The Ramblings of my Disorganised Mind

So, what's been happening?

That is both a rhetorical question and a literal one. As in, literally, I would love to hear how things have been going for everyone who reads here (feel free to post comments), and rhetorically, because it's a title for the post of "what's been happening here" with me, thanks to those who've asked.

Let's see. Nothing terribly exciting with me in particular, but my kids are doing well.

I've had the flu, again, of course, and Conjure, the NatCon here in Brisbane at Easter, went very well. In fact, I think the worst complaint that came back to me was "too well organised". I can live with that. Certainly, the crew that worked on the convention happen to be a group that work particularly well together, even with any personality quirks and complaints, etc., we work it out and get on with it. Good bunch.

120 hours of stuff in 10 days in the time leading up to the con, though. I look back on it and go, "how??" Also didn't have a lot of time at the con itself, to catch up with friends, etc. In fact, apart from dinner on Friday (thanks Gillian!) and a sit-down on Saturday night when I was feeling harrassed anyways so wasn't great company (sorry Keith), I literally didn't stop until the masqu. on Sunday night, and even then, only after the belly dancers left. Then it was back to it on Monday *grin* This is not a complaint, of course, that's the way it is and I didn't mind.

So, most of the time, the only chance I had to talk to anyone was if they were volunteering with me or I was doing something for them, so sorry to anyone I didn't have a chance to talk to. Poor Sean had an awful neck that weekend; he was full of apologies but I don't think he had anything to apologise for!

Kate, Rob, Rob and I also managed to win a Ditmar Award for "Best Professional Achievement" for Clarion South 2005. That was nice. Thanks to all who voted. :-)

Which brings me to Clarion South... January 2007. Applications closed at the end of June, of course, so I've been busy (I'm apps director, for anyone who doesn't know). The good news for anyone who's waiting is that we should have our decisions made by next week, so expect an announcement from me soonish, depending on how quickly the successful applicants get back to us (we have them confirm before publicising the list).

My mum's hubby hadn't been well, either, but is much better now, thank goodness.

My eldest son will turn 16 in September and has left school. He is doing a worklink programme instead (combination of yr 10/TAFE/work experiance and job education) and is happy with that. #6 turns 5 on Friday! #5 joined the school's marching band and #4 got straight A's on her report and is going strongly with her choir. #3 has imprioved at school, #2, er, hasn't, but we're working on it.

On the writing front, I made the decision late last year not to take on extra studies this year. At the time, it was because #6 child was going into pre-school and I had no idea what his schedule would be like, but I'm awfuly glad now, given the work that was Conjure - at about the time sem 1 university finals would have been held/assignments due! Hoi!

So, I decided that once Conjure was over, I would reduce the amount of stuff I'm doing in the Arts Industry itself and use the second half of the year to actually write. I believe that this involvement is actually one of my procrastination strategies - I'm literally too busy to write. So, I decided not to take on the presidency of Fantastic Queensland (presuming I would have been elected at the EGM, that is), or actually run for any committee offices at all (it helped that the EGM happened at a time I was particularly stressed out and ill, so when D called me and said, "well?", I said, "only if no-one else is available, but rather not." Someone else was - hi Ben! - so all is good. Ben Perrett should do a great job).

So, now that Clarion South apps are about done, I have no Arts Admin to do until the workshop in January. Of course, there's still running the kids around to everything, but that's unavoidable and I don't mind that.

Anyhooo... in order to kick-start me back on the BethDane project, I joined the QWC (Queensland Writer's Centre) and their "Express year of the Novel" with Louise Cusack. I've worked with Louise before at EnVision, although not on this project. I'm finding it very helpful: I'm crystallising elements of the plot that had been irking me and also am finding the love of the project again. Also, I am in the position where I have deadlines to work to - and I find that I work much better with deadlines.

Louise also did a very good mini exercise yesterday where we listed why we write, which gave me furiously to think, because I've been wondering that myself lately, as in, I really had no idea, because I didn't kinda "love" it any more, but I still think it's what I'm "supposed" to be doing.

In my case, I've always written. I've always read books, and from the time I could consider writing stories, I used to write. When I was littler, one of my favourite series of books was the Trixie Belden books (girl detective). I used to write my own girl-detective-with-a-group-of-friends in exercise books. My #2 son does the ame thing now, but with fantasy stories. I recognised the signs right away. Thing is, come Hell or high water, that's what I do. It's all I know; that I must write. And neither #2 son or I will ever be truly happy unless we're writing at some level. Publication is not as important to me... but it'd be nice (and I can't help but wonder if there isn't that "fear of success" thing happening but we addressed that subject yesterday, too).

Louise made a good point, too: not everyone can write. Not everyone has "voices in their head" and a need to write. People who do are the type of people who write, just as some people are talented at music and others at mathematics, and still others at athletics. Yet, while no-one would think twice about people who pursue maths or athletics or music as being talented in that area and feeling OK to say "I am in that club", writers tend to apologise a bit for their special talent and try to downplay it.

She's right, of course. So I'll stop doing that.

The other thing I realised is that I'd been "writing as a challenge" for so long that, now that this challenge is gone, I stopped writing because I'd been focussing incorrectly. What I mean is: for so long, I'd been writing to "prove" to a certain ex-husband that I could do it; that I wasn't wasting my time and it wasn't "just a hobby".

Thing is, at one point, the ex stopped being able to press my buttons and I no longer cared what he thought as a consequence. I still don't. This is healthy.
Unfortunately, because I'd been writing out of escapism and revenge (for lack of a better word) for so long, I'd lost my original love of it, and along with it, my ability to actually get a story from my head seamlessly, without losing interest in a project very quickly. For the last 2 years, I've been writing on and off because I thought I had to, you know, so many people had helped me with projects, I'd been saying that's what I did and I'm not a liar, sense of obligation, etc., etc., etc. Now, I'm finding that love and excitement again.... back to who I was before the damage was done. Yay.

:-)

We also went into the concept of a "scene". What is a scene, as opposed to a chapter or a narrative summary?

It works like this:

A scene:

1. Takes place in real time
2. Has a setting
3. Contains dialogue and/or action
4. Moves the story forward

"Moves the story forward" means that it creates a meaningful change in the character, either positively or negatively expressed. If your character and story are in exactly the same place as they were when the scene started, then it isn't useful for the book. Scenes can be any length, and may also be cut in the middle (as, say the end of a chapter - a "cliffhanger").

An example of "meaningful change" could be a change in circumstances, attitude or character, in a way that either creates a move forward or a setback for the story or character.

Scenes are important for characterisation.

Narrative summary:

lets the reader know what happened without dragging the reader through all of the details when:
1. nothing all that important is happening, ie "he ate breakfast" rather than, "he walked down the stairs, took the cereal out of the cupboard, put it on the table, went to sit then realised he'd forgotten the milk..." etc.
2. when you're repeating something done before, ie you may describe the first time your wizard castys a spell but it'd get boriong if you did that every time... or you may describe that first important kiss, but "he kissed her goodbye" is probably all you need after that.

"Flashbacks" can be scenic or summary-ic (hehe) but are, according to Donald Maass, deadly to a "breakout novel." (Read his book "Writing the Breakout Novel" to see why).

Create tension by: resisiting the urge to explain (fortunately, I can resist the urge to explain but often create confusion instead! Will work on that).

Use setting in an emotional context to evoke a mood. (This was explained in the same way Louise explained "atmosophere" to me a couple of years ago).

Louise also gave us an anatomy of a plot structure (a certain someone can pay attention to this and you know who you are... how was the move, btw? :-P).

This is Louise's work, btw, not my summary:

Beginning (about 25% of the book):

Introduce characters .... main chars
Critical moment .... introduce the conflict [the end of the beginning].

Middle (the middle 50% or so):

Rising Tension .... external and internal conflicts stir things up
Point of no return .... main char takes life-altering action, nothig is the same.
Crisis (climax) ....... te main char's goal appears unachieveable [the beginning of the end]

End (25% although this can be ver flexible, ie the crisis and the end often happen right on top of each other):
Resolution/denoument........ goal is achieved or lost and the aftermath

All very helpful in crystallising my book. :-)

In a series, like mine is, of course, you have a double structure going: the structure for each book (even in a run-on series, each book should have a single line that is resolved by the end of it), and the structure for the overall series.

Keeping track of them both is fun, especially since I don't really know what's happening with book 4 (the last one) yet. Exactly. I have a fair idea of where it's going though. In fact, I can't see how it can be different, although I have an "everyone's happy" ending and a "goal reached but at a price" ending which I think is less of a cop-out but may be more what the genre this book is in would be prepared to bear. We'll see.

The good news is that I already did some of this unconsciously but the trick is to do it all consciously so you're aware of what you do when you write. Without conscious awareness and acknowlegment of what you're bad at, and yes, what you're good at, too, then you can't grow or improve.

And that improve thing is kinda the point, really. Especially in my case: I'm coming into this project with it completely cold and am horrified at how awful it is!

Anyways, I have promised my "table group" at EYON that I will keep them updated on the project I'm working on so I'll post them here rather than bothering the whole group with my ramble *grin* You guys should feel free to use my comments section to do the same if you want to. :-D

This month, the homework is:

1. Split up the scene list we did for last month's homework into the sections, "beginning", "middle" and "end."
2. 2 posts to the Yahoo list.
3. Design a calendar of events.

I get to cheat a bit on the last one as I did one long before I started writing the current project, back when my name was still "Gent" and I was writing Age of Wonders fan fic Hehe. Mind you, many things have changed in the writing of it so I'll have to overhaul it (like I did my scenes list, gods that was a long process).

I have also set the following goals (this is for the fellow students to check up on me for *grin*):

1. Finish all the unfinished added/summarised stuff, in vomit-style. About 6 chapters, all up.
2. Rearrange the plot as I'd written yesterday and rewrite chapters as per notes from yesterday (about 2 chapters).
3. Start rewrite.

I am not too much of a hurry to do point 3, as 1 & 2 will probably bring up extra chapters to cut, etc. But I'm also in the process of making 1 book into 2 books while keeping the current end as the end of book one. If that makes sense.

I won't be able to do the redone scene list if I don't do 1 & 2 though. Having said that, if I manage to get to # 3, then I will also get my 10 pages to Louise in September. I should.

Believe it or not, I also have another project I want to finish: I have an agent who wants to see it. So I have a bit of a dilemma. I can work on both, I may time-table it. I will get the first draft of the timeslip project done first, then go back to this one. It's only about 80,000 words, so that'll work. I hope.

I am committed to 2 four-hour blocks of time on Thursdays and Fridays when I don't have anything else on, plus Wednesdays that #6 is at preschool. The only thing I will "allow" to be on is stuff pertaining to the kids. eg, this week, I have to take #3 on an excursion on Thursday but I will still have an hour before that. This week, the Wednesday is a write-off as the pre-school has an excursion and needs an adult:child ratio of 1:2. Friday is good though, and I have some time today & tonight as well.

I let you guys know how it's going as I go.

posted by Heather @ 8:26 am