1 + 1 =

Last week, I talked about where I get ideas for my stories. I’m continuing that, because I thought I’d walk you through a ‘new’ idea, so you could get a glimpse of ‘my brain at work’.

A few days ago, Hub and I went to the movies. We don’t go often, and when we do, we tend to see 2 movies. This time, we saw “Edge of Tomorrow”, followed by “Maleficent”. Something of a mixed bag.

In “Edge of Tomorrow”, the Earth is invaded by aliens, and the Hero - a military reporter - pisses off a general, then finds himself on the front line with no training. He survives long enough to get the safety off his weapon and kill an alien that kills him. He awakens the previous morning, assigned to the front lines without training. Each time he dies, he returns to the previous day. Just as in “Ground Hog Day”, the Hero must figure out what he needs to do differently to get out of this time loop.

“Maleficent” is the tale of Sleeping Beauty told from the point of view that Maleficent was not evil, just mis-understood; portrayed as evil by humans who related the story after the fact. I have often heard that villains don’t see themselves as evil, so this re-telling did not scar my psyche too badly.

The next morning, I had (some) memories of an interesting dream that involved people, each with some super-human power. There were 2 groups, unable to agree and constantly battling. When they died, they eventually returned to life, but not necessarily on the same side as before.

I took the bones of this dream and added different bits and pieces to see what happened. Reincarnation and exceptional people. Did they remember their previous lives, that they were ‘special’? I decided they did, but not until adulthood, when flashes of memory would start coming to them. They not only might change sides in the Big Argument, whatever it was, they might not have the same power, either.

I chose a protagonist, during a life when he lived a few decades. Now, what kind of setting? Science fiction? That was too broad. Modern paranormal? No, they’d just be another group of comic book characters.

Fantasy post-apocalyptic! In a world where magic and the fey exist, cities and castles were reduced to rubble during the Great War. Generations later, the War Magic is finally beginning to dissipate from these places.

I sketched out the basic story line in half a page of 20-pt font, devoted another page to other background info, like names and special Talents, and started my rough draft. I have 2000 words done, which is not bad for 2 days of stolen moments. I don’t have an outline, because I haven’t answered some important questions. I’m stumbling around, creating background and conflict as I go, which is how I originally wrote (before I figured out what an outline was), and many others do.

And another story is started.

Like I needed another character whispering in my ear, another story to be written! I can hear my characters laughing, and my muse asking, “Who said an author’s life was orderly?”

Visiting Trudy’s Universes

I named this blog for my various universes where I place my stories, but I’ve seldom actually taken you – my readers – into any of those universes. So today, I thought I would at least introduce you to my universes.

A is for Atlans. My first 3 shorts published on smashwords.com are about the Atlans, and the 4^th is tangentially associated with them. The Atlans are a race of women who establish their own culture on a planet when their space-faring parents abandon them as infants. After centuries of thriving, their ‘home island erupted, sending small boats of Atlans out into the world. Separated, they land wherever they land, and shortly establish a village of their own. Each village wonders if any others survived, and eventually, when they feel their village is strong enough, individuals are sent out to see if they can find any hints of other Atlan villages.

M is for Mac. Mac is the main character of my serialized space opera (MacOnFireball.blogspot.com). The SS Fireball is a large exploration/military ship in Space Fleet. Mac is short, shapely and very desirable. She’s a heavy worlder, a heavy drinker, and quite a brawler, having the strength of an Earth elephant. I’ve tried something different in the way of point of view. Mac is the main character, but the story is told from the point of view of the crew members who surround her. Therefore, each scene is colored by the expectations and beliefs of the observer.

SE is for Space Exploration. In this universe, I try to imagine events that might happen as we Earthlings explore our own solar system in the next hundred years – or maybe two hundred, if our current rate of progress holds true. It is in this universe that my age thwarts me a bit, as all my science is old, having been learned over 40 years ago. I try to research my ideas, see if they will even hold up with modern science. Maybe, maybe not. I currently have a couple shorts done in this universe, 3 or 4 more that I’m trying to work up.

Okay, that’s 3 of my universes. There are still a lot more, but we can talk about them another time.

Stuck in Rewrite

There are several steps to writing, but one of the first steps (not necessarily THE first step) is to scratch out a rough draft. It can be great fun, to let my imaginary imagination wings take flight and show me a new world filled with new people. Occasionally, the rough draft can also be a real headache, as words simply refuse to come to describe what my mind sees, or – even worse – my mind isn’t focused and therefore doesn’t see anything.

But the fun outweighs the headache (or I wouldn’t continue writing). It’s easy to see your progress with a rough draft, because your word count goes UP. Even if you have a bad day, by the end of a week, your word count will most likely be greater than what you started the week with. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.

For me, the 2^nd draft is where I add in every piece of description, explanation, background and all the modifiers I can think of, just to make sure everything is understandable to the reader. My word count can double from rough and 2^nd drafts, so obviously, I’m doing something.

Then come the further rewrites. I generally do a 3^rd and 4^th rewrite, and then a polish. Occasionally, I do a few more rewrites. I have one story in its 9^th or 10^th rewrite, and I’m still not happy with it.

Rewrite is not as much fun as roughing, but it seldom drags badly, either. It’s during these rewrites that I check for redundancies, passive verbs, -ing verbs, adverbs and that my pronouns refer to the correct antecedents. I might lengthen or shorten sentences, rearrange paragraphs. I might delete words, phrases, sentences, or change a 6-word phrase to a 2-word phrase.

It’s harder to keep track of your progress when your word count is going down. If you try to judge your progress by the difference in word count, it might take you days to cut a thousand words. That always made me feel stuck. So I started counting the number of words in the section I rewrote that day. I probably went through a section of 1200 words or more to wind up with 1000 words by the end, but each one of those words were carefully considered, so I have done a bit of work.

As you can see, 1 rough draft needs several rewrites. Most of my time as a writer is spent re-writing. I try to balance this out by working on 3 projects at a time; 1 short story rewrite, 1 novel rewrite, and 1 rough draft. Somehow, this past week, I have found myself doing 3 re-write projects, with no time left in my day for the rough draft. I suppose it was bound to happen, but it still leaves me feeling kind of ‘stuck’. Re-writing doesn’t set my imagination completely free. But it does still use it, so I do get some pleasure from re-writing. And since my short stories generally range around 5000 words, I should soon be done with that project, and can then return to that rough I was working on.

I won’t be ‘stuck’ in re-write much longer.

Best Use of Time

I always run out of time before I reach the end of my daily to do list. Part of the problem is because I don’t really estimate how long it will take to do any particular chore. So if you look at my to do list, it seems like I’m supposed to spend 5 minutes on any one chore. Who can get anything done in 5 minutes?

I don’t estimate because I know from past experience that I have no idea how long it will take to get anything done. Cleaning out my mailbox? Anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours or more. Write a blog? It might take me half an hour just to figure out what to write about. And if I’m trying to do something that I haven’t really done before – like figure out how to record and edit a short video, or how to use a new software to create a website – that might take days, or even weeks.

So every evening, before I go to bed, I take a quick look at what’s on the agenda for the next day. If the list is more than a page long, then I try to pare it down. Can some of those items be put off for a day or two, a week? Well, eventually I’ll get to them.

Unfortunately, there are some things that I really should not put off, like feeding the family and doing a bit of housework, taking care of myself. Writing. Submitting. Marketing. I try to get a little of all of that done each day, but it isn’t easy. I just have to figure out how to best make use of my time.

Dreams as Muse

Late with my blog again! Where do these days keep disappearing to?

I had a strange dream last night, and as I was trying to describe it to my spouse this morning, I thought back to other dreams I've had, particularly the ones I've tried to make into stories. Have you ever done that, used a dream as the basis for a story? Legend has it that Frankenstein started as Mary Shelley's nightmare, and a lot of non-writers think that all a writer has to do is convert their dreams into stories. I have tried it, and it's not as easy as those non-writers think it is.

Dreams may be extremely vivid while I'm having them, but fade quickly once I wake up. As I struggle to write down the beginning, the middle and end are fast disappearing from my memory.

Dreams may make perfect sense while I'm having them, but not in the cold light of day. When I try to explain a dream to my spouse, or write it down, I wind up using such explanations as 'somehow I know this', 'for some reason this happens', and so on. Stories don't work when they're full of somehow and unknown reasons, so I need to fill in those blanks as I convert the dream to story. Most of the time, that plays havoc with what came later in the dream. So far as I can remember it.

What limited success I've had in using dreams is when a particular dream manages to inspire a scene. A single scene. That's about the best I can hope for. And sometimes, even that doesn't work out. Of course, that doesn't keep me from dreaming.

So, how well do your dreams work as a muse? See ya next weekend. Trudy

Dare Something New

I’m late this week because I was out of town, and then because I traveled even further out of town. Sorry about that.

I attended Conquest in Kansas City. I’ve been going there for many years, and enjoy it. The first day we were there, I had some down time, and turned to the rough draft I was working on. Unfortunately, I found myself bored with it. I decided I needed some time away from that story. After all, I’d been working on it pretty exclusively for 4 or 5 months. But none of the other stories I had half-written appealed to me, either.

Like at most conventions, I attended a number of panels and discussions, some only marginally of interest. (Why is it they put all the best panels opposite each other?) Sometimes I pushed the wallflower me into a corner and actually TALKED to friends, letting the conversation wander this way and that, loop back and take another path…

Then I went back to my room and started a new story. It doesn’t take place in any of the various universes I’ve already planned out and written stories for. It involved ideas from several panels, had found encouragement in the conversation with friends, who were willing to assist in exploring ideas. I can’t say that I pounded out a 5,000 word story in a couple hours, because I wasn’t that inspired. The idea was there, but changing that idea into a rough draft has been a little more difficult as I actually tried to make it believable. But it’s come along nicely, thank you, even though I’ve only had a few hours to spend on it since I started it last weekend.

So, dare something new. Just as some women find a new pair of shoes to be refreshing, and some people find a new hobby to give a fresh flavor to their life, your writing may need an infusion of something new from time to time. Don’t get stuck in a rut. See ya Sunday. Trudy

Writer's Block

I’m glad this doesn’t happen (often) when I’m writing. I sat down to write this week’s blog, and my mind went blank. What could I possibly write about this week? Writer’s Block!

Happily, that only lasted long enough for me to realize the inability to write was a subject I could write about. And my fingers were off and running along the keyboard!

I’ve heard people talk about Writer’s Block, where an author has days, weeks - maybe even months or years – where they can’t write anything. Apparently, their characters don’t talk to them, they can’t see how the story progresses, and they are stuck in limbo. I shudder at the thought.

I don’t know if I can truly imagine a really bad case of Writer’s Block, but I have had times when I just couldn’t figure out what happened next. One day, I would be typing along just fine, and when I came back to that story the next day, I would not be able to see how the story should progress. Should Ann discover she’s pregnant? Should Bob call his old friend for help? Does the alien really want to be friends? Either I can’t see any direction in which to go, or all the possibilities are extremely unsatisfying, unlikely to get the story where it needs to go.

A few years ago, I reached one of those points, and finally, in desperation, I went back a few pages in what I had already written, and changed one of my previous decisions about what direction to take the story. I was soon typing along like crazy, my block gone. It worked that time, and a couple times since then, too. I hope it keep working, because I really can’t stand the thought of not being able to get these stories out.

See you next week. Trudy

More Real Life

I keep coming up with ways ‘real life’ can be analogous to writing. Well, give me a break; real life has conspired to give me a head cold for the trip home, and all my thoughts are sticky with ‘head cold goo’ and won’t move around well.

So, I started out in Florida, where nobody paid attention to the posted speed limit of 70. The far left lane (of 3) was for those driving at 80+. Then I got to Georgia, where the Florida Speedway quickly became the Georgia Parking Lot – miles of stop / creep / stop / creep. I forget how many times it happened, pretty much the entire length of I75 through Georgia, except going through Atlanta. And seldom, when you finally got to the point where you could speed up, was there any clue for the jam.

Did you know that if you enter Nashville on I24, and want to leave Nashville on I24, there is no lane you can get in and stay in and stay on I24? I felt like I was playing hop scotch; skip left two lanes for a left exit, skip right one lane for a right exit, skip right another lane for another right exit, then skip left two lanes for a left exit!

Stories are kind of like that, don’t you think? If there’s nothing getting in the protagonist’s way as you tell the story, the story zips along at 80+ mph and gets done quickly, leaving the reader to wonder what all the fuss was about. If something does get in the way – whether you call them bumps, problems, challenges, or stalled trucks – the speed of the story will be inconsistent, and the tension will build. Likewise, if your story line jogs here and there, as your protagonist tries this angle, and then that path, it will help to keep your reader on their toes, wondering which way the story will go next, and will the protagonist actually get where he wants to go?

So, ‘map’ out your story line, and don’t forget to add some difficulties. Road trips never seem to go as smoothly as we expect they will, do they? A story that travels a straight line to its obvious conclusion isn’t much of a story. See ya next week. Trudy

Museo, Museo, Where Art Thou?

Some people have told me they are writers, and in the very next breath, they bemoan that the muse hasn't been with them lately, and they haven't been able to write more than a few words. According to them, words don't flow if the muse isn't present.

Other writers – usually those who actually have deadlines – have told me they write whether or not the muse is present. According to them, if a person really wants to be a writer, they have to rely on their own skills and knowledge of the craft, not the presence of some mythical muse.

As always, I'm somewhere in the middle. I love it when 'the muse' is present and the words flow effortlessly, filling up page after page while I completely ignore the clock. It's wonderful. I've spent entire nights with that muse, been surprised when my husband walked in to go to work the next morning. Doesn't happen often, and I know I can't rely on it being there when I have time to write. So I don't.

Writing without the muse's cooperation can be difficult. I've had days when I couldn't get more than a dozen words written. Long stretches of time when all I could do was ponder what the next scene should be, or the next character's action, or even the next word in the half-written sentence on my screen.

That's one reason why I work on more than one project at a time. If I've reached a difficult point in one project, then I'll take a day or two to mull over my options. I don't just stop writing, though. I move on to the next project, which has been 'simmering' in the back of my mind. Hopefully, things with that project have sorted themselves out into something I can write down.

I also try to set my own deadlines. James Gardner once told me he puts his characters in a pickle, and then he turns up the heat. That's kind of what I'm doing to myself, I guess. If I want a story ready for a contest by the end of next month, I can't spend a lot days looking for a fickle muse.

If you're trying to write, and the muse just isn't sitting at your elbow, guiding the way, try something new; start without him.

See ya next week. Trudy