Hello manic morning posts, my old friends!
12,000 words.
Today, I read part of Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus (any ideas on the best translations?).
I also read part of Hymn to Demeter, a Homeric hymn.
I also had to look up Servants of the gods in Greek myth. That link is not actually servants of the gods; it's just servants in Greek mythic literature. But that is an interesting thing to explore, I think! What I need are attendants of gods; I know there were demi-gods, dryads, and half mortals...
I thought of:
and
and
while thinking about a certain character, but as for what he looks like I'm keeping in mind Phantom of the Opera; I put the book because I'm mostly thinking, Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber, "like yellow parchment was his skin," and no one ever gets that down quite right, not even Lon Chaney. Though there's less parchment involved in what I'm thinking and more just a preserved in formaldehyde, cadaverous sort of look, which is rubbery, I suppose, and maybe that's how Lon Chaney actually looked in the movie, who knows. I am not thinking of:
But when I started writing Hades, I was SHOCKED, I tell you SHOCKED, to learn that picturing this is what works for me when writing him:
I guess I expected Hades to be more ugly, though Brett surely is sufficiently pointy. But apparently Hades laughs a very barking, harsh sort of laugh, and swoops about in a ridiculous manner; I love him and Persephone hates him already! This is most excellent.
At one point, I got distracted by this:
because I was looking at both of them for an Orpheus sort of look, even though I haven't gotten to Orpheus yet. Orpheus isn't Asian or American, but nor is he Greek in the story; no one is. The first iteration take place in a prehistorical setting, back around when the first woman was made or so on. Of course that's not an actual point in history, so there's no way to tell what people looked like then, but I'm working with the idea of something pan-racial, when homo sapiens was still first wandering around Mesopotamia. Does that make sense? So there's some um, amalgamation involved? Hopefully I can get someone to read it once I'm done and tell me whether there are race, color, and/or culture issues that could be offensive. I don't think Shang and Jacob Black actually look alike, but I do think it's funny someone else does, when I was thinking of them both.
I also came up with a plan today for continuing work after NaNo:
November: 50,000 words
December: another 50,000 words
January: rewrite
February: give copies to people to read and comment on by the first, begin drafting cover letter, research agents, etc
March: final revisions
April: send out
I would be fine with all of it shifting down another month if another 50,000 words is required, or even two months. If it ends up being 200,000, I'll need two months to revise and get it down to at most 100,000, which probably means one more month to do the rewrite. The rest should stay the same, so even in worst case scenario, should be sending it out by July.
Then I came up with another plan, which is this. If I get the amount done for the week in a space of three days, then I can spend the other four days of the week revising. I think we're sort of not supposed to revise? But if I can make the wordcount and also revise, it will make me happier. Especially since I am *really* feelin' it with the story now.
My favorite thing about writing long fiction is this:
My mom is a potter. She makes coil pots using slabs. As she adds each coil, she takes a paddle and thwacks it until it's really the shape it should be, and the cool thing is, you don't just thwack the part where you added the coil; you have to keep thwacking the whole thing every time to make sure it's the shape you want. If you haven't built it right, you're never going to get the right shape, but if your foundation is fine, it still might not look like a pot until you thwack it right. And then theres the much more fine detail work, which is fun too. But NOTHING is as fun as thwacking.
My second favorite thing about writing is thwacking. The first is that total rush of adrenaline you get when you're writing something and it's just COMING to you and all of it is brilliant. But very close second is thwacking, and it's something that's really only a part of the process (for me) for longer fiction. What happens is I start out with an idea, and yeah, I guess it has a general shape? But once I write, oh, usually 10,000 words or so, I start to see what the story is actually about. So then I go in and thwack until the first 10,000 words are aimed in that direction. Then I add another 10,000 words, and take a look again. Usually you have to go back over the whole 20,000 words, but because you already thwacked the first 10,000 words, they only get some minor detail work, while the second 10k get some major thwacking. And so on down the line. Sometimes (30k and 70k are major sticking points! Pot begins to collapse! Oh no! Clay, stick with me!) there's a major thwacking rehaul where you decide the direction you decided you were going in is actually all wrong, but that's okay. The worst part is when you get stuck, and know your vessel isn't shaped right, and don't know why, or what to thwack, and you start to feel like you've just got to scrap the whole thing and put it in the clay mixer and extrude new stuff. That's killer, man!
But anyway, that's thwacking. I love thwacking, and I don't want to deny myself thwacking. The biggest problem with thwacking is usually the urge doesn't strike while writing original fiction. The urge to scrap everything and start all over occurs again and again, but the urge to thwack is absent. I think the reason for this is because I'm far too controlling when I write original fiction; I'm always thinking people have to be a certain way and things have to go a certain way and yadda yadda. I'm also always worried about length, because I know everything I write is too long; I try too hard to only write what's essential, and don't let people wander or talk too much. I'm also always worried about setting scenes, because I'm not very good at that. When writing fanfiction, I usually just write people talking and doing stuff, and then go back in and set it, but in fanfic, you have pre-made sets, right? So it's alright to have them talking in outer space until you set them. Writing original fic, it's all a lot of nowhere. Nowhere! So I get terrified that there will be no sense of place, and I make myself sit down and think of where everything is. WRONG ANSWER. Because writing fanfiction, there's not always a set, is there, after all. When I wrote Angel got a puppy, there was nowhere! Nowhere! And then I just went back in and added places, and see, I think it reads fine. So adding places is fine!
So, anyway, some cool things about what I've written so far, is that I've stopped worrying about how much I'm going to have to cut. I'm sort of resigned to writing 200K and cutting out half of it; I realize that that is my particular burden to bear as someone who can write so many words so easily. Next, I really resisted drawing a map of the Underworld today (though I will soon). I think I'm lucky, though, because the Underworld is super cool and totally appearing to me like a MOVIE. Not one that I can see because I can't really see things in my head too well. But one I can DESCRIBE.
Another cool thing is I totally have the impulse to thwack, and I think this is coming from how I'm writing the characters. Now, don't tell anyone this, but I am not original at all. Really, now, don't tell. Because what if I get published and everyone finds out I'm a fraud? It helps, I think, that the story I'm writing is fanfic anyway; it doesn't get more ficced than Greek Myth. Unless it's Harry Potter. All jokes aside, Katara really is Persephone, and my Hades is a mix between Erik from POTO and Sherlock Holmes. To which
my_daroga said, "LOL WUT." That's totally what she said, guys.
ANYWAY, don't tell anyone this, either, but I once wrote a Wolverine/Rogue fanfic for a college Creative Writing class. No one knew it was X-men fanfic. NO ONE BELIEVED ME WHEN I TOLD THEM. I have given that story to many people since, many who quite liked it; honestly I believe it's one of my best. AND THEY DID NOT KNOW EITHER. But I knew. In my heart of hearts, I knew.
I think I'll always be writing fanfic, even when no one can tell it's fanfic. I've never, ever been good at original ideas. I've realized my strength is stealing other people's ideas and manipulating them until they're unrecognizable. It's fun! Try it.
This plan is okay for me!
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply
Today, I read part of Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus (any ideas on the best translations?).
I also read part of Hymn to Demeter, a Homeric hymn.
I also had to look up Servants of the gods in Greek myth. That link is not actually servants of the gods; it's just servants in Greek mythic literature. But that is an interesting thing to explore, I think! What I need are attendants of gods; I know there were demi-gods, dryads, and half mortals...
I thought of:
and
and
while thinking about a certain character, but as for what he looks like I'm keeping in mind Phantom of the Opera; I put the book because I'm mostly thinking, Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber, "like yellow parchment was his skin," and no one ever gets that down quite right, not even Lon Chaney. Though there's less parchment involved in what I'm thinking and more just a preserved in formaldehyde, cadaverous sort of look, which is rubbery, I suppose, and maybe that's how Lon Chaney actually looked in the movie, who knows. I am not thinking of:
But when I started writing Hades, I was SHOCKED, I tell you SHOCKED, to learn that picturing this is what works for me when writing him:
I guess I expected Hades to be more ugly, though Brett surely is sufficiently pointy. But apparently Hades laughs a very barking, harsh sort of laugh, and swoops about in a ridiculous manner; I love him and Persephone hates him already! This is most excellent.
At one point, I got distracted by this:
because I was looking at both of them for an Orpheus sort of look, even though I haven't gotten to Orpheus yet. Orpheus isn't Asian or American, but nor is he Greek in the story; no one is. The first iteration take place in a prehistorical setting, back around when the first woman was made or so on. Of course that's not an actual point in history, so there's no way to tell what people looked like then, but I'm working with the idea of something pan-racial, when homo sapiens was still first wandering around Mesopotamia. Does that make sense? So there's some um, amalgamation involved? Hopefully I can get someone to read it once I'm done and tell me whether there are race, color, and/or culture issues that could be offensive. I don't think Shang and Jacob Black actually look alike, but I do think it's funny someone else does, when I was thinking of them both.
I also came up with a plan today for continuing work after NaNo:
November: 50,000 words
December: another 50,000 words
January: rewrite
February: give copies to people to read and comment on by the first, begin drafting cover letter, research agents, etc
March: final revisions
April: send out
I would be fine with all of it shifting down another month if another 50,000 words is required, or even two months. If it ends up being 200,000, I'll need two months to revise and get it down to at most 100,000, which probably means one more month to do the rewrite. The rest should stay the same, so even in worst case scenario, should be sending it out by July.
Then I came up with another plan, which is this. If I get the amount done for the week in a space of three days, then I can spend the other four days of the week revising. I think we're sort of not supposed to revise? But if I can make the wordcount and also revise, it will make me happier. Especially since I am *really* feelin' it with the story now.
My favorite thing about writing long fiction is this:
My mom is a potter. She makes coil pots using slabs. As she adds each coil, she takes a paddle and thwacks it until it's really the shape it should be, and the cool thing is, you don't just thwack the part where you added the coil; you have to keep thwacking the whole thing every time to make sure it's the shape you want. If you haven't built it right, you're never going to get the right shape, but if your foundation is fine, it still might not look like a pot until you thwack it right. And then theres the much more fine detail work, which is fun too. But NOTHING is as fun as thwacking.
My second favorite thing about writing is thwacking. The first is that total rush of adrenaline you get when you're writing something and it's just COMING to you and all of it is brilliant. But very close second is thwacking, and it's something that's really only a part of the process (for me) for longer fiction. What happens is I start out with an idea, and yeah, I guess it has a general shape? But once I write, oh, usually 10,000 words or so, I start to see what the story is actually about. So then I go in and thwack until the first 10,000 words are aimed in that direction. Then I add another 10,000 words, and take a look again. Usually you have to go back over the whole 20,000 words, but because you already thwacked the first 10,000 words, they only get some minor detail work, while the second 10k get some major thwacking. And so on down the line. Sometimes (30k and 70k are major sticking points! Pot begins to collapse! Oh no! Clay, stick with me!) there's a major thwacking rehaul where you decide the direction you decided you were going in is actually all wrong, but that's okay. The worst part is when you get stuck, and know your vessel isn't shaped right, and don't know why, or what to thwack, and you start to feel like you've just got to scrap the whole thing and put it in the clay mixer and extrude new stuff. That's killer, man!
But anyway, that's thwacking. I love thwacking, and I don't want to deny myself thwacking. The biggest problem with thwacking is usually the urge doesn't strike while writing original fiction. The urge to scrap everything and start all over occurs again and again, but the urge to thwack is absent. I think the reason for this is because I'm far too controlling when I write original fiction; I'm always thinking people have to be a certain way and things have to go a certain way and yadda yadda. I'm also always worried about length, because I know everything I write is too long; I try too hard to only write what's essential, and don't let people wander or talk too much. I'm also always worried about setting scenes, because I'm not very good at that. When writing fanfiction, I usually just write people talking and doing stuff, and then go back in and set it, but in fanfic, you have pre-made sets, right? So it's alright to have them talking in outer space until you set them. Writing original fic, it's all a lot of nowhere. Nowhere! So I get terrified that there will be no sense of place, and I make myself sit down and think of where everything is. WRONG ANSWER. Because writing fanfiction, there's not always a set, is there, after all. When I wrote Angel got a puppy, there was nowhere! Nowhere! And then I just went back in and added places, and see, I think it reads fine. So adding places is fine!
So, anyway, some cool things about what I've written so far, is that I've stopped worrying about how much I'm going to have to cut. I'm sort of resigned to writing 200K and cutting out half of it; I realize that that is my particular burden to bear as someone who can write so many words so easily. Next, I really resisted drawing a map of the Underworld today (though I will soon). I think I'm lucky, though, because the Underworld is super cool and totally appearing to me like a MOVIE. Not one that I can see because I can't really see things in my head too well. But one I can DESCRIBE.
Another cool thing is I totally have the impulse to thwack, and I think this is coming from how I'm writing the characters. Now, don't tell anyone this, but I am not original at all. Really, now, don't tell. Because what if I get published and everyone finds out I'm a fraud? It helps, I think, that the story I'm writing is fanfic anyway; it doesn't get more ficced than Greek Myth. Unless it's Harry Potter. All jokes aside, Katara really is Persephone, and my Hades is a mix between Erik from POTO and Sherlock Holmes. To which
my_daroga said, "LOL WUT." That's totally what she said, guys.
ANYWAY, don't tell anyone this, either, but I once wrote a Wolverine/Rogue fanfic for a college Creative Writing class. No one knew it was X-men fanfic. NO ONE BELIEVED ME WHEN I TOLD THEM. I have given that story to many people since, many who quite liked it; honestly I believe it's one of my best. AND THEY DID NOT KNOW EITHER. But I knew. In my heart of hearts, I knew.
I think I'll always be writing fanfic, even when no one can tell it's fanfic. I've never, ever been good at original ideas. I've realized my strength is stealing other people's ideas and manipulating them until they're unrecognizable. It's fun! Try it.
This plan is okay for me!
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply