I have been attacked by the eternal plague of all otherwise productive writers:
Writer's Block.
I have been unable to go any further in Seafear than Chapter Four. And even that took me almost a month to eke out. To be fair, it's the longest chapter in Seafear thus far, but I have written longer chapters in shorter time-spans. There was a chapter in The Apprentice Wizard-- Chapter Nine, Arius Ashwing-- that was almost 10,000 words long, but I wrote it in less than two days.
To be fair, I had been waiting to get to that chapter for a very, very long time, and the character of Arius surprised me the most about that book. I may have to bring her back in Seafear... But I digress.
Chapter Five is staring me down, looking quite intimidating. I don't know why, it's a chapter I've been looking forward to getting to for a while. I'm about to introduce one of the most important characters in the book. I know very little about her personality, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she works on page.
I have a suspicion she's going to be very, very stubborn, because she does not quite want to be coaxed out of my brain and onto my computer screen. But I can't write Seafear without her, I really can't.
...
Well, I suppose I could cut her out of the story if need be. But that would mean completely gutting Chapter Four, which has some important stuff happen in it, and reroute where my little band of characters go in this book. Besides, I shouldn't cut a character before introducing it unless I am absolutely certain that she adds absolutely nothing to the story, and I think she will.
I hope she will.
She'd better help me get over this damn bout of writer's block.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Rush of Inspiration
I was walking to class today, minding my own business, when suddenly, quite clearly, I saw exactly what was going to happen to my characters and my little world after Seafear is over. I know precisely what both sequels will be called, I know what happens from beginning to end, I know roughly how long I want each one to be-- and all of this came to me in a little more than three seconds.
I hurried to write it down, of course, because I was carrying my laptop with me to my Microeconomics class to take notes. I got about four paragraphs into a summary of Seafear's sequel when I had to minimize the window and pay attention to what Professor Ballard was saying. (Well, I didn't have to, because in a class of 600 he can't really call anyone out for not paying attention. But I do want to pass the class and start my college career off with a 4.0.)
This, right here, is why I love writing. It's the flash where, quite suddenly, the world that decides to inhabit your head arranges itself into a crisis and resolves itself. It makes perfect sense that everything would work out that way. I am very much looking forward to writing this series. If I get Seafear published and manage to milk it into a two-book deal, all the better. If I don't, I'll just write it for my own pleasure and maybe throw it up onto FictionPress sometime.
In other news, I turned 19 yesterday.
I hurried to write it down, of course, because I was carrying my laptop with me to my Microeconomics class to take notes. I got about four paragraphs into a summary of Seafear's sequel when I had to minimize the window and pay attention to what Professor Ballard was saying. (Well, I didn't have to, because in a class of 600 he can't really call anyone out for not paying attention. But I do want to pass the class and start my college career off with a 4.0.)
This, right here, is why I love writing. It's the flash where, quite suddenly, the world that decides to inhabit your head arranges itself into a crisis and resolves itself. It makes perfect sense that everything would work out that way. I am very much looking forward to writing this series. If I get Seafear published and manage to milk it into a two-book deal, all the better. If I don't, I'll just write it for my own pleasure and maybe throw it up onto FictionPress sometime.
In other news, I turned 19 yesterday.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
An Introduction
I've decided to chronicle my adventures (to use a lame term) in writing the book I hope to one day have actually-for-real-hopefully published. The story in question is called Seafear, and I'm rather reluctant to talk more about it now, because it's so new.
A bit of an introduction to me: I am Ryan Smith, and I will be 19 in precisely five days. I'm a freshman at Michigan State University, studying political science at James Madison Residential College. I have been a storyteller since I was two years old; my mother likes to tell me about the time I went into her room in the middle of the night, because I couldn't sleep, and told her a story that lasted for fifteen minutes. For a two-year-old, that's rather impressive. Around the time I was six I discovered that people actually wrote down their stories, so I started doing that. It wasn't anything, impressive, but it was writing.
When I was nine, I decided that I was going to write a really long epic fantasy, seven books in all, and I sat down and plotted the whole thing out. What the hell kind of nine year old does that? I went all out on this stupid story, going on about some magical continent and the seven countries that were always at war on it. I had a pretty solid roster of characters, and I was kind of nerdy about everything. I still have lists and lists of character genealogies and alphabets and races and religions and... well, suffice to say, I got pretty heavily involved with this dumb story. (I makes it sound like I was taking heroin or something.)
Well, I abandoned that story around the time I was 15 because I realized it sucked and that I had a better idea. I didn't get so heavily involved this time, but I did end up actually finishing the book in around eight months, which was good for me, because I'm a very, very slow writer. I intended to get it published, but then I decided that it wasn't the absolute best I could do. Actually, last week I rediscovered fictionpress.com and decided to stick my book up there; for the curious, here's the URL: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2565537/1/The_Apprentice_Wizard
It was around sometime a month ago that I got my idea for Seafear. Well, according to the file data function on MS Word, it was at exactly 8:39 PM on August 2nd. So yes, a little more than a month ago. I normally like to spend my time plotting obsessively; I worked out the plot for The Apprentice Wizard and its four sequels for a year before I even began writing. Here, the story sort of landed in my head fully-formed. (Well, it felt more like someone had launched it at my face from a slingshot.) I tinkered around with it for a while, and then, my first free day at college, I wrote the prologue.
And then the next free day I wrote Chapter One.
And then over the course of yesterday evening and this afternoon, I finished Chapter Two.
This is a weird pace for me. I'm only 8000 words in, but I'm a phenomenally slow writer. With TAW I wrote the first 50,000 words over the course of roughly two months, and then it took me an additional five months to eke out 30,000 more words. But this thing is going by so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if I had it finished by January (maybe getting it done over Christmas break).
So yeah. I don't know who will be reading this, but here it is. I'm writing a book, and writing about writing a book. Enjoy my travails.
A bit of an introduction to me: I am Ryan Smith, and I will be 19 in precisely five days. I'm a freshman at Michigan State University, studying political science at James Madison Residential College. I have been a storyteller since I was two years old; my mother likes to tell me about the time I went into her room in the middle of the night, because I couldn't sleep, and told her a story that lasted for fifteen minutes. For a two-year-old, that's rather impressive. Around the time I was six I discovered that people actually wrote down their stories, so I started doing that. It wasn't anything, impressive, but it was writing.
When I was nine, I decided that I was going to write a really long epic fantasy, seven books in all, and I sat down and plotted the whole thing out. What the hell kind of nine year old does that? I went all out on this stupid story, going on about some magical continent and the seven countries that were always at war on it. I had a pretty solid roster of characters, and I was kind of nerdy about everything. I still have lists and lists of character genealogies and alphabets and races and religions and... well, suffice to say, I got pretty heavily involved with this dumb story. (I makes it sound like I was taking heroin or something.)
Well, I abandoned that story around the time I was 15 because I realized it sucked and that I had a better idea. I didn't get so heavily involved this time, but I did end up actually finishing the book in around eight months, which was good for me, because I'm a very, very slow writer. I intended to get it published, but then I decided that it wasn't the absolute best I could do. Actually, last week I rediscovered fictionpress.com and decided to stick my book up there; for the curious, here's the URL: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2565537/1/The_Apprentice_Wizard
It was around sometime a month ago that I got my idea for Seafear. Well, according to the file data function on MS Word, it was at exactly 8:39 PM on August 2nd. So yes, a little more than a month ago. I normally like to spend my time plotting obsessively; I worked out the plot for The Apprentice Wizard and its four sequels for a year before I even began writing. Here, the story sort of landed in my head fully-formed. (Well, it felt more like someone had launched it at my face from a slingshot.) I tinkered around with it for a while, and then, my first free day at college, I wrote the prologue.
And then the next free day I wrote Chapter One.
And then over the course of yesterday evening and this afternoon, I finished Chapter Two.
This is a weird pace for me. I'm only 8000 words in, but I'm a phenomenally slow writer. With TAW I wrote the first 50,000 words over the course of roughly two months, and then it took me an additional five months to eke out 30,000 more words. But this thing is going by so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if I had it finished by January (maybe getting it done over Christmas break).
So yeah. I don't know who will be reading this, but here it is. I'm writing a book, and writing about writing a book. Enjoy my travails.
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