Rational and Sustainable

“He glared fearsomely at the outer gloom, and thought of the grisly tales he had heard of Tsotha’s necromantic cruelty, and it was with an icy sensation down his spine that he realized that these must be the very Halls of Horror named in shuddering lengendry, the tunnels and dungeons wherein Tsotha performed horrible experiments with beings human, bestial, and, it was whispered, demoniac, tampering blasphemously with the naked basic elements of life itself.”
— (Excerpt from The Scarlet Citadel, by Robert E. Howard)


Rational and Sustainable
Well, here we are, three weeks into it; a quarter of the way through the second round of ROW80.  It’s been an interesting journey so far.  In the first couple of weeks I was able to get by on my unbridled enthusiasm alone, but going into the third week, it took more willpower, my momentum slowed and my progress faltered a bit as I had to bear-down and slog-through some typical resistance.  My creative-wells were starting to run dry and I was starting to feel the exhaustion of writing every day.  This is mostly due to the daily burden of getting my daily word-count in for Camp NaNoWriMo.  As you can see from my Camper Profile, I was hitting my daily goals there for the first couple of weeks, but started to fall behind a week ago.  Funny how one missed day there can mess up your momentum.  As I have stated previously, I keep slogging along with my “stream-of-consciousness” exercises and “word sprints”, but I don’t feel like I’m crafting as much story there as I do when I work on my ROW80 projects.  Even though I enjoy the support of my cabin-mates, I feel that Camp NaNoWriMo has been a distraction from my main goal of story-crafting.  I feel like I’m always behind there, aimlessly racing the clock to get my words in, when I could be outlining or researching my story, and would rather be working at a more leisurely pace.  That’s just me.  That’s the way my creativity works.  I prefer the pace of ROW80, which, for me, is far more rational and sustainable over the long-run.  Story-crafting is a marathon, not a series of sprints.  If I need to stop and work out a few story issues on paper, ROW80 allows me to schedule my time for that, whereas for the NaNo-challenges, it’s all about the word-count.  I’ll try to finish what I started at Camp NaNo, but ROW80 is my priority and focus from here forward.

I’m a visual artist and have been doing a lot of character sketches lately, loosely scribbling-out their basic shapes as I try to get a feel of what they might look like.  I’ve been drawing all my life, and I naturally gravitate towards pencil and paper when I want to get inspired.  Drawing ignites my imagination and evokes my Muse.  And more importantly, it replenishes my creative-wells, which, as I’ve said, have been depleted lately.  Seeing my favorite characters on paper helps me identify with them and I start to see their attitudes and personalities come through.  Drawing also helps me establish my fantasy-world setting, placing my characters in crumbling ruins or mystical forests helps me visualize my story better.  To me, drawing makes my story-world “real”.  If you measure the progress of last week by creativity alone, I’d say that I had a pretty productive week.  If you measure the progress by writing-goal achievements, then I’d say I my week was unproductive.  I tend to obsess and fixate on one aspect of my creativity at a time, to the exclusion of everything else.  I’m still trying to find a balance.  So, it's time to pin my drawing to my cork-board and get back to the keyboard.  Writers write, right?

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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Sketching-Out My Characters

“Through the bars peered a face like a fiendishly mocking carven gargoyle — Shukeli the eunuch, who had followed his stolen keys.  Surely he did not, in his gloating, see the sword in the prisoner’s hand.  With a terrible curse Conan struck as a cobra strikes; the great blade hissed between the bars and Shukeli’s laughter broke in a death-scream.  The fat eunuch bent at the middle, as if bowing to his killer, and crumpled like tallow, his pudgy hands clutching vainly at his spilling entrails.”
— (excerpt from The Scarlet Citadel, by Robert E. Howard)


Sketching-Out My Characters
I'm a little late for my ROW80 check-in, but I have been working on story-related work, so I'll give myself a pass.  It’s been an interesting week of story-crafting.  I have been trying to strengthen the plots of my three stories by working on the goals and motives of my characters.  Using graph-paper, I created a grid with three rows (Goals, Motivation, Conflict) and two columns (External, Internal).  This method has helped me brainstorm the the "who, what, why, and why not" questions of my story and has helped me see the story-arcs of each character.  Working on graph paper, away from the keyboard, has been liberating and has helped replenish my creative-wells, which have been running dry lately.

As an artist, I love to think and plan with pencil and paper.  It’s how I naturally work things out.  So, returning to the physical sheet of paper has revitalized my writing and story-writing process.  Naturally, this has led to me sketching-out drawings of my potential characters, working on their body-forms, their attire (including armor), and their general features.  Nothing too detailed right now, just loose sketches and scribblings of the basic shapes to get the imagination ignited.  My Muse loves it when I draw.  If I’m stuck on my writing, I can usually invoke her by picking up a pencil and a piece of paper, brainstorming and sketching-out my ideas visually so that we can build upon them and solve story-problems together.  Drawing is also how I create monsters; by grossly exaggerating the human form or by embellishing the prominent features of an animal.  I like to keep my creatures grounded in (relative) reality, as if they could actually exist in my universe.  How fantastical do I want to make my fantasy-world?   I'm trying to strike a balance of eighty-percent realism and twenty-percent wonder.

The reason I have been late to this blog post is because I have been caught up in my drawings.  My drawings are all story-based characters and creatures, so I figure it counts towards the world-building of my sword & sorcery universe (when I have sometime presentable, I’ll share it later).  I tend to fixate on one aspect of my creativity (like drawing or writing), neglecting everything else in my life.

I had to get out of the house today, just to get some fresh air and to change my scenery.  I sat under a large oak tree at the park and scribbled in a small notebook.  Nothing special; it was just a form of focus and self-meditation.  It was reinvigorating and refreshing.

That’s all for now.
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict

“He lifted his hands to the skies and sounded a long weird call that seemed to shudder endlessly out into space, dwindling and fading, yet never dying out , only receding farther and farther into some unreckoned cosmos.  In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature alighted beside him.  He saw its great calm eyes regarding him in the starlight; he saw the forty-foot spread of its giant wings.  And saw it neither was bat nor bird.”
— (excerpt from The Scarlet Citadel, by Robert E. Howard)


Goal, Motivation, and Conflict
Happy Tax Day, everyone!  I hope y’all got your taxes done on time and that ol’ Uncle Sam is treating you fairly ( * insert raging diatribe here * ).  Hard to believe April is half over already, although we are only ten days into the second round of ROW80 (which is one-eighth of the way through, for all you non-math majors out there).  As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have been trying to strengthen the plots of my three stories by giving my main characters and villains strong goals and motives.  I had been struggling with this concept for awhile now, but then I discovered a book on the subject called GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict (The Building Blocks of Good Fiction) by Debra Dixon.  I read her book straight through on Monday, fell in love with her system, and started working it out on graph-paper yesterday.  So far, within my world-building project, I have thirty major characters, which includes ten major villains (each will be developed into their own stories later).  So, for each of my characters, on a full-sheet of graph-paper, I created a grid with three rows (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) and two columns (External, Internal).  Within this gridded worksheet, I have been brainstorming the the most important starting questions of any story; the "who, what, why, and why not" questions.  The "who" is the Character, the "what" is the Goal, the "why" is the Motivation, and the "why not" is the Conflict.  Each of these questions are expressed in terms of the plot (External) and the character development (Internal).  The beauty of this layout is that you can see the entire story-arc of each character, and when compared side-by-side with other characters, story-ideas and conflicts between enemies and allies start emerging.  It's a great way to view new, developing characters while they are still simple (non-complex), unsullied by contrived personalities or background-stories that may not fit them.  Once these basic questions are answered, I can then delve deeper into the details of the characters and their story.  I recommend this intuitive system to those who want to develop strong plots with motivated characters.  Anyway, that's what I have been doing for the last couple of days.  Let me know if you have any comments or questions about the GMC system.

That's all for now.  I'm behind on my word-count elsewhere (yeah, you guessed it) and I'll be typing feverishly until midnight after I post this.

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Creating Order Out Of Chaos

“He stepped over the corpses and came face to face with the grim king.  The hosts watched in tense silence, holding their breath.  The black-armored figure loomed in terrible menace over the lean, silk-robed shape, the notched, dripping sword hovering on high.  ‘I offer you life, Conan,’ said Tsotha, a cruel mirth bubbling at the back of his voice.  ‘I give you death, wizard,” snarled the king, and backed by iron muscles and ferocious hate, the great sword swung in a stroke meant to shear Tsotha’s lean torso in half.”
— (excerpt from The Scarlet Citadel, by Robert E. Howard)


Order and Chaos
Where did the week go?  It went by so fast.  I guess that’s what happens when you are constantly racing the clock.  Before I give you my first week’s assessment of ROW80 (Round 2), I want to first talk about my experience so far with Camp NaNoWriMo (here’s my Camper Profile if you want to follow along).  I’ve been enjoying the banter with my cabin-mates and have kept up with my word-count goal there, but I haven’t been satisfied with the quality of my writing output.  I keep slogging along with my “stream-of-consciousness” exercises and “word sprints” there, but I don’t feel like I’m crafting as much story there as I do when I work on my ROW80 projects.  Maybe it's because story-crafting is more than just a word-count; it’s outlining, it’s note-taking, it’s research, and for me, it’s also sketching-out characters and cover designs onto paper (I’m a visual artist, too).  Oh, I’ll dutifully complete what I started at Camp NaNo (hoping my writing will improve there), but ROW80 is my priority and focus.  I separated my ROW80 word-count from my Camp NaNo word-count because I wanted it to be a truer reflection of my writing progress here.

Okay, now onto ROW80.  The first full week has been decently productive, although it didn’t go in the direction I had intended.  I thought I was going to start plotting one of my three stories, working on the opening scene, but instead, I spent the majority of the week developing some of my main characters and villains.  Why the detour?  I didn’t feel I knew enough about their motives to continue plotting.  Because plots are driven by the motives of the main character and the villain, I had to try to delve a little deeper into their personalities (and I’m glad I did).  I’m starting to see how all these story elements (plot, character, setting, etc.) have to be developed simultaneously as I write the first scene, and beyond.  For me, writing a novel is like painting a landscape on a canvas; first the artist makes broad-strokes across the canvas, blocking-in all the shapes and colors so that he can see the whole picture.  Then, when he is satisfied with the composition, he comes back later to add the fine details.  That’s how I approach novel-writing; loosely blocking-in plots, swapping out characters, and altering scenes and settings until I am satisfied with the general structure of the story.  Then, I make consecutive passes at the structure to fill in the details, building upon the layers beneath.  I’m constantly jumping around trying to balance the story as a whole.  That’s my writing process.  Sounds chaotic, huh?   What is your writing process?  Are you a linear writer who starts from the opening scene and works straight through to the ending?  Or do you, like me, jump around, working on Act-1 while also working on Act-3 so that you know how to guide Act-2; hitting the "signpost scenes" first, then the "transition scenes" in between?

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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The "Spring Round" Begins

 “Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.”
— (excerpt from The Nemedian Chronicles, by Robert E. Howard)


Discipline and Accountability
The second round of ROW80 is finally here!  I’ve been looking forward to getting this 80-day writing challenge started for over a month now, organizing and preparing my previous NaNoWriMo world-building project and documenting my preliminary preparation on this blog.  Writing these blogs twice a week has helped me to stay focused on my writing goals and has taught me that publishing words to a deadline is a habit that all authors must acquire.  By putting my intentions out into the world for all to see, I have forced myself to be both disciplined and accountable.  These two attributes were missing in me prior to these writing-challenges.  I needed more than just wishful thinking; I needed an actionable plan.  Before, I would write only when inspiration struck, which lasted for a couple of days, but then I would hit a dry spell of weeks (even months) before inspiration struck me again.  We’ve all been there, right?  What I didn’t realize before was that inspiration would strike me more often if I would just commit to writing every day (no matter the quality).  By showing up each day in front of my keyboard, it gets my Muse’s attention and she sees that I am serious about writing and joins in mid-session.  Once I write a few paragraphs of tortured proses by myself, my Muse will jump in, we will get into a groove, and the writing will improve thereafter.  Discipline and accountability; this is what I hope to carry forward into this round.

Goals for ROW80 (Round 2)
For the “Spring Round” of ROW80, I plan to write 60,000 words towards my story-world during the 80-day challenge.  Besides world-building my “sword & sorcery” universe, I have three novella-size story-candidates that I will attempt to develop and refine during this period.  I will be writing these stories simultaneously, alternating back-and-forth between them.  Having several projects going at once gives my Muse plenty of material to work with, and, while working on one story, it allows enough time for her to figure out plot-hole solutions when we get stuck on the story-problems of another, thereby preventing writer’s block.  I figure that a word-count of 60,000 is realistic and achievable.  Better to under-promise and over-deliver, then to over-promise and under-deliver.  I am concurrently participating in Camp NaNoWriMo during the the month of April, where I will be plotting and outlining the basic story-structure of of my three stories.  Here is my Camper Profile if you want to follow my progress there.  After April, I will further develop and refine these stories during the remainder of the 80-day challenge.  Here's how I plan on rewarding myself during ROW80 (Round 2): For every 10,000 words I write, I will allow myself to buy one novel from my Kindle wish-list.  With a 60,000 word count goal, that means that by the end of the round, I should have "earned" two trilogies.

Let's get excited and have some fun, People!  After all, we get to write stories — OUR stories — for fun and profit!  How cool is that?


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