides,” he held the bear up as if it was talking in his ear, “Mr Scruffles says he can kick your ass any day, Mac.”

McCarthy laughed. “Okay Mark, okay. I’m going to sleep now. Goodnight Mr. Scruffles.” He curled up with his pack as a pillow, still chuckling. Mark did the same, with Mr. Scruffles in the crook of his arm.

Again, I got a kick out of it. I really feel envious of people that can write humor and write it well. Peter David comes to mind. I find humor to be the hardest thing in my entire writers toolbox. But when it works, it’s great.

Short, late post, but I suppose thats better the nothing. We’ve started on the collaboration and so far everything is going great. The tentative plan is that we are both writing separate lines of stories for now, but they will meet at the climax. Most likely, when we combine them we’ll alternate chapters. And of course we’re both reading over each others shoulders. We’ve also been sort of role playing different events from the characters past in a forum we set up. Thats actually been very helpful as we’ve been able to draw on the character’s experiences.

So long as things keep going as they have been this will be a good experience!

One of the best sources of encouragement I find in my own attempts at writing and such is reading other people’s blogs. It’s part of what I hope to do with this; show that you aren’t alone, show that everyone struggles. Not that I am anywhere near as famous as some of the people whose blogs I read. I’ve gotten in the habit though, of bookmarking some of my favorite posts.

If I had to name one must-read blog, it would be Neil Gaiman’s. I actually started reading his blog before I read his books, and I started because two other somewhat famous people whose blogs i read mentioned this single article:

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience…

The post is titled “Why Write” and it’s awesome and beautiful. As good in its own way is Wil Wheaton’s response.

Wil Wheaton is the other blog I want to mention. Yes, the actor who formerly played Wesley Crusher. Now doing…well many other things, including writing some fantastic narrative non-fiction memoir stuff. But his blog is also really good, not least because he’s only recently really started trying to dip his toes into the world of fiction writing and he brings the same sort of honesty in talking about that as he does in talking about everything else. This post from a couple days ago is just one example.

I guess if I had to toss out an analogy, I’d say Neil is like a wise old uncle and Wil is like a big brother, blogwise at least (or is that writingwise?). Though I’m pretty sure if I ever actually met either of them I’d collapse in a puddle of squeeing fangirl glee.

Of course I read other non-famous people’s blogs too. *points at blogroll* Lemme just close out with a quote from Wil’s blog, about Neil:

Maybe if I spend enough time trudging through the fog, I’ll run into Neil, and he can help me find my way out.

When you finish a truly great book, there is often that moment when you close the back cover and stare into space. Part of you doesn’t yet want to leave Middle-Earth, or Ender or whatever world and characters you’ve just spent the last several hundred pages traveling with. I suspect the same thing is true with authors. I don’t think Orson Scott Card set out to write, how many, eight?, books about Ender and his friends and family. And there is always the Increasingly Inaccurate Hitchhikers Trilogy.

So, late last week I finished the second draft of a sequel I never meant to write. But the world was there, and the characters brought themselves to my attention, and I wrote it. I’ve shared it with a few friends who have offered their usual great constructive criticism.

But then something interesting happened.

One of my friends kidnapped one of my characters. Oh he wasn’t a main POV character, so it didn’t matter that much. But she wrote a couple little stories about him. And it made sense the way she wrote them. I was pretty sure she groked this character better then I did. Then we started talking about maybe collaborating on another story, one that used these characters and my world. Plans were laid, plot was discussed and now, it seems a third story is on the horizon.

This character needs closure anyway. We were thinking of waiting for Nanowrimo, but then we realized she might not be able to do that this year. So yeah, I think we’re starting soon. I’ve never actually collaborated with anyone before, but the couple of things we’ve done in discussing back story and plot lead me to believe this will be a good experience for both of us.

Haven’t had any luck yet selling “The Unthinkable” as stand alone story, you think I could market it as a prequel?

I finished off the second draft, a little sooner then I thought. Mostly because as much as I wanted to add in an extra chapter there toward the end, I just couldn’t get my brain to manufacture what I needed. So it stands as is. 200 double spaced pages, 62,644 words.

The word count isn’t fantastic, but its still around 15,000 more then I started with at the end of draft one. The ‘I think’ part of the post title is because I’m just not totally happy with the ending as it is. Oh well, I’m calling it done. Now to email the other friend who hasn’t read it yet and offered to edit. And I’ll probably go down to the local copy shop and get a spiral bound copy made.

There is something oh so satisfying of holding a spiral bound copy of your manuscript.

I think the next project is going back and trying to finish “The Searchers”, a story I started several years ago that so far seems doomed to never get past chapter three. Yes, its about two guys on a road trip in a changed America. A friend of mine says I should try writing romance novels, or at least, something not so depressing. I really don’t think I can.

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I also just want to give a shout out here to Dreamhost, who hosts my site. Wednesday I couldn’t get it to load at all. They not only fixed the problem, but I think it runs faster then ever. Thanks!