Writing Projects (a meme that you all have to do)
I thought for this post I’d get all of you out there involved on your blogs. The object of this meme is to give a brief explanation of all the writing projects you’re currently involved in and then tag people to do the same. I’m tagging everybody with this post, just because I can. So I’m currently working on the following: The Lies of Venicia: A science fiction novel that should be around 90,000 words when it’s finished. I’m hoping to keep it closer to 80,000, but it’s turning into a bit of an epic and I don’t think I could clear up all the story lines in anything less than 90,000. Marx Ignatia–Private Eye: That is a working title. This is a novella I’m currently writing because I hit a small snag in The Lies of Venicia. It’s a cyberpunk story that is connected to another story I wrote, but only loosely. Asher: Another working title. This story is related to the story above, but from an entirely different perspective and an entirely different story. It’s in the editing phase and I think a bit of moving stuff around will strengthen the story. I’ll be submitting it over the quarter break. The Spellweaver of Dern (WISB Book Two): I’m not writing it yet, but I am thinking about it and getting prepped to start writing. I hope to be able to finish it in serialized form by October of 2008. I think I’ve come to the point where I don’t think I’ll be selling the WISB series, but giving it for free. This might make me a ‘web scab’, but I defend myself in saying that I’m only offering this series for free and don’t intend to offer a lot of other stuff for free (except excerpts). This, hopefully will either put me in a position to complete the series as a trilogy, or end the series with this book. It depends on how it goes when I get to writing it (which will be in the same manner as I wrote the previous book). Death By Poking: I’m a little irritated with this story at the moment. It’s a short story I wrote for the Machine of Death Anthology some time ago. Its problem is that I’ve spent too much time world building and for a short story that isn’t so good. I’m going to reduce the setup a little and hopefully won’t ruin one of the sub plots. Untitled Collaborative Project: My girlfriend, who is also an unpublished writer like me(who is in the process of editing her book, which I am irritated about because I really like the story as it is) thought it might be fun to do a collab project together. I think it’s a neat idea (on a side note we both knew each other professionally before we became friends and then became a couple). I have no idea what it’s going to be about. It’s going to try to play on both of our strengths, so we are going for a scifantasy type story I think. I’m more of a scifi writer than a fantasy writer, although I enjoy both tremendously, and she is the opposite, but doesn’t enjoy scifi all that much. This is a project I think we’ll start over the break and just fiddle with here and there. I’m thinking of a novel for really young kids because it would be somewhat easier for both of us to write (something like a fantasy story for 8-12 year olds). Alright, so what are you working on? You’re all tagged!
Writing Snags: What do you do?
Problems with writing have struck me again. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, but here’s an update anyway. The Lies of Venicia is on hold at the moment. I’m still writing it, but I’m needing to re-evaluate where I want it to go. I have two very different storylines going on and I’ve hit that point where I need a transitional period. I may try to add a fourth POV to the story, but that might extend the word count well beyond the 90,000ish word mark I was shooting for. I want it to be a relatively short, less-epic novel. I’ll figure it out though, don’t you worry. Asher is a short story I’m basically finished writing, but I mentioned having a problem with it. My girlfriend didn’t get it. I’m thinking about either rewriting it or assuming that it is simply a ‘she-doesn’t-read-SF’ problem, which means the story might still be good. I’m leaning somewhat in the latter direction, but again, if anyone reads a lot of SF that could read Asher and tell me their opinion I would greatly appreciate it. Now for my new problem. I have far too many of them actually. I’m currently writing a story called “Marx Ignatia For Hire!” (working title), which is actually the story of a character that is mentioned in passing in Asher. I just loved the name Marx Ignatia and when I started thinking about the character I realized it would be really awesome to tell a story that takes place in the same time period as Asher’s story, but from an entirely different perspective. What happens in Marx Ignatia is far different from what happens in Asher, since both events take place at the same time, but are entirely opposite.Here’s my new problem. The story is turning out to be a lot longer than a typical short. I can’t fit this into 3,000 words, considering I’m at 1,566 and that’s maybe 1/3 into it. The middle section alone is going to take up a lot of space. It’s sort of a detective story, so there has to be plenty of time for Marx to, well, investigate. This means the word count could go anywhere from novelette to novella size. The longest it could go is novel size but I think the likelihood of me stretching it to that length is slim.So what do I do in this instance? Is there even a good market for novelette or novella sized science fiction? How hard is it to sell something like this? I like this story a lot, so I am going to write it anyway, but if the chances of finding it a published home at those lengths is slim I might write a short story that involves the character, but a different story, and save this one until I can come up with enough to make a novel. I just think this story works well, at this point, as a novelette or novella (most likely novelette though, since that goes up to 20,000 words and I think this story will sit in around 15,000). What are you thoughts everyone?
Reader Help!
First, I apologize to anyone who may be a bit annoyed with the frequency of posts today. I’ve just had a lot of things to write about today, partly because I’m in a rut with other writing at the moment. So, I’m hoping to get some help from readers, or anyone really. I have a story called “Asher”. It’s under 4,000 words, it’s strictly science fiction, and it deals with artificial intelligence and virtual worlds from a social perspective (so soft SF). I had my girlfriend read it (she’s done crits for me before we were an item, so I trust her judgment) and she had some major issues with it and we disagreed. I think there is a possibility this is because she doesn’t read much SF to begin with and maybe this particular piece is very much an SF piece and one that wouldn’t do well for non SF audiences.Would anyone who considers themselves a decently versed reader of SF be willing to read this and give your thoughts? I want to see if what she said is the same said among those who this piece would probably be directed towards anyway. Any help would be great. Just leave comment or use my contact link on the side. Thanks so much. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)
Update On Writing: The Lies of Venicia
A.K.A. The White I’ve hit a snag. I’m at about 30,000 words, I have three POVs, and the story is moving right along. But I’m stuck. Why? Because I’ve hit a point in the story where I have two problems. The first is in the POVs. There are three characters: Alan, Carl, and Eileen (to be short about it). Each has a very distinct plotline that intersects with the others in some way. I’ve done that on purpose because I want them to be connected even though they are going in very different directions, which ultimately are all related anyway. It’s complicated like that. Well I hit a point in the story where I realized that there wasn’t going to be anything remotely interesting happening for Carl or Eileen for several days (days in the story itself I mean). I have also just finished a large chapter about Alan, so I don’t want to delve into him again simply because it’s a lot to take in anyway. So, what do I do here? I could skip ahead in time, but then I run into a huge problem that I don’t want to deal with. The three characters are on the same time line, obviously, meaning that if I skip ahead for Carl and Eileen by a few days, I have to do the same for Alan, which means losing some important events for that character. An option is to add a fourth POV to the story that, while not nearly as important as the other three, still could add some depth to the story since the character I’m thinking of using is directly related to Alan anyway. The problem with doing that? If I put this character in it will be no small feat to remove him if it turns out now to work at the end of the novel. We’re talking extensive editing to remove the POV entirely and rewrite over 2/3rds of the novel itself to keep things cohesive, not to mention still having to deal with the issue that this would initially have solved anyway. So, any advice on this guys? Perhaps someone with some publishing experience or perhaps who has been effective in multiple POVs could come in and give some insight (Tobias Buckell, hint hint…maybe do a “Ask a Writer” segment?). Now the second thing that is holding me back from doing too much is only partially related to the first problem. I started to write from Carl’s POV again anyway, figuring that I’m going to write that segment at some point so I might as well get it down. Well, the universe for The Lies of Venicia is actually quite extensive. I’m not expert on stuff, and I’m certainly not dragging in too much science into this story (it’s sort of a horror/political thriller with some adventure/military SF thrown in there). What’s the problem with this? Well, my method of travel for my spaceships is sort of a form of jump drive, but a drive that requires a few things: security codes to activate the drive provided by security checkpoints at the edge of systems, small jumps to nearby systems where security gates are located, and strict enforcement at the security checkpoints. This means that I need to be able to see the systems that I have placed humans in in a 3D spacescape so that I can determine where I can put jump points (or basically the routes that would be deemed acceptable routes for safe travel using the jump drive). I want this to put limitations on space travel. I don’t want characters to be able to jump to any magical place they want to. They have to have clearance by United Earth, a specially designed code that allows the characters to actually activate the jump drive in the first place, and they can’t jump vast distances (astronomically speaking) because it would require too much power and it could very well be dangerous. But I haven’t a clue how to get a rendering of this. There are programs that allow you to create star systems and the like, but are there programs that allow you to insert real stars and put them all into the proper place? If not, how would I even find out how to place these stars correctly? They have coordinates I’m sure, but I’m not sure how to read them in terms of X, Y, and Z. One thing I thought of doing, if I can figure out how to put things in the proper X, Y, and Z, is to get a large piece of stiff, this foam and label it appropriately. Then I’d use large, different sized pins with large balls on the end or flags to represent the placement of the various stars I’m using. This might be very difficult to manage, but it could prove really interesting because I could also use string to connect stars where legal jumps can be made (I say legal here because one thing I am going to get doing within the story is have one of the characters initiate an unauthorized jump by hacking into a jump drive…such a jump would flag the entire human empire…which might just be what the character wants anyway). This is an idea, but I haven’t a clue how to start. I think a physical, tangible star map would really do wonders for getting everything into perspective. Maybe someone out there has a great idea. If so, speak up! So that is what is going on with me lately. I am still writing The Lies of Venicia, among various other projects, but it is in a semi-standstill as far as anything major being done to the story. I want to resolve the issues first.
Clarification Necessary
I wrote a post a while ago about addressing ‘selling out’ and Paolini and apparently the people at Anti-shurtugal discovered it yesterday and linked it. I think some of the may have misunderstood what I was saying, or thought that when I said I would sell out like Paolini that I would sacrifice personal integrity to write popcorn fiction that has no literary value. So, I think I need to clarify what I meant by that post.When I say that I would sell out like Paolini, I would never intentionally write something to the market. I only write what I enjoy and will never do anything different. Even if I were to write popcorn fiction, it would never be stuff I don’t enjoy, but it would always be something that would be a fun exercise for me. I don’t consider myself to be a great writer, and maybe some people would argue with me over that, but I certainly have no intention of simply writing junk for the sake of getting published. Yes, I want to be published, and I would love to make lots of money doing it, not because I want to be a rich writer, but because I would absolutely love to be able to stay at home and write every single day as my career. I can’t do that unless I make decent income as a writer. It might sound that I only want to write to make money, and I guess in some ways this is true, but at the same time I have no desire to be as loaded as J. K. Rowling or Stephen King. If I could live a comfortable life telling the stories I love, then I would take that job without question.So, to say that I would sell out doesn’t mean that I would intentionally do something to get rich and successful (i.e. writing to the market), but that if the opportunity came up that I could be published and could possibly gain the adoration of fans and have film adaptations, etc., I would take it. This has nothing to do with my integrity. I will never sacrifice my literary talent, whatever it may be, for the sake of money. I write what I feel are good stories, nothing more. I also am constantly honing my craft. I don’t know if I’ll ever be published, but it’s a hope.On the subject of film adaptations, I have to make something known that perhaps hasn’t been known before. This is a rather forward discussion and perhaps somewhat arrogant on my part, though arrogant in a good way I think. I have a very strict, personal policy about film adaptations. First, if anything I ever write is optioned for a movie, awesome. Second, I will be very adamant in demanding complete involvement in the project and veto power. While a nice paycheck from a movie would be lovely, if my story is going to be bastardized by Hollywood I’d rather not have it. Complete involvement would allow me to make sure that the story itself is not lost, within reason. If this demand means that my movie won’t be made, then so be it. I refuse to allow anything I may write be turned into a horrible adaptation because I personally cannot stand bad movie adaptations.But, it has to be understood that I am not in a position now to have to worry about any of this. I’m not published (except in a literary journal for a community college, but I don’t count that because they cut the last five pages out of my story and now that story makes no sense whatsoever). I may never be published. Yes, that might sound as if I’m too pessimistic, but it’s not. Getting published isn’t like going in for a job interview. Not even close. But, I hope I’ll be published and I hope I can write for a living. That would be awesome.Hopefully this post cleared some things up, but if you have questions, just ask. I don’t mind answered things about myself.
An Interview With Me
I was recently interviewed on Peopleized about my writing. Feel free to check the full article out here. For now, a snippet: KidReviewer: What would be the most satisfying result to come from your writing? Arconna: To be published and have someone come up to me and say that my writing changed their life or had some great impact on them (perhaps it made them want to write, or they became a huge fan). I’m not so much interested in money as I am in just being able to do it. But if I can do it for a living it would be the greatest job in the world. Check out the full article! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)