Category Archives: advice

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Ripples in the space time continuum

So, I got all my stuff together reasonably early this morning, so I got to go to the coffee shop and spend a few quality hours getting all jittered up and and writing. Except for the fact that I can hardly sit still just now, I feel good about the progress I’ve made so far. Tonight looks good to make quite a bit more progress as well. Of course, I haven’t checked my work e-mail, so all that could change.

Sometime this past week, I was thinking hard about one of my main characters, and realized the voice I’d tried to give him wasn’t working. It didn’t make for consistent reactions through different parts of the story. It took a bit more character history writing to figure out what voice would work, but I think I got there. So, my task today was to go back through and revise three or four chapters, hitting all of the spots where one of these characters appears, in order to work on giving him that new voice.

After bopping around for a while, updating dialogue, and feeling super good about myself, I hit a point where one of the characters had been written to react in exactly the opposite manner than he had done in an earlier chapter. I wouldn’t have even thought about it except that I was reviewing all of the conversations for consistency of voice, and this one was obvious. It wasn’t a major problem, I don’t think, I just went back and added a few sentences to explain the change his position on the matter, the circumstances already set it up for him to change his position anyhow. Unfortunately, this edit brought my attention to other issues of consistency. Mostly stuff about who said what and when.

Needless to say, this became an exercise in flipping around through all of the chapters to make sure everyone was reacting to situations in a consistent manner, as I progressed through the dialogue re-writing. For the most part, I was looking for instances where new information was being presented as known, or known information was being presented as new. Nothing seemed to require major changes, just a few well-placed sentences, and in a couple instances a paragraph or two. A lot of the inconsistencies appear to have come from earlier revisions where I was smoothing out dialogue so it felt more natural, and less like an information dump. Based on the issues, it appears that I had moved a bit of explanation, then removed it later because I think I thought it had been addressed somewhere else. I’m nearly to the point where I’m back to working on new material, and so it should be easier to prevent those inconsistencies.

I don’t know what the point of this post is, except that I’m making progress. I suppose this is also a note to be careful when you’re revising, even small details, because they can have a way of rippling outward in your story from the point the change was made, even if it’s a tiny change. The longer you let those go, the bigger they’re going to seem to the reader.

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Don’t forget your notebook

I took a few days off work to spend some time writing, and wrangle the kids on my own for a couple days. Naturally, since I’ve got all that quiet time during school, I’m doing virtually everything, but writing.

This morning, after getting the kids off to school, I went home, got the computer fired up, found the place where I was working on some revision, and immediately got a distraught text from my wife. This proved a big distraction, and as she was already not pleased with stuff, I wasn’t going to get any “thank-you’s” when she got home to dead chickens and or ducks. So, I went on to feed and water them (Which sucks at 30F in 35mph wind by the way, but as we’re in Alaska, though hard, that’s actually pretty damn good conditions for the time of year.) Soaking wet and covered in duck $***, I marched back to the shed to find there wasn’t any chicken feed, don’t think we’ve had any for a few days. No big deal, the gym is on the way to the feed store, I could squeeze in a quick run on the way. I wanted to run anyhow, right? In any case, I decided they were chickens and a few more hours weren’t likely to hurt. So, I went back in to a phone call from my wife to continue the text conversation we’d started just a bit before. Once we’d got all that sorted out, the dishes were calling, along with the finding of appropriate attire for the children to wear to their Christmas concert.

Finally, I managed to get back to the computer, just long enough to get distracted by you-tube movies on guitar making (check out crimson custom guitars if you’re into that sort of thing. That guy is good.) Needless to say, before I knew it, it was time to think about running out for that feed and exercise, so I pulled a comb through my hair, found my red rocket-ship underpants, and headed off for the gym.

After struggling my way through a 3 mile run on a tiny track, I stood in the shower for waaay too long before deciding it was time to get under way again. Time check after loading up the feed gave me an hour and a half before it was time to get the kids. It was just enough time to try out that new sushi restaurant and maybe scribble some notes in my notebook, because that’s writing too… and yeah that sounded real nice. Sushi and writing, actually hell yeah! Wait. Forgot my notebook… UGH…

Don’t forget your notebook – EVER.

PS – I bought a notebook on the way to sushi and wrote this post, the sushi was good, can I call it a win?

Aside by

About 6 years ago, I started working on my house. I doubled the size of it, actually, raised the roof, ran the plumbing, heating, drywall, framing… you name it, I did it. It took 2 years, and I finished. It’s not totally done, I suppose. There are a few things here and there that could use a bit more work, mostly odd bits of trim. When I started, the largest project I’d ever worked on was a very big Lego set. I had no training or experience in any aspect of construction – I work at a desk, but I did it anyway. I made a plan, spent countless hours on research, and jumped in with both feet (it was very much like jumping into a large body of water, actually. It rained all summer and on one particularly memorable occasion, I was telephoned to be notified it was raining in the bedroom)

I like to think of it as being too stupid to know when I couldn’t do something, so I did. There were a lot of stupid parts to it. Lots of mistakes and mis-measurements, but I got it all sorted out in the end. This is basically how I feel about writing. I’m not a professional, lots of mistakes and revisions have occurred and it’s nowhere near as good as I want it yet. However, I’ve been cracking away on and off for a long time (because I’m also too stupid to give up, even after an extensive tantrum stating: ‘I give up, I’m too stupid for this nonsense’), and I see now that I can finish this story. I’m realistic though, it will probably never be published, most aspiring writers aren’t, but I will have finished, and that will be one more thing that I can tell myself: “I did that.”

I didn’t know I couldn’t