Small progress is small

Slowly but surely progressing on The Book of Going Forth by Night along with The Empty Book. Current word counts are ~18K and 14K, respectively. Hoping to spend a good chunk of the weekend on BOGF alone. Jumping from project to project isn't a bad idea, but when they work in different tenses it becomes a little trickier.

(Effectively, I went to work on BOGF again to finish a scene and had trouble not writing in present tense, which is what TEB is in.)

And, to keep this post from being boring, the latest lines in TEB:

"I screwed up. I didn't die, and now," I lick dry lips, "and now it's hard to see how those reasons made sense."

"So you won't try and kill yourself again."

"No," I say, a little surprised to find it's true.

... which goes to show why I only work on it in short spurts.

Where the writing is at ...

Currently I'm working on two projects. The Book of Going Forth by Night is the modern urban horror story that had a draft finished during nano. I wrote about 20K of the sequel to get a feel for it and then jumped back into this to redo it. I'm only 5 pages into but it's at least taking form again, albeit in present tense. I'm having fun fleshing out the character of Cindi and working on making the MC even more of a jerk since he basically is one at this point in his life.

Boy and Fox (aka Falling Toward The Sky) is on 11 pages and going a bit quicker, mostly because I am keeping a lot of description from previous drafts to use in it and I also have 60 handwritten pages done during travelling that shall be worked into it. (Or, realistically, about 10 of those pages.) I'm having fun fixing and keeping things and looking forward to reaching the point of New Plots vs. reorganizing old plots and concepts and meshing that together as the start. The other project is more fixing up plot and streamlining it; I'm not adding anything new in that sense so I figure it will be slower to write overall.

Beyond these, I'm trying to ignore other novel and story ideas wandering into my head so I can focus on this. How long that'll work is anyone's guess.

Writing output..

For the day has been delete two pages.

Write one page.

Also delete it.

On the plus side, most of the first page of the second draft of The Book of Going Forth remains. For now.

....

(Make that half a page.)

An update on writing....

Nanowrimo is an odd event: historically if I pause a project to do nano said project dies. The story I was working on before my first nano languishes in a file somewhere, having been added to in fits and starts since when guilt set in but otherwise doomed. There is simply not enough time to get out all the ideas rummaging for space in my head -- a lot of them are abortive notes on files that I only do something with if the idea and characters nag at me enough to demand to be written. Many of these end up as nanos rather than anything serious.


Rites of Exorcism is different: for good or ill I have not been able to get it out out of my head even after writing it as a nanowrimo story. Short stories and novel ideas for the world keep coming to me, and as such I completed the first actually finished draft of the Book of Going Forth during nano, waited two days, and began work in the sequel. It is tentatively titled The Book of the Never-Dead ^*  and I figure writing it will also make editing the first book -- which I plan to do after writing this story -- more interesting. I've never tried this method of writing/editing before and never written a true sequel, so shall see how it goes.

This story also has vampires. Which will be the subject of another post.

---

* I very much doubt the novel titles will remain come later drafts; as echos of the Egyptian cosmology they do work but as actual titles they're pretty clunky. 

And the end....

of Nanowrimo for this year. The novel ended at 70,000 words on the nose, since I added in three words in one line to get it. In some respects, this was the hardest nanowrimo I've ever done since, unlike all the others, this was a non-nano project -- aka one my brain says 'this could be a good novel' vs my normal idea of trying a new genre or just getting an idea out of my head, which is my normal fun with nano. As such, the story stalled a few times and was almost redone from a different POV once. Interestingly, the last 10K took almost a week to write since it was the last part of the nano and a lot of plot and story elements had to be resolved and come together.

Did they? Well, no. By that point I was too aware of stuff I'd be changing in the next draft and wanting to have this draft reflect that. Which is probably a sure route to madness, so I finished this draft as was and had fun with  it. It did manage to surprise me in some small parts, a few of the people in it turning darker or tougher than I'd thought and I discovered the big change for the next draft is to shorten the timeline a lot. Aiden is an exorcist, and very good at that: this novel was him dealing with non-ghost stuff mostly and being out of his comfort and knowledge zone. As such, taking four days to figure out the major plot stuff going on made him seem drastically more incompetent, and possibly stupid.

Things I learned this year:

1) Plotting worked. Less plotting would have worked better. I write to find out what is going to happen as much as anything else and this draft left little room for me to be surprised which led to some sections being rather slow to write since I had, at least in point form plot notes, 'done' them already and the plot didn't deviate much from them.

2) I think I may use nano for something I plan to Do More with again in the future. It does limit me to one nanowrimo a year, but that's just fine; I could do more, and I have, but I have no need or desire to. 

3) I don't think I'll use nano to rewrite a concept from scratch and such again, however: using it for something new is more to the point and a better break from other projects. (And yes, this may violate #2 but what the hell. I'll still limit myself to the one nanowrimo, however long or short it turns out to be.) 

 4) Trying to write one story that's over 80K should definitely be a challenge to myself; very few of my first drafts are that long. 

5) I had fun, even if sometimes the story didn't feel fun at all. Working on one project off and on for over two years is not my cup of tea: I tend to get idea, write, move on to next idea, write, and so forth: I think this story and Boy and Fox are the only two projects I've stuck with for a long period of time, and the latter is missing some indefinable something to make it work.

Also, my collective nano wordcount for 8 years is now:  862,374 words. Daaaamn.

A curious thing happened on the way to 50K....

Hit 50K tonight for nano and looked back at the chart in amusement. The first day I managed 7K and the same on the 5th. I'd hit 25k at that point, faster than I'd thought I would given my goal was ~80k at best (I hope for 90K and expect 80K, it seems to be about my natural length). I went to bed Saturday night having a moment of doubt about Damien's character and saw the novel from the pov of Damien instead of Aiden. And on Sunday morning I began to write the entire thing from scratch, reaching over 1K in writing and a lot of notes -- the latter in the privacy of my head.

Saner heads than mine prevailed in convincing me to keep going with Aiden's pov, if only because it was more challenging than changing it to Damien's. I saw the wisdom of that and moved forward again; despite that, by the 10th I was only at 37K and most of the days had been about 2K, though the tenth had been 4K. So this weekend I knuckled down and did 14K over two days, pushing me over the 50K mark. The plot developed a few twists, the characters surprised me a little and the story is flowing ahead again.

The trick for me at this stage is not thinking too much about the next draft: I already realize what I wrote as 5 days of plot  should be condensed into 3 and a lot of the conversational stuff between the characters can probably be pared down to the grit of it in the next draft.

To whit:
* Cindi's vehicle needs to be more important, so the Beast must be getting repaired. (Damien repairing an RV should be fun.)  She, a a character, needs to bring more to the story and demand more out of it. Someone has to get in his face and not know or care about his reputation in a very select circle of people: she is that person.
* The DEA agents need to show sooner and do a little more in the story.
* Shortening the time-frame allows for the characters to figure out who the magician is a lot sooner; the current timeline makes them look even more incompetent than I'd intended.

Thoughts on a few monkeys

Thoughts on character background, most specificically the edit of:

To be honest, I really hate stories where a character behaves horribly and their sad childhood keeps getting brought up to somehow validate their bad behaviour

Because: hell, yes. I loathe this trope with a passion. Yes, horrible things happen to people. I get that. Everyone does. But not everyone who is abused goes on to abuse, not every person with a shitty childhood becomes a shitty parent. Choice is involved in who we decide to be and how we decide to react to the hand(s) life deals us. If you are an asshole, it is because you are an asshole.

In the case of nano, this is Aiden by and large. Yes, his parents did terrible things to him but he honestly doesn't see them like that: they're his parents and he loved them, as horrible as that can sometimes be. That his parents had motives that were on the side of 'good' doesn't change that at all: he was raised and taught to think in a very utilitarian manner and that his life was a worth sacrifice to stop Evil Things from happening. Others disagree with this (vehemently) and part of his growth as a character is when he decides to walk is own path as best he can.

He is a jerk, but that is by choice: it's how he dealt to lessons and his response to getting hurt by people and the word. Damien, on the other hand, tried to see every setback in life as an opportunity to grow. Not to forgive, no, but to try and forget a little and move on from things done to him. To an extent, they balance each other out and Vita threw them together partially in the hope they'd rub onto each other a little and become a little stronger in the process.

And since I plan this to be a series, it also means the reader gets to see Aiden become a bit more involved with people and the world, less of an exorcist and more of a human being. But at no point is the fact that his parents did a serious number on him during childhood going to be an excuse or actual explanation for his failures as a person.

Nano Day 7 .. an excerpt

I turned to see the local sheriff's car pull up. A tall, stern man who looked like he could bench-press snarling rottweilers got out of the driver's side, his boots shiny and uniform looking freshly ironed, the badge gleaming as he walked over.

      A shorter balding man got out the passenger side: He was thin and wiry and even sported a cowboy hat over rather more rumpled clothing, having an air about him of someone who'd seen most everything the town had to offer and wasn't prepared to be surprised by any of it.

      The sheriff ambled over and the locals parted without thinking, the truck driver removing his hat and looking like he wanted to chew more of the brim off in worry. The patrons of the McDonalds slipped back inside slowly but steadily, showing a natural distrust of the law I found curious: I'd have bet good money that the local law enforcement only did what the Klein family asked of them.

      The deputy wandered into the McDonalds, nodding amicably to people and talking statements. I just moved off to the side, throwing up a protecting circle around Damien the buffer him against emotions and saw his shoulders sag a little in relief.

      "Sheriff John Cassidy," the Sherrif said briskly. "Someone mind explaining the call we got about a hit and run?"

      The driver, whose name turned out to be Simon Saundersen, stumbled over barely seeing Damien jump out in front of him, trying to break, something hitting the window, but each statement was a little more hesitant than the last as his brain tried to parse someone being thrown into the path of the truck by an force unseen to him.

      "You throw something at the window, mister ...?" the Sheriff said, turning to Damien.

      "Daimen. I didn't see the truck when I was crossing the road," he lied, looking pale and shaken. That he was seventy pounds of nothing in a baggy sweater and coat helped hide that there were too many tears in the clothing for him to have no scrapes at all.

      The sheriff grunted. "We'll need to take you down to the station for questions anyway; insurance companies like stuff to be formal," he said, then added: ''Sides, it's a slow day so far and we're got coffee to spare," which disarming honestly.

      Damien just nodded, trying not to look worried as he glanced over at me.

      The sheriff glanced over, eyes narrowing. "You were walking with him, sir?" he said.

      I nodded.

      "I trust you have a name?" the Sheriff added.

      "Aiden Nel," I said, handing over my wallet when he held out his hand.

      "Long way from Canada, boy, " he said, handing it back. "You're that quack Klein hired."

      "I'm an exorcist, yes," I said.

      "Well, Simon here seems mighty confused by how your friend ended up in front of his truck across one lane so darned quick," the sheriff said, slipping into a stereotype with ease. "You reckon it could be ghosts?"

      I smiled brightly. "If the dead went about shoving the living into traffic I think you'd have a lot more fatalities, don't you?"

Nanowrimo Synopsis

And here is, finally, a synopsis for The Book Of Going Forth By Night. Not the best, but it's far better than the ones I had before, especially one that attempted to explain the novel setting in a paragraph and just left people very baffled.


My name is Aiden Nel. If you're lucky you won't have heard of me. If you're not, you probably found my webpage and need an exorcist. Most people don't believe in ghosts, but I don't hold that against them: they're made to forget the wider world that lurks outside in the dark. I come in when too much happens for people to dismiss it, and they often pay me a nice sum to keep the dead quiet.

Sheffield Bay should have been just another routine call. The Klein family run the mill town and the owner's son was convinced he was hearing ghosts in their home: it should have been a quick exorcism. Easy in, easy out, payment strictly in cash. But there's a magician playing with terrible magics and an ancient spirit stalking the family to uphold a terrible pact lost to history. If they fall it could well cripple the entire town.

All I have on my side are a friend who is trying not to become a monster and a blogger who wants to write my life story. It may end sooner than she'd like.

Writing plot....

Half-way through what I have listed as 'day 3' for nano, with notes as point form bits. (I find it easier to do them that way so I can juggle them about and add new ones easily when needed.) I've also reached 5 pages typed up and found myself doing the notes as though the story was third-person and not first. Which should help when typing it to make it feel that I'm not just expanding an outline when I do type it all up.

It should be interesting to see if this level of preparation helps or hinders the story but one can only learn by trying. And it had added a few characters to the story I didn't intend on, which IS fun. I know, somewhat, how it ends but have no clue about the denouncement parts at all yet. But hey, got a few days to work on it so it's all good.

The evolution of a novel

Over the past few years my writing style has changed in weird ways: I tend to write part of a novel, set it aside, come back to it, redo it from scratch at least once and see where it goes. It's probably wasteful on a lot of levels, but I find it gives me a better grasp of the characters and what works and doesn't work in the story. 

In the case of what is now going to be nanowrimo 2011, it began life as Rites of Exorcism, which took place over 2 drafts of Aiden Nel, an exorcist in high school and his attempt to cope with the deaths of his parents, graduation, his own future and some entity that had begun murdering cheerleaders. Eventually I realized I didn't have a workable ending for it and rather than force something realized the entire story actually worked better as a backstory. I began another draft, dropping it because it didn't fit and eventually began work on another project involving a man named Zeth who had done something utterly terrible in his past and gained power for it: an examination of what happens to someone who hits rock bottom and then starts digging deeper. 

Eventually the two concepts congealed in my head along with an old idea about a world where the egyptian gods were real that I'd first done up as a quick rpg game. I began work on what was by then The Book of Going Forth by Night, with the stated goal of sequels, and while busy travelling I realized that one of the major characters in it should really be in the sequel instead. Which meant redoing it from scratch as well, so my old nano idea was scrapped in favour of bloody well finishing a draft OF this story, since it's been about four years now. 

On a practical level, this means I've written over 120K of words that are either backstory or possibly plot stuff for the second novel in a series without a first novel. Because that seems to be what I do. 

songs for exorcists

I don't listen to that much music, as a rule. Most of it tends to be folk, and my only real requirement is that if the song has music, I can hear the words. (Given hearing loss, this pretty much disqualifies most rock and such.) However, when stumbling across a song by chance today, I realized it fit one  character for theBook of Going Forth and that I had a few others lurking in a playlist that worked, so without further ado:

The series itself fits with Empire by Super8 & Tab.
Aiden is, for various reasons, Secret by Heart
while Damien, naturally is I Am (The Doppelganger's Song) by Seanan McGuire
Vita fits with Windmills of Your Mind.

I have nothing for other characters at present, and some -- okay, most -- of the songs are ones I come across while working on a novel and think they fit into it on some level, so I lob them into a playlist I often entirely forget about.

There are a few for Boy and Fox but listing those would constitute plot spoilers. Really.

All of which leads me to wonder ... do you have songs fitting your characters? Do you even bother to try? Or, like me, does it mostly happen by accident?

Dear character,

I would like to inform you that this was entirely unexpected. While I had plans for you, finding out your skepticism has its roots in seriously twisted blackmail of your father while you were eight was never in any form of the plot at all. Your insistence on becoming important to the plot on some level and trying to upstage your older brother is rather worrying, given your original intent as foil by means of seeing an irrational universe as explicable via rational means.

While this may give you more layers and perhaps make you more interesting, it also means I have to re-think -- and probably re-write -- your previous scenes thanks to this. In the future, if you'd try and remain a minor character in a story with too many major characters already, I would greatly appreciate it.

It's either that or I kill you messily.

Thank you,

Josh.

Update for BOGF

Managed 4K so far today, with family stuff (and Dr Who) earlier and such for breaks. Not bad, given I managed to end up at a walk-in clinic because of work on Friday. I swear I accumulate scars at work like other people do raises.

On the plus side, the story feels pretty solid so far. I have to alter some background details like character's ages and need to figure out what is really bugging one of the MCs, as if had become more relevant than expected and two of the MCs have shown surprising streaks of pure nastiness that is quite interesting.

September Writing

It seems my latest method for novels is to combine things from other stories that have stalled or failed and see what works. As a result, what is now 'The Book of Going Forth By Night' was once, in no particular order, the Rites of Exorcism novel [now a backstory], the BOGF rpg idea that sprung out of Rites and a story I'd only called 'zeth story' about what happens to a man after he's lost everything.

The end result has been pretty fun and odd so far, so I'll see where it goes.