“That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang”

It took me quite a long time to achieve the level of groove I’ve got now. I’ll be happier with it when I start seeing what sort of finished stories I start to produce. But right now, I’m more interested in my daily progress.

Before the AS3K, I used to carry around two legal pads, a white one for draft when I couldn’t or wouldn’t carry my laptop around, and a yellow one for notes. Nowadays, I don’t have much need for my white pad. I do all of my drafting on the AlphaSmart, and other writing and planning in my notebook or my canary pad. So yeah, I got a new style, as the kids say. The important thing is whether or not my new process helps me produce on a daily basis, regardless of how I perceive the “quality” of the first draft.

Because right now, I really don’t know where this new piece of mine, “The one with the warlock JuCo,” is going. I honestly wonder whether there’s a story in here. I think the initial scene that inspired the story in the first place is compelling and could maybe be turned into some sort of light flash piece. But beyond that, I’m running into the “Okay, why should anyone care?” question. It’s tempting to quit, but I won’t. It’s more likely I’ll be tempted to sit and type pages and pages of notes and summaries and shit–I’ve got 9 pages of “supplementary material” that thus far has helped me write a mere 7 pages of first draft. What point, if any, does a cost-benefit analysis come into play?

Written with

Drowning in RSS

So, I’ve been writing so much that I’ve let gobs and gobs of intarwub stuff pile up in my Google Reader. I’ve tried to quit “starring” anything, at least until I got caught up. Yeah, right. I just piled shit into Google Bookmarks.

Anyway, here’s a random sampling of stuff I’ve accumulated, mostly writing related.

1
From Dar Kush (Steven Barnes) on reading.

The point is that your output will be one step down from your input. You can’t read comic books and write classics. Sorry. Here’s a joke I always tell students: ‘If you want to write comic books, read pulp fiction. If you want to write pulp fiction, read popular fiction. If you want to write popular fiction, read bestsellers. If you want to write bestsellers, read classics. And if you want to write classics..? Choose your grandparents very carefully.’

2
Steve Perry on writers workshops (part one of two)

Damon [Knight]’s personal taste is not the same as an intrinsic flaw in the piece, and you have to be able to tell the difference, else you wind up producing stories that please the workshoppers but don’t sell …

Here’s part two.

3
Another POV on critique groups from Bev Vincent.

4
Sarah Monette talks about Five Things I Know About Worldbuilding

5
Paul Jessup writes about The Newbie Writer Cycle.

Jay Lake follows up with The Early Career Writer cycle

6
There is NO….number 6.

7
From Warren’s Bad Signal mail a few weeks ago…

But I did note that apparently the Gene Hunt role in the
ill-advised American remake of LIFE ON MARS is going to
good old Colm Meaney. And god knows Meaney’s made some
crap to pay the mortgage, but he tends to elevate a thing —
or at least let some light into it — just by showing up. So I
might give the remake a look after all, even though it’s
almost guaranteed to be a train wreck…

And there you have it. Vital bits of information that, only by the grace of God, I’ve managed to survive without blogging about until today.

“They’re only words, unless they’re true”*

(*with apologies to Carl Wilson, et al.)

Jesus, this place got dusty. That’s okay, though. We’ll just sweep it all under the rug and get to bloggin’.

My bud Jill asked me re: my latest piece “Masked”…

When can I read this?

Hell, when am I going to read it?

I haven’t since I posted that last entry. “Masked” ended up being a beast of a manuscript, clocking in at 6,651 words by MSWord count. By the “usual” method, we’re talking 6,960…call it 7k (especially if I’m sending this to a pro market :)). That’s part of the reason I haven’t re-read it yet. Yes, there’s all that jazz about letting a story “cool” for a bit. But, I just don’t write 6600 words! 5500, one time (the one piece I’ve sold for actual cash). But 6600? I know I’ve gotta trim, but the last couple of times I read it, I was hard-pressed to find 1600 words worth of stuff to cut.

That’ll change, I know. I’m in a panic over nothing. I’m sure when I look at it again (not until at least Monday), I’ll be able to take the pencil and slash away. Then, I’ll bring it to ol’ writing group (if they can stomach it again–if I can stomach it again), and once it passes muster, then I may pass it around to other folks, kind of like a Camberwell Carrot.

Tough Love

I went to Sunday’s crit group session ready to read, but only if I couldn’t avoid it. It turns out that I did manage to avoid it, which was just as well. Basically, I finished up “version 0.9” of “Masked,” but the only part that was presentable was the ending, which I didn’t want to give away.

And I finished up solely with the help of my AlphaSmart. Yes, I’ve handed over cash, so this thing is officially mine. And, worth every penny! Each and every day, I’ve generated a minimum of 500 words per session–the pulling teeth, “I really don’t feel like doing this shit,” taking my muse by the neck and wringing it like a wet towel minimum. The average has really been more along the lines of 750 words of draft and edits, not just on “Masked,” but on other projects as well, including a Raketenwerfer piece I should really get to finishing.

And since I also scored a copy of the Get It utility, I crammed the portions I needed to edit back into the AS3K, and now “Masked” is done! In the can, as they say. I printed out a clean, new copy and let it cool for a day. I’m not even going to read it.

The next project is on the sidebar. But, like I said, I’m taking a little break to get back to some reading, and maybe a bit of blogging.

Slack! (Why Not?)

I’m considering a “radical” idea. I’ve got a couple of stories to work on finishing, so when the next crit group session comes, I’m not going to read. *Gasp!* That’s right, kids. I’m going to continue with “Masked,” and send it out to those folks who’ve agreed to read it. I might bring the rough draft of “The one with the warlock JuCo” (Yeah that’s a new one. I might put up a counter, but I’m not feeling it.) if too few people plan to read.

On the other hand, my original goal for that piece was to make it a flash piece…

New Old Toy

I forget if I’ve talked about wanting one of those PDA/fold-out keyboard combos, something to use as an ultraportable word processor to write on the fly a la Warren Ellis, et. al. Others have opted for something like this here device, the AlphaSmart 3000.

It’s a sturdy one-piece word processor. That’s it. No wireless or Bluetooth capability, not even Tetris–at least, not the lower-end model and certainly not on the discontinued models. And, having been loaned one for the past two days with an option to buy, it’s taken me exactly that long to fall in love with it. It’s an older, dinosaur model and not as small as a PDA, but it gives me exactly what I need!

It’s solid and light (less than two pounds). The battery life is ridiculously long. It dumps content onto my computer, into whatever program I can type into (Word, Notepad, whatever), and even works as a keyboard emulator, to boot. I typed out most of this entry (aside from some minor edits) in a coffee shop a few hours ago, and I’m right now watching it dump right into a Blogger entry box.

The implications for my writing productivity blow my mind. Plus, all the potential ways I could “lifehack” this thing–hell, it’s a listmaker and calculator, what more could a GTD geek ask for?

Of course, once I own this puppy, I have no excuse whatsoever for writing something–a “plug-in,” some flash fiction, the occasional brainstorm, some edits–every single day. Not that I’ll be using this every time, just for the times when I feel I just have to type as opposed to handwrite stuff for whatever reason.

Gone will be the days when I go, “Eh, I need to type this out; I’ll just wait until I get home.” Gone will be the days I lug around my laptop almost every damn day only to get a little bit done because I’ve dicked around on teh Intarwebs. Nope, no more excuses that don’t have to do directly with my willpower or lack thereof.