My Project Update

The first week of ROW80 (Round 2) has been relatively productive.  My Goal for the “Spring Round” is to write an 80,000-word heroic fantasy novel set withing my “sword & sorcery” story-world.  During the month of April, I will be planning out my novel (outlining, world-building, character development, etc.).  In May and June, I will be writing and editing my novel.  I have set a self-imposed deadline of June 30th for completion.  As I have stated in my previous post, I’m re-imagining one of my short-story ideas so that it better fits into a full-length novel (expanded scope, increased stakes, character-arc, subplot, etc.).  I like the original premise, I just want to make it more epic.

I’ve created a new Scrivener file and named it “Spring Project”.  I’ve imported my original short-story into the file, but I’ll probably only use it as reference and inspiration.  Essentially, I’ll be starting from scratch with this project.  This past week, I’ve been mostly working on the main characters.  This includes the Hero, the Confidant, the Mentor, the Love Interest, the Villain, and the Villain’s Henchman.  These six characters will comprise most of my story, so I’m developing them first.  I’ll add more cast members later as needed.  I’ll be working on my Villain’s Plan next week because his actions set the story in motion.  Obviously, the Hero’s Goal will be to stop the Villain’s Plan, but I need to work on his desires and flaws so that I can develop his character arc.  In order to add complexity to the Hero’s Goal, I’ll be adding a Love Interest subplot, increasing the stakes of whether he succeeds or fails.  Defeating the Villain will be his physical goal, securing the love of his Love Interest will be his emotional goal, and overcoming his flaw to reach his potential will be his spiritual goal.  Weaving these three goals (physical, emotional, spiritual) into a plot will be challenging, but rewarding.

Next week, I’ll be fleshing out my characters further with base archetypes and personalities.  I’ll also chart the various story-threads so that they come together in the Grand Finale.  That’s a lot of work for next week.  I work the typical 40-hour work-week, so I only have a couple of hours in the evening to work on my project.  Since my weekends are open, I’ve decided to check-in here every Sunday with a “Weekly Update” of my project’s progress.  Wednesday check-ins are optional for me because I want to focus my limited time and energy on my project during the work-week.  I’ll see ya’ll on Sunday.

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

My "Spring Round" Goals

The second round of ROW80 is finally here!  I’ve been looking forward to getting this 80-day writing challenge started again.  ROW80 is the only writing challenge that I’ve tried that has kept me consistently writing.  Writing to this blog twice a week helps me clarify my writing goals, which forces me to prioritize my time so that I can implement all the actionable steps necessary to accomplish that goal.  It has taught me that publishing words to a deadline is a habit that all authors must acquire.  Putting my intentions here keeps me accountable to myself and the world.  It forces me to be disciplined and consistent.  Most of my most productive writing has come while participating in the ROW80 challenge.  It is my intention to return to that level of production during the next 80 days.

Goals for ROW80 (Round 2)
My goal for the “Spring Round” of ROW80 is to write a heroic fantasy novel set within my “sword & sorcery” story-world.  During this 80 day writing challenge, I plan on writing approximately 80,000 words toward my novel (averaging 1,000 words per day).  I am re-imagining one of my short stories, expanding it into a full-length novel.  In order to do that, I will have to expand the scope and up the stakes, intensify the opposition, add a character-arc, and weave-in a subplot with a possible love interest.  Essentially, I’m starting from scratch with an old idea, creating an “origins story” for one of my characters.  I am concurrently participating in Camp NaNoWriMo during the the month of April, where I will be brainstorming, world-building and plotting the basic story-structure of my novel.   Here is my Camper Profile if you want to follow my progress there.  After April, I will further develop and refine my story during the remainder of the 80-day challenge.

“When writing a first draft I remind myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”
— Shannon Hale

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

My "Spring Round" Goals

My goal for the “Spring Round” of ROW80 is to write a heroic fantasy novel set within my “Sword & Sorcery” story-world.  When finished, this novel will be approximately 80,000 words, but for this 80-day challenge, my goal is to keep the first draft to 60,000 words (750 words a day — ambitious but achievable).  This will help me focus on the main storyline first.  Once I have the main storyline roughed-out, I can weave in the various subplots that support the main storyline in a second-draft, which I figure will add about 20,000 words to the final manuscript.  I have a relatively structured outline going into this round, with all the major story-events and plot-points arranged into a somewhat coherent chronological order.  This approach is a much-needed improvement from previous goals, where I was working on several story-ideas at one time, including my fall-back position of world-building.  And even though this has provided me with most of my story-ideas so far, it has yet to produce a finished manuscript.  I hope to change that this round with a more-focused intention of one — and only one — story project.

I chose this story idea from my many story-candidates because it was the most developed, especially since it has an elaborate “villain’s plan”.  Each chapter has specific scene goals and set-pieces, with designated word-count goals to keep the entire three-act structure in balance.  On the first pass, I’ll be concentrating on roughing-out the main storyline, especially the hero and villain story-threads.  I have a pretty good idea how I want the story to end, so I’ll probably start choreographing my “climatic moment” first and work my way backwards into the “black moment” so that my hero goes into the third act determined and focused on the villain’s destruction, leading to a final conflict that is emotionally satisfying to the reader.  Once I have a solid ending, I can work myself backwards to the story’s beginning, which has the hero in the opposite state of his character-arc from the ending.  I’ll discuss my outlining process further in future posts.  Just know that I have a plan this time and I’m going to attempt to follow that plan.

Also, I have set up a structured writing schedule for myself that I think will keep me in the habit of writing consistently each day.  I will be doing a comprehensive, week-in-review weekend-wrap-up style check-in about my progress on Sundays, but the mid-week Wednesday check-ins, at this point, will be optional for me this round.  The mid-week check-ins have been a stumbling point for me in the past and, because of that, I want to set myself up for success this round.  So for now, mid-week check-ins for me are optional.  That may change later, depending on whether I have something exciting to say or whether my limited weekday time permits, but because I work forty-hours a week during the weekdays, I have limited time to write in the evenings and want to spend that time story-crafting instead of blogging.  I’ll make up for it on the weekend when I have a week’s worth of subject matter and progress to report.  Anyway, that’s the plan.  I have my project file set up and ready to go.  Until next week…

Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community.
Keep the Fire Burning!

January Assessment

One-twelfth of 2016 is already in the books; eleven-twelfths remain.  Being the last day of January, it’s time for my writing-progress assessment of this past month.  Each month, I plan on reviewing my writing-progress for that month so that I can stay on track with my yearly writing goals, as well as the quarterly goals for each round of ROW80.  For me, I’m far more likely to keep my new year’s resolutions if I renew my commitment to them each month.  A fire needs constant stoking.

The new year always starts off with quiet contemplation of the previous year and renewed hope for the next.  As you can see, I’ve listed all my writing goals for 2016 on the right-hand column on this page.  These are my ideals that I hope live up to this year.  For my ROW80 (Round 1) goals, I chose to work on my four novella-sized pulp-serials that I’ve been developing.  Each of these four serials will star one of my established heroes.  My hope is to lay the foundation with these characters so that I can develop multiple adventures for each of them, much like Robert E. Howard did with Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane (my characters will be completely different, of course).  So far, all I have been working with are base hero-archetypes.  These nameless characters are in the rawest stages of development right now, but I have a vague idea of each of their multiple adventures.  My goal for January was to develop these four characters further and to outline simple stories for each of them so that I could start writing vigorously during February and March.  That was the plan for January.

The first ten days of January were golden.  I was excited about my writing goals and was making some significant progress.  I was re-reading and researching many of my favorite pulp-serials, studying their basic story structure.  I created individual project folders for my four characters, each with their own characters, villains, settings and situations.  Everything was coming along nicely until I hit a couple of setbacks.  A nasty bout of the flu and a sports-related injury put my writing ambitions on hold.  By the time I was feeling better, two weeks had gone by and I struggled to get my momentum back.  I was in a creative funk.  The remainder of the month has been me trying to re-start my writing routine again.  To do that, I had to re-establish discipline and accountability back into my life.

Going into February, I’m going to continue developing of my four pulp-serials.  My characters and stories are still very vague and need a lot of work, but I’m starting to get a feel for them again.  I can almost visualize a few of them and have a few ideas for a couple of story adventures.  If I need to re-calibrate some of my goals for this round, I'll adjust them over the next few weeks.  The important thing for me is that I’m excited about the project again.  A new month is a new beginning, which blows a gentle breeze over the dying embers of my goals and reignites my passion for my story-world.  Like I said, a fire needs constant stoking.

Keep the Fire Burning!
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Battling Resistance

“Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”
— Steven Pressfield

I should have seen it coming.  Whenever I pursue ambitious goals, Resistance always shows up to test my resolve and challenge my dedication.  Anyone who has read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Resistance is that universal force that acts against us whenever we pursue creative goals.  It has many clever ways in which to sabotage our artistic aspirations, including anxiety, self-doubt, procrastination and an endless variety of shiny-new distractions that keep us from doing our life’s work.  And let’s not forget rationalization.  Resistance has kept me from my writing for two weeks because of rationalization.  I’ve been sick with the flu and have been nursing a sports-related injury all week, which has zapped all my creative energy — or so I’ve rationalized.  It all sounds so convincing and rational when you’re sick and in pain, so I postponed all creative activity until I was feeling inspired again.  Very clever, that Resistance, whispering poisonous suggestions in my ear while I’m impressionably weak.  Well, I’m feeling better now so I’m pushing back against Resistance by doing something creative.  I took out a pencil and paper and sketched out a drawing of one of my characters. Take that, Resistance!

“The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we feel toward pursuing it.”
— Steven Pressfield

This blog post is my attempt to get back on track with my ROW80 (Round 1) goals.  I’ve started reading The War of Art again for encouragement.  For inspiration, I re-read one of my favorite short-stories, Shadows in the Moonlight, by Robert E. Howard.  I’m starting to get back into the flow of my pulp-serials again and will have a lot more to say about them in my next post.

“The Warrior and the Artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”
— Steven Pressfield

Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community.
Keep the Fire Burning!

My “Core Four”

For the foreseeable future, I’m going to be focusing my energy and passion into developing my four pulp-serials, which I call my “Core Four.”  Each individual “sword & sorcery” series will be modeled after the pulp-magazine serialized-adventures that were popular in the 1930’s.  I hope to emulate the style and tone of the great pulp-master, Robert E. Howard, founder of the “sword & sorcery” fantasy genre and creator of such fantasy legends as Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane.  I’ve been re-reading many of his pulp-serials in order to study their basic story structure.  Most of stories were written for the pulp-magazine, Weird Tales, where his stories ranged from ten-thousand to twenty-thousand words, and were meant to be read in one sitting.  They featured an established semi-competent hero, a far-superior opponent, and a minimal cast of extras (no subplots).  The story usually starts with fast-paced action (in medias res) and increases in intensity as the hero actively pursues an emotionally important goal.   He encounters relentless opposition, faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and has major setbacks towards his goals.  Yet, at the end, through dogged-determination and innate-skill, he cleverly outwits and defeats his opponents, claims his prize and saves the the girl, all in one emotionally-satisfying climactic scene.  I been wanting to write these pulp-serials for a long time now, so while I’m still learning how to write (and finish) a story, I might as well have some fun writing action-adventure.  I have four distinctive hero-archetypes that I hope to develop and explore further.

My “Core Four”
These are the base hero-archetypes that I want to build personalities upon.  These nameless characters are in the rawest stage of development and will evolve over time.  For now, here are the symbolic representations I have of them so far.   The hero-archetype descriptions below come from Heroes & Heroines; Sixteen Master Archetypes by Tami D. Cowden, which I’ve previously referenced here.  Note: A [bracketed word] means that the idea is conceptual at this point, or that it is yet unnamed.

Pulp-Serial 1: the [Warrior] Serial
Hero Archetype: the “Warrior” and the “Lost Soul” combined

Pulp-Serial 2: the [Rogue] Serial
Hero Archetype: the “Swashbuckler” and the “Bad Boy” combined

Pulp-Serial 3: the [Huntress] Serial
Heroine Archetype: the “Boss”

Pulp-Serial 4: the [Sorceress] Serial
Heroine Archetype: the “Crusader”

I’ll explain more about these characters and some story-ideas I have for them in my next ROW80 post.  Until then, please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community.
Keep the Fire Burning!

Frolicking through Fantasy-Land

Ah yes — the first mid-week check-in of ROW80.  I remember these.  Always a challenge for me.  The forty-hour work-week at a “regular job” will drain the creative life out of you if you let it.  So, like any heroic protagonist would do, I adapt to the situation and muscle my way through the first obstacle of the quest.  I’ve found that a twenty-minute power-nap, a cool-water face-splash and total audio-immersion of Pure Arctic Wind, usually gives me the much-needed “second-wind” that I need in the evening to write during a work-week.  I would much rather be writing in the mornings though, because that’s the time when my mind is the most creative.  I’ve noticed that when I’m at work, somewhere around mid-morning when that large cup of coffee is just starting to kick-in, my obnoxiously-perky Muse will show up in my imagination wanting me to frolic with her across the imaginary landscape of our story-world.  So, of course, I accept her invitation and we skip off into daydream-land as my body stays behind and goes through the motions of my work-routine like an automaton on autopilot.  Essentially, my body is “working” while my mind is “playing” (Hey — they can enslave my body, but they can’t enslave my mind — Bwahahaha!).

I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want to accomplish during ROW80 (Round 1).  Like I’ve stated previously, my goal for this round is to write four novellas within my “Sword & Sorcery” universe, each of which will be approximately 20,000 words apiece.  For the past several days, I’ve been going through all my story-idea file-folders looking for story-candidates.  Through much consideration, and consultation with my Muse, I’ve chosen the four story-candidates that I feel have the best potential.  I’ll explain my reasoning for these decisions and discuss each of these story-candidates in more detail this weekend.  There it is again — work-week time-constraints — limiting my time to write.  Oh well, such is the life of an aspiring author.  At least I have the weekends to write.

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community...

My “Winter Round” Goals

Over this past year, I’ve learned a lot about my writing habits and style.  Being a goal-orientated person, I’m always trying to set goals for myself that are both workable and achievable.  The challenge in setting these goals is that they must coincide with my personal writing-style and work-process.  There are two factors that contribute to this challenge; the first being my chaotic writing process and the second being my capricious Muse.

First, let’s start with my chaotic writing process.  Being a visual artist, I approach writing a novel like I would painting a landscape; broad-strokes across the entire canvas, blocking-in all the shapes so I can see the whole picture.  Then, when I’m satisfied with the composition, I go back in to add the fine detail.  That’s how I approach novel-writing as well; 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 story 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 chaotic writing process so, knowing this, I must calibrate my goals accordingly.

My capricious Muse is an all-together different kind of challenge.  Let me preface this by saying that when my Muse and I are attuned to each other’s frequency, magic happens.  I have many file-folders full of wonderful story-ideas due to our imaginations being synchronized.  That being said, my Muse is unpredictable and fickle.  She has trouble staying focused on just one story at a time.  Often times, she’s focusing on a story that is unrelated to what I think I should be working on.  Or she has me chasing off into the wilderness after new plot-bunnies (Muse Gone Wild).  Mostly, I just go with the flow and fill-up those file-folders.  That’s great and all, but at some point I’m going to need her to stay focused long enough to finish one of these story-ideas.  I’ve found that in order to accommodate the mood spectrum of my Muse, I must always have several different stories going at once.  Again, knowing this, I must calibrate my goals accordingly.  With that in mind, here are my goals for ROW80 (Round 1)…

Goals for ROW80 (Round 1)
My goal for the “Winter Round” of ROW80 is to write four novellas within my “Sword & Sorcery” universe.  Each novella will be approximately 20,000 words apiece, for a total of 80,000 words.  Each novella will be written simultaneously (again, alternating back-and-forth to accommodate my Muse), and each will vary in tone, mood, and style.  Essentially, I have given my Muse four different "sandboxes" to play in, each with its own set of "toys" (characters, etc.).  I have four story-candidates in mind and will be outlining and plotting them during the month of January.  In February and March, I will be focused on word-counts and getting these stories to completion.  I figure that one or two of these stories will probably take precedence over the others and will become my lead focus.  Again, I’m at the mercy of my Muse’s mercurial whims.  But, with this flexible method, I figure that at least one of these stories will catch her fancy to completion.  If conditions change, I’ll refine and update my goals.

Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Here are my Writing Goals for 2016

A Writer’s Resolution for 2016

For many people, New Year’s Eve is a time to gather with friends and loved ones, usually at small parties or amongst festive crowds, to celebrate the passing of one year with the beginning of another.  And while I outwardly enjoy the social interactions of this holiday, the introverted part of me is always looking for an opportunity to slip away from the masses so that I can be alone with my thoughts in quiet contemplation.  For me, the New Year is one of those life-milestones where I stop to measure and evaluate myself at each particular stage of my life.  It’s a time where I celebrate my accomplishments and acknowledge my failures, so that I can bring what I’ve learned forward into my future.  It’s a time where I rekindle those deep-rooted dreams and aspirations; those life-goals that must be accomplished if I’m to have a fulfilled life that is free from regret.  It’s a time where I strive to reach my full potential, to live an impactful life, and to become the best-version of my true-self.  And with each passing life-milestone, one year into the next, the time I have left in which to actualize these life-goals becomes more and more dear to me.  And so, as I’ve done each year at this time, I retreat within myself so that I may reflect on my past and commit to my future.

Most of my resolutions focus on improving my body, spirit, and mind.  Here, in my writer’s blog, I'll be focusing on my writing goals and my aspirations to become a prolific author.  I will be referring to these goals throughout the year and will break each goal down into actionable steps in future blog posts.  For now, these are my simplified writing goals for 2016:

• I resolve to write everyday, whether I’m inspired or not.
• I resolve to finish that manuscript that I started last year.
• I resolve to finish every story that I start from this moment forward.
• I resolve to participate in every ROW80 this year and to document my progress.
• I resolve to hold myself accountable by posting to this blog twice a week.
• I resolve to help other writers as we journey along similar paths.
• I resolve to read at least one genre fiction book each month.
• I resolve to improve my knowledge by reading novel-crafting books.
• I resolve to write, revise, edit and publish my first short-story this year.
• I resolve to design a few book covers for my novels.
• I resolve to create an official author website.
• I resolve to write a business plan for my author / entrepreneur career.

Remember that a resolution is a determined decision to solve to a problem.  By definition, to “resolve” is to "solve again," so there is no failure as long as you’re trying to find a solution.  If you would like to create your own writer's resolution, I recommend reading JA Konrath’s annual article on New Year’s Resolutions for Writers.  

The next round of "A Round of Words in 80 Days" starts on January, 4th 2016.  If anyone is interested in participating in this quarterly writing challenge, sign-up now.  All writers are welcome.  Even if you've gotten a late start, you can jump into the round at any time.  I'll be posting a more in-depth account of my ROW80 (Round 1) goals on Monday.

Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

A Very Productive Week

One week into NaNoWriMo and I’ve already past the mid-point of my word-count goal.  There’s just something about this month that awakens my Muse and gets her excited again.  [Word Wars: The Muse Awakens]  See? — that just came out of nowhere, so I just wrote it down.  I am merely the stenographer of my Muse.  My NaNo-Novel is really starting to take shape now, as I move my hero and heroine from one plot-milestone to another.  I’ve been having a lot of fun creating the scenes in-between the plot-milestones and my character's personalities are starting to come to life.  My main characters are based off of hero archetypes, each with base virtues and flaws, and I’ve been trying to discovery-write their personalities.  Some of my previously-imagined secondary-characters have become more prominent in my story because I have discovery-written their ulterior agendas and mysterious pasts, which might change the direction of my original outline.  I can already see that I will have to do a lot of revision next month.  Many of my scenes are long-winded with narration, overly descriptive, and my action scenes get bogged down with too many lengthy blow-by-blow details.  But, that's okay.  I’m just dictating what my Muse shows me.  More details later…

That’s all for this ROW80 (Round 4) update.
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community.
Keep the Fire Burning!

All Hail, November!

So it begins — NaNoWriMo starts today.  All of the anticipation and preparation has lead to this very moment, where there’s nothing left to do but execute the game-plan and write.  All of this preparation will have to suffice.  I’m nowhere near where I had hoped to be at this point, but life happens, and as generals often say, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.”  I’ll have to go into November with a vague outline.  That’s not to say that I’m unprepared or anything.   I have been diligently outlining my NaNo-Novel all month, and I’ve made a lot of headway towards giving it structure with the proper cast of characters.  I’ve created my NaNoWriMo project in Scrivener, where I have my NaNo-Novel structured into four-acts (Act1, Act 2a, Act 2b, Act 3), with each act divided into two segments.  Each of these eight segments ends with a major story milestone (such as the inciting incident, the midpoint reversal or the beginning of the climactic confrontation).  Each segment is divided into four scenes.  These scenes include all the important story-elements that need to be included in that segment for that part of the story.  I like working this way because it allows me to see my story as a balanced whole, and it gives me direction as I write my scenes to the next milestone marker.  I don’t know much about the details of the scenes at this point, but I trust myself, I trust my Muse and I trust the creative process.  I'm confident that my story will come to life once I actually start writing.  I’ll talk more about my story-writing process in my next post…

That’s all for this ROW80 (Round 4) update.
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community.
Keep the Fire Burning!

Slow Down, October!

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 4) weekend update: With only two weeks left in October, I’ve been working frantically all week trying to put together a workable story-outline that I can take into NaNoWriMo.  I have a basic idea of a story with a simple plot, but it feels like it needs so much more than I have time to give it.  I went through several “what if” scenarios with my story-idea, trying to find my premise and theme while working on a log-line.  I like some of the ideas, but they still need a lot of work.  My hero and villain are well-matched, but I’m still working on their goals.  I know that the villain will drive the conflict and the hero will react to that conflict, but I still need to know their motivations and internal needs.  I have a mentor and ally in mind, but no details.  I know how I want my story to end, so I’ve focused all my energy there, working on that emotionally satisfying ending.  By defining my ending, I can work backwards to figure out how the story might begin.  Then from the beginning, I’ll know what each scene needs to accomplish to get me one step closer to my ending.  Knowing my ending gives me a destination to aim for.  My hero is strong and skilled in the end, so he needs to be weaker and unskilled in the beginning if I’m to have a proper character-arc.  Since people don’t usually change on their own, I’ll need to introduce a mentor and an ally.  I have a few scenes in mind, but I’m having trouble stringing them together.  I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress this week, but it doesn’t feel like I’m making the progress fast enough.  Slow down, October, I need more time…

That’s enough blogging for now.  I need to get back to my story-outlining.
Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Quick Update

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 4) mid-week update: 
Wow, it’s hard to believe that the month of October is half-over already.  Where does the time go?  I’m already starting to feel that familiar time-pressure building with each passing day as I frantically try to prepare for the imminent NaNoWriMo onslaught.  At this point, my NaNo-Novel outline needs a lot of work.  Each evening after work,  I’ve been diligently trying to piece together a coherent story-outline for NaNoWriMo.  I’m making progress, but I only have a vague idea about my story so far, and I keep questioning which of my story-ideas I want to work on during November.  I’ve got one strong story-candidate, and two alternative story-candidates that I’m considering, but I need to decide soon so that I can focus all my energy into that one project.  I’ll let you know more about this decision this weekend when I have more time.  For now, just know that I’ve been organizing my outlines, reading books on story structure, reviewing my notes and going through my previous story-ideas every night this week.  As a matter of fact, I’m going to keep this post very short because I need to get back to my outline before bedtime.  Like I said, I’ll have a more detailed update for you this weekend.

That’s all for now. Keep the Fire Burning!
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Making Steady Progress

After one full-week of ROW80 (Round 4), I’ve made some steady progress towards my writing goals.  It feels so good to be writing with determination and consistency again.  At first, I was worried that my month-long hiatus from writing might be a hindrance, but ever since the round started I’ve been energized and driven again, as if I never missed a beat.  Maybe I just needed a break.  Or maybe the enthusiasm comes from starting anew with clearly-stated writing goals (see right column).  Regardless the reason, I’ll need every ounce of optimism and determination I can muster, because this round is going to be very challenging, mainly due to the definitive deadlines imposed by NaNoWriMo during this round.  As you can see, the month of October is dedicated to outlining my NaNo-Novel, which I must have ready in three weeks if I am to succeed this November.  Last year during NaNoWriMo, I wrote over 50,000 words (winner!) towards my “Sword & Sorcery” universe, using it as an opportunity to brainstorm future story-ideas.  So, instead of writing a complete story last year (as is traditional in NaNoWriMo), I worked on the fragmented story-ideas that I had in my head, writing imagined characters into random scenes as I explored and discovered my story-world.  Because of that writing exercise, I now have multiple story ideas to choose from this year as I prepare to go the traditional route of NaNoWriMo (actually write a complete story form beginning to end).  But that’s gonna take a lot of planning, so from now until the end of this month, I will be frantically putting together a coherent (hopefully exciting) story-plan so that I can go into November confident and prepared.  Over the past few days I’ve been perusing through books on outlining and plotting, jotting down notes and setting up my Scrivener file.  I’ve divided my story file into acts, created files within those acts for the important plot-points and pinch-points, and files evenly distributed between them for story development.  I use the index-cards and document notes inside Scrivener to plan out the major story milestones and to keep track of all the elements that need to be in each scene.  I’m really enjoying this plotting process right now, but with only three weeks to go, I need to light a fire under myself to get this done before time runs out (ah, yes — the “ticking time-bomb” analogy).  Speaking of which, I need to get back to my outline (…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…)

Keep the Fire Burning!
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Mid-Week Check-in

Publishing words to a deadline is a habit that all authors (including myself) must acquire.  So, here it is, my  ROW80 (Round 4) mid-week update, on-time and on-schedule (barely).  Even though I don’t have much progress to report, I wanted to make a point to check-in mid-week as scheduled, if for no other reason than to stay on track with my goals.  As you can see on the right column, one of those goals is to get back into the habit of writing to this blog twice a week.  This is important for me because it keeps me disciplined and teaches me to be accountable to myself and the world.  Discipline and accountability are two attributes that I need most in myself if I’m ever going to become a professional author. 

Since my last post, I accomplished a few things towards my writing goals.  I went to the NaNoWriMo website and announced my intention to participate this year.  I gave my novel a generic title for now, and will update the synopsis later once I have a better grasp of my story.  I spent a couple of hours designing a cover for My NaNo Novel.  I created the cover using Poser (a character posing program for artists) and Photoshop.  It’s nothing special — just a 3-D character posed heroically with dramatic lighting — but it helps me visualize what my novel might look like if published, keeping me motivated, excited and focused.  I also created a Scrivener file for my NaNoWriMo project and started organizing it already.  I’ll have more to say about that in my weekend post.  Oh yeah, I also wrote over five hundred words, as you can see by the word-count meter in the upper right of the page.  Measurable goals — that’s Kait’s advice.  

Whoa — two blog posts in two days.  I must be on a roll or something.

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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My “Autumn Round” Goals

The “Autumn Round” of ROW80 is finally here!  I’ve had this date marked on my calendar for over a month now, waiting for this day to come so I could re-start a new round of words.  The “Summer Round” didn’t go as smoothly as I’d expected it would, as I “crashed-and-burned” halfway through the round.  Not sure exactly what caused it, but one skipped post led to another, and before I knew it I was finding it more and more difficult to jump back into the rhythm of writing and posting.  I had been faithfully posting to this blog twice a week, every week, since February, but in mid-August I faltered.  For whatever reason, I stumbled and fell, and for the remainder of the round, I just laid there on the warm ground, exhausted and dispirited.  But part of falling down is getting back up.  This blog post is my attempt of getting myself up and into the flow of writing consistently again.  With the beginning of this fourth round, I can start anew.

My “Autumn Round” Goals
Here is a quick overview of my ROW80 (Round 4) Goals.  During this round, I plan on writing 80,000 words towards my “Sword & Sorcery” novel.  A thousand words a day may sound ambitious, especially after my “Summer Round” debacle, but I think I can do it this round due to my previous success with completing NaNoWriMo last year, which I’m also participating in this year (My NaNo Page).  If I can do the 50,000 words in the month of November, then what’s another 30,000 words during the 80-day round?  A thousand words-per-day average seems doable under these conditions, so I’m going with 80,000 words in 80-days.  For the month of October, I will be working on my story-outline in preparation for November.  I have a single story-idea that I’ve been working on and want to see this story to completion.  Last year’s NaNoWriMo was an exercise in world-building, where I came up with a lot of story-ideas for my “Sword & Sorcery” universe as I just let my imagination run wild.  But this year I intend to actually focus on one story, which is the original purpose of this particular writing challenge.  After the madness of NaNo, I should have a 50,000 word first-draft (mess).  I plan on writing and editing my novel after November up until the last day of Round 4, which this year falls of the Eve of Christmas Eve.  I will, of course, be documenting my progress here on this blog twice a week, which is also part of my goal of discipline and accountability.  My blog posts may be shorter due to the workload, and may not include the usual excerpts of past posts, but they will be focused on my actual writing progress and they will come regularly twice a week.  I’ll go into more detail in my Wednesday blog-post, so I’ll continue this conversation there…

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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An Automaton on Autopilot

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 3) weekend update.  As I’ve mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying to maximize the productivity of my story-crafting time during the work-week, as I work forty-hours a week at a “regular job” and only have a few hours to spend on it each evening.  Often times at work, I find myself daydreaming about my story-world; my mind drifting into those fantastical realms of my imagination while my body does the monotonous work before me as if it were an automaton on autopilot.  My employer and coworkers see only my quiet dedication to the task at hand, praising my strong work-ethic and high production output.  Little do they know that I’m just “going through the motions” while my mind is off in another world.  Ironically, I do my best imagining while at work and wish I were home writing during those times.  It would seem that my creativity is most active in the mornings, especially after the first cup of coffee has kicked in.  I find myself planning and plotting and sneaking notes into my mobile app, eagerly awaiting those few hours I have planned for myself that evening.  Some days, this anticipation is the only thing that gets me through the workday.  Yet, despite my best intentions, my evening writing sessions haven’t been going as planned lately.  Over the past few weeks, my writing output has decreased significantly.  This is somewhat due to work fatigue, but mostly it’s just me wasting a lot of valuable writing-time doing “story-research” on the Internet.  Being that I only have about ten hours of quality writing time each work-week and about eight hours during the weekend, I’ve decided to do most of my “story-researching” on the Internet on the weekends, after my creative-wells have run dry.  That way, I can get the most out of my limited writing-time while also allocating the necessary research-time needed for my story-world.  To do this, I’ve create a new “sacred space” for my writing sessions.  During this work-week, I’ve been doing all of my writing away from my desktop computer (with its Internet temptation) and onto my new laptop (which I don’t use for web-surfing), which is now situated on its own dedicated workstation table.  This change in routine has been working pretty good so far this week as I have written a few random practice-scenes and have worked on the back-story of one of my heroines.  This change has been good.  I’ve also started doing a lot more outlining on graph-paper and have compiled a few more character sheets in the process.  I enjoy writing with pencil and paper sometimes, especially as I’m lying in bed, scratching out ideas before the clock tells me its bedtime again.  After all, its a workday tomorrow, and I need to get plenty of rest so I can “go through the motions” again while daydreaming at work.

Conan had entered the part of the city reserved for the temples.  On all sides of him they glittered white in the starlight — snowy marble pillars and golden domes and silver arches, shrines of Zamora’s myriad strange gods.  He did not trouble his head about them; he knew that Zamora’s religion, like all things of civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex, and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals.  He had squatted for hours in the courtyards of the philosophers, listening to the arguments of theologians and teachers, and come away in a haze of bewilderment, sure of only one thing; that they were all touched in the head.  His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth doom and death.  It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings.  But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.
— (Excerpt from The Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard)

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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Creating Time and Space

I live a secret double-life.  Each workday, I dutifully trek-off to work at my "regular job", trading my limited time and valuable effort for meager wages.  I’m a chemist at a chemical-analysis lab, making bulk chemical reagents and custom standards for science industries.  My department is very profitable for the company, so management let’s us do our work in peace.  My coworkers are math-wizards, science-nerds and techo-geeks.  They’re all super-nice people, but they’re very much left-brain thinkers.  Together, we all spend the majority of the sunlit day in a climate-controlled lab doing science and stuff, until finally, the day is over and we can all go home to our real lives.  It’s a decent job as far as “regular jobs” go, and it pays the bills, but it’s not my passion.  I’m just a cog in the machine of someone else’s dream.  Each evening, I come home to my other job — my "dream job" — my fledgling authorship career job, spending what's left of the remainder of the day on story-crafting, building my empire in my spare time.  Essentially, I'm a wage-slave by day and an author-entrepreneur by night.   That’s my secret double-life.  None of my friends, family, or coworkers know of my writing ambitions or aspirations.  They’ll know someday, once I’ve actually written and published something, but until then, I just keep it to myself.  Of course, all of you in the “writers blogosphere” know my secret life.  That’s okay, I don’t mind.  You understand me.  You’re all right-brained creative types on a similar journey, so I don’t mind sharing my writing aspiration secrets with y’all. 

I wish I had more time to write during the day, especially in the mornings when I’m most creative.  My “regular job” is quiet and repetitive, so I often find myself daydreaming about my “Sword & Sorcery” story-world while I’m working; my body on autopilot while my mind is in a far-away, fantastical land.  Often times, I’m stealthily tapping my story-ideas into my mobile app while I’m pretending to work.  I can’t help it, I have a creative mind that’s always active.  In the evening of the workday, I’ve designated at least two hours of “story-crafting” time for myself, whether it be outlining, plotting, reading, researching or writing towards my story-world.  That’s the only thing that gets me through my work-week.  On the weekends, I have a lot more free time, so I try to get as much writing done as my life will allow.  Four hours is my goal for Saturdays and Sundays; more if I'm on a roll (although, my creative-well usually needs replenishing by then).  You may have noticed lately that I’ve had trouble posting Wednesday updates lately, which is either caused by work-week fatigue or by the fact that I would rather spend my limited time story-crafting instead of posting .  Posting on the weekends has been easier to accomplish for me lately, so I haven’t missed any yet, although this one is pretty late on Sunday evening.  I plan on getting back on the bi-weekly schedule soon.  We’ll see if that is the case this Wednesday, right?  It’s all about creating time for myself.

I’ve also been having trouble with my word-count goals.  My writing output has been low.  Oh, I’ve been doing plenty of planning and reading and researching, but not a lot of actual writing has been getting done lately.  I do the “butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard” routine, and usually get about a paragraph into my writing before my Inner-Editor takes me off on some research, fact-finding tangent on the Internet.  He’ll suggest that my battle scenes need more authenticity, so I’ll end up watching two-hours worth of “sword-fighting technique” YouTube videos until my bedtime comes.  Important research for sure, especially for a “Sword & Sorcery” novel (I rationalize to myself), but not a lot of actual writing has been getting done lately.  The Internet, for all it’s good, can be a time-suck.  I came up with a solution that I’m going to try next week (and beyond if it works).  I’ve decided to do all of my writing on my new laptop instead of my desktop; the difference being that I don’t do any web-surfing on my new laptop, only on my desktop.  This will remove the tempting, attractive distraction of researching while writing.  If I need to research a scene, I’ll just make a note in brackets to [research this] and continue writing.  I have Scrivener on both computers, so I share my manuscript files through Dropbox.  I cleaned off an old computer desk that I had and set it up for my laptop.  This way, when I do my “butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard” routine, I won’t have any excuse or distractions from actually writing.  I’ve created for myself a creative space exclusively for writing.  Creating time and space.  You see what I did there?  Just like the blog title. =)

Steel flashed and the throng surged wildly back out of the way.  In their flight they knocked over the single candle and the den was plunged into darkness, broken by the crash of upset benches, drums of flying feet, shouts, oaths of people tumbling over one another, and a single strident yell of agony that cut the din like a knife.  When the candle was relighted, most of the guests had gone out by doors and broken windows, and the rest huddled behind stacks of wine-kegs and under tables.  The barbarian was gone; the center of the room deserted except for the gashed body of the Kothian.  The Cimmerian, with the unerring instinct of the barbarian, had killed his man in the darkness and confusion.
— (Excerpt from The Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard)

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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A Quick Overview

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 3) weekend update.  I’ve made some great story-crafting progress this week, especially as it pertains to one of my major villains, but more on that in a minute.  First, I want to give you a quick overview of where my “Sword & Sorcery” story-world is in its development so far.  Keep in mind that everything at this point is in the conceptual-stage of development; constantly evolving and ever changing. 

Note: A [bracketed word] means that the idea is conceptual, or that it is yet unnamed. 

All my “Sword & Sorcery” stories take place on an “Alternate-Earth” type planet.  This [World] was three main continents, each separated by vast treacherous seas.  These continents are the [Civilized Continent], the [Wild Continent], and the [Mystical Continent]. 

• The [Civilized Continent] has beautiful cities, rival kingdoms, and competing nations.  Don’t let the name fool you, it can be anything but civilized.  It is steeped in history as it contains the majority of the population of the [World].  Magic is feared and forbidden here.  All magic and monsters have been purged from the land long ago, after the [Great Arcane War].  

• The [Wild Continent] resides on the farthest outskirts of the trading routes of the [Civilized Continent], untamed and mostly undiscovered.  It has some ancient outposts along the coastlines, but they have long been claimed by jungle overgrowth.  This is a very primitive land inhabited by dangerous wild creatures and great beasts.  Survival is the law of the land here. 

• The [Mystical Continent] resides on the other side of the [World], cloaked in mystical fog and mystery.  It hosts the [World]’s oldest history, with ancient ruins and magical secrets located throughout this enchanted and accursed land.  It is sparsely populated with reclusive sorcerers, arcane cultists and remnant monstrosities.

There are several reasons why I wanted my story-world to be unified on one planet, yet separated by locations.  By separating locations, I have created for myself an “ultimate sandbox” to play in, leaving open all the story-possibilities that I want to tell.  On the [Civilized Continent], I can write classically-styled heroic fantasy.  On the [Wild Continent], I can write action-adventure fantasy.  And on the [Mystical Continent], I can write "fantaisie-noir".  All vary in tone, mood and style.  I unified my story-world on one planet because I wanted to leave open the possibility of shared history or maybe even a world-battle, but for now, each location will have there own unique characters and situations.  I have considered a few cross-over characters, like the [Mariner], the [Mercenary], and the [Scribe], but that won’t happen until I get further in a series. 

My “Sword & Sorcery” product-line will consist on three major series; an [Arcane Series], a [Rogue Series], and a [Warrior Series].  My sixteen story-idea threads are divided (almost) evenly between these three series.  Many are stand-alone stories, but some have potential for trilogies.  Scattered within are twenty-seven main characters and twenty villains.  Of them, I have a few candidates for “legendary status”, meaning these characters are my favorites, will have multiple adventures, and will represent my heroic fantasy franchise.  No “Sword & Sorcery” franchise would be complete without a least one Conan-esque hero, so my [Warrior Series] has one.  My [Legendary Hero] is just as strong and skilled with the sword, but is more fully-clothed (most of the time).  My [Warrior Series] also has an Amazon-like heroine I’ve dubbed the [Monster Huntress].  Yes, she hunts monsters.  In my [Rogue Series], my franchise character is the [Mercenary].  Others in this series may share in his action-adventures, but they are all under-developed so far, so I haven’t decided on their status yet.  My [Arcane Series] franchise characters are the [Grand Magister] and the [Arcane Warrior], who are both sorcerer-warriors (think sword-master, martial-artist and Jedi-master combined) battling the [Arch-Sorcerer] and his [Acolytes] for control of forbidden magic and power supremacy.  I’m still working on the magic-system. 

Which brings me to the major villain I mentioned at the top of this post.  For the past couple of days, I’ve been obsessed with one of the lesser-developed villains in my [Arcane Series].  His conceptual name is the [Savant] and he has great magical super-powers that I’m not yet ready to reveal.  But let’s just say that his unique talents are sought by both rival factions, and that he is a danger to himself and to others if his powers aren’t safely harnessed and properly controlled.  The [Arch-Sorcerer] villain secretly takes an interest in his talents and has sinister plans for him in the future.  All I can tell you now is that he will have a profound affect on many characters and plots in my [Arcane Series].  He is my “fallen hero” and the first I’ve developed with a negative character-arc.  Exciting stuff!  More details later.

Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place.  She should have been posed against a background of sea clouds, painted masts, and wheeling gulls.  There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes.  And that was as it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever seafarers gather.
— (Excerpt from, Red Nails, by Robert E. Howard)

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
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Plotting and Plodding Along

Two weeks into ROW80 (Round 3) and I’m still trying to outline the various stories I have for my “Sword & Sorcery” universe.  Either time is racing by too quickly or I’m just a slow writer (maybe both, probably neither).  Actually, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about story-crafting this week.  I’ve learned that outlining is a whole different mindset from idea-creation.  Up until now, I’ve let my Muse run wild in the wilderness so that she can freely create fascinating characters and situations for my story-world.  She has done a wonderful job so far and I thank her for that.  It’s always best to keep my Muse and my Inner-Editor separated from each other if any story-crafting is to get done.  My Inner-Editor doesn’t play nicely with her, so I keep him locked away in a dark cage while she’s frolicking in the sunshine.  But now that I have a few basic characters and story-ideas, I need to take the next step and give them story structure.  That’s where my Inner-Editor comes in.  So out from his cage comes my Inner-Editor and into the shadows hides my Muse.  It’s his job to organize my Muse’s chaotic mess of fragmented ideas and concepts and to try to put them into some sort of coherent story-telling structure.  His analytical-mind gives direction and form to her ethereal creations.  I’m learning that this process takes longer than I had expected it to take.  Whereas my Muse’s creative-mind is agile and fluid, my Inner-Editor’s analytical-mind is slow and methodical.  This probably explains my slow progress right now.  But that's okay.  That’s how it should be, I guess.  After all, outlining is one the most important aspects of story-crafting, so I can't just skim over it.  It’s the spine of my story-skeleton.  Once this outlining process is relatively complete, I will shove my Inner-Editor back into his cold, dank dungeon where he can do little harm to the creative process.  I’ll then coax my Muse out of the shadows again so that she can scamper within the boundaries of the new playground he has built for her.  So that’s where I am right now; hyper-analyzing every story possibility with my Inner-Editor.  I’ve made some good progress towards a couple of my stories this week.  Most of my previously created characters have been just standing around, waiting for their first adventure.  Well, this week, my Inner-Editor has giving one of my main characters purpose.  This hero has been matched with a worthy opponent, both of them having conflicting story-goals.  Knowing the opposition has made structuring his first story easier.  I’m still trying to decide on the main dramatic situation and possible subplots, but I’ve made headway with this particular character.  I’ll detail that progress more in my next post.

His eyes swept the blood-stained ranks, seeking expressions of wrath or jealousy.  He saw none.  The fury was gone from the ebon faces.  He realized that to these men Bêlit was more than a woman; a goddess whose will was unquestioned.  He glanced at the Argus, wallowing in the crimson sea-wash, heeling far over, her decks awash, held up by the grappling-irons.  He glanced at the blue-fringed shore, at the far green hazes of the ocean, at the vibrant figure which stood before him; and his barbaric soul stirred within him.  To quest these shining blue realms with that white-skinned young tiger-cat — to love, laugh, wander and pillage — “I’ll sail with you,” he grunted, shaking the red drops from his blade.
— (Excerpt from, Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard)

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