Death and Dreams (better than taxes, right?)

Today is one of those days that keeps me thinking.  My mom died last year, and today would have been her 48^th birthday.  Overall I’m doing all right, but I can’t escape the reality that life is short.  For too many people, it’s far shorter than they ever would have dreamed.  These thoughts have made me, at least for today, into a productive person.  Knowing that I can’t guarantee how much time I will have to accomplish all I dream of, which is a truth we all must contend with, I am motivated in a way that I wouldn’t have believed possible a year ago.

So far, I’ve been keeping up with my blogging goals, and I’m keeping pace with the word count goal that I set for myself earlier this week.  Actually, I need another 50 words or so written in my story before midnight to be absolutely in line with my goal, but given that laundry and dishes are done and my kids are in bed, I should have no issues accomplishing that.

The story itself remains untitled, but that’s all right.  Here I thought I would share some of the details of the story itself.  It’s set in a dystopian future where political extremism from both sides got so bad that America splits in two halves that are separated by a buffer zone.  The two halves no longer want anything to do with each other.  Ideology is so strongly embedded that any citizen of either side that is determined to be a deviant is subject to harsh punishments.  Many end up fleeing to live in the buffer zone to escape persecution.

The story starts with a poem that is recited to young children to scare them away from the buffer zone.  After all no country wants to lose too many of its people.  Here’s the poem.

The godless creature, not even a man,

though locked up, concocted a plan.

This dastardly deed, a violent act.

Written in blood, an irrevocable fact.

He tore them down, and after fled,

leaving behind him a trail of dead.

He ran to the edge and then beyond.

Who here can know what he has spawned?

Tales of wickedness continue to grow,

as he hunts those who dare to go.

So stay home where you are safe and warm.

Do not tempt the dark, the legend, the storm.

The wolf, he prowls, forever a fiend.

He tears at his victims ‘til the bones are cleaned.

Anyway, that’s all I’ll put here for now.  So far I think it’s coming along all right, but I still have a long way to go yet.

Science Fiction Poetry

Strange as it may sound, I wrote this poem hoping to express my love for writing science fiction.  Some may not believe that science fiction and poetry go together, but to be honest, I think its an inclusive enough genre to accommodate just about anything.

Boundless

With pen in hand and blank paper,

I set out without a plan.

I can only recall that fateful inspiration,

when my need began.

The dazzling lights of darkened skies

lured me into flight.

Always hoping a ship would come,

a dream realized one night.

It landed in an eerie hush,

only a background hum.

The curved surface, round and smooth,

my heart pounding like a drum.

Within it lay the promise

of all the things to see.

The boundless wonders of the universe

finally opened up to me.

With lofty dreams and bated breath

I climbed up to the stars.

Sailing through the vastest sea,

beyond the moon and Mars.

Daring to do that which no others

have yet been able to do.

Looking out before me, I know

that I’ll never have a clue.

Tripping over the edge of the galaxy,

so large, and yet so small

compared to the universe itself.

One can never see it all.

Though in reality I may never leave

the gravity of this world

I will always look out to the sky

and see those fantasies unfurled.

Making Sense of Chaos

Organization is difficult to achieve when you have several different creative projects demanding your attention all at the same time, and I don’t know that the way I organize my writing would be considered organized by any normal person’s standards.  Whew!  Talk about using the word “organize” too many times in one sentence.

Anyway, I have one large notebook that’s divided into five different sections, each section devoted to a single writing project.  I also have a smaller notebook that is now dedicated to the designs I’m developing for my online store.  At least the notebook in question was purchased from my store.  It's a good way of promoting myself and reminding me of what I can do.  The image below is designed by me and is on the cover of the notebook in question, although the joke may be lost on people who aren't English nerds like me.

Unfortunately, the notes for these projects, while located the appropriate sections, are not in chronological or, for that matter, any other decipherable order within those sections.  The rough drafts of most of my novels are printed out and stored in a binder, and the revisions that I’m working on for them are stuffed in there next to the original scenes.  Even then, it can be difficult to make sense of it all, because I can’t seem to get myself to revise in order.  Inspiration hits me for different scenes at random times, and I have a hard time keeping track of my progress that way.

I guess my approach is more like organized chaos.  Oh well.  Maybe I can achieve more focus and discipline with effort, but I don’t honestly know how much I can improve the state of my notebooks.  Creativity can be messy.

New Goals

I’m considering setting myself a goal concerning just how much I write on a daily basis, not counting what I write for my blogs.  It seems I’m doing all right as far as blog content goes.  My stories and my novels need more attention, though it’s difficult to set aside enough time.  If I set myself a specific goal of how much I need to get done each day, it may provide the additional motivation I need.

From now on I will try to make sure I write a minimum of 3500 words per week, which will average out to 500 per day.  Setting the goal this way makes sense, because there are some days where, as a mother, I am busier than others.  Sometimes I genuinely don’t have the time, but on most days, I will make the time.

Hopefully I’m not being too unrealistic.  I’ll revisit my progress later so I have an idea of how well I am doing.

Finding Inspiration

Though I’m not an established author yet (I must continue to say yet because that confidence will hopefully pay off in the end), I still have some advice for anyone who has yet to break through on their own.  The great thing about advice is that everyone can offer it, because it’s a suggestion, not a guarantee.  That being said, I at least believe there’s an element of truth to this bit of advice.

When choosing a scenario to write about, much of your success will be dictated by your passion for it.  A story that engages you, that keeps calling you back because you truly want to tell it, is more likely to find an audience than one that you had to drag your feet to get out.  The audience can tell when you’re BS-ing them with something that you didn’t care about.  Writing with no passion behind it is obvious and is a waste of everyone’s time.

However, passion also isn’t a guarantee of success.  Truth be told, nothing is, but a story that ties into current events at least is more likely to draw attention.  No matter the genre, this holds true.  Readers often want an escape, but they also need the story to be recognizable to them in some way.  They need to feel it somehow ties to the world they live in.

What would I recommend to anyone looking for inspiration?  I’ve found that perusing news articles and watching news programs provides ample inspiration.  Find some news story that gets your blood boiling, either with anger or excitement.  Passion is passion, be it good or bad.  Find a way to weave that event into a narrative.  You can use the event in present time and develop characters that are thrown in the midst of it, or you can extrapolate it and place something similar to that event in the future.  The sky’s the limit (darn it, another cliché, need to be careful with those).

Anyway, happy writing!  Now to see how well I can follow my own advice.

Avoiding Info Dump

The more I read, the more I realize how many ways there are to tell a story, how many unique voices are out there.  In the realm of science fiction, many stories are told in a strictly linear fashion, though certainly not all.  The novels I write are told this way, with only the occasional description of a past event, because it gets too confusing trying to tell such a large story out of sequence and have it make sense to a typical reader.  Maybe I just don’t have enough practice to do this yet.  Maybe there are too many plot threads in my novels to do it successfully. 

With a shorter story, I may have some success.  With my current project, which is still nameless, I want to tell it somewhat out of sequence, using past events to illuminate the present.  I want readers to wonder why the world is as it is, and to slowly discover how it got to be this way as the narrative progresses.  This will hopefully eliminate the problem of info dump.  For the uninitiated, info dump is a somewhat unfortunate term that is a common problem in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.   To info dump means to lump a whole lot of back story and rules of the universe in one large, difficult to read clump.  Ideally, this information should be distributed in a way that makes it feel natural and interesting rather than cumbersome and mind-numbing.

This is an issue I’ve encountered multiple times.  I just want to see what interesting methods I can devise to overcome it, at least on a smaller scale for now.

Point of View

An important part of being a good writer is also being a good reader.  Yesterday I started reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  My inspiration for reading this book comes from a combination of the praise for it I’ve been reading on the internet and seeing the trailer for the upcoming film.

That, and the concept intrigued me.  As a science fiction geek, how could it not?  It takes place in a dystopian future where the masses are kept in subjugation through withholding of vital resources, harsh punishments, and forcing each of the twelve districts to watch as their children are put into an arena to fight to the death.  This is their punishment for an attempted revolt.  Imagine how much worse things could be if they retaliated again?

Anyway, it’s certainly a compelling story.  It’s fun to watch a smart, female protagonist who exhibits exceptional survival skills in a ruthless situation.  At the same time, she struggles to hold on to humanity, and as anyone would be who has endured as much as she has, she has trouble trusting love, an emotion that leaves her vulnerable to another.  The only person she really knows how to trust is herself.  And rest assured, there is plenty of deception to go around in this novel.

There is a strong romantic element to the story, but if anything, love helps bring up some of the most gut wrenching questions of the book.  Is it a strength or a weakness to care for another, even when doing so may put you in peril?  Should you abandon that instinct to protect others to save yourself, or is it better to take the risk of being true to who you are? 

I could talk about these themes endlessly, but there’s one brief way I want to tie this back to my writing.  POV.  Point of view determines in a very real way the experience a reader will have.  The Hunger Games is told in first person present tense.  The reader goes along with Katniss as she struggles to survive.  There is a sense of immediacy as we experience everything at the same exact time she does.  In this sense, present tense can even dispense with one of the biggest issues first person usually contends with.  If a story is told by the protagonist, we assume they will live since they’re around to tell us.  Yet, in present tense, not even this can be guaranteed.  We also see her emotions as she has them.  We don’t get the benefit of looking back on them and analyzing them with the hindsight the narrator would now have.  We have to figure out her feelings at the same time she does.

The story I’m writing right now is told in first person, but it’s in past tense.  I want the benefit of only being in that one person’s head, seeing the world as he does, but I want to have his more mature insights that come with the passage of time.  I also don’t want the question of whether he will survive hanging over the reader.  My story isn’t about that, but rather about the change he goes through and how he understands his world differently because of his experiences.  Present tense works in many cases, but I don’t think it would benefit me in this particular case.

Yet, I’ve learned to remain open as I write.  Experience has shown me more than once that a writer doesn’t always know what’s best for their story until the end.