The Next Project (Jason's first post in *how* long?)

I just finished writing a rough draft of another book a week ago. Typically, in my writing life, I've noticed that it takes me about 7-14 days after such an achievement to be up for doing any other creative work. Instead, I ponder what I'll do next. Ideas bounce around in my head, every one gaining massive amounts of traction and then fading to nothing when I don't start writing immediately. But it's been a week now, and I'm getting the itch again, and so I've got to get writing.

I'm thinking something shorter than a novel. I've got an agent to sell those now; what I want is something I can publish myself, put out and sell right away. (The money's nice on traditional publishing. The waiting isn't.) I've got a few ideas, one that I'm working on with Peter is to put together a pair or trio of novellas with a particular (perhaps secret? Don't know so won't say it) theme. I'm thinking it'll end up in the 15-20K word range. But there are other novella length things that I contemplate.

I have the start of a novella about the later years of Morgan le Fay, sitting at about 10K and needing probably 30K. That's too short for traditional publishing, too long for magazines, the perfect length to self publish. I love the Arthurian legends, and I've been meaning to finish this thing for a great many years. When I started it (so long ago was that date) it seemed like it would be a great achievement to finish it. I have advanced much beyond that point now, but I still want to get back to it and wrap it up.

Or I could write an interpretation of the myth of Orpheus that's bouncing around in my head. I think it's just a little too thin to be a novel length work; it would be a good novella, but just not meaty enough for more.

Or the sci fi piece about abandoned terraformers. Again, it's too thin for a novel, but probably more than enough to get to 20K words.

All together, those four would be about 80K words, or about the length of the novel I just wrapped up. So that wouldn't really take long, and it would be four pieces of work that I could do things with promptly.

I think I like that plan. I think I'm on it.

We Are Shaped By Where We Are

It's winter in my writing. The current project, I mean, not always. But as I look over my body of work, I do notice that there's a lot of rain, a lot of snow, a lot of cold weather and unpleasantness. It's not always the case, but it's winter far more often than it's summer. I don't know if it's because it's more dramatic than summer (which in general it is) or if it's just because of Seattle.

Not that it snows here much or often at all. But winter, as a concept, just keeps on going. From some time in October, most often, to some time in April, give or take, not much changes. It's chilly and wet and grey, and in general stays that way through the whole period. And I can only think that my writing mindset has been shaped by that, by the notion that it is always winter, that summer will be a brief and wonderful thing that vanishes completely and is almost forgotten.

So it's winter where I'm writing. And almost always will be, I think.

Novel Experience

I wrote a book for National Novel Writing Month, which I'm having read by people just now. That's not new: I pretty much always write a book in November, and most of them are complete, and read, and in many cases ready to go for publishing, if not already published.

All well and good, but that seems to be a bad habit to have gotten in to. I seem to be fixated on the notion of writing books in November: while I can do short stories, and editing, and that sort of thing, I have had very limited success in writing novels at other times of the year in a very long while. But I'm feeling a little confident right now. I'm about half way through another novel that I started eighteen days ago, 34000 words almost, and I think that I'm liking it, and that it's a pretty decent thing as well. With luck, with good effort, and with positive feedback I might finish the thing, which would delightful.

Another new thing, this one completely new, is that I'm having people read the book as I write it. I don't do this. I don't ever do this. Every time I've ever done this, it's resulted in me not finishing the book. I don't know why. Possibly it's because I like to talk, and like to talk about what I'm writing, and don't like to know how things I'm writing will end up. That's a bad combination, because I'll talk, and then talk about the book, and then tell people how I think it will go. And then I will stop writing. This time, though, I'm managing to let people read it, and even field a few questions, offer a few hints, and not completely lose the interest in work.

It's a new feeling for me. I needed to get used to doing it, though, as I'm about to start editing my novel for my publisher, and when that happens, I'm going to need to not lose interest in the work because someone's reading it. So this is good practice.

It's also kind of scary. The book, I mean, not the process. Though there's some of that, too.

Walking off of cliffs, and climbing back up them

Having gotten bogged down in dissatisfaction with the current work in progress, I've done almost nothing on it in perhaps 10 days. Three pages, maybe, and I don't much like them. Or not that I don't much like them, but that, well, I don't much like the whole thing anymore.

In writing circles, there are those who plot out carefully, often called (surprise) plotters, and those who work best on the fly, often called pantsers (as in, seat of the pants). I fall strongly into the pantser category, preferring to just write, and thinking that everything will work out. That's usually true, but sometimes you realize partway into something that you've got it all wrong. You realize, perhaps, that the church in your world should not be just a pale shadow of the Catholic church with a few extras and accessories to make it different. Perhaps it should be vaguely modeled on that most ancient of churches, but with vast and varied changes. All of which only occurred to me 75 pages into the story, and which would require a complete reworking of almost everything to incorporate them.

Thus, I realize I've done myself a bad turn. I've rendered the story lifeless and silly in my eyes, and have walked off a cliff of my own making. Or flung myself off it, really, so that I'm now plunging into an abyss of stupid prose.

Two choices exist (three really, but the third is starting a new work, and that's out for purposes of this discussion). I can either go back and make the changes (long, tiring, liable to mistakes), or I can start all over again (frustrating to have to do, but potentially vastly liberating). I'm choosing the latter: the mothball the current WIP and leave it as is, under a drop cloth in case I need anything from it; at the same time, I'll start the new WIP, which is the old one transformed using my new ideas and knowledge. I'm casting off 20000 words, but if I do it write, they'll come back quickly enough. I have characters I enjoy, and they can come with me, as can much of the setting. But the culture, that's what I'm changing, and it needs the change to give the piece some life. Life, and internal consistency: there's no way a pale shadow of the Catholic church would be sufficient to the needs of this world, or that such a church could have even really evolved.

So, I look up from the abyss, and set to climbing out of holes of my own making. Hopefully I've got the correct gear for it. More updates as I succeed, or perhaps even fail. Failure, though, also has value. Lessons will be learned either way. But here's hoping for success all the same.

Acts of Creation

One of the things most enjoyable about writing, to me, is creating. Making a world. Or at least a sliver of one. A whole world would be almost inconcievable, of course. Even the most well realized alternate worlds are pastiches of our world, liberally spiced with innovation but still closely hewing to what we know. It can't be much different, or else the reader wouldn't have anything to latch on to, the very words being used wouldn't have much meaning. But still, if one creates a world, it's a good thing.
Then there's using our own world, and merely (I say merely, as if it were easy) depicting some portion of it well and deeply. Still, even in dealing with real people and real places, one is making them over, recreating them. It's different, but an act of creation all the same.
The amount of work and effort is much the same either way, to be honest. There's more structure and less freedom in setting a story in a known place; you have to obey rules that are already determined for you before you begin, and you have to be true, or truthy at least, to known constants. But you can just look up those constants, and you have things to build on reasonably easily. Making something from whole cloth really lets your creativity run wild, and there are no rules but what you set up for yourself, which is nice. Only you have to make it all up; there's no further authority, nothing you can consult but your own muse. You end up, either way, with problems, and with delights.
I'm in the way of creating anew right now. Doing some serious making up, while, as noted, dragging bits of our world, our history, this or that culture, along with me and trying to put them in where they might be of use. Sometimes the bits fit well, and sometimes a little less well, and you try to make it all work. I've done the other way too, and I like it, but it's not as liberating. You get the sense when making it all up that really anything could happen. (That's not true, as I noted. Not anything at least. Many strange things, and wonderful, but not any and all.)
I guess I'm about 20% to the length I'd like to get to. Longer is fine, but shorter wouldn't really thrill me. And at a fifth of the work, I'd think it would be good to have some idea what I was aiming for, where the end might eventually be. As a writer I don't like going too far down that road, knowing secrets and endings. I like to be surprised as much as the next guy. But I usually have a general idea of what I want to get to, and I don't know even that much yet. There are so many options.
I'm concerned it will get away from me. That I'll end up someplace too terribly weird, or too terribly banal. That I'll build up too much junk that neither I nor any reader could care about. That I'll grow bored with the lack of action, or too much action, and just stop.
Memory suggests that I often have these fears, and I've often gotten by them without much trouble. So here's hoping.