Someone asked me why my final blog post for NaNoWriMo was just moving on to the future like that, and why I never really stopped to reflect on how great this November was.
Hey, November has been my favorite month for the last five years, ever since I discovered this program. And I still get just as much out of it as everyone else does. Unfortunately, since I know I can't make it to a "Thank God It's Over" party, I haven't really had any encouragement to express my excitement. I guess that's always how it's been--halfway into December people go, "Oh hey did you ever finish that novel?" (Besides, I'm already being flooded by everyone else's long reactions to the month, and I don't want to be repetitive!)
It's more than that, though, I think. It has to do with my personal thoughts about progress and accomplishment. Yes, this is probably going to get a little philosophical, but hear me out.
What's just happened is kind of like a vacation. When you go on vacation, everything else in life is kind of put on hold for a bit, as best you can manage. But it's not gone. It's waiting for you as soon as you get home, and it might even be a bit tougher while you catch up to things!
Or you could compare it to getting your dream job. When that happens, you certainly feel triumphant, and you celebrate. Then after that, it's time to actually go to work. You're excited, you get a good feel for it, and then, if it really is your dream job, you probably set out to have some kind of success at it, right? You have a new goal, and you move on to it, but it builds on your last goal that you accomplished.
For me, finishing NaNoWriMo is both of these things. It's both a return to normal life from something really enjoyable, and something to celebrate in its own right, but ultimately I have to move on to the next goal beyond that. Does that mean I'll never be satisfied? Maybe. But I feel like everything I do is building up to something really amazing. One day it's going to add up to an amazing collection of books. And that's a goal worth striving for.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Endings, 2012
Well, NaNoWriMo is over. Whatever your "done" is, you're done. In a few moments it will be December in the vast majority of time zones, including the one I'm living in. (If you live somewhere that still gives you a little time, come back and read this later!)
That means it's finally okay to look ahead, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I have my writing life pretty much mapped out for the next several months, so here we go.
Starting tomorrow I'm going back to rewriting The Third Face. This time, though, I have a (working) plan for it, chapter by chapter. My goal is to write one every day, and since the plan has around 43 chapters (though I may deviate from it a tiny bit) it ought to be done in the middle of January.
After that, I'm going to start looking back into some marketing things. I'll also try and get some kind of art contest going for the new cover. This will also be some time to plan the other two books in the trilogy as fully as I've done for this one. That should keep me busy for a while, and then I'll be editing and promoting, leading up to the book's re-release on April 5th--the same day the original came out.
Even at that point I'll already be back to writing like crazy, though. That's because Script Frenzy is in April*, and though I've only tried it once, and failed (back in 2010), I'm going to do it this time without fail! The script I have planned is "adapt The Third Face into an anime," so we'll see how that goes! And as soon as I'm done with that, it'll be back to novels for the second book, The Demon's Guardian, which should hopefully be done, in draft form at least, in the following three months. Finally, in August 2013 it's off to Camp NaNoWriMo for the crazy crossover I mentioned a couple of posts ago!
The ideal scenario is that I get The Demon's Guardian published by this time next year. Optimistic? Maybe. I'll be a bit more sure of myself once I see if my schedule for The Third Face works out as well as I'd like!
What are your plans for December and beyond?
*EDIT: I just found out that the official Script Frenzy was shut down due to lack of funds. That's really sad! But I'm still going to do it anyway.
That means it's finally okay to look ahead, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I have my writing life pretty much mapped out for the next several months, so here we go.
Starting tomorrow I'm going back to rewriting The Third Face. This time, though, I have a (working) plan for it, chapter by chapter. My goal is to write one every day, and since the plan has around 43 chapters (though I may deviate from it a tiny bit) it ought to be done in the middle of January.
After that, I'm going to start looking back into some marketing things. I'll also try and get some kind of art contest going for the new cover. This will also be some time to plan the other two books in the trilogy as fully as I've done for this one. That should keep me busy for a while, and then I'll be editing and promoting, leading up to the book's re-release on April 5th--the same day the original came out.
Even at that point I'll already be back to writing like crazy, though. That's because Script Frenzy is in April*, and though I've only tried it once, and failed (back in 2010), I'm going to do it this time without fail! The script I have planned is "adapt The Third Face into an anime," so we'll see how that goes! And as soon as I'm done with that, it'll be back to novels for the second book, The Demon's Guardian, which should hopefully be done, in draft form at least, in the following three months. Finally, in August 2013 it's off to Camp NaNoWriMo for the crazy crossover I mentioned a couple of posts ago!
The ideal scenario is that I get The Demon's Guardian published by this time next year. Optimistic? Maybe. I'll be a bit more sure of myself once I see if my schedule for The Third Face works out as well as I'd like!
What are your plans for December and beyond?
*EDIT: I just found out that the official Script Frenzy was shut down due to lack of funds. That's really sad! But I'm still going to do it anyway.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Winding Down
I know a lot of my readers here are NaNoWriMo participants, so this one's for you.
The last couple of days are where things get a little bit crazy. Many people are already finished, but the vast majority of people are still scrambling to get done. You don't hear as much from the latter, though, because they're too busy trying to write! So those of us who have finished early are the only ones here to give advice to the people who aren't done, even though we aren't experiencing the same thing.
Yesterday I considered making a blog entry about my plans for after November, plans which I've actually already gotten started on just a little. But I didn't do it, because if you're not done with NaNoWriMo yet then thinking about life after November is the last thing you need to do. (By done, it may mean getting to 50,000 or finishing your novel or just writing all the way up to the end. At this point you ought to be able to tell what done looks like for you, and it doesn't have to be the same as anyone else's!)
When you get close to the end it's easy to fall into. You think, "Finally! I'm almost done! Soon I'll be able to do all the things I've been putting off, reward myself, and everything!" This is the point where NaNoWriMo is actually harder for people who do a lot of writing, because we can't help but think about the next project. But I think everyone kind of has that thing that they want to do once they finish and open up a large block of free time.
But if you're not done, as I mentioned above, then that free time isn't open yet. And I guarantee once you get that time, you'll have plenty of chances to relax and have all of those thoughts. The key to finishing now is to live in the moment. The memes don't say "December is coming," because that's not what's happening. You are in one of the last days in November, and that's just how it is. Nothing can happen after that unless you do your best right now.
Good luck to everyone playing catch-up, especially my buddy Duth Olec, who's racing to get 10,000 words out of the last couple of days here!
The last couple of days are where things get a little bit crazy. Many people are already finished, but the vast majority of people are still scrambling to get done. You don't hear as much from the latter, though, because they're too busy trying to write! So those of us who have finished early are the only ones here to give advice to the people who aren't done, even though we aren't experiencing the same thing.
Yesterday I considered making a blog entry about my plans for after November, plans which I've actually already gotten started on just a little. But I didn't do it, because if you're not done with NaNoWriMo yet then thinking about life after November is the last thing you need to do. (By done, it may mean getting to 50,000 or finishing your novel or just writing all the way up to the end. At this point you ought to be able to tell what done looks like for you, and it doesn't have to be the same as anyone else's!)
When you get close to the end it's easy to fall into. You think, "Finally! I'm almost done! Soon I'll be able to do all the things I've been putting off, reward myself, and everything!" This is the point where NaNoWriMo is actually harder for people who do a lot of writing, because we can't help but think about the next project. But I think everyone kind of has that thing that they want to do once they finish and open up a large block of free time.
But if you're not done, as I mentioned above, then that free time isn't open yet. And I guarantee once you get that time, you'll have plenty of chances to relax and have all of those thoughts. The key to finishing now is to live in the moment. The memes don't say "December is coming," because that's not what's happening. You are in one of the last days in November, and that's just how it is. Nothing can happen after that unless you do your best right now.
Good luck to everyone playing catch-up, especially my buddy Duth Olec, who's racing to get 10,000 words out of the last couple of days here!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Reverse Cliffhanger Ending
This time, it's the author that's worried about what will happen next!
Well, the good news is that I finished NaNoWriMo 2012, claiming it as my fifth completion. The climactic clash went down without a hitch and my characters found themselves at a happy ending.
The problem? In doing so I accidentally left some very clear hooks for two sequels. Completely separate, distinct ones going in totally different directions. The ending pretty much calls for them in such a way that if people read this novel and I then said there weren't going to be those sequels, they'd be disappointed and possibly mad at me.
One is pretty simple. In the course of the novel, a baby is born. This baby, Oliver, is apparently the center of all of the conflict in the Bridge of Time, because removing him from time will supposedly have a large effect on the future of his world. I haven't ever mentioned how exactly, so this leaves his entire life open with a promise that it will be interesting.
Meanwhile, and much more alarmingly, a couple residents of the other timeline end up falling below the Bridge, and end up in an area I invented a while back for another novel. It's called the Paradox Slip, and it's home to everything that's ever been erased from a universe, whether that's because of time traveling matters or because I, the author, got rid of it. In fact, the place they land in is a setting that I scrapped from a story back when I was like 12 because then I already knew it was stupid.
It follows, then, that every character and story that I've ever chosen not to use or bring back, and everything that fell victim to the time travel trap (which is a surprisingly large amount of stuff in my writing!) is going to be there. This includes a villain in another novel who the heroes were only able to defeat by preventing him from ever being born, and so he's naturally taken control of this world. What I've got on my hands, in effect, is a crossover between everything I have ever written. Ever.
You can see that I'm just a little bit afraid here.
Well, the good news is that I finished NaNoWriMo 2012, claiming it as my fifth completion. The climactic clash went down without a hitch and my characters found themselves at a happy ending.
The problem? In doing so I accidentally left some very clear hooks for two sequels. Completely separate, distinct ones going in totally different directions. The ending pretty much calls for them in such a way that if people read this novel and I then said there weren't going to be those sequels, they'd be disappointed and possibly mad at me.
One is pretty simple. In the course of the novel, a baby is born. This baby, Oliver, is apparently the center of all of the conflict in the Bridge of Time, because removing him from time will supposedly have a large effect on the future of his world. I haven't ever mentioned how exactly, so this leaves his entire life open with a promise that it will be interesting.
Meanwhile, and much more alarmingly, a couple residents of the other timeline end up falling below the Bridge, and end up in an area I invented a while back for another novel. It's called the Paradox Slip, and it's home to everything that's ever been erased from a universe, whether that's because of time traveling matters or because I, the author, got rid of it. In fact, the place they land in is a setting that I scrapped from a story back when I was like 12 because then I already knew it was stupid.
It follows, then, that every character and story that I've ever chosen not to use or bring back, and everything that fell victim to the time travel trap (which is a surprisingly large amount of stuff in my writing!) is going to be there. This includes a villain in another novel who the heroes were only able to defeat by preventing him from ever being born, and so he's naturally taken control of this world. What I've got on my hands, in effect, is a crossover between everything I have ever written. Ever.
You can see that I'm just a little bit afraid here.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Climactic Clash: An Excerpt
The main reason it's been most of a week since I posted here is because I've been hard at work trying to juggle homework with this novel! I'm so close to being done that I can taste it, but that only slows me down, I think.
Anyway, since I'm too busy writing it to say much else, have an excerpt from the final battle. This should be just enough to leave you completely confused! (But then again, what else do you expect from a NaNo novel?)
Anyway, since I'm too busy writing it to say much else, have an excerpt from the final battle. This should be just enough to leave you completely confused! (But then again, what else do you expect from a NaNo novel?)
The corpse of Anise Black rushed forward across the Bridge of Time and slammed into Ed, knocking him to the ground and causing him to drop Das Ende.
He shot her several more times, point blank, until he was out of ammunition. Then, as Eibmoz had, she disintegrated.
Ed looked up to see the blade of a sword pointed at him.
“You killed Anise,” said Aaron.
“Yes. Why do you care? Run along back to your world. She's still alive there.”
“You really are stupid, aren't you, Doctor? Here, let me make it clear for you!”
With that, Aaron yelled and came down with his blade, chopping off Ed's left hand. The pistol fell down into the abyss.
Ed rolled the other way and got up. “How did you get such strength so quickly?”
“It's me, stupid! I came up with this plan! I wanted to get close to you instead of him, so I could finish you personally! And I wanted to see Anise up close one last time before it all fell apart!”
“Oh. Doomy. Didn't expect it to be you. Right then. Just one question before we fight.”
“What?”
“What did you do with Oliver?”
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
The Bridge of Time
The thing about NaNo novels is that they change.
Like, one year my novel about a prince who dreamed up the entire real world turned into a dark adventure featuring a memory-eating tower and a collection of souls in jars. Another year, it started out with a homeless guy fighting to retain ownership of his hat, and ended up as a vast, deadly game between two gods on a bet.
This one has already changed before. Let's recap: originally this was supposed to be about a depressed guy doing crazy and stupid things due to a Homestuck obsession. Then the depressed guy started getting therapy and help, and the novel was supposed to be about him becoming a better man.
It turns out that I am just naturally required to take it up a notch. And thus, what I have today.
Shortly after making Aaron attempt suicide, and seeing the consequences, I decided I wasn't too happy with them. I began an alternate scenario where he decides not to jump. Instead he murders Anise, who is oddly forgiving to him about that fate. I named this section "Timeline B" for convenience.
Then I dabbled in "Timeline A" again. Yes, apparently, I can't let go of either of them. That only leads me to one conclusion: I have to form a connection between them. Thus, I recently wrote a scene previewing the construction of this mysterious Bridge of Time, which will be used for just that purpose. The interesting thing, which I have not yet revealed, is exactly who is building said bridge...
The end is near. I'm hoping to hit 40,000 words tonight, and once I do, it'll be indisputably time to accelerate into the ending zone. I like the ending zone.
Like, one year my novel about a prince who dreamed up the entire real world turned into a dark adventure featuring a memory-eating tower and a collection of souls in jars. Another year, it started out with a homeless guy fighting to retain ownership of his hat, and ended up as a vast, deadly game between two gods on a bet.
This one has already changed before. Let's recap: originally this was supposed to be about a depressed guy doing crazy and stupid things due to a Homestuck obsession. Then the depressed guy started getting therapy and help, and the novel was supposed to be about him becoming a better man.
It turns out that I am just naturally required to take it up a notch. And thus, what I have today.
Shortly after making Aaron attempt suicide, and seeing the consequences, I decided I wasn't too happy with them. I began an alternate scenario where he decides not to jump. Instead he murders Anise, who is oddly forgiving to him about that fate. I named this section "Timeline B" for convenience.
Then I dabbled in "Timeline A" again. Yes, apparently, I can't let go of either of them. That only leads me to one conclusion: I have to form a connection between them. Thus, I recently wrote a scene previewing the construction of this mysterious Bridge of Time, which will be used for just that purpose. The interesting thing, which I have not yet revealed, is exactly who is building said bridge...
The end is near. I'm hoping to hit 40,000 words tonight, and once I do, it'll be indisputably time to accelerate into the ending zone. I like the ending zone.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Blog-splosion
Wow, it's already been a week since my last blog entry. At the pace I've been trying to keep, that's too long. There's a reason for that, but it's personal, and I don't really want to get into it too much here, since this blog is all about writing, and I don't want to derail things.
But that doesn't mean I should hide my personal life from the world. If you want to know a bit more about me as a person, you should have that option. I'm real, living and breathing! Things happen to me, and I react in certain ways. My writing wouldn't be where it is if it wasn't for the events in my life.
So to give you that option, without forcing that information on you, I'm creating a second blog called Becoming the Catalyst (a reference to an All That Remains song that I love) and it will handle all of that stuff. At time of this writing, I haven't actually made any entries to it, but the bare bones of it are there, to be worked on over the next few days when I get the chance.
Meanwhile, I've got a couple of things going on over at Wordpress. I'll soon be doing a test run to review some video games over at Operation Rainfall, and that should give me some more experience blogging and using that particular setup. After that, it'll be time to try my hand at my own website there.
Basically, I want it to be my new writing hub, with all the information and news I share available in one place through their more advanced systems. I like Blogger a lot, but it's a bit too limited in some aspects.
That doesn't mean this blog is going to shut down, though. My plan is to set up a system so that when I post on the new Wordpress blog, a copy is automatically published here on Blogger. There's no guarantee it'll work, but it's my best shot right now.
Wish me luck keeping track of all these!
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