Category: creativity

Just a few words on AI

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Something I posted on Threads a short time ago…

I’ll only say this once because I don’t have the patience to repeat myself: My writing has never used and never will use AI. The closest I will ever get is the grammar and spellcheck in MS Word, and even then I make the final decision on it. Your not believing that is not my problem.
And why the fuck would I want to have a computer do the all the parts I love doing the most?

That said, if I’m going to provide you with any ‘process’, it’s going to be in the form of behind-the-scenes commentary just like those old school dvds. Like nerdy explanations about Tuckerizations, how I came up with the conlang, and what song inspired a particular scene. Because that’s fun too!

*

So while I’d like to pride myself on being open to learning how to use new technologies and software — to the point that I’ll even write easy-to-understand How-To’s and FAQs for others to use at my day jobs — there are just some platforms that are not built for me. I’m sure I could figure it out easily, I just don’t want to.

All those “AI” systems (and I use both terms loosely) fall into that description. I have no use for them because they’re built to do things I personally like doing myself. I haven’t even bothered to find out where they’re located other than the somewhat intrusive Copilot here on my PC. [And I turned that off as soon as it was installed.]

To me, creating something via prompts just seems so counterintuitive to any kind of creativity I’ve ever had since I was a preteen. There’s something about having to work longer than a few minutes on a text box describing what I want in excruciating detail in the vague hope that it will blorp out what’s currently swirling around my head that sounds so wrong to me. It feels like homework. I’m sure I can do it, and probably even nail it after a while, but it wouldn’t be fun.

Why? Simple: the best part of being creative is the work I put into it. It’s the most fun, the most challenging, and the part I’m most proud of. I still look at A Division of Souls, my first self-published book that came out eleven years ago and the end result of a project that started nearly twenty years before that, and I’m gobsmacked that it’s now in print, that I wrote, edited and published it myself, and even did the layout of its cover. Sure, it took time, but I’m proud of the end result, and that I’ve learned how to do it repeatedly. And each writing project demands an all-new set of rules and outlines to work on in order to give it strength and structure.

The mere idea of sitting down and writing “blorp me out a 200,000-word novel in which two aliens meet, fall in love and fight the evil demons from the neighboring planet who are trying to take over” and then spending four more hours revising and expanding and crafting that description in hopes that something cohesive and entertaining blorps out, just seems so… boring as hell.

The same goes for other avenues of the arts: I’d rather learn something new on my guitar than type a prompt saying “write me a three-minute hit song that sounds like Failure covering Death Cab for Cutie”. I’d rather keep making mistakes in my artwork and learn along the way than type a prompt saying “draw me an anime in the style of Caravaggio.”

Like I said above: why the fuck would I want to have a computer do all the parts I love doing the most?

Now, if these platforms instead created a workable and successful system of promotion work for me, considering most of us writers absolutely hate that part of the gig, then maybe I’d think twice about it.

But yeah, for now, I’m just gonna keep hammering away the old school way while listening to music created by real humans.

Songs from the Eden Cycle 4: Annotated

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

This fourth volume is my favorite of the original four volumes from the 90s, and the one that got the most play, even more than the first volume. It was made almost a full year after the third volume, when I was already coming close to finishing the first draft of The Phoenix Effect. By early 1998 I’d finally solidified the process I’d been aiming for: writing a few longhand pages before work started, and transcribing it into the computer when I got home, revising it as I go.

On a more musical note, I’d fallen deeply in love with several albums that would drop in 1998, many of which would end up with the honor of an ‘MU Legacy Soundtrack’ badge with repeated plays even when I started work on A Division of Souls a few years later. Hell, I even made several mixtapes around this time, more than I’d ever made since my high school days. Part of that was due to finally installing a cassette deck in my car. My music listening habits would expand exponentially after that.

Several of those MU Legacy Soundtrack albums would indeed get repeat plays in the mid-2010s when I revived the project for self-publishing. And by this time, I’d recreated nearly all of my mixtapes using mp3s, so they too received a welcome revisit.

SIDE 1

  1. Massive Attack, “Teardrop.” I remember hearing this track for the first time in the back room at HMV; I’d read several highly positive reviews, and when we finally got a copy of the import version of the album in, I threw it on. Hearing Elizabeth Fraser’s delicate voice over a hypnotic beat literally made me stop in place for the entire song. I may have even pulled the boss in and said “OMG you have got to hear this. This one is going to be huge.” In the context of Phoenix, it perfectly encapsulates the whole Love Conquers All theme I had going with Poe and Kai, in that ethereal and otherworldly way.
  2. VAST, “Touched”. I was handed this album by a label rep and was instantly fascinated by their sound; it was kind of a cross between Nine Inch Nails, the darker moods of 4AD, and the gloomier aspects of 80s post-punk. The whole album got a lot of play during my writing sessions, and this single served as a perfect soundtrack for when I needed to channel a lot of tension and power for a scene.
  3. Mistle Thrush, “Shine Away”. This was a local Boston band with that skirted the edges of both shoegaze and grunge, sometimes coming across as delicate and other times hitting you with a wall of sound. This track does both in a heavily dreamlike way that I loved. Another perfect song for a book soundtrack.
  4. Dishwalla, “Until I Wake Up”. I was a passing fan of them for their first album, but it was the second record And You Think You Know What Life’s About that knocked me for a loop. It unfortunately went nowhere and got no airplay, but I instantly fell in love with its harder edge and deeper personal lyricism. This track was singer JR Richards’ masterpiece about trying to maintaining emotional sanity by using sleep and dream as an oasis, and it fit perfectly with what I was trying to do with Phoenix: a story about emotional survival.
  5. Primal Scream, “Higher Than the Sun”. I’d fallen in love with Screamadelica the moment I heard it back in 1991 and I would return to it every now and again just to remind myself how wonderful it is. I’m thinking I must have gotten a used CD copy of it at this point and started playing it frequently in my writing nook once more, and the heady psychedelia of this track fit the otherworldliness of the story.
  6. Radiohead, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”. Another song that comes from the summer of 1996, when I used to listen to The Bends all the time. I’d always liked how this song evoked not so much a return to home and recognizable surroundings, but more of an uncertain placement where home and surroundings aren’t quite what they used to be. You want to feel safe but something’s keeping you from that.
  7. Hooverphonic, “Eden”. I instantly fell in love with Blue Wonder Power Milk when it came out and played the hell out of it over the next several years (I still revisit it now and again!). I’d been thinking about putting a song or two on this mix and considering its title, I felt this one fit perfectly. It’s a deeply personal song that works in the context of Poe and Kai’s relationship.
  8. Portishead, “Roads”. I remember this one being on the Dummy album, but it didn’t really resonate with me until it was used in the Tank Girl soundtrack, interestingly enough. And I’m pretty sure its use there (a mood piece where TG is finally getting a moment’s reprieve even though something bad could happen at any moment) was what made me think of it.
  9. Information Society, “The Ridge”. When Kurt Harland finally returned with the IS project, I did not expect a full-on goth darkwave sound. Still, Don’t Be Afraid worked perfectly with his songwriting style and became wone of my favorite albums that fall. In the context of Phoenix, this was around the time I really needed to take the character traits of Denni more seriously. I knew she was going to have a huge role in this expanded universe but it wasn’t really until this time that I finally figured out how I was going to approach it. This particular song inspired that: a girl given otherworldly powers but no instruction manual. How the hell was she going to deal with it?

SIDE 2

  1. Global Communication, “Epsilon Phase”. Thanks to the Invocation collection and some quick research, I discovered that the guy behind Pulusha was also part of this duo, so I just had to check it out. I picked up 76:14 first and then Pentamerous Metamorphosis right after, and discovered the latter was a remix album of sorts of Chapterhouse’s Blood Music, a shoegaze album and a favorite of mine that was sadly forgotten all too soon. It was this last track that resonated with me, a slow and meditative piece that felt like drifting through outer space, which fit perfectly with the mood of Phoenix. Not only would this song get repeat plays during my writing sessions, I also found it a perfect fit for my road trips when I was heading home in the evening.
  2. Portishead, “Half Day Closing”. Their second album seemed a bit odd and disjointed to me compared to Dummy, but it was the live at Roseland Ballroom version that caught my attention with its unsettling creeping vibe. Another example of a song that was chosen for this mix not so much for the meaning but because of its mood.
  3. Tin Star, “Raincheck”. I absolutely loved their album The Thrill Kisser, another one the label rep had handed to me saying I’d enjoy it. They were odd, twitchy, yet groovy and moody as hell, and hit all the checkmarks I loved in this kind of band. I liked the heady mood this song evoked, once again making me think of Phoenix‘s theme of discomfort at being The Other. It’s kind of a strange and almost psychedelic song in its own way, and I felt it fit well with the mood of the book.
  4. theaudience, “I Got the Wherewithal”. Another album I played the hell out of, it’s full of high-level British alt-pop goodness that could be Northern Soul one moment and gritty Garbage the next. Of all the songs on it that fit the mood of Phoenix, it’s probably this one; it’s a track that evokes disgust in enforced expectations, something the newly awakened and Vigil would be all over. Their one album is one of my favorite albums of 1998 and definitely earned its MU Legacy Soundtrack badge
  5. U2, “Love Is Blindness”. I’d also started listening to Achtung Baby again after far too long, and felt this song was another perfect fit: the desperation felt in a failing relationship which I was still dealing with on a personal level, which in a way translated to the desperation felt between the characters I was writing.
  6. Radiohead, “Fake Plastic Trees”. I was also still listening to The Bends a lot — both that and OK Computer were getting major play during writing sessions and in the back room at HMV — and I revisited this one when their video collection 7 Television Commercials came out that May. This was more a mood piece for Phoenix, much in the way most of their songs are, considering the song is about the vulnerability of putting on an act as a way of self-preservation.
  7. Hooverphonic, “2Wicky”. This could easily be seen as an addition because it’s just a simple outer-spacey mood song, but it had shown up in so many places over the last year or so (like soundtracks and compilations) that it only added to my budding love for the band. I somehow acquired an early edition of that first album when they called themselves Hoover (before the obvious legal threat), and this one always stuck out for me. I liked that it just threw random sci-fi references in there but I felt the vibe fit my book. Interestingly, this is where the collection ended for a good few months as I wasn’t sure what to add next. That is, until…
  8. Rob Dougan, “Clubbed to Death [Kurayamino Variation]”. An obvious late addition mainly because I was obsessed with The Matrix when it came out early in 1999, and its soundtrack got a crapton of play. I’m also pretty certain that I was heading down to the writing nook on an extremely consistent basis at this point.

*

This was the last of the original four volumes, but they all got a lot of play over the next several years, often while I was out for a drive. I have many memories of listening to these at night after a long day doing my Newbury Comics / bookstore run, and on my rides to and from work both at HMV and Yankee Candle. There were a few attempts at continuing the series between 2001 and 2003, a playlist created in 2012 that tied in with my ongoing revision/prep work for the now-finished trilogy, and a Songs from the Mendaihu Universe series in 2015 that tied in with the then-upcoming self-published release of ADoS, but it wasn’t until 2018 that I revived the original Songs from the Eden Cycle with six more new volumes.

I still revisit these from time to time, especially the first four when I’m feeling particularly in the mood to revisit those early years. Perhaps it’s also why I then end up feeling the urge to revisit the Mendaihu Universe with more stories. After all, I did keep it open-ended to some degree and have enough worldbuilding work made that it’s worth the revisit!

Songs from the Eden Cycle 2: Annotated

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

This volume was made not long after I came back from the long distance road trip to visit my friend. The first one came out so well, and I was really getting into writing Phoenix at the time, that I wanted to make another volume. This volume was also made mostly in the back room of the record store, grabbing songs both from my own collection and from the CDs we were selling. [I may have opened one or two just to copy some songs, then to shrinkwrap them back up afterwards.] There are a few songs from the original Vigil song list here as well. I was willing to embrace some of the much earlier ideas I’d had for the project that fell by the wayside when I worked on True Faith.

It’s also interesting how this and the next volume feel a bit disjointed, and I think it’s partly because I was making a lot of the mix up as I went along. It was less about grabbing a bunch of songs I already wanted on there and more along the lines of stuff I happened to be listening to at the moment mixed in with stuff in my collection I’d been listening to since ’95. A good portion of it is less about specific scenes or ideas and more about the mood and the vibe I was looking for at the time. This one does work, although it’s not nearly as strong as volumes 1 or 4.

Songs from the Eden Cycle, Vol 2.

SIDE 1

  1. George Harrison, “Isn’t It a Pity (Version One)”. If I recall, I think this one just happened to pop up because there had been an open copy of All Things Must Pass that needed shrinkwrapping, and as I hadn’t listened to it in ages (I had it on vinyl), I thought it would be fun to revisit it. I’d always liked this track, dire though it was, and somehow I felt it fit in with the mood of the book, specifically how the newly awakened felt disconnected from everyone. It’s also a classic example of the ‘slow build’, a technique I’ve always loved in music.
  2. The Smashing Pumpkins, “Tonight, Tonight”. I’d picked up Mellon Collie not long after it came out, and even though I felt it was a bit bloated, there were some great tunes on it, and I really liked this one. It’s the exact opposite of the previous track: a celebration of freedom, in this case the freedom given to the newly awakened.
  3. Depeche Mode, “Home”. I was listening to Ultra quite a bit at this time as it was already one of my favorites of the year to date, and the mood of the album fit my current writing project perfectly. There weren’t any specific scenes connected to this song other than a vague idea of Poe’s connection with Kai, who at this point was still a recently awakened character instead of the Mendaihu agent she became in A Division of Souls. He wanted to provide her with comfort and a place to belong.
  4. Beck, “The New Pollution”. This continues the above idea, a freshly awakened spirit feeling vastly out of place and trying to figure out their new world. “She’s alone in the new pollution” to me sounded like being given a decision: do I remain a victim, or do I make the best of it instead? I think I was also going through the same thing on a personal level at the time.
  5. Tori Amos, “Little Earthquakes”. This dates back to my post-college Boston days when someone had played it over the air on the college station in a way to grieve a lost friend. In a way it also ties in with the above idea of victim versus victor instead… to me it’s also a song about going through all sorts of personal shit, and needing to be strong about it. Something that kind of fit me on a personal level as well.
  6. U2, “Gone”. Another track from Pop, this ties in with the above as well, as to me it created an image of coming to terms with loss, and with putting so much into something and getting diminishing returns. In a way that was how my connection with my ex played out so I channeled that into the story as well: finding a reason to let go and move on. “Didn’t want it that much anyway.”
  7. Live, “White, Discussion”. I’d been a fan of the Throwing Copper album since it came out, and I quite liked the epicness of this, especially the way it doesn’t so much end as die out slowly. I also remember it showing up in the Virtuosity movie during my time at the movie theater in Somerville. I took the original idea of this song about constant debate about right vs wrong yet actually doing nothing to fix the problem, and turned it into something tied in with Phoenix. In this case, the bigotry the newly awakened would most likely have to deal with, whether now or in the future. That had always been a plot idea: bigotry against The Other, and those who are all talk and no action about it. I suppose that’s always been in a lot of my stories at the time, come to think of it.
  8. Delerium, “Silence”. I absolutely loved this track at the time, and I’m pretty sure I copped the promo copy of the Karma album by then. [I’d also been a fan of Sarah McLachlan at the time.] It got a lot of play on AOR and alternative radio that summer. This ties in with the electronica wave that I felt fit in perfectly with the project; something slightly futuristic and different from the mainstream.

SIDE 2

  1. Sneaker Pimps, “Post-Modern Sleaze [Video Mix]”. Becoming X was getting a lot of play both in the back room and during my writing sessions, as it was the perfect mood music for this project. I’d started looking into more trip-hop, and that was why I’d glommed onto Tricky’s Pre-Millennium Tension as well. This version is a bit beefier than the original album version, so instead of it feeling a bit sparse and lonely, this one feels more like driving through Bridgetown at 2am, which is totally something Poe would do.
  2. Republica, “Ready to Go [US Mix]”. I needed to put in a song with a bit of oomph in it, otherwise this mix was going to be a bit dire. Well, maybe not, as some of my gloomier mixes worked really well! Anyway — this song was still getting a lot of airplay and had that relentless upbeat drive that worked well with the more positive elements of the story idea. The bliss of the exciting parts of cyberpunk, I suppose.
  3. Stabbing Westward, “What Do I Have to Do?”. This one dates back to the summer before I started at the record store, and I always felt this one could be tied in with a scene of the recently awakened ‘rising up’ in some way. Whether that would be a positive or a negative is left up to question. I liked the idea of a character’s drive being seen as both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. That duality played a big part in this project from here on in.
  4. Sarah Brightman, “Cape Horn”/”A Salty Dog”. This, on the other hand, dates back to my days in 1993-4 living and working in Boston. I’d started listening to Dive quite often on the way to work in the morning, as it had that light pop feel that was both a bit on the retro side and also calmed my frazzled nerves a bit. The first track, basically an intro, samples 1962’s Mutiny on the Bounty before starting the Procol Harum cover. That song itself is of course about the olden days of sailing, but with this synth-heavy version it made me think about spacefaring instead. It reminded me of an anime I’d seen a year or two previous (title long since forgotten) that used the same ‘don’t know when or if I’m coming back’ melancholy during the space launch scenes. This could easily have helped shape the idea I’d had of the newly awakened souls originating from somewhere other than Earth. [The original did in fact come from my New Age reading, but my remembering the song only helped solidify that.]
  5. The The, “Good Morning Beautiful”. I’d recently read that this song was recorded in London after many bottles of booze had been consumed, and it shows, because it’s a song full of disgust and anger, as only Matt Johnson could pull off. While it doesn’t quite tie in with the Phoenix theme, it does lend itself to the antagonism that would arise between the recently awakened and those working against them. I was still big on the idea of spiritual freedom versus religious rigidity.
  6. Elton John, “Believe”. This one also dates back to 1995 when I was still working on True Faith at the time. While a lot of big name alternative and grunge sounds were coming out in the early part of that year, EJ came out with the quieter and darker Made in England, and this was the big single. I remember liking the track quite a lot and latched onto it because it had that “I believe in love” refrain that worked with the Phoenix theme, specifically the connection Poe and Kai were creating. Love conquers all.
  7. Soul Asylum, “Black Gold”. This one on the other hand dates all the way back to the 1993 Vigil sessions! It shows up on the ‘soundtrack’ notes from that time as well. One original idea I’d had was post-apocaylpse, or more to the point a post-war idea in which NewCanta (and Bridgetown, and so on) were created basically after a horrifying world war that wiped out several cities, and several decades later these sprawls were the result. ‘This flat land used to be a town’ hints at that, and this song would work as a sort of soundtrack to those first years as a prefabricated sprawl.
  8. Joy Askew, “Corrine”. This song I first discovered on one of those label promo mixes, and it does lend itself to the idea of coming out of your shell. Tying in with the Phoenix idea, it’s along the lines of “Dear Prudence” in that ‘get out of the box you’ve put yourself in’ way, which was an idea I’d had for Kai.
  9. Phish, “Free.” I’d been listening to the newish album from them and finally getting around to listening to them more often, and I liked how celebratory this was. It ties in with the previous track, uplifting in its own way. Despite all the strife and turmoil the newly Awakened were dealing with, they also knew they had a goal: to free themselves from their binds and be their true selves.

In retrospect, this volume is fascinating in that it really leans heavily on the New Age aspect of the Phoenix project, something I was still somewhat interested in at the time. It’s also interesting in that the third volume, which I’d make a few months later, had a much darker mood to it.

Early morning wake-up

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

It’s another few days ahead of waking up at stupid:early AM for the 4am shift start. I can certainly still do it at my age, even if I don’t get enough sleep the night before, though I pay for it later that day once I’m off the clock. But I keep telling myself: if I can make it through the first couple of hours when I’m solo and prepping the front end for doors open, then I’m all set for the rest of the shift when the rest of my team comes in. From there it’s a matter of not overexerting myself and taking each issue calmly.

I don’t stretch as much as I should, though I’m doing it a lot more than I used to. I’m walking a lot more, as this is a pretty big shop and I usually have a lot of things to do that take me to different departments. I average around three miles on a good day, often more! But during those quiet times when I’m filling in at the register for someone, I’ll do Rin Shima’s stretches you see above right (the cross-arm and the overhead), then I’ll do the foot rotation stretches I used to do at Yankee Candle.

I still have not been able to do any creative work while at the day job as it doesn’t really provide me with enough time for it. But I’m okay with that now. The day job is the day job and I’ll focus on that while I’m on the clock. But as soon as I’m home — well, after giving the cats proper attention and winding down with some passive internetting — I’ll get myself started with the blogging and the 750. And finally, after dinner, I’ll start working on the main project, in this case the Persistence Remaster.

Pretty much close to what I used to do at YC. Not exact, but I’m no longer trying for exact. I’m just looking for whatever works best.

Mind you, after those early morning wake-ups, I get to appreciate the days off where I can sleep in that much more.

Clarity

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

[This was also posted at my Dreamwidth blog yesterday as something that’s been on my mind lately.]

As I get older I find myself seeking clarity more and more. The problem with doing that when I was younger was that I was still stuck looking at that in terms of extreme opposites: I’m either Totally Locked In or I’m Completely Disconnected. I either have All The Feels or I’m Cynical and Don’t Give a Shit. I knew that wasn’t want I wanted, bur nor did I want to keep pretending that I could find a happy medium where I could be all at the same time. That just became emotionally and mentally exhausting.

Lately I’ve been thinking about it in terms of my own levels of media consumption. I’m not exactly talking about avoiding the online doomscrolling, though that has often been a problem. It’s more along the lines of remembering when I could consume with clarity. That is, like what I like to whatever degree, ignore what doesn’t resonate with me, and for the love of pie it’s not a contest with everyone else in the universe. Social media is fine if you set your own boundaries and catch yourself when you’re slipping into obsession, or the fear of missing out.

That was my issue: I’d set those boundaries and then completely forgot about them because my brain is wired to obsess. [Thus my ridiculously large music library.] I realized this when the pandemic started and made inroads to rewire my head a bit. It took a few years considering it had gotten out of control like weeds in an untended garden, but I got there eventually. There’s always weeding to be done, but it’s much easier to do now.

And now I’m at a point where I can do a bit of fine-tuning. With age and experience — and a rewired brain — I can say, ‘okay, this is where I want my head to be at, so let’s head in that direction.’ Listening to my favorite music from the past is helping, because I’m purposely not doing it only as a way to reminisce. I’m currently listening to the stuff from 2002-2003 while I work on the Remaster Edition of The Persistence of Memories. I’ve been posting the Thirty Years On series at the music blog and talking about 1996 (and continuing into 1997 because why not). And the long-game reason for doing this has to do with rewiring how I listen to current music: to once more listen to new releases that resonate with me, and to have it stay with me for more than just a few months. I know it can be done because there have been current releases that have done that (GIFT’s Illuminator album, for instance). And slowly, I’m starting to reclaim that.

It’s definitely an ongoing process, but it’s one that I’m able to control if I keep at it.

Finding a writing process

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

[NOTE: The below is mostly from my 750Words entry from yesterday, but I felt it worth sharing here.]

We were talking the other day about Your Name — one of my all time favorite movies — and how, when we went to see it in the theater in Japantown awhile back, I was reminded of just how perfect a movie it was. Every part of the story has meaning, is there for a reason, and is woven into a rich tapestry. It’s a perfect example of what I like to call ‘they’ve done their homework’. There are very few movies, books, and music that resonate with me that deeply (The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity is a current one, of course) but as I’d said to A yesterday, I always saw that movie as a benchmark for me to achieve with my own writing. I doubt I’ll ever reach the levels of Makoto Shinkai, but it gives me a firm goal to work towards.

I think that’s close to where I reached with the Bridgetown Trilogy, and especially with The Persistence of Memories. It wasn’t just a perfect storm of positive personal life, great music and a wave of unbridled creativity. Those things of course fueled it, but it wasn’t entirely borne out of it, now that I think about it.

I’d gone into the trilogy with a few things on my mind:
–This would be the end result of a long-simmering project dating back to 1993, so I did not want to do a half-assed job of it.
–I had such a deep well of ideas for this created universe dating back to the same time, and I did not want to waste any of it.
–I was at a day job at a warehouse where I didn’t have to waste much-needed brain power problem solving (the most pressing things I had to think about were building pallets neatly and correctly, where to stage them, and how to get them to fit onto the truck), which meant that I could spend most all of my waking hours focused on my writing.
–I knew that if I stopped and ‘took a few days off’ I’d get lazy and miss even more writing days, which was part of my undiagnosed ADHD issues, so I purposely drove myself to hyperfocus on the writing instead…while also ensuring that I kept it fun for myself. It was a balance between wanting to reach word count and becoming super excited about wanting to keep this story alive.

And to tie in with what I was saying above: this was a story where ‘I did my homework’. The further along I went with it, the deeper and richer it became. And the wild thing is that most of this happened in my head, because I was really not that much of an outliner! Like I’ve said numerous times, the most I ever planned out with the trilogy was maybe three or four scenes ahead, or maybe one or two chapters ahead, and even then it was less an outline than a vague list of beats to hit as I came up with them.

All the while, I was keeping multiple character threads going in my head. Caren and Poe were focusing on two things: balancing their own spiritual awakening while protecting Denni; Anton knew he wasn’t in charge but had to make it look like he was; Natianos believed he was pulling the strings but didn’t expect Denni and Saisshalé to take over; Nehalé was going through a crisis of faith; and so on and so on. This is why the scenes are set up as they are: they focus mostly on the important character in that particular scene, fully and with deep immersion. The other characters might have been in the scene as well, yet I would only focus on their reaction (or non-reaction) in a later scene. Everything and everyone was interwoven into this story, but I had to see the separate threads going.

Looking back on it, it’s kind of amazing that I did that with my first professional novels. I did it to a much lesser extent with the standalones, but that’s because they didn’t need that much intensity. It was a process I came up with on my own, one that worked for me, and one I still use to some degree. In fact, I’ve been contemplating following my own example with another attempt at rewriting Theadia. The only reason I’d stepped away from that process was because the Trilogy had been such an incredibly long project that I needed to try something small and compact — both to give myself a mental break and to see if I could pull it off.

Like I said, I don’t expect to hit Shinkai levels of perfection, but I remain inspired to at least ‘do my homework’ and write the best work I can.

Adjust as necessary

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I’ve just come up with an idea that could possibly help me with my creative outlets, and it’s not about bringing the whiteboard schedule back. I’ll admit it worked for me quite well in the past, but over the last couple of years it’s lost its appeal and felt more like a deadline than a guideline. And the more I missed those deadlines (whether due to Real Life Stuff or Day Job schedule or something else), the more frustrated I started to feel.

As you can see, I’m trying to get back into my regular blogging schedule. It’s one that’s worked well for ages and doesn’t use up too much of my time, as long as I’m not writing the entries at the last minute. And I’m hesitantly trying to get back into my daily words at 750Words, which I’d also put aside for a couple of months. I’m not exactly daily yet with that, but I’m getting there. I’ve turned the morning notifications back on in the hopes that it’ll help inspire me to return there more often.

Right now I only have two calendars, as I’ve retired the whiteboard. One is my Zen-a-Day that’s on my desk, which essentially serves its intended purpose as something to think about during the day. The other is the monthly calendar that’s hanging just above my PC tower. In the past I used to put my day job hours on it, along with any other events A and I would be going to. Right now it’s pretty empty.

But while working on today’s 750Words, I thought (and wrote): How about this: on Sunday, when I’m doing my PC cleaning and house errands, why not plan out the rest of the week? Make some time for some creative outlets. Instead of a schedule, at the start of each week I can say something like “hey, let’s work on a comic on Thursday since I have that day off”. I have Sundays off for the most part and do in fact use that day as a ‘cleaning and errand day’, so I think that would be a perfect time to block out an hour or two without it being rigid or repetitive. This would give me more flexibility for anything that might arise scheduled or not, and I can work around other things that might be going on. And most importantly, it gives me a positive thing to look forward to.

Whether this will work out will of course depend on how much energy and dedication I put into it. The whole point is to build up those creative muscles again yet still retain the ability to adjust as necessary.

Slow going

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I admit I am a bit frustrated that it’s taking me forever to finish Theadia. My writing sessions lately have been sluggish and not all that productive, getting only maybe a few hundred words at most, and often quite less. Right now I’m stuck on a scene that’s taking me forever to get through, mainly because I have only the vaguest of ideas of what I want to do with it. [There’s also the fact that I’ve been dealing with spring allergies lately, which have been leaving me with less energy than I usually have.]

As always, the only thing I can do right now is power through.

Meanwhile, what else is happening on the creative front? Well, not all that much at the moment, sadly. I’ve been kind of delaying that more than I really should. Perhaps it’s a mix of not wanting to force myself into anything else at the moment and the fact that I’m still getting used to my recent job transfer. Not that it’s harder or more stressful, quite the opposite; it’s actually that it’s taking time for me to get used to not stress-working through multiple responsibilities (each with constantly shifting priority levels). This change in stress levels means that my body is responding in kind, suddenly realizing wait, you mean I can finally relax? SWEET! I’m sure it’ll balance out eventually and I’ll be back to normal soon.

I remember this happening when I left the Former Day Job six years ago. I had no idea how flipping exhausted I was then, and it took quite a few months for everything to go back to normal. I don’t expect it to take nearly as long this time of course, but I’m still a bit impatient about it.

Like I said, powering through.

Unplugging

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

So here I am listening to the new album by London dreampop/shoegaze band deary, and it got me thinking about how waaaaaaaay back in the day, I used to listen to Cocteau Twins to allow myself a bit of a dive into another world. This kind of musical genre, with its heavy wall of reverb guitars, slow dreamlike melodies and otherworldly vocals, always brings up the same sort of imagery in my head: the sound of walking deep in the woods, far away from any other sign of civilization. Sometimes it’s dark, sometimes it’s overcast. There’s always that hint of desolation, but not necessarily in a bad way; it’s more like finding a personal moment of Zen peace.

At least that’s what used to happen back then, well before I plugged myself into the internet in the late 90s. Since then I’ve been pretending that I keep the internets and my offline brain separate, but we all know that hasn’t been happening for ages now. My brain just loves that dopamine hit, especially when it’s getting drunk on constant music listening, socializing and constant movement of thought with nary a moment’s peace. Where does the real end and the cybernetics begin at this point?

Anyway, this is not so much about unplugging as it is another chapter in me Getting Older and finally deciding to detach myself from the multiple races my head is trying to keep running. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t all terrible, you know. I’ve met all kinds of neat people over all those years, some brief acquaintances and some long-lasting friendships. Learned a lot of really cool things, discovered all kinds of awesome music, been inspired to write stories.

But somewhere along the line my brain rewired itself when I wasn’t paying attention and I was too lax about backing away when it became too much. Instead I did what I often did during those same teen years when I listened to that same dreamlike music: I spiraled instead. I dove in to see just how far and how long I could keep taking it all in. And I had one hell of a voracious mental appetite.

So here I am, older and (hopefully) wiser, finally deciding it’s time to unplug from all that nonsense. It’s been an interesting run, but it was full of mental and emotional exhaustion. I’m not completely disconnecting from the world, of course. Just no longer spending every waking moment at top volume. I’ve distanced myself from a lot of things over the last couple of years already, so this is nothing new. It’s just deciding to go a bit further and relocating that mental and emotional Zen peace, and making that the new norm.

Here we go

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Latest revision of Theadia complete? Check.
All needed changes and updates complete? Check.
Continuity and timeline issues fixed? Check.

Now to finish the damn thing already. And I’m nervous as hell. I kinda sorta know how to finish the novel? Maybe?

This feels very similar to sixteen years ago when I finished The Balance of Light after a nearly four year hiatus. It’s not a block so much as there are a lot of moving parts that I need to weave together in a coherent and believable fashion, and I’m a bit nervous about nailing the landing. After all, I’ve never written a story like this before so this is all kind of new and I want to do it right the first time.

I’ll be honest, though — I’m not the least bit worried about hitting any deadlines, because it’ll get done when it gets done. By the time I’m nearing the finish line with my stories, my pace is even and deliberate. I trust my instincts to know when and how to write the final sentence. [And as an aside, to answer the question of how do I know when I’m finished?: I tend to go with an open-ended denouement scene as those are my favorites. This story ends here, but there’s always another new and different one just around the corner. It provides a needed finality for the character and the story (and the reader), but with a reminder that life now and in the future remains in constant motion.]

If I had to guess, I’d say there’s at least five to ten more chapters left. We’re pretty much at the climax of the storyline, I just need to crest that wave and ride it to completion. And since I’ve never written what is essentially a space opera (at least my version of one) before, there’s certainly a lot of unique worldbuilding I have to keep in mind while gathering all the story threads together. It’s deliberately messy and chaotic, but it also has its own deliberate logic that runs throughout the novel. It’s a war story as seen from the standpoint of civilians instead of soldiers (although soldiers — or in this case, pilots — have a major role). It’s more about the war that takes place between citizens and those in charge than it is about the enemy rushing the front lines.

How will this play out in the next couple of months? Who knows? But I certainly hope I’ll be able to pull it off!