Ramblings from the 'goblinn

Okay, life is officially Much Better. I banged out a revised/ recreated lost scene, and was surprised that it has bits in it I never would have added had I not been starting from pretty much scratch. I think this will all work out. Just didn't look like it at the time. Never does. Though I doubt any helpful reminders last night would have helped. Thanks for all the kind thoughts and words today, though.

One by-product of the gut punch which was last night is that it dredged up a lot of old stuff for me that, while painful, was also immensely helpful in crafting the next scene. You'll see when you get there. We are dealing with Severus Snape, after all. Not everything can be fuzzy bunnies. Glad to know my PTSD can be employed in the service of Art. And that I have pretty much bounced back now. That wasn't always the case.

Anyway, I'm drained, but feeling much, much better. I'm looking forward to gathering together a big chunk of the story to post Monday, here and on the snape_after_dh fest.

Good weekend to everyone.

I'm close to the end of my first Harry Potter fic now. "Close" meaning, I think I have an idea where it's going, how it ends and what it's about. The "Two Dads" thing I posted this weekend was really a prologue for the story I'm talking about now.

But I'd like to ask friends who feel like it to have a look at some of my musings about Snape, in terms of how this story ends. Any takers?

I'll put it behind a cut.

And hey-- every once in a while, the iTunes Free Single of the Week is actually decent. The song listed under "my music" just now is really, really nice. I've been coming back to it since I downloaded it this morning. If you have iTunes, go to the iTunes store home page and get this while you can.

( Story ramblings-- very boring. You've been warned. )

"There will be no having of any kind....."

Yes, well. It's been a year since I joined this great whirligig of fun known as Live Journal (and other, less complimentary names, depending on its behavior and my flist's moods). If I haven't thanked you folks recently for your entertaining posts, comments, friendship and support lately, shame on me. Thanks, everyone.

And a special Happy Birthday to the great and wonderful gileswench, whose natal day this also happens to be!

I should try to post something slightly profound today, given the significance of the date. Well, okay, how about this: what I'm really thinking about today is how we go about launching ourselves into the telling of tales. To get an idea and post a start to a story takes a tremendous amount of faith as a writer. (Or maybe that would be temporary insanity. I'm not clear on that point.)

To start reading a WIP takes a tremendous amount of faith too, as a reader. I can't count (not being a math major) the number of times I've started reading a brilliantly written and conceived story-- that stalls. The Transformations Quartet springs to mind. So does liz_marcs's "Water Hold Me Down" (possibly the best title I've ever seen. Not to mention a damn good story.) I've had some stalled tales, myself, most notably my first novel, started in grad school and then abandoned for over 20 years. Still have no idea how it ends.

I've got a couple of WIPs I'm working on now, including the Nano06 novel. But here's the weird part-- every single time I pick up my pen or my laptop, after a tale has stalled, and somehow new stuff comes to me, I'm surprised.

It's like, I struggle so hard to write a scene, and nothing comes, and then one day, for no reason at all, something clicks, and I write it. It's not Hemingway, but it's also usually not bad. At least, I can work with it. It's devilishly hard to edit what's not written, after all.

I invite you to share your moments of grace, if you care to. Or those of you with seriously stalled fics-- how did those start for you? What were you working out with them at the time, and what's changed since? I'd love to see liz answer that-- almost asked on her journal today, but didn't want to seem to be pressuring her. I know real life plays a role-- you can't receive the inspiration if you're too exhausted at the end of the day to write it all down.

And I will share one more bit of thanks. Doubtless she's regretting her generosity now that she's slogged through the start of the Nano Novel, but gillo has graciously agreed to beta it for me. I am learning a great deal about my bad habits, how to avoid them, and how in general to be a better beta reader myself. Watch this space. Once I have a completed draft, I'm going to take her early comments to heart, fix what can be fixed, and start posting.

Thanks again to all, and good night.

Hob

Um, so. Yeah. I kinda agreed to be a pinch hitter for antennapedia's Antique Roman (Ethan Rayne) ficathon. I now have 2-3 weeks to write something readable, and do it for one of my goddesses, the great penwiper26. No pressure or anything.

Though thinking on it now I'm wondering why, exactly, I chose last night to completely take leave of my senses, at the time it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. A couple of you may remember I did NaNoWriMo for the first time last year, and I posted sections of the tale as a WIP for the brave (masochistic) 2 or 3 souls who clicked on the cut every night. Well, the place at which the tale got bogged down pretty much reflected the prompt, right down to the not having been written part.

So, I need to get my head out of Harry Potter space (though I have a couple of WIPs started there) and back into the Buffyverse. So, forgive me while I ramble a bit, and feel free to chime in with ideas.

( On last year's NaNo Novel )

( Here's my take on Ethan: )

This is terribly long-- sorry. I'll stop and hope a couple of people can give me some thoughtful takes on Ethan Rayne. Thanks, all.

Hob

I wanted to share this link from "Coding Horror", one of my daily time wasters. It's usually shop talk about computer programming, but this one is relevant to those of us who are, or aspire to be, writers, especially out here on the 'net. The thing I found most interesting, because it kind of confirms my own feelings and experience reading out here:

Whether you call it "information foraging" or the rather more honest "maximum benefit for minimum effort", it's a powerful model of the way people actually work online. There are billions of web pages, and only a tiny fraction are worth the users' time. That's why informavores are unforgiving. They will..

* Demand to see what you have to offer in under four seconds.
* Form a first impression of your site in just 50 milliseconds.
* Give up on your site entirely within two minutes of arriving.

A related question is-- how has the faster pace of modern communications affected the human ability to read-- and write? My eyes were skipping ahead in well written but long exposition/descriptive passages in paperback novels well before I set eyes on a computer. And I read fast enough that taking the extra time isn't a problem.

I find in general, that poetic flashes of image, evocative phrases and crisp, understated dialogue work best to draw me in and keep me in. If you want to see a fantastic example of this kind of writing, (and an explanation of why I've been so silent the past week or so) look no farther than Anna's Roman Holiday. Anna is a Harry Potter fic author, and I have learned a heck of a lot from devouring her writing this week. This tale has excellent and unexpectedly sympathetic versions of Draco and Snape, and a sequel has a really neat and wholly original Sybil Trelawney. I'd rate it high Mature, with some definitely Adult Only content. There's a scene early on with Hermione and Snape that almost put me off the whole thing, (you'll know if when you get to it) but I'm glad I gave it a chance after that, because the whole series is fantastic.

I should warn that the third book in the trilogy is unfinished, but I know the characters and the shape of the tale well enough at this point that I don't feel the loss so keenly-- I'd like to see how she ends it, but I can easily supply my own if she never gets back to it. It's not as wrenching as the Transformations Quartet, anyway. Go read and enjoy and learn. And thanks to clavally and lady_clover for reccing this to me.

ETA: The responses I've gotten have made me rethink this idea. I think what I'm trying to get at is, however you do it, you have a really limited amount of time to get a reader engaged in your writing, and that time is even more limited by its being on the net. Maybe the better question is-- what engages You as a reader? What do you pause to read and what do you give up on quickly?

Um yeah. So, my landlord dropped by on Saturday. He's been trying to sell this house I live in (a 2 family) for about 6 months, ever since his wife died suddenly last fall. And he's often here working, moving stuff out of the garage and making repairs. But when I opened the door, I sensed he wasn't here for that reason.

He told me that I should not pay him any more rent as of now.( Read More... )

So prayers or good thoughts would be appreciated, for Hob Landlord, and for us. I am up way too late because I just can't sleep, probably from delayed reaction to this bit of news.

In good news, "Through a Glass" is pretty close to done. Part 3 is to final beta, and I'm working on polishing the ending. I'm starting to feel low about it, though, because damn, it's good, but it's just too wordy. I want to go in and slash it, but I don't have the energy to spare just now. I read up to the end of part 4 (sans epilogue) to Wee Hob this weekend and -- Gah! I'd never tried reading my writing aloud. Apparently I should do more of it. Before inflicting it on the unwary world....

Still, it is completed. It has a shape, and I think it says something worth saying. That's something to be proud of, and I am.

okay, off to bed, to stare at the ceiling a while. night all.

Hob

Ok, I have come to painful realization. I have Jumped The Shark in my current story (which I guess I can't call a Nano Novel anymore, given the date.) Not sure whether or not that puts me in good company as a writer in the Jossverse, however unofficial my status....

So, it is my sad duty to rewind to the point where it wasn't too messed up, and start over there. In my case, ( mumble mumble, boring story details )

Anyone else ever done this? How do you handle Jumping the Shark? How do you know when you've done it? how do you fix it? How do you avoid it in the first place?

And in general, how normal is it to find serious inconsistencies in a long story you're writing, where you may have set it aside and picked it up again several times? How do you handle that? I'm just curious how other writers do it, and I have a wealth of experienced writers on my friends list, so....

Hope everyone's having a fun first day back in the salt mines.

Hob

On this last night of Nano, when I am only 23.5K words in the hole and could not possibly type fast enough to get them all in, even if I had them written yet, I have been thinking about how I write. And wondering how so many of my talented friends do it. So, I put it to you-- how do you go about writing fiction?

( Here's how I do it.... )

So, that's my writing process. What's yours?

And thanks to everyone who offered encouragement, feedback, and smacks in the head to me this month. Words can't express how much I appreciate it.

Hob

Antenna, wicked wench that she is, hath led me astray. For Lo, I have agreed to fritter away my November trying to write a Novel.

Ok, Hob, breathe. Does anyone mind if I pass out?

So, here are the questions I've come up with so far:

1. How much advance preparation is cheating? I mean, what if some interesting scene comes to me tomorrow and I decide to use it November 1st? What if some little thing I started a year ago becomes the plot for the thing? Worse, what if there ends up being no plot?

2. How do other people come up with ideas? And no, my current employer thinks that I have taken a vow of poverty. And That Raise they promised me wasn't in my last check. We'll see what happens Friday, but still-- I do not have the funds at the moment to buy the very interesting looking book they offer: "No Plot? No Problem!" I am trying to convince my local library they should invest in a copy, and promote the NaNoWriMo as a local event.

3. Does that make me a minor imp? What do I have to do to get promoted to archfiend?

Guess that's enough for now. I just had the joy of beta reading something for one of my friends -- I really like reading something and knowing that my feedback might make a difference Right Now. Also like finding good things to say, as well as pointing out the jarring bits. In this case, finding brilliant passages wasn't hard.

And after that I had the joy of reading a bit of Puck of Pook's Hill with the lad before bed. I like that it's interesting enough-- pirates and Roman soldiers and other interesting types wandering through it-- but yet it's really an easy read, structurally and sytactically-- with just enough odd words in there for him to get some exposure to dialect and more archaic phrasings. And the little anecdotes the characters tell-- some of them are really funny. Especially if you're 11.

I think I better rest up now, myself. Good night, all.

Hob