Where Do Your Characters Live?
Theophrast.us had this cool post a while back with cool images of where he lived and where one of his characters lived. So, I thought I’d do the same thing for WISB! Possibly the most interesting thing about doing this post is that the little town where James and Laura are originally from doesn’t actually exist. In fact, it’s placed in an area where no town ever was, but next to a river that does exist and which shows up in the book by name. The little town of Woodton is actually in Montana. There are two images I created using Google for this. The first is a wide shot showing where I currently live and where Woodton would be in comparison (click for bigger picture):The next last picture is a closeup shot of where Woodton actually would be if, by some stroke of luck, the little town actually existed:It was actually a lot of fun coming up with this last image. I actually had to find the river on Google that is mentioned in WISB (Stillwater R.), and then I had to trace that river until I could find a suitable place where a small town might actually exist, taking into account the elevations and the fact that there are already towns along that river. I’d never had to think about it before because Woodton was never a major setting, except in the beginning of the novel. So, now you know where the characters are from. What about your characters?
So Sue Me
Okay, so I set some standards on myself earlier and while I would like maintain those goals I think there is something somewhat unrealistic about them. So I think I’m going to bend the rules a little bit here to add in variables that I really can’t ignore. This is in part because I’m so far behind and I doubt I’ll ever catch up at this point. Yes, I’m still writing, but, well, let me explain. So I had a midterm on Monday, I had a lot of reading to do for Tuesday and for today, and further reading for Wednesday, all of which was put off in preparation for the midterm. What does this mean? This means that there really isn’t a logical way I can sit here and flatly say that I can maintain a 2,000-words-a-day regimen when there are days within the school year that I can’t even set aside time for to write. In fact, it’s somewhat disappointing on myself when I can’t achieve the goals I set because school has jumped in the way. School, unfortunately, does come first in a lot of respects as I cannot allow myself to fail at my coursework. That’s not an option. School is my chance at a career and something that can keep me able to write and potentially put me in the position where I might one day write for a living.The inevitable is that I have to consider those days when it comes to writing. As such, the new rule is as follows: Write 2,000 words a day unless such days are encumbered with school work. This applies only to tests and significant things such as major essays and large portions of reading. Otherwise there is no excuse except laziness.This same thing generally applies to my other rules. Since there aren’t a lot of tests and neither are there a lot of essays or large chunks of reading, it shouldn’t be a problem. Now, this might have sounded like I’m downgrading my writing. No, not so. I’m not quitting and never will. I’m only being entirely realistic. I expect that I will be right back on track by Friday evening. I’m not quitting, but my writing will drop down just a little on some weeks, particularly weeks with midterms. I have to be realistic, otherwise it will just look like I’m not doing anything.That being said, I’m not going to keep track of words missed unless for some reason I didn’t reach my quota on a day that I should have met it. Meaning, all words I missed this far this week don’t count because I had a midterm. On a happy note though I am writing quite a bit of stuff. I have a story I’m going to edit and turn in to the Eaton Conference tomorrow and, to add, I’ll be working on another story for this quarter of Writers of the Future, because, well, if I made honorable mention this round, who knows, maybe I’ll do better some day. That’s a nice boost for me. I need to figure out what to write though. Maybe SF this round.
Progress Report
I finished my story on Mars, but now have to go through the process of editing. The problem is I went 204 words over the maximum wordcount for the contest, so I have to quite a bit I think. It’s going to be a tough time of editing. I’ll figure it out though, I’m sure. At least the story is written. P.S.: I have no idea what the typo for ‘trip’ was… (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Playing Catchup
The interesting thing about making goals for yourself is that you sometimes make goals right around the same time you have other stuff to do. Hold one, this isn’t one of those “Wah, I can’t write cause I have better things to do” complaints. This is the “I set up writing and reading goals during a time when I had two essays to write” complaint. However, the good news is that I should be able to catch up easily enough. I’m planning to finish up the book I was supposed to finish this weekend by tomorrow night. As for the writing…You can see I’m 3,300 words behind. I intentionally wrote over my allotted 2,000 words today to start dwindling that amount. I might write more tomorrow. I started a new short story for the Eaten Conference Short Story Contest. I churned out 2,400 words today and I plan to get another 3,000 tomorrow, time permitting. I expect the story to fall around 5,500 words, which is good because I’m somewhat limited by a 6,000 maximum word count. The story has to do with Mars, and I expect it to be pretty interesting, although I don’t know if it will do much good in winning. Luckily for me the contest is only open to UC students, unlucky for me is that the UC system seems to hate science fiction, for the most part, and is hosting a contest on science fiction without much for guidelines other than “it must be SF and deal with Mars”. Okay, great, vagueness. So they’re getting a quasi-SF story that deals with Mars that will be making a mockery of the usual cliche of Aliens From Mars. Yup, a mockery.In any case, we’ll see where it goes. I will have another chapter of SoD either this week or this weekend. I’m not entirely sure on that. Regardless, it’ll end up being on here at some point this week. I’m currently ahead of myself in that, which is good. I expect to keep it that way. And I think that is a sufficient amount of rambling from me. What are all of you doing out there?
Setting Standards
For myself. In light of all the things going on ever since last quarter and the start of this quarter I feel as though I need to set up some ‘requirements’ for every single day starting tomorrow. These are going to be things I’m going to do no matter what as a way to not only increase my writing productivity, but to increase my reading productivity as well. I am far too behind in my reading and I’m not happy about it. I can’t read nearly as fast as some, who are reading a book every other day, but there shouldn’t be any reason why I can’t read a book a week, and so here are my new standards and requirements for every day of the week: Write 2,000 words. Period. Even crappy words. Doesn’t matter. I just have to write. Read 100 pages. Should be easy enough. I read 100 pages tonight and intend to continue that. I have five books from publishers/authors right now, and I should be done with at least three of them. I’m done with being behind. Time to catch up and get things done. I’ll also have a per month list. I need to do certain things to keep myself on top of my writing game, because that’s what you do if you want to get published right? Edit two short stories or two novel chapters. I need to start getting things in tiptop shape for publication. Submit at least one story a month, preferably two. Same as above, basically. I have three stories out there already, but I should really learn to keep on top so I can really get myself out there and possibly get published. I think those are easy enough to follow, don’t you? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Christmas Ruminations and Other Stuff
Alright, I know I’ve been talking a lot about stuff that isn’t really genre related (stuff about me, stuff about shopping, stuff about whatever), so, this will be the last post about ‘me’ type stuff for a while. I am working on a huge list of links I’ve acquired over the last few weeks of stuff that might interest you guys. So here goes the last bit of stuff about ‘me’: I’ve added a post that I placed so it is way in the bottom that is basically information about what I will review and the like. The link is on the left over there at the top, or go here. Basically I wanted to be very clear about what I want to review so publishers or authors or even editors know and perhaps will contact me. I like doing reviews! I have three interviews coming up (I’ve been yapping about them for forever). Dana Copithorne emailed me to let me know she got caught up in some school stuff and that she’s working on things, but I also have submitted questions to Dave A. Law who was one of the editors of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One, and also to Jennifer Rahn who wrote The Longevity Thesis. Hopefully I’ll have those interviews this month. *crosses fingers* I’m going to be starting The Spellweaver of Dern this month at some point. Expect the first chapter by the end of the month. I’m thinking of the best way to start the story right now. I know what’s going to happen in the first quarter, I just don’t know where would be the best place to start–right at the end of the WISB or after some time has lapsed. School starts next Tuesday! I’m somewhat excited and bummed at the same time. I didn’t know that enrollment was open until seven days after, so all the courses I had originally wanted to take were full, and then I discovered too late that there are actually two courses that are on science fiction and I don’t think I can take them because they may not apply to my literature degree, which irritates me. I’m going to talk with a counselor at the university and see if there’s something I can work out with them or with the professors. If there’s some way I could make it apply, whether that be doing extra work or whatever, then I want to do it because both classes sound really interesting. It just figures there are few lit courses on the subject. I have to start thinking about graduate school because I may be getting my BA in December 2008. I am looking for a program that will allow me to study science fiction and/or fantasy literature. If anyone knows of one here in the states or in Canada or the UK, please let me know and give me a link. I’m willing to go out of country for my MA or PhD. The problem is finding the programs, which seem to be eluding my Google searches. I know they exist, but where? Christmas turned out okay after it had happened. I got some nice stuff. Yes, I know, Christmas isn’t about presents, but sometimes you just get some good stuff. Most of my actual gifts occurred after the date when I spent my Christmas money. What did I get? I have pictures to show it!First, I got two pairs of pants and two funny shirts. You should be able to read the shirts okay I think.I also got some books and some movies. The great thing about places like Dimple’s is that you can get movies for dirt cheap (3 or 4 bucks for new movies). The only new movie in the lot is my guilty pleasure–Jackass. The books are awesome too! Oh, and there’s a CD in there that turned out to be pretty decent. I need to listen to it again though. Christmas surely had some downsides to it. My power went out Christmas night. That wouldn’t be a really big problem except that I was going to make a video for my girlfriend and also all my animals happen to require power to keep them warm (I keep lizards). So it was sort of crap. There were some problems the following day too, but things are somewhat sorted. I think that’s sufficient junk about me! Back to discussions and links and other such goodness about speculative fiction!