Musings.
Three months feels like forever. Almost four months now. Looking at my calendar over here, all I can say is that this past year has really sucked for me for writing. I haven't had much to show for my dream career at all. Living in a house with another married couple, I feel, really hampered my creative writing. All my projects have suffered. I'm making an early New Year's resolution.
I'm going to write more. I'm going to fucking finish something for once. I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm going to hit that 50K mark again. Though it probably doesn't help that I already got a jump start on this year's project, since according to the rules I can't include my current word count in the overall count for the challenge. Ah well. At least I have a focus. I hope I have a focus, at any rate. It may be too early to tell.
There are two projects rolling around in my head. The one that keeps telling me I should work on it the most is my Gradia story. The last time I wrote anything for that, though, was back in July. 23 complete rough draft chapters as outlined in my last entry. Jesus. July. That's when we moved out of the house and into this new apartment. It's taken me three months to get used to my new environment, and this one I feel is more conducive to writing than the last.
It's private. It's just me and my husband. He works and I don't. When he's sleeping or not at home, I find myself compelled to either read or write or role-play. More of the reading and role-playing than the writing has occurred in these past three months, but I'm starting to pick up the spark again. I'm alone and can concentrate. I don't feel distracted by roommate's sharing the same space, the same office, sitting at he computer behind me and looking up random nonsense on the Internet just to kill time. I feel like I can work again, and last night I hacked out nearly 6,000 words to testify to that fact.
The other project rolling around in my head concerns Salvador. He's my major focus character in role-playing, and for years now I've wanted to write a book about him. The trouble is that I have to remove a lot of the aspects about him that most people know and love. For one, I have to take Sin out of the equation. Sin isn't my character, and unless Kelsey plans on collaborating with me on a book, I can't use him. For another, I can't in good conscience use Rhy'Din as a setting. It's not my world; it's everyone's. Publishing a book that used Rhy'Din as a setting would be like staking a claim on it, and it's not mine to claim.
So I've been thinking a lot about my second NaNoWriMo project, Red Someone. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I just wasn't liking where it was going. There was also a lot of editing I had to do to change Sal around. When I wrote that, he was one way. Later on, he changed and turned out being different. Over the years he's grown.
I still like Victoria (Vicky) Bennet as a character, but I don't like her as she was in Red Someone. So with this second go around I've changed her a little. She's no longer the flighty young waitress working at defunct diner in vampire town USA. Though there will be mention of vampires in this revised version. They just aren't going to play as big of a role as I first imagined. Vicky's now an FBI agent, because it's the only thing I could think of. The good old cliché FBI agent. My husband read what I've got through so far and even he said it felt a little clichéd, but it's a rough draft. Maybe I'll do more research later on and get some better ideas, but for now I'm just letting what I've got roll onto the page.
The more I thought on what I could not include in a rewrite, the more I then thought on things that were wholly intellectually mine. I thought of Elias Montero. We're dropping him into this new story as well. He'll be working with Vicky. Kelsey said she liked Elias when I first wrote him. Because of her I tried my hand at playing him, but the more I tried the more I realized that he just isn't a character meant to be played. After his original purpose went defunct, that storyline got itself wrapped up, there was nothing I could do with him anymore. He's a great character, though, and I feel he belongs somewhere. He belongs in a book.
Then of course there's all the other characters. Faye is mine. She's Sal's mother. Carmine was originally mine, fleshed out quite a bit with the help of Amy when she played him, but originally he was mine. I took him back, as most of you well know. Will he be in this book? If he is, he'll be a memory. A dead man. Like he is now. Faye is likely to make an appearance somewhere, however. A dark and dirty story like this one, with ghosts and goblins and ghouls and crazy magical happenings going on just wouldn't be right without her in it, somewhere. After all, part of the idea behind this story is to finally get out there and show the world what the fae realm is really like. Not these prissy, pompous, pretty, orgiastic fuckwits that popular authors like Laurel K. Hamilton make them out to be. I even reference my preferred take. Thank you, Jim Henson.
What about Dris? I'm not too sure about him either. He has entirely his own story to tell, maybe some day. Maybe when I'm more confident about my writing and less worried about my extended family gasping in shock and awe at the themes I enjoy. I'm sure my Baptist aunt would disown me if she knew what lurked in my imagination. Granted, this story about Salvador isn't likely to decrease those odds any, but it's a better chance. Besides, I like Sal more than Dris.
I have no title yet for this revised version of the story, though. I've only shared it with rachaelwynter so far, and like an avid fangirl she keeps telling me she wants more. With this post being as long as it is already, however, I'm saving it for another day. I think I just need to bust open that word program and dig back into it before I lose my momentum, but I wanted to ramble a bit about it first. This poor mirror journal has been so vacant for so long that I felt I needed to say something.
I'm going to write more. I'm going to fucking finish something for once. I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm going to hit that 50K mark again. Though it probably doesn't help that I already got a jump start on this year's project, since according to the rules I can't include my current word count in the overall count for the challenge. Ah well. At least I have a focus. I hope I have a focus, at any rate. It may be too early to tell.
There are two projects rolling around in my head. The one that keeps telling me I should work on it the most is my Gradia story. The last time I wrote anything for that, though, was back in July. 23 complete rough draft chapters as outlined in my last entry. Jesus. July. That's when we moved out of the house and into this new apartment. It's taken me three months to get used to my new environment, and this one I feel is more conducive to writing than the last.
It's private. It's just me and my husband. He works and I don't. When he's sleeping or not at home, I find myself compelled to either read or write or role-play. More of the reading and role-playing than the writing has occurred in these past three months, but I'm starting to pick up the spark again. I'm alone and can concentrate. I don't feel distracted by roommate's sharing the same space, the same office, sitting at he computer behind me and looking up random nonsense on the Internet just to kill time. I feel like I can work again, and last night I hacked out nearly 6,000 words to testify to that fact.
The other project rolling around in my head concerns Salvador. He's my major focus character in role-playing, and for years now I've wanted to write a book about him. The trouble is that I have to remove a lot of the aspects about him that most people know and love. For one, I have to take Sin out of the equation. Sin isn't my character, and unless Kelsey plans on collaborating with me on a book, I can't use him. For another, I can't in good conscience use Rhy'Din as a setting. It's not my world; it's everyone's. Publishing a book that used Rhy'Din as a setting would be like staking a claim on it, and it's not mine to claim.
So I've been thinking a lot about my second NaNoWriMo project, Red Someone. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I just wasn't liking where it was going. There was also a lot of editing I had to do to change Sal around. When I wrote that, he was one way. Later on, he changed and turned out being different. Over the years he's grown.
I still like Victoria (Vicky) Bennet as a character, but I don't like her as she was in Red Someone. So with this second go around I've changed her a little. She's no longer the flighty young waitress working at defunct diner in vampire town USA. Though there will be mention of vampires in this revised version. They just aren't going to play as big of a role as I first imagined. Vicky's now an FBI agent, because it's the only thing I could think of. The good old cliché FBI agent. My husband read what I've got through so far and even he said it felt a little clichéd, but it's a rough draft. Maybe I'll do more research later on and get some better ideas, but for now I'm just letting what I've got roll onto the page.
The more I thought on what I could not include in a rewrite, the more I then thought on things that were wholly intellectually mine. I thought of Elias Montero. We're dropping him into this new story as well. He'll be working with Vicky. Kelsey said she liked Elias when I first wrote him. Because of her I tried my hand at playing him, but the more I tried the more I realized that he just isn't a character meant to be played. After his original purpose went defunct, that storyline got itself wrapped up, there was nothing I could do with him anymore. He's a great character, though, and I feel he belongs somewhere. He belongs in a book.
Then of course there's all the other characters. Faye is mine. She's Sal's mother. Carmine was originally mine, fleshed out quite a bit with the help of Amy when she played him, but originally he was mine. I took him back, as most of you well know. Will he be in this book? If he is, he'll be a memory. A dead man. Like he is now. Faye is likely to make an appearance somewhere, however. A dark and dirty story like this one, with ghosts and goblins and ghouls and crazy magical happenings going on just wouldn't be right without her in it, somewhere. After all, part of the idea behind this story is to finally get out there and show the world what the fae realm is really like. Not these prissy, pompous, pretty, orgiastic fuckwits that popular authors like Laurel K. Hamilton make them out to be. I even reference my preferred take. Thank you, Jim Henson.
What about Dris? I'm not too sure about him either. He has entirely his own story to tell, maybe some day. Maybe when I'm more confident about my writing and less worried about my extended family gasping in shock and awe at the themes I enjoy. I'm sure my Baptist aunt would disown me if she knew what lurked in my imagination. Granted, this story about Salvador isn't likely to decrease those odds any, but it's a better chance. Besides, I like Sal more than Dris.
I have no title yet for this revised version of the story, though. I've only shared it with rachaelwynter so far, and like an avid fangirl she keeps telling me she wants more. With this post being as long as it is already, however, I'm saving it for another day. I think I just need to bust open that word program and dig back into it before I lose my momentum, but I wanted to ramble a bit about it first. This poor mirror journal has been so vacant for so long that I felt I needed to say something.