Tag: writing

Year End Review – Where I Am, Where I’m Not

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This past year has been a bit different than the past few on multiple levels. I went through a wave of not reading much of anything at all besides manga, graphic novels, and my own works in progress. I put considerable distance between myself and social media. I put a lot of projects aside to let myself focus on the one that needed the most attention. And of course I put my blogs on temporary hiatus.

Not that any of this was particularly a bad thing. In fact they were good things. I needed a mental and emotional vacation to put myself on stable ground once more. I wanted to give myself some time to relax without several looming deadlines, while simultaneously balancing them with the Day Job and its stable yet occasionally fluctuating schedule. I wanted to readjust my life and take it day to day instead of several events and things at once. And most of all, I wanted to get rid of all those distractions so I could remember what I needed to do to focus on said works in progress. Both Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War are all but done rough-draftwise (they’re missing their endings but I know what to put there), so I disconnected from nearly everything else to focus solely on their revisions.

On a more personal level, I suppose I’d been needing to do a disconnect for some time, considering how many distractions I’d been dealing with. A lot of them were of my own making, whether they were of the ooh shiny or the don’t wanna variety, and given how easily I can fall into both, it was a matter of returning to the old mantra that has yet to prove me wrong: just shut the f*ck up and DO it already. It’s not the dislike of the project or the action, it’s the avoidance of getting started. Once I do start, it’s smooth sailing, simple as that. [Okay, maybe not that smooth and simple, but you get my drift.]

So to answer the entry’s title: where I am, (and) where I’m not?

I am writing and/or revising daily these days, and the output fluctuates. Sometimes it’s a full chapter and other times it’s a few paragraphs, and either one is just fine by me. I’ve been doing some personal writing on the 750Words site to help push me in the right direction. I am about a quarter of the way through revising Queen Ophelia’s War, which is not bad for about a month’s consistent work. I am planning on picking up Theadia once this one is done, or close to done. I am thinking of doing a bit of social media culling and reimagining in the new year. And I am happy where I am in my personal life and writing career!

I am not trying to push myself by doing too many things at once, which can sometimes lead to the return of the don’t wannas. I am not forcing myself to write on demand like I may have in the past, though I am also not sitting here doing nothing while waiting for inspiration to strike, either. I am not letting the Day Job interfere with my writing time, and I am quite proud of that fact. And I am not giving up writing any time soon.

There are other more personal things I am and am not doing, but that’s for another entry!

Checking in: end of year plans

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Oh hey I still have this blog, don’t I? Yes I do!

Hi all, just checking in to let you know that I’m still here, still doing a lot of revision work on Queen Ophelia’s War, and it’s coming along quite nicely. I have a long way to go, but I’m going in the right direction and that’s what really matters. And while I haven’t been blogging, I’ve been thinking about what I’ll be doing here and at Walk in Silence in the coming weeks as 2023 winds down.

Right now my plan is to return here in December to start my end-of-year thoughts and reviews. Whether that will be at my regular twice a week schedule or just once a week depends on a few things.

Firstly, it depends on how busy I am at the Day Job — it is holiday season and I am in retail, after all — and one of my new resolutions is to Slow the F*** Down. [More on that in a future post.] I survived last year’s Q4 quite handily and my commute is still eight blocks long, so I should be able to do two a week. I’m purposely not holding myself to it however, because I don’t really need to force myself now, do I? One a week is a comfortable and doable goal.

Secondly, it depends on how busy I am with work on Queen Ophelia’s War. I’m still planning on this one being my next e-book release to get back on my one-book-a-year release schedule. While I don’t have a set deadline for it at this time, I don’t want to be spending forever on it, either. I still have work on Theadia and a few other open projects as well that are waiting in the wings.

That said, I’ll try to aim for December 1st as my return for this blog. See you then! And thanks for stopping by!

Fly-by: brb, going on short hiatus to write stuff

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Oh hey there! I’m going to be taking a short hiatus from the blogging to get some work done on Queen Ophelia’s War, as I’m falling behind and seriously need to get caught up. Not sure how long this will be, but hopefully not for too long. Maybe a month or so? At least until I’ve gotten myself into a better writing schedule for it.

I’m also limiting my footprint on the birdsite these days so if you want to find me online, I’ll most likely be popping up every now and again on BlueSky instead. [I have a few invite codes if anyone is not yet on there and might be interested!]

See you soon!

Outside

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A lot of my novels spend a considerable amount of time outside, and usually for a reason other than transitioning between scenes. Which is interesting, considering how much time I spend inside in real life, for one reason or another. In Queen Ophelia’s War a lot of it takes place either on wide grassy plains, rolling hills or deep woods; part of it is to evoke a strong sense of natural settings important to the story, but part of it is also to show that what takes place inside isn’t always about safety and security.

I like using the wider world as precisely that: there’s a wider world out there, bigger than what might be going on in front of you. It keeps several characters in check, from feeling completely alone. [I sometimes use the complete opposite of that for emotional punch, too. If you recall my posting of the first chapter of MU4 some time ago, there’s a world beyond what Eika sees, but as far as she can tell it’s completely devoid of any other people, giving a profound sense of desolation and abandonment.]

It keeps the plot from feeling insular, that nothing else happens outside of this one setting. I also get to use nature as part of the plot; in In My Blue World, magic is literally a part of nature in Zuze’s universe. Even in Theadia, which takes place on a planet surface, on a nearby satellite station, and in deep space, all of those locations are important to the plot in one way or another.

Do I go out of my way to write outside scenes? Not always. More often than not, they just end up there, and I’m thrilled when it happens. It means that the scene is important not just to the characters we’re focusing on, but possibly to anyone else out there, just offscreen.

Keeping an eye on things

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A funny thing happens when Jules sees a bird outside Spare Oom’s window. I have my two acoustic guitars in front of it, so when she gets excited her tail will start wagging furiously between them, and every now and again I’ll hear a twaaang twaaang twaaang behind me. She’s might not be the quickest cat (unless she has the zoomies) and she’s a calm kitty when it comes to new experiences and enrichment moments, but birds will excite her like nothing else.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, nothing all that much, but I really love this picture of her shooting daggers at two crows back in late June and wanted to share it, but if you really want to stretch a metaphor, I suppose it would be that I’ve been looking at my writing in a similar way. I’ve been making considerable efforts to turn away from distractions, which has always been one of my worst habits. And in doing this, it’s helped me become more focused on what I should be focused on. I’ve been doing my best getting work done on Queen Ophelia’s War, even despite the the day job shifts.

Other than that? Yeah, I’ll totally admit I’ve been distracted by Jules and Cali, but they’re distractions I’m willing to accept.

My favorite time of the year

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I haven’t really been able to appreciate autumn like I used to. I suppose part of it is that I now live in an area that doesn’t see vividly changing colors nearly as much as one would in New England…but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s also because I haven’t allowed myself to appreciate the season, usually due to personal and day job things going on.

This year, however, it seems things are falling into place. In working on Queen Ophelia’s War I’ve made a conscious choice to focus on what I feel, see and hear during that time of the year and insert it into the novel accordingly. The changing of the season does lend itself to the novel’s theme of the changing of life. The dichotomy of witnessing the past fade into memory and the future approach unknown. The weather becoming colder and darker. And yet on top of all that, a desperate hope that things will turn out okay despite it all.

And yes, I’m currently searching for the perfect mixtape/playlist to go along with it, and Cocteau Twins will most definitely be on it. [Any other song and band suggestions in a similar style are quite welcome, of course.]

Into the woods

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One of the motifs in Queen Ophelia’s War is the forest. I suppose it could be seen as me channeling my years back in New England, growing up in a densely wooded valley and driving all those tree-lined back roads in the 90s and early 00s. But to be truthful, I think this is more about my visits to the actual nature areas to the north of San Francisco. Muir Woods, Armstrong Redwoods, and the hills between Ukiah and Mendocino. And even the little hideaways in Golden Gate Park, Land’s End and the Presidio nearby.

Sure, ‘entering the forbidden forest’ is a classic fantasy trope, but I’ve always been fascinated by it. More to the point, I’ve loved the idea of a mystical passageway between worlds ever since I first saw that animated version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the late 70s. [This of course is one of the reasons my writing office is called Spare Oom.] The idea that just past the edge of the known is an extremely vast unknown is something I knew as a kid, and I’ve often had dreams about it. With Queen Ophelia’s War I finally decided to latch onto that idea as a whole: it’s not just about entering a different world, but about discovering oneself in the process.

As I’ve said before, I’ve written an almost complete rough draft already that I’d worked on during the height of the pandemic, so now what I’m doing is giving it more life and color. Going deeper into the forest, perhaps. Discovering what’s beyond.

Coming back again

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I think I can safely say I’ve come back around to working on Queen Ophelia’s War again. I’ve done a few single pages’ worth of work on them these last couple of weeks. Fine tuning the opening for the most part, just to get my bearings. I’m happy with what I have so far, as this has helped me figure out the pacing and the style I’ll be using throughout. There’s a deliberate flow going on here, much like Diwa & Kaffi: unrushed, but not glacial.

This novel, like Theadia, is new territory for me. It’s closer to a straight fantasy novel than In My Blue World, I think. I read a lot of that genre during the Belfry years of the late 90s and early 00s. I’d always wanted to write it, though at the time I didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off. In my usual fashion, I take the genre and give it my own personal twist: it’s less about the monsters, legends and magic and more about what’s going on within. Why the characters are who they are, and what they need to do to change for the better.

And if all goes well, then I’ll be thrilled to share this novel with you when it’s done!

Understanding the (created) world

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I’ve come to realize that out of all the moving parts in my novels, I think the strongest and most vivid part of each one is the world I’d created for it. I just find worldbuilding to be my most favorite part of writing a novel. Mind you, I’ve learned not to get too lost in it while writing, but just enough for the reader to have a visual idea of where the story takes place. But I’m not merely using it for a brushstroke or background color…a lot of the time these places are the way they are for a reasons very important to the story.

Such as in the Bridgetown Trilogy, which takes place in multiple locations: Bridgetown itself (a sprawling and crowded metropolis, signifying tension and imbalance), Bann Dassah on Trisanda (a quiet and remote area near an ocean coast, signifying peace and balance), and several other places. Or in the unnamed location of In My Blue World, seen both as a quiet small city (signifying stasis, safety and eventually boredom) and as an overpacked sprawl (signifying movement, excitement and impermanence). The world of Diwa & Kaffi uses a slightly different twist: it generally takes place in several linked areas that are already known by the characters; the role for their world here is in their experiencing these areas on a deeply personal level for the first time.

In both Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War the worlds continue these ideas: the generally known versus the experienced, safety versus threat, the group understanding versus the vividly personal. It’s one of the most important things I always need to remind myself when writing new novels: I rarely ever want to place these characters in a setting that could be anywhere; the location needs to have some kind of purpose, either directly or indirectly, and often obliquely. It not only makes the story more relatable to the reader, it also makes them feel the same underlying tension the characters are feeling.

Ready to go again

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I’ve been away from my WIPs for quite a long time, to be honest. Longer than I’d planned, but I’m okay with that. I had my reasons. But now I’m ready to get back behind the keyboard and set off on another adventure.

It just so happens that I finished up another one of my Great Reread sessions of my own work (for sequel-idea or WIP-finishing purposes) as of last Saturday evening. I finished the session with the Bridgetown Trilogy primarily to psych myself up for writing MU4, and in hindsight that was a good idea. The current version of MU4 that I’m working with resonates with the previous three novels yet stands on its own quite well, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for.

And what about the other projects? Right now I have Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War on the front burners, and Sheila Take a Bow and Walk in Silence (the book) on the back burners. And I’m fine with that. I’m not worried about not having anything brand spanking new to work on — I think I’ve finally grown out of that particular hang up. I have the stories I want to tell, and I’m ready to start writing them. And if anything new does eventually come along, well, that’s what the 750Words site is for, right?

This also means I’m ready to start reading books again! Yay! I’ve finally gotten past the reading burnout and the indifference of my TBR pile, and I’m looking forward to catching up with what I have. And I’m also looking forward to looking for new titles again, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I don’t get that burnout all that often, but I’m glad in the knowledge that when it does happen, it doesn’t last for all that long.

I’m ready to go again, and I can’t wait!