ROW80 Round 1 - 3rd Update

Or... the Week of Fail.

Working extra hours over the last week has taken a large chunk out of my writing time. This, coupled with family and illness issues of varying severity, has taken a serious toll on my productivity this week. Not just due to time constraints, but also because of the general crappy mood all of it has put me in; I just have not been in the right mindset to write. Normally when something happens I can work around it, but when lots of things happen, I tend to throw my hands in the air and give up, which is more or less what I did this week.

Earlier today, in an attempt to force some productivity out of myself, I decided to set myself a small writing challenge. As all Australians (and some overseas people) would be aware, Queensland is being decimated by torrential flooding that has turned three quarters of the state into a disaster zone. Watching footage of it on television and seeing houses and cars tossed around in the water like bath toys is so horrifying it's almost surreal, especially when it seems that there's so little anyone can do about it. I decided I'd do my (albeit meagre) bit by donating $1 for every hundred words I write today to the Flood Relief. I ended up with just over 1300 words for the day. I know it isn't much - being a student, I don't really have a lot of spare money - but I guess every bit helps. And since that's more words than I've written over the rest of the week combined, at least it was beneficial on a few levels.

In my goals, I mentioned that I wanted to finish one chapter every fortnight, meaning that I'm due to complete one by the next check in. Well, I am quite close to finishing the first chapter, and I should be able to achieve this (provided everything doesn't go even more pear-shaped) by the weekend (or even tomorrow, but I think I said that last week and it didn't happen, so I don't want to jinx myself again :|). I have at least got the first five consecutive pages of it done, meaning I have something substantial to put before my workshopping group this Saturday, instead of just a wad of random paragraphs (which I am quite looking forward to - I've really missed the critiquing sessions from my TAFE days).

Here's my updated word tally:
Prologue - 804 (complete)
Part 1
Chapter 1 - 4,647
Chapter 2 - 1,704
Chapter 3 - 173
Chapter 4 - 0
Part 2
Chapter 5 - 95
Chapter 6 - 933
Chapter 7 - 1,777
Chapter 8 - 1,991 (complete)
Part 3
Chapter 9 - 852
Chapter 10 - 0
Chapter 11 - 0
Chapter 12 - 1,097
Epilogue - 1,373

Total - 15,812

So: Not as much progress as I was hoping for - I think all my progress since my last check-in was made today - but I still managed to make some headway, and I am more or less on track to meet my goals at this stage. And I cracked the 15,000 word mark, which I am quite pleased with, especially since they're 15,000 decent words, not the filler rubbish I pumped out for NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I thought I should end on a positive note, so here's a picture of Judgemental Dog (a.k.a. Rex) watching TV:


Oh yeah, almost forgot... A link to other ROW80 participants' updates is here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 2nd Update

Since I was busy drawing this and this, and playing around with these, I haven't done as much writing as I would have liked over the last few days (and work eating most of my Saturday didn't help, either). In fact, I think since the last check-in, my word count hasn't budged. This sucks quite a bit, since I was hoping to have finished Chapter 1 done by the end of the weekend so I could email it to the other writers in my workshopping group - no chance of that happening now. I'll have to get it done by Wednesday at the latest so I can send it around and give people time to read it before our meeting next Saturday.

I've also realised I won't be able to workshop the whole thing anyway, even if I do get it finished. Our writing group has a limit of five pages per workshopper (for time constraint reasons), and my first chapter is already at five pages, and will most likely be around eight or nine pages by the time it is complete. Ah well...

On a more positive note though: A discussion with one of my friends about my novella last night posed a lot of questions about my characters and their motivations - some of which I had answers to, and some of which I didn't. Thinking about these things has given me a lot of material to build up my outline, especially for part 3 - and given that part 3 is the climactic point of the story, it's important that it is as real as possible so it has more impact. Even though I'm not specifically aiming to write that section yet, it's good to have the story clearer in my mind.

Now, hopefully I can get some writing done tonight...


Judgemental Dog is watching you...

Novella Cover and Title

Yesterday I didn't write because I was drawing. Today I didn't write because I was at work most of the day, and when I got home I was too tired and headachey to write, so I decided to muck around with the cover instead.

I already had one version (the middle one in the image below, with Orphea) and the title Dark and Silent Waters, but after drawing Zahtia yesterday, I thought I'd make an alternate cover with her (with a neon glow in the left and the original pencil drawing on the right), and with the other title I've been considering for the story, Astyrion.



When I'm closer to finishing the draft, I'll probably do a better drawing of whichever character I end up choosing for the cover (I know if a publisher accepts it I don't get to choose the cover but at least I'll have one for if I choose to self publish). I am also planning to attempt a real-life version of Orphea at some point. What I wanted to gather at this stage, however, is opinions on which sort of cover people prefer, and which title they like best.

Thoughts?

Illustration: Zahtia from DASW

Well, I had been planning to spend today writing (since I spent most of yesterday drawing my map), but that fell in a heap once I had an idea for another drawing.

Early on in the development of Dark and Silent Waters, I'd made a few dodgy sketches of Zahtia (my villain, the Ruler of the Underworld), but I'd never got around to doing a proper drawing, even in my usual Anime style. I had defined her personality (cold, uncaring, evil), but what she looked like was only ever a vague notion to me. When I had the idea for the drawing today, I started sketching in the Anime style, but three attepts later, I was unhappy with the look of it. So I decided that I would try a 'real-life' style illustration instead. This was the result:



It was the first 'real-life' drawing I have done for years, and I think my first ever attempt at a human(ish) portrait. It's not perfect, but I think it at least shows her personality. It took most of the day to draw and I did make some mistakes (luckily none that I couldn't erase or at least hide), and some of my poor coloured pencils are about half as long as they were, but it felt good to be drawing again. At some point I will draw Zahtia again, and I will have to remember to make her features more slender, elongated and feminine (she looks a bit too human in this version).

Speaking of drawing: I have updated my folio on PhotoBucket, which contains a selection of my illustrations (as well as some 3D work I did for uni). You can view it here, or click on the "My Artwork" link in my blog sidebar.

Productive Procrastination

As I was reading over some of my novella earlier, I discovered I had made some glaringly obvious mistakes. The first was that I had referred to the same body of water as a lake, a river and a pond (at one point, all within a few paragraphs). The second was that two towns that were five days' journey apart in an early chapter magically became only one day's journey apart in a later chapter. This brought me to the conclusion that I desperately need to draw a map.

I like maps, particularly in fantasy novels. We're being taken on a journey through a completely new world, so we need something to give us our bearings. And I think, as a writer, they can help the author avoid inconsistencies like the ones I've just mentioned. That being said, I'm sure we've all read fantasy novels where the first few pages are taken up by sprawling, world-encompassing maps, and where the characters in the story visit every single place on that map, seemingly for the sole purpose of... well, visiting every single place on the map. My map won't be like that. Though the world in which Dark and Silent Waters is set is vast, the events take place only within a small geographical area, so this area is the only section I will be drawing. I see no point in confusing the reader with details that add nothing to the narrative (I'm also too lazy to draw the rest of it if I don't absolutely have to, so it works out well for everyone).

UPDATE:
Many smudges, blunt greyleads and torn pages later, here is the map in all its completed glory:

Edit: The sea monster's name is Bruno.
(note: symbols used for legend were sourced from Obsidian Dawn)

ROW80 Round 1 - 1st Update

I was a bit dubious about my ability to stick to my goals for the first few days of this challenge. I was doing what I usually do; staring at the screen of my computer all day but doing little (if any) actual writing. However, today it was like someone was standing behind me with a cattleprod. After bumbling my way through a mediocre scene or two, I suddenly got into a rhythm and managed to belt out almost a full chapter of my novella. So far this puts me ahead of schedule in terms of my goals, in which I was aiming to have one chapter completed every fortnight, to get part 1 of my novella done by the end of Round 1 of this challenge. This is actually a good thing, since I am planning on workshopping chapter 1 with my writing group on Saturday the 15th, which means I need to have it completed a week earlier anyway.

To provide myself (and anyone else who may be following my blog) with a more definitive look at my progress, I have decided to show a running word count tally, both for my novella as a whole and for each chapter (I often jump between chapters, because when I try to write things in order I fail miserably). Therefore, my first DASW tallyboard is as follows:

Prologue - 804 (complete)
Part 1
Chapter 1 - 3,117
Chapter 2 - 1,704
Chapter 3 - 173
Chapter 4 - 0
Part 2
Chapter 5 - 95
Chapter 6 - 933
Chapter 7 - 1,777
Chapter 8 - 1,991 (complete)
Part 3
Chapter 9 - 852
Chapter 10 - 0
Chapter 11 - 0
Chapter 12 - 1,097
Epilogue - 1,373

Total - 14,117

Also... As far as these check-ins go, I'm not sure if I'll do them regularly. Judging by the ROW80 blog it looks like people will be doing them every few days. As I sometimes have a few days where I don't make much progress, I'll probably only do one of these posts every week (unless I do happen to have a really productive run).

EDIT: On a side note, anyone have any opinions on keeping the lengths of chapters uniform throughout a novel? Some of my chapters are little more than a page or two, while others are looking like they'll hit at least 8 or 9 pages. I don't want to pad out the short chapters for the sake of it, nor do I want to cut important stuff from the longer ones. Just wondering if varying chapter lengths is the sort of thing anyone cares about, since I would have preferred them to be about the same (with my outline, however, it's not going to work out that way).

Why do you write what you write?

Because I'm bored and I'm trying to seem productive without actually being productive, I thought I'd run a sort of writerly vox-pop-esque thingy about why people choose to write (or not write) in different formats. By formats, I mean novels/novellas, scripts, poems and short stories (I've probably missed some but I'm still a bit sleep deprived so I can't be bothered thinking anymore). I'm also referring only to fiction here, so things like essays, articles and reviews have been omitted. My reasons for writing or not writing in various formats are listed below:

Novels/novellas
I write almost exclusively in the novel form. It allows me to create whole new worlds to get lost in, to give these worlds depth and detail that makes them seem almost as real as our own. I feel that it lets me spend more time with the places and characters I create, so I get to know them better and in turn can write about them more convincingly. I also like how prose can be brutally straightforward or flow with an almost poetic rhythm (though I guess this is also true for short stories).

Short stories
Though I've written the odd one here and there, I generally find it difficult to channel all my energy into such a small piece. I have trouble coming up with a short story idea that holds my interest enough to keep me working on it until completion. On the rare occasion I do get excited about a short story idea, the plot points and characters start running around and developing in my head to the point where it turns into a much longer piece (exhibit A: Dark and Silent Waters). I like how a short story can pack a real punch, but sadly I lack the ability to focus on writing one.

Poetry
I don't write poetry for the simple reason that I suck at it. I also don't really understand the mechanics of modern poetry, in which having line breaks and punctuation in random places makes a poem. I have read a few poems where the rhythm is effective enough to hook me in, but for the most part, it just doesn't do it for me.

Scripts
I enjoy writing scripts, both for stage and screen. I have written some decent short scripts, but the few longer scripts I have tried my hand at ended up fizzling out, mainly because I just lost interest in them (this may have been due to the subject matter though). I like the format of scriptwriting since - like novels - it allows for more detailed scene setting, and I have fun visualising the actors and props and sets etc. However, unless I come up with an awesome film/TV series idea or get bored enough to turn one of my novels into script form, I doubt I'll see my name in Hollywood movie credits any time soon :P

So, how about the rest of you? Why do you choose to write, say, poetry as opposed to a short story? Or a novel instead of a script? Discuss, class :D

--I really hope I get some replies. Not just so I have something interesting to read/discuss, but because if I don't, it will look like I'm talking to myself on the Interwebs, and then I'll feel lonely :( *cue depressing music*--