Overnight

One of the many ways I'm broken: I like the nighttime.

My brain turns on around ten o'clock and it keeps running circles until about three in the morning. Even when I'm most tired, I find myself unable to fall asleep before midnight. I write best during these times. It also helps that no one's around to watch me bawl at my computer or make faces or laugh at something I so wittily came up with.

We're at a stage at work where we have to do some overnight shifts to accomplish various tasks. I had been secretly praying for the opportunity to work them. So when my GM called me into the office two weeks ago and asked me to work the overnights he had in mind, I almost yelled, "THANK YOU." I love overnights. Not only am I most alert during that time, but there aren't any distractions. Well, not many. There's always at least two other people with me on an overnight shift. But it tends to be that the people I work with are just as focused on their tasks as I am on mine. So I'm rather thankful for the opportunity.

Also, this kind of helps me think.

See, as I'm running amuck getting stuff done, I normally have my headphones in. I listen to my music and I go through the motions of what I need to do. Though my body is very present in what I'm doing, my brain wanders off into my imagination and pulls images and ideas and stories to the forefront of reality. I wind up getting sucked into my creative mindset and essentially do a lot of brainstorming. I can't physically write stuff down during these overnights. But nothing's stopping me from thinking.

I got to work one overnight shift this week and I did a lot of adventuring in my mind. And we also sang along with Bohemian Rhapsody. That was fantastic. Oh, and I also started a new tradition - if you work an overnight at our store, you will go out to breakfast the following morning. Why would we do this, you may ask? Because it's five in the AM and by that time you're hungry! And, well, on Tuesday when I went in, I told my fellow coworkers it was my treat. They're the ones who decided it was now tradition.

I definitely am not complaining.

Adventure well my fellow warriors. Whatever it is that you've got set in your heart to tackle today, do it bravely! Go exploring. Take a road trip. Think aloud. Don't be afraid to break boundaries and push past limits. Make it your goal to become boundless and limitless. Go and be.

Go and do.

Currently Editing: Unity
Currently Reading: Brisinger by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Paperman" by Christophe Beck (I'm convinced his mom just forgot to put an 'r' at the end of his first name and he just ran with it.)

Other Protagonist

I've always had this secondary protagonist with the End Game thread. He was one of the first characters that I had, and he's always been one that I've been drawn to. His personality seems rather expected - the one that everyone sort of falls into line with. The one that you want to win in case our main protagonist doesn't make it.

You count on this secondary protagonist to stick it through and you count on them to never really deviate from who they are. Sure, they'll make mistakes - at least you hope they do, 'cause otherwise they aren't very believable. But on the whole, you imagine they're who they are, and that's just the way that it is. At least, that's how I've always felt about this one character.

Then this past summer, my brother and I were driving to Ocean City, and we began talking about this character in particular. My brother, being my biggest supporter and main soundboard for all things End Game, delves into my characters and ensures that they're as real as possible. I appreciate this about my brother.

Well, we both decided that at some point, my character in question did something that really changed him. Neither of us knew what it might have been. It might not have even been a bad thing; it just really jarred my secondary protagonist to the point of - most likely - a major change in his personality. Then I purposefully stayed away from finding that out, 'cause I got this feeling that it was going to completely change my image of this character.

The stalling stopped last weekend when I finally said, "Alright, what did you do?" (Just so you non-writers out there know, when I suddenly ask these questions, I really sort of ask myself in the manner of, "Alright, what did this character do, and how bad was it?" I then start thinking and usually, I'll find one random image in my mind and start following it. Next thing I know, I've got a story brewing.)

Now here I am, unpacking my secondary protagonists' history and finding a lot of nitty-gritty. I'm not terribly shocked. I always knew there was something hiding behind him, I had just never tried to figure it out. I always liked him the way he was and I didn't want him to change. I wanted him to always be who he was. That's the thing about writing believable characters - they've gotta change. No matter how much we may like one specific point of who they are, we can't keep them that way. It's in their changes and in their crisis that we see "real" moments for very fictional characters.

So I'll keep unpacking and, hopefully, by April 1st, I'll have enough to start really writing this nitty-gritty story for ZPO.

Adventure well everyone. Here in PA we got a glimpse of spring last week. Yesterday it snowed and tomorrow it's supposed to snow again. Yeah, welcome to winter/spring in my neck of the woods. It's like an identity crisis every day.

Currently Writing: Zero Point One
Currently Listening to: "Here You Me" by Justin Robinett & Michael Henry

Sometimes Five Hours of Sleep is Enough

Writing the ancient world of my books has been an interesting dilemma.

The other day I was attempting to hammer away at a chunk of ZP, all of which was literally the beginning of the world of Tilion, and I struggled to get the images in my head to coherently make their way to the page. After two hours to meagerly writing and coming up with nothing I was proud of, I sat back and stared at my computer screen. Arms crossed over my chest, I shook my head as I read what I had written. How could I literally shove five books out of my head in one year with perfect clarity and relative success as to continuity, but I couldn't finish one story about character's histories or about the ancient world of Tilion?

Then it hit me.

Remember, Susan, you spent five years planning out the End Game thread. (That's me talking to myself, in case you didn't catch it.) Five years. That isn't a trivial thing. In taking that much time to think (a lot of which was random car rides between school and home), I had figured out most of the story line and the major plot points. Sure, million of minute details still needed to be fleshed out, but on the whole, I was ready to go whenever my stubbornness was overcome.

Now that all of that is out of the way and I'm beginning to delve into histories (and possibly futures?) of my characters, no wonder it's taking longer. I haven't spent much time thinking.

Thinking is crucial for me when it comes to story creation. This past weekend, I got to visit a friend in Upstate New York. That five and a half hour trip was more beneficial than I could have imagined. Sitting in a car leaves me with little to do but think and imagine and dream. I follow random tendrils of ideas and explore avenues. I imagine "movie trailers" of each story. It sounds absurd, but that helps me get key images down in my mind. Sometimes I'll put a song on repeat if a specific image comes to mind, simply so it can be solidified in my head.

So I thought. A lot. I delved into characters I haven't fully explored before and began to pull at their nitty-gritty details. That's hard to do sometimes, especially when the character in question's history holds something you don't expect. By the time I got home, I was excited and ready to tackle the next story in the histories. Eventually though, I really would like to finish Arthur. That book being half done really kind of bothers me.

In other news, I've got another stand-alone story idea. This is a new concept for me. So I've written the basic idea down and maybe, when I'm ready to create a new world, I'll explore that avenue. I'm fairly certain that that desire isn't going to pop up any time soon. I've got enough to explore for the time being.

I'm exhausted, but that's what coffee's for.

Adventure well everyone! It's warm(ish) in PA right now, so I'm gonna take advantage of it and shoot some arrows into targets.

Currently Writing: Zero Point One
Currently Listening to: "Language" by Porter Robinson

P.S. - For the sake of Camp Nano, I've decided to chop ZP into four(?) books, each containing three character histories. Eventually, I'll shove them all together and it'll be a massive book of epic proportions that no one but myself and my crazy friends will want to read.

The Most Magical Place on Earth

I got to spend my Christmas week in Florida at Disney World.

It was a wonderful time and I really did enjoy it. As I went back to work yesterday, I dilly-dallied around because well, let's face it, no one was that worried about getting their copies done on January 1st. Anyway, today I was compiling pictures from the trip and uploading them to Facebook. 'Cause that's what I do. In the hours that it took me to muddle through the nearly 900 pictures from the trip and upload them, I found myself already yearning to be back there.

Crazy, right?

In a way, yeah. There's only been two days separating me and my mini vacation, so I really shouldn't be missing it. Yet I am. Which I think is a common thing. Everyone pulls themselves out of relaxation and fun and throws themselves back into the work grind and almost immediately, we say, "I wish my vacation had been longer."

I heard once, I don't know where, that it takes two weeks to fully de-stress from any given situation. If that's the case, then I need two weeks off pronto. I haven't had two weeks off since I left for Memphis to help my brother two summers ago. Even when I was sitting around my last month of school, I wasn't relaxing - I was hammering out book 5 and stressing over every detail of that. Almost immediately after graduating I had a job and started working.

Not a bad thing, mind you - having a job I mean. But nonetheless, no wonder I'm exhausted. However, I can't afford two weeks off. With my loans now in repayment (oh joy), I've gotta keep working so I can hammer those away to a reasonable amount. That way I can look to move out and get my own place.

Maybe whenever I find a job other than retail, I'll take a two week hiatus before starting the new job. Whatever that may be and wherever that may be. Or for all I know, I'll just charge full steam ahead and do lots of stuff without taking a break.

I think the latter has a greater chance of actually happening. 'Cause even with my short work week this week, I'm packing a million and ten things into it. Tomorrow I drive to Jamestown to visit friends from school.

The only thing I can hope is that the little efforts I make in keeping contact with my friends will be worth it and one day, who knows when, we'll all be together again on a vacation or something.

Happy adventuring everyone!

Currently Writing: Random story ideas. Be back to production within a week or so (see? I don't even know how to take a break from writing.)
Currently Reading: Brisinger by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Illuminations" on the Epcot: Tapestry of Dreams CD

Up Next

Tonight was quiet at work. It was a nice change of pace after the past six days of non-stop running every moment I've been there. In the long lulls of nothing going on, I started mulling over what I was going to write next.

Naturally, this next writing adventure won't happen until after the new year. December is normally too busy, and this year I've got boatloads going on that I wasn't anticipating originally. I decided to start thinking about the offshoot stories I planned to eventually write, called The Human-Born Chronicles. I already wrote one (what was supposed to be my only piece for senior sem), but I'd really like the opportunity to write the other five remaining ones.

So, after I finish Arthur (which will definitely be happening!), I'm gonna start tearing into at least some of the HBCs (my affectionate nickname).

Yeah. I really want to beat my nearly 600,000 word total from last year.

Currently Writing: Nothing at the moment. Give me a few weeks.
Currently Reading: Green by Ted Dekker
Currently Listening to: "Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)" by Chris Tomlin

Music

I write what I see in my head. One of the biggest things that inspires those images in my brain is music. Specifically, of the orchestra kind.

Have you ever heard of Thomas Bergersen? I've had my "listening to" music occasionally fall under his category. He's someone who works for the movie trailer music company called Two Steps From Hell. Recently, he released a solo album titled "Illusions". It's a phenomenal selection of music he's composed. You get a wide range of scores across this album and it's by far my favorite among my orchestral playlist.

There's a song on there called "Promise". I adore it. In that one song, I can fully visualize Agerius and Tilion and End Game and a million other things all related to my books. Music has the ability to, if we let it, convey emotions without the use of words. Especially within finely composed orchestral pieces. I know that the sweeping strings of an orchestra can bore some people. Naturally some genres of music don't cater to everyone. In fact, most genres are pretty selective for certain people.

But I think everyone should give this stuff a chance.

See, as a writer, I think the best way we can gain inspiration is when we're in the quiet moments. When music blasts into our ears and through our bodies and lifts us away from reality and to a different place. A place where only our minds can take us. And I think, in those moments, we can truly feel and see our story unfold and the world embedded in our hearts actually take form.

This might be nonsense to some people. But I think everyone can agree to one thing: music moves people. Whether with words or without them, music has this carnal ability to invoke feeling that sometimes words and pictures can't.

It's been an interesting week. I can only imagine what the coming months will bring. 10 books went to homes this past Sunday, 6 of which were complete strangers. I welcome the feedback, by the way. In case any of those strangers happened to look here.

Happy writing (and reading), everyone! Hopefully in the next day or so, I'll have a new fangled website up for End Game. That's exciting.

Currently Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Writing: Kind of Unity. But not as much as I'd like.
Currently Listening to: "Beethoven's 5 Secrets" by The Piano Guys

Unsuspecting Answers

Next month, my hometown is throwing what they call the "Gallery of the Arts". It's basically this huge gathering of artists to showcase what they do and sell some of what they make. It mostly attracts painters and photographers, but crafters show up too and you get a pretty wide array of talent. I participated years ago as a Junior artist and actually won an award (shocking!).

All of this to say: they've never had a writer. So my parents and I were talking about it a few nights ago and decided to look into it. Upon asking the director of the program about it, they gladly welcomed the written word into the fold, so long as I put down on the application a craft or artistic genre to technically fall into. But they'll let me sell my book there.

The gathering tends to attract a good deal of foot traffic. It's a little crazy, but I'm going to give it a shot. This naturally will require work though.

I need an editor. As I've said before, I've been looking for over a year now and applying since two summers ago to agents. For some reason, I always thought I had to go through this long, arduous process to get there. Silly me, I have friends.

One of my very good friends is incredibly good at editing. While she didn't major in writing, her mother ingrained in her brain how to properly construct, well, everything. She would be ideal to ask to edit. She thinks the story is strong and will be able to (hopefully), fly through the material and get an edited copy off to me in a few weeks, leaving me time to edit and upload a proper copy before I buy a bunch for the gallery.

So this is my advice: don't shy away from the seemingly easy answers. Even if this adventure proves fruitless, I'll have a far better polished manuscript at hand to give someone. It always helps to have a second set of eyes look over your book critically and analyze where it's strengths and weaknesses are.

Because as the writer, you can read and reread your story a million times over and you might still miss the same typo or the same grammatical error. It's why in all of my writing classes we always read each other's pieces. It gave outside advice and opinions. It also helped to catch problems that the writer might have missed.

Search for your editor. Whether it's a professional or a friend, it'll help your manuscript in the end.

Happy writing!

Currently Writing: Arthur
Currently Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Sticks and Stones" by Sigur Ros

Accuracy

I've never written a story that has historical fact to it.

Okay, so Arthurian lore isn't historical fact. But, there is a universally known bit about Arthur. He was king of England at some point. He may or may not have worked with Robin Hood (who is also a fictional/possibly real character from history), and his tutor/educator was a wizard named Merlin. He had a half brother named Kay and a step-father/uncle named Sir Ector. He pulled the sword from the stone and was crowned king of England at a young age. In some levels of the myth, he's a bastard child of Uther Pendragon. He has a sword called Excalibur and spoke with a lady in a lake. He married Guinevere. She may (or may not), have had an affair with Lancelot, depending on which time frame you're talking about for the lore.

It's a lot that people tend to know or have some basic carnal knowledge of. While yes, I've written of real places before, this is different. There was a lot of research involved. It's kind of how it was when I wrote my novella. I sat down and read a lot before I actually started writing. I had cheat sheets to help guide me in the story and the characters.

This is a bit harder though. At least for me. Trudging through the sludge of may haves and may-not haves is difficult. Granted, it leaves a lot of room for play. I can mess with things because, technically, there's no real hard core proof that Arthur ever existed. He had a magician call snow out in the middle of summer for crying out loud. Probably a work of fiction that acted as a good story for kids back in the day.

So I keep reminding myself to have fun with it. Take what I know (and what the world knows), and make it your own. After all, we're messing with the way the world views things already in the current world-stream from the series.

Oh yeah, this story deals with the same world as my 5 book series. At this rate, I'm never going to be done with this world. Is it alright if I say that makes me smile? I'm having some fun though. Because I'm learning more about my characters along the way. There's a flip to that and that's simply this: plot holes! There's the potential for many of them to pop on up. I'm trying to squash them though and fill the cracks before they become craters.

That may prove difficult.

Happy writing everyone!

Currently Writing: Arthur
Currently Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "What Makes you Beautiful" cover by The Piano Guys

PS - The Hobbit movie is going to be a 3 parter. I don't think I like that one bit.

One of Those Silly Little Things

Writers of Fantasy and Science Fiction are bound to know what I'm talking about.

When we crazy writers decide to start writing a story about an ancient culture, new species, alien race, off-shoot Human culture, etc. we tend to come up with wacky names. Not only for our characters, but for the countries, roads, houses, mountains and the like. So, us being the semi-OCD people we are, we make our word processing software learn all of these names. Simply because the little red squiggly lines irritate us.

At least, I do this. For all I know, I'm completely alone on this front. Something tells me I'm not though.

Here's an example:

All names copyright to me :)

See what I mean? It's that one little thing that puts a hiccup into a computer transfer that most people don't need to worry about. Even very Human names, like Skylar and Alaster (which, by the way, are incorrect for Google Chrome too), come up as misspellings. Though they're used and, I think, fairly recognizable. At least Alaster is. Skylar is unique.

This is just one thing Science Fiction and Fantasy writers get to do. We get the honor of massive red squiggly lines adorning our manuscripts when we open them on other computers. We get to see special characters (like mine for book three), turned into some other random font the computer thought best fit that missing font. We get to teach our computer about our world just like we do our audience.

It's kind of fun doing insane things.

Currently Editing: Unity
Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Currently Listening to: "Sleep" by Polyphony and Stephen Layton
^Random tidbit - this is my most listened to song on my iPod. Not even kidding. It's my absolute favorite.

Keeping Tabs

The adventures of writing for a 50+ ensemble cast.

Granted, I just killed a bunch of them off, so maybe it's closer to 40 now.

I think the final book in a series is hard to write. Not just because I'm having difficulty (because it's likely that I'm inept), but because most of the loose ends you've had stringing about throughout the preceding books need to no longer be loose. I'm a fan of leaving some things unexplained simply because it'll give the audience a chance, if they so choose, to make up their own story to explain it.

Anyway, I'm into a section of the book where I dragged a bunch of characters together to talk things over and figure stuff out, primarily their next step. When I started writing the chapter, I just wrote. The problem with that is, I'm a fan of making sure everyone says something. So I usually make a "conversation tally" to keep track of who speaks and how often. I'd hate to mention someone at the beginning of some serious meeting and then ever have them say anything. Why were they there then?

I stopped mid-writing-rampage and made up a conversation tally sheet. It alarmed me that I was short around 6 characters from the last time I had to keep tabs on who was speaking and how often and I was having more difficulty with it now that there were less characters. I think that's simply because what I was writing was harder. I had to take what had already been hinted at, discussed, brought up, abandoned and discarded and ensure that it was brought into the conversation at a likely point.

Now that I finished the chapter, I think I'll have to really hard core edit it later. Just 'cause there's so much going on in it.

I'm off to write the next chapter of the book.

Happy writing!

Currently Writing: Revelation (chapter six)
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: the CD Illusions by Thomas Bergersen

P.S.!!! My BFF Dana just e-published a book of her poems! They're available on Amazon, so if you search "Heart Wanderings" by Dana Kristi, you'll find it :) It's a good little collection of poems and I strongly recommend looking into it.

Oh, Okay.

So, according to the outline for my fourth book, I only have 3 chapters and an epilogue left until I've finished.

Hmm.

At this current moment in time, this book will be the shortest out of all of the ones I've written for the series. Not counting my novella of course. Right now I think I'm just shy of 70,000 words for the novel. If I had to guess, I might just crack over 80,000 - if I'm lucky.

Now is that a bad thing? Having your second to last book of a series be the shortest of them all? I really don't know. At the moment I feel as though I'm running straight into the book, so it's likely that I need to go back, write a whole new introductory chapter for the book and then pick up after that. I mean, a chapter might only add about 2,000 words, but it might be enough that I don't feel like a silly person.

I suppose I could look at moving bits of book two to book three and bits of book three to book four. But I don't like that idea. This could change, naturally, but at the moment, I really like where I chose to end each of the books. I guess the beauty of writing in today's world is the fact that you can always go back and change things.

With only three chapters left (according to my outline. Which is likely to be off), I find myself dragging my feet to finish it. I know precisely why. I'm coming up to a character death. Those are never fun. I've been killing characters since the second book, maiming characters since the third, and brutally harming them all since the first. I guess you could say I'm not very nice to my characters sometimes.

Despite putting them all through very real scenarios and suffering in very real ways, I'm not looking forward to this one. Character deaths are always difficult. Any writer (or storyteller in general), knows that. When you take the time to develop characters, it's hard to essentially banish them from your thoughts again. And I think for writers of series books, it's even harder.

When you write a book series (or a movie series I suppose), you've spent an inordinately long amount of time with a group of characters. For me, I've spent years, probably close to ten years, with these characters. It's a hard experience to take a personality that's been in your head for so long that you can't even tell when they appeared and then suddenly make them disappear. Their voice can't pop back into your head willy-nilly because...well, you've killed them.

Even though, as the writer, I know in the end everything's okay, I don't want to experience this. Last time I wrote a character's death, I sat like a lump on a log for a week and couldn't move forward. I practically cried myself to sleep. In the second book when I killed characters, I was bawling at my desk at all hours, wishing I didn't have to do this.

That then raises the ultimate question: does the character have to die?

It's an important juncture to reach as a writer. If you an answer that question with an honest answer that it does benefit the story and it does serve a purpose, then you're okay. But you can't just have characters dying for kicks or to show "how dangerous the situation is." On one hand, yes, the reader needs to know just how drastic the scenario is that you've placed your characters in. However, sometimes I think people get carried away.

For instance, with Harry Potter, I found some of the deaths to be meaningful and have a purpose. I understand Rowling's problem though: when you have a major final battle, you can't just have everyone you've ever met walk off the field with some nicks and cuts. On the flip side though, things are a little ridiculous when you go so far as to kill both Harry's owl and his wand.

Then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Twilight. When people should die, they die. If a battle is talked about and prepared for but then in the end, everyone talks and it's all okay and nothing happens, that's not only unrealistic, it's boring.

The goal is to find the happy medium. It's a hard thing to accomplish. You can't just have everyone live. That's boring and unrealistic. Yet you can't have everyone die. That's also unrealistic. There need to be stakes and there needs to be risks, but at the same time, a chunk of your characters can survive the bloodshed. After all, someone's gotta be around to tell the story afterwards, right?

I think (in my limited view point), I've done a good job determining who should die and who should live. I also think that those that survive suffer enough from either emotional or physical damages that it's obvious everyone was effected somehow. At least, that's the hope. There's always the knowledge that I might have screwed up somehow.

But, like I said before, that's the beauty of writing. I can always change it. There's always the ability to edit. And when all five books have been written and I get the overall feedback from my friends and family members, then I'll do an overhaul of the series. I do want to make this the best story I can write, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Let's just see how well I can do that.

Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "There's a Place for Us" by Carrie Underwood

Battle Writing, Part II

So I'm onto the major battle of my fourth book (woohoo!). Once again, I find myself having made my life difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I've done all of this solely because I want to make myself work harder than might be necessary. Then at other times I assume that I'm actually smart and this is merely something random that happens along the way.

Anyway, so I'm working on, really, the only battle of the fourth book. It might be only one battle, but it'll encompass at least four chapters (possibly more upon revision). So I'm writing it and I'm discovering things along the way, which I'm always open to. Especially because my ability to understand the time of events has always been so clumped that pretty well everything from book 2 on I just said, "And then stuff happens!" So I'm glad for the chance to actually get it all figured out. Or at least, kind of figured out. But a part of me doesn't want to finish this battle.

Have you ever been afraid of the dark?

I mean, most kids are afraid of darkness at some point. Then one day we grow up and say, "Monsters aren't real," and get over our 'irrational' fear of the dark and nighttime. That's great. I'm not afraid of the dark to a degree. If I haven't seen a scary movie trailer or been dabbling in sin recently, then darkness is pretty much harmless to me.

Now how about the darkness within yourself?

I'm terrified of that. Absolutely terrified. I know once the battle is over, I'm going to have to delve into the darker sides of my brain to write the scenes necessary for the story. I know this is coming. I even have a playlist on my iPod all ready to go. I don't want to listen to the music though. I don't want to write those scenes. I don't want to get into my antagonist's head right now. Sometimes he's fun to write, but I know he won't be fun to write in these upcoming scenes.

For me, personally, he poses such a temptation to just say, "Well, I have to write it for the character," and easily can then find myself slipping into the temptation to sin. And my biggest stumbling block is my own mind. It's no one else's doing but my own when I stumble and fall into sin, because the biggest sins I struggle with are those dealing almost entirely with the mind.

Heh, and here I thought writing would be a good thing.

So I'm afraid of the darkness within my own being. The darkness within my own mind. But I know I need to get past that and get to the end of the book. I can't just sit back and say, "I'm not ready to do that yet," forever. Eventually I need to write it. At least, I need to if I ever want to finish this series. Which, naturally I do.

Such a strange conundrum this is. Maybe when I get to that point in the story, if I pray hard enough and be sincere enough, this won't be as detrimental to me as I fear it will be. At least, that's my hope.

For those who are interested, here's a picture of what all I have open on my computer for this battle scene:

Currently writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner
Currently Listening to: "503" from the Angels and Demons soundtrack

World Creation

I've been reading Orson Scott Card's book Writing About Science Fiction and Fantasy and one of the main sections he stresses is world building. As writers of new worlds, it's important to understand the world we are placing our characters into. If necessary, make histories that go back to the dawn of that world. Our understanding of it is a requirement. Because if we don't understand it, then no one will.
I've begun writing my fourth book and I know come the end of the series, I have to destroy the world I've built. I have to look at it and it's beauty that I've wished to walk through, and tear it apart. When I started out it seemed like the logical thing to do. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Now, when I started out, I was fourteen.
I didn't even understand that there was a world there to really explore. But that's a story for another time. No, instead I'm going to talk a bit about the fact that one day I'm going to have to tear everything apart that I've built. It's a necessary part of it all, although I couldn't explain why without first explaining everything else. At the same time, I can't give away too much because I know Kara knows about this blog and might pick something up that she shouldn't. (Yes Kara, I'm keeping an eye on you, even from 400+ miles away).
I don't look forward to that day. I didn't look forward to the deaths of characters and I definitely didn't relish in those agonizing hours spent in front of my computer, bawling my eyes out as I tried to write the words to the saddest things I could think of.
But I know it's there. I know one day I'll finish my series and put the books on a shelf and say, "It's finished." And on that day, I'm going to step back, look at what I've done, and ask, "Okay, now what?"
Aside from End Game, I have no idea what I'd do afterward. I mean, I think I've only got that one good idea. I really don't want to write anything else right now because I'm filled to the brim with stuff just for this one idea. I can't imagine adding a different world, different characters, and different situations into my brain at the moment.
Will it still be the same when I finish my series? I don't know. If it is, I won't complain. I'll enter the mission field. I'll write a memoir or something. Maybe I'll start a college. I don't really know.
I won't run away from it though. In starting my fourth book, I'm running toward a finish line that I've set up for myself. A goal that only I instated, and I'm glad I'm the only one to say, "Okay, by here, we've gotta be done!" It makes it more manageable to me. I don't know how, but it does.
And who knows? Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll have all five books done. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Sleep" by Polyphony & Stephen Layton

Growing Up

What if I don't want to?
Is it so bad that I enjoy being somewhat child-like? I assume that it isn't. Yet there is a time and place for maturity.
Thus, the college experience comes to a close and the "real world" looms on the horizon like an angry bee hive. There're swarms of people everywhere looking for jobs. As I search from day to day, a job that might have been perfect for me flies past at an alarming speed. How am I to apply for jobs when I have the odd hours only as my free time?
It's a hard experience, growing up. When I was a kid all I wanted to do was grow up and be an adult, live like an adult, talk like an adult. And now that I've reached it all I want to do is be a kid, live like a kid, talk like a kid, believe like a kid. As a child, I was able to believe in things more easily. My imagination could run rampant and that was okay - I was a child.
But now that I'm a learned individual (or so I hope after four years of college), my imagination must be tamed and put into a cage. It's only allowed out on the rainy days, when I have time.
Yet even as this is told to me, even as I'm instructed that this is what grown ups do, I rebel. My imagination doesn't stay in its cage. In fact, I removed the cage all together. It now walks beside me and at any moment it pounces on something completely innocent and says, "Look at what I have! Look at what we can do!"
And I follow where my imagination takes me. Why? Because I like where my imagination takes me. I like the places I explore and grow in and can create. I like the fact that when I close my eyes and think, I don't just see blackness. I see a myriad of colors and lives and plants and things and people. I see worlds yet to be explored. I see characters yet to live.
Even as I write this, I want to abandon reason, stay up all night, and write a book.
But I have classes in the later morning where I need to be at the very least, a little focused. Oh how classes take the fun out of being a learner. It's been great for my brain, I suppose, to learn all of this stuff. But it's been horrible for my education. I believe Einstein said that the only thing that hindered his education was school. I may be wrong on that quote, in fact I probably am.
There are a great many things I wish to learn. None of which can be taught in a classroom. At least, not a contemporary one. I want to learn how to write a ground breaking novel. I want to learn how to publish it and create a cover and decide how the wording should be and craft truly unique and good stories. I want to learn about mythology and legends and expound upon them. I want to delve into the deep and then fly into the sky.
Instead, I'll go to my Calculus class that is required for me to graduate to ensure that my brain is worked in a variety of ways. That way we'll know I'm a rounded individual.
And when I'm handed my diploma, I will smile with the knowledge that the easy part is over. The difficult part of the journey has only just begun.
Oh, and P.S. - I finished my third book in under two months. That makes two books in under six. That's 200,000+ words. I feel fairly accomplished.
Currently Editing: End Game: Genesis (Chapter Nine)
Currently Reading: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring & How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
Currently Listening to: "The Vikings Have Their Tea" from How to Train Your Dragon

Battle Writing

Kids, if anyone ever tells you that writing a book is easy. Smack them.
Especially if the book your writing is part of a series and even more so if you're placing it within a fantasy world of your own making. Also, learn from my mistakes: don't write such a story and then make up your own races and then on top of that create 30+ characters to live within that world that you know you'll be interacting with on more than just a 1 page basis.
What brings this on? I'm into my third book, probably a little over half-way done writing it, and I'm in a battle scene. Normally these are really fun for me. Battle scenes are where most of the images in my head come from. But this one is really difficult, and I kind of always knew it would be, I just never wanted to admit it.
I've got around 25 of the 30+ characters I've created in this battle, and that's what's making it so difficult. See?

That's everything that I have open on my computer as I write a battle scene for this current situation. Most of what's open right now are word documents. I even created a whole word document that analyzes where my characters are and has a table to allow me the ability to strike through everyone that we've seen so far in the battle. You see, the problem with only mentioning two of them throughout the whole ordeal makes it sound like it was only two people involved in the battle. That doesn't make it believable when you've got over 20 characters running around in said fight.
Writing is a task that takes hours of blood, sweat and tears. Anyone who tells you it's an easy process has never actually attempted it or is in denial. Even more so when you take into account the kind of world we live in today.
I could, if I wanted to, self-publish my book right now. I won't, because there's a lot left to edit before I even pursue publishing. But because anyone who ever sits down and decides to open a word document and write a 100 page story can post their book online and sell it for whatever they want. Because of that, we run the risk of people uploading crap that is still on its first draft sitting out on the internet for unknowing buyers to fill their libraries with.
There's a very real risk for lots and lots of bad writing to get out into the world. Now, in theory, only the good stuff will become popular. But that just isn't the case anymore. If enough hype is brought up around a series (or even one book), it can mean little to nothing if the story is well constructed or the writer in question can spell or properly construct a sentence.
Anyway, I'm going to go back to writing for a smigin before I call it a night/morning. I've got my last day of classes tomorrow and I need to be somewhat coherent. I do have a presentation in my Ceramics class first thing in the morning.
Currently Writing: End Game: Trinity (Chapter Eighteen)
Currently Reading: The Time Traveler's Wife
Currently Listening to: "Enigmatic Soul" by Two Steps From Hell