Tag: writing progress

Obligatory Blog Entry Title

On By pauljandrewIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Hello folks! Still not dead, thanks for asking.

Have you seen Knives Out yet? Because you should see Knives Out. It’s a masterclass of plot. In addition to being beautifully shot and frankly just delicious to watch, that film does a hell of a job of doling out just the right amount of information to keep you interested and following along. It’s either out of theaters now, or at the very ass end of its run. But either way, if you do any kind of storytelling you should go see that film and take it into you, let it consume your soul, subsume every fiber of your being, become you. Let it make you the story machine you always wanted to be.
Well, maybe that’s a bit much. It’s a very entertaining film though.

I’ve been plunking down words here and there. Still at it, if slowly. Kids, job etc. Also, been making crazy progress on my video game backlog, so uh. THAT’S A THING. Very important, I assure you.

Also reading Seven Blades in Black by one Sam Sykes. It’s a lot of fun, and reminiscent of older Final Fantasy stories in some ways, and you can smell the anime on it as soon as you open it up. You’ll either be into it or not, but it’s quite my jam right now.

Speaking of catching up on my video games, I just added a game to the backlog and picked up Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. I’ve been jonesing for an old school feeling JRPG for a while now and it definitely fits the bill. The music isn’t really doing it for me so far, but I spent my youth wanting everything to sound like Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo, so that’s probably a failing of mine. It’s fine. The story work though, that’s been fun to watch as I play. It’s an interesting world that wants to take its time drawing you in and getting you to know everyone, and I can really appreciate that. I’m also knocking out Rise of the Tomb Raider and farting around with Star Wars – Jedi: Fallen Order. I think that’s how that’s typed. It’s a bad, ponderous title. How it ever saw the light of day is frankly beyond me.

Anyhow, I’m leaving for Disneyland tomorrow. I’m planning on getting a badass custom lightsaber while I’m there. Have fun folks, type at you next time!

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Not quite left yet.

On By pauljandrewIn Writing ProgressLeave a comment

This space has been dormant for quite a while. I pruned some politically charged entries, not because I believe I was wrong about any of them – Trump is a liar and a crook and fuck him sideways forever – but I’d gotten to a point where this place that was supposed to be me talking about my writing was me ranting about shit that really pissed me off in real life and I just didn’t get anything from doing this anymore.

Not to mention other life changes that sidetracked me from giving this page any attention, like having another kid who is adorable and awesome. Or like a promotion at work, which is a challenge for me and of course more time consuming and life swallowing than my previous position. Whether I actually make any more money at it is currently up for debate.

All that being said, I started a new story that I’m pretty excited about. It takes influence from the stories that grabbed me as a teen when I became a fan of science fiction and fantasy and everything in between. Things like Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time. The plan is to be working on it at least a little every week, so theoretically there should be more consistent things to post about, even if it’s just “I outlined more.” And now that I’ve got a shiny new laptop that doesn’t lag with every keystroke I’ve got one less barrier to writing and posting more often.

Not necessarily super interesting stuff on its own, I know, but I’m thinking about using this space to show off some of my photography. I’m not a professional, I’m not even sure if much of it is any good, but it’s a thing to throw on a blog when I don’t have a more interesting thing to talk about.

So, here are a few shots I really liked from a trip to Iceland that we took a few years ago.

A black sand beach at the town of Vik
Outside a greenhouse where tomatoes are grown
The Harpa Concert Hall

50k.

On By pauljandrewIn Writing ProgressLeave a comment

Yep, skipped right over any possible Warhammer jokes and went to 50,000 words. I don’t have much to say about it really, beyond that I felt very little as the wordcount tipped over last night.  I got a very tiny jolt of “Oh, that happened.  I guess that’s a thing that I did.” and then it was gone.

Granted, that particular number was never the intended finish line, and only serves as the loosest basis of the idea of a halfway point.  There’s still a lot of mountain to climb, after all.

So, looking onward from this point what have I got left to do?  I’ve moved all of my players onto trajectories that will lead to THE END in one way or another, and that is actually kind of exciting.  I’m still skeptical about reaching 100,000 words with this draft though.  Not that missing that target would be the end of the world, I could end up with a tighter and more concise 90,000 word novel and I suppose I’d be just fine with that.

Alas, I think my brain is starting to get ahead of me.  Reality check, I’m still only halfway through a first draft.  I’ve still thousands of words to go, and revisions and rewrites on top of that.  Back to it, I reckon.

 

7 Days, 7k

On By pauljandrewIn Writing ProgressLeave a comment

Well I’m seven days into my rush to the end and I’m seven thousand words closer to it.  It’s forced me to think a bit outside of my outline and start making some decisions I’ve been putting off.

The biggest problem with my outline is that while the first 3rd of the book is pretty detailed, it gets progressively less so the deeper I get.  The second act is largely hashed out, but things are popping up that I hadn’t considered early on and I’ve been finding myself scrambling to address them in the best way possible.

Due to this issue I’m finding myself about 60% through my outline and only sitting at about 47000 words.  Which doesn’t exactly work out if you’re planning a 100,000 word novel.  So, I’m getting creative (as creative types are wont to do) and finding things I can expand upon, plotlines I can further develop, characters I can play with a bit more, to fill out what I’ve been shooting for.

After all, plot is about characters overcoming interesting problems in interesting ways.   So when all else fails give the character more problems to deal with.