That one thing...

Don't you love how sometimes you are writing and you're really not liking what you're writing, but you're writing it anyway and your characters are being boring and your writing is boring and then all of a sudden, one of your characters does something that seems completely innocuous, but that gives you an idea for something else and then all of a sudden, you realize what you need to fix in those characters' relationship and this was all because you really hated what you were writing and one of your characters just did something boring?

Then...

Don't you hate it when you seem to have finally figured out how to fix your plot and your characters suddenly seem to make sense and everything seems to have fallen into place and then you realize that you seem to have completely lost sight of what you were originally going for in the whole project and your story seems to be a slough of cliches and you're doing all the wrong things and you're not sure if your characters are going to work and you're wondering just how you're going to get back on track?

Feet on the ground...

So I was watching Coraline for the first time today. Wow. The visuals were uh-maze-eeeeng and I constantly had to remind myself that was all done with stop-frikking-motion. Utterly blew my mind.

Anyway, as I added it to my mental list "Neil Gaiman books I've read/movies I've seen", I was momentarily discouraged. For a long, aching moment, I wished I could be the prolific literary genius that is Gaiman. I mean, how could I, a little girl not even quite twenty, even aspire to be as successful as someone like the Neilster? He is a giant and I am a nobody. He's written reams of award-winning novels/plays/comics/everything and I'm barely scribbling lately. How can I even attempt to write heartwrenching stories full of vibrant characters and rich plot when there are people out there who do it so much better than I do? How dare I even want to try?

Reality check, chicky-dee.

I am only nineteen. I'm barely an adult. It's not like you have to come out of the womb a genius. It's not like I have to instantly be a brilliant writer. Neil himself wasn't published until twenty-three. I have time to make a name for myself. You have to start somewhere.

Neil's been writing for decades now. He's had time to hone his craft and it took him years and years to build up the reputation he has now. It's not like he was an instant household name the first time he was published. I'm still just scribbling things, still learning. I've only been seriously writing for eight years, but half of that was mostly just learning how to build a cohesive story.

So, rather than be discouraged by the fact that I'm not Neil Gaiman or J.K. Rowling or Isaac Asimov, I need to just remember that I'm still young, they started out nobodies too and that just because I'm not famous doesn't make me any less of a writer. I have just as much potential as they do and it's my job to make something out of that, rather than whine about how I'm still at the bottom of the food chain. So, I need to get off my duff and start actually writing so that I can look Neil Gaiman in the eye and say,

"Hi there. I'm a writer too."

Writing magazines...

I was given a subscription to Writer's Digest as a gift a while back and it just expired last month. I was always excited to open the mailbox and find my copy of WD, but I can't say it always "spoke" to me as a writer. I think this might be a) because I'm not in the market trying to publish right now and b) it is not a discussion.

I have never tested the publishing waters, so I can't even say whether any of the dozens of articles of advice on the subject in WD will help me down the line. I'm only interested in the writing aspect of writing right now. Even reading interviews with authors, I tended to skip their "how I made my big break" stories, preferring to read their methods or silly little anecdotes. Not to say I never want to be published, but the columns and columns of publishing "how-to" is not what I want right now.

Instead, I've recently rediscovered the amazingness of writers' blogs. Besides being mildly obsessed with Two Swords, One Pen right now and trawling through some recent recommendations made to me, I've been searching lately for writers' blogs. Not necessarily published author's blogs (though not necessarily not), just people who enjoy the craft of writing.

I enjoy reading people's trials, tribulations and successes in their writing. I enjoy reading their musings about elements of writing. I enjoy reading the ramblings of a writer who can't seem to find the words to describe a particular concept and so forces me to try and put my own words to it.

I think I've been spoiled on Young Writers Society with its vast community constantly teaching one another. Rather than someone coming down all high and mighty to instruct us lowly scribblers on how to do something, I much prefer a group of people hashing it all out together. You don't have to take any one person's method as absolute, but can glean and modify it all.

I enjoy the discussion almost as much as the solution. And I love reading about writing. So, as much as I did enjoy digging into my latest copy of WD, I don't think I'll be renewing my subscription. I think it's time for some hardcore blog searching.

Losing your voice...

The one of the worst parts about leaving a project alone for too long is losing the voice you had for the characters.

When I'm constantly working on a project, the voice just seems to flow. All the prose fits together and it feels like it all belongs to the same story. Or at least it's not too disjointed.

But sometimes, when I leave off for a few days or a few weeks and come back, it takes time to get back with the voice of the story. I have to read over what I've already written and try to continue from there. But even then, there is often a lag between where I left off and where the voice comes back correctly.

It also doesn't help if I read something with a very distinctive voice in the interlude between writing. It tends to affect my voice when I pick my writing back up.

Writing again...

My editing isn't going as smoothly as I wanted and I've been distracted by other writing projects, but at least that means I'm writing again, which is good.

So, based on that recent phase I went through with Pitch Black, I started scribbling with a character history in mind, tentatively calling the whole thing "Jail Bird".

Yet, this project seems to be expanding without my consent. After having just brainstormed for a bit on that particular idea, I found a prompt on the Cool Bits generator and decided to try and hash out a short story. Thing is, the short story idea that popped into my head is the perfect companion story to "Jail Bird", as sort of an in-between-quel. And it could stand alone because it involves a character who leaves "Jail Bird" for a time and none of the events really tie back into the main story beyond containing some of the main characters. Basically, it's that character's exploits in the period between rejoining "Jail Bird".

So the question is: should I try to write both of these pieces at once? I am sorely tempted. I want to be writing again. I guess I'll take a stab at it and see how it turns out, no?

Editing be my bane...

Gah, editing is bringing back into full view how slow the pace of my first few chapter. *sigh* It was pretty slow.

Yeah... Reeally slow... So the problem is to figure out how to get the information in those chapters (which is fairly important to Red and Quina's relationship) into the second draft without being so mind-numbingly boring.

Anyway, also started writing out a monologue/prologue-type thing based on a burst of inspiration from Pitch Black (seriously, I've watched this movie like three or four times in the past few days... it's not the greatest movie I've ever seen, but for some reason I really like it... brain mush?) and actually have an idea for it, but I feel guilty coming up with it when I'm supposed to be editing.

Blargh...

Narration, narration, narration...

I love Terminator 2. It's seriously one of my favorite movies. Oh I whine and gripe about it all the time; from the acting to the time travel, I've probably complained about it at least once to my family members, who usually just nod their heads sympathetically and wonder why on earth I had to be related to them. But I do genuinely like the movie.

One of the things I like the most about it is how it does something correctly that so many movies do wrong: opening and closing narration. The movie opens with Sarah Connor narrating the history of things that have been and those that have yet to come. It ends with her acknowledging that she no longer knows what's going to happen in the future anymore. The two narrations play off each other and relate to one another and the theme of the movie, effectively bookending the film. It's quite lovely. And there's even a moment or two of narration within the body of the movie itself!

There are far too many movies out there that have opening narration, but then seem to forget it in the end. Granted, a lot of times, the narration is just to get the viewer up to speed on whatever happened in the past so they can enjoy the movie without having to see all the history leading up to the events of the movie (for example: The Dark Crystal). After the movie, the viewers are usually left to draw their own conclusions about what comes after, or it's being shown on screen and how lame is it to have something narrated to you as you are watching it happen? Pretty lame and usually completely unnecessary. I mean, in the beginning, you haven't seen any of these people or places or events before, so an introduction can be nice. By the end, however, you've been following these events for two hours and you are fairly familar with what is going down. A narrative can feel redundant unless done correctly.

But a movie done with narration in the beginning and none in the end feels so lopsided to me. I just watched Pitch Black recently (and actually enjoyed it more after the second or third watching than I did the first) and there is this great noir-type narration in the beginning by Riddick that isn't followed through anywhere else in the film. It's great narration, but the more I look at it, the less it fits with the portrayal of the character anywhere else in the film. He's an enigma in the film, both the villain and something of a hero, and you never really know what he is thinking. It's part of what makes him so badass. The narration gets you inside his head. It's badass as well, but a different tone of badass. The more I watch it, the less it seems to gel with the rest of the movie. And, to make matters worse, it is never reprised anywhere.

Yeah, it bothers me. If you have narration at the beginning of your film (this is more of a film trope in my experience), then at least try to reprise it or follow it up somehow in the end of the film. It just makes the whole experience that much more balanced. And if you can't do that, can you try doing it without narration at all? And if you can't do that, at least get someone like David Odgen Stiers to do your narration (like in Beauty and the Beast).