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Do The Write Thing
Jan. 20th, 2003 01:49 pmMore updates on my life, as it applies to writing. Fear my mighty keyboard, small heads!
First, the fanfic. RAZOR is slowly killing me. I've never been as frustrated with a project as I am on it. The third part is fully plotted, with about a third of it written. I know exactly what I want to say and where I need to go. But I can't. For some reason, everytime I sit down and hammer out a couple of thousand words for it, they turn into garbage. Horribly stilted prose, stock dialogue, murky descriptions; it's like my writing ability turns into trach as soon as I work on it.
To elaborate, I've written over 15,000 words on the third part, and I have keep about 3,000. I just can't seem to get back into the groove on this one story, yet have no problems on other works. Have anyone ever run into a problem like this? A story where, for what ever reason, you just can't seem to move forward on? I'd love to hear some suggestions, because at this point, I've planning on shelving RAZOR for a few months and seeing if coming back to it later helps.
OLD SOLDIERS, NEW WOUNDS is almost ready for beta. It's an Ult-X/Ultimates story about Cap and Cyclops, focusing on the change between the mores and attitudes of the early 40s and modern day. I've had to rein in the darker aspects I was going to infuse Cap with, but have found I can still softshoe a lot of the East Coast racial profiles of the time. Rereading a lot of period novels and articles from the time, just to get his voice down. Fortunately, Miller has left Cyke's origin pretty open, so I can play around with that as well. While writing it, a sci-fi story called THE TIME TRAVELLER came to mind, about a man who spent 20 years in a third world prison, with no access to news or anything, and trying to readjust. Cap's got 60 years of intense changes to deal with, and the story's gained a lot more depth while working on that angle. I need to redraft the beginning and tone it up a bit before beta. Maybe in Febuary or March.
FALL ON YOUR KNEES is clipping along at a nice rate. It's rather fun to write, playing heavily with the lush British arcana history and the many borrible horrible things that come with it. Working on the direct nature of magic itself and how to manipulate it; tumour golums, demons from the past, punk music. The only part that I'm having difficulties with is, of course, the Buffy characters. I've still seen less than half of the series, and I don't feel comfortable enough with the characters to just wing them yet. Fortunately, I'll get to plow through season 3 before I post, and I've been reading a lot of transcripts. The plot itself is turning into a very nasty little tale; that fun 'mistep just a fraction and find yourself in a new reality' British horror/fantasy. Layering on top of that the intense weirdness of Lord Fanny and John's worlds. It's a lot of fun, and writing very quickly. I'm really not focusing on it, but it's moving smooth enough that I don't think I'll need to do much redrafting.
Alright, non-fanfic writing. Where I am?
THE LARISSA INCIDENT is almost ready to go out for the round of magazines, to be chewed up and rejected. MANY SHADES OF NUDE is close to being finished, so I might send them out in tandem. Biggest problem I'm having is finding the right sort of magazines. I suppose the stories qualify as 'new fiction', but they lack the stylistic twists of Palanuik or Walsh. It's straight prose, about fucked up things. I used Birmingham as a model, but don't think I can get Rolling Stone or Maxim to buy it. If anyone has a good list of magazines that go for comtemporary first-person satire and social humour, let me know. I've only found a few up here.
THE SUM OF ZERO screenplay is ticking along nicely. I'm hoping to finish in a couple of months, and get it down to Xander to rip it apart. Big changes from the fanfic, obviously. However, it does have some fun bits, maintains the sheer creepiness of the original and the devious methods of death might be the hook that gets it bought. Biggest trouble of course is figuring out how to write a screenplay. I've done stageplays (my first set of published works), and radio scripts, but this is my first screenplay. I finally, after several false starts, chucked away the books and found a comfortable format. I write the environment first, in a rambling way, and then shorthand the dialogue in until I hit the end of the scene. I then go back, edit it, and put it all in proper format. Seems to be working well. Hopefully I can sell it. I atleast have the advantages of cheap accomodations in LA if I get some interest and have to fly down.
It's been an interesting year. I've gotten a lot of original work done while still cranking out my usual amount of fanfic. (I do about 6-8 pieces a year). I've got a couple of articles ready for publication, and a lot more focused ideas about future projects. It's time to see what we can do with it.
First, the fanfic. RAZOR is slowly killing me. I've never been as frustrated with a project as I am on it. The third part is fully plotted, with about a third of it written. I know exactly what I want to say and where I need to go. But I can't. For some reason, everytime I sit down and hammer out a couple of thousand words for it, they turn into garbage. Horribly stilted prose, stock dialogue, murky descriptions; it's like my writing ability turns into trach as soon as I work on it.
To elaborate, I've written over 15,000 words on the third part, and I have keep about 3,000. I just can't seem to get back into the groove on this one story, yet have no problems on other works. Have anyone ever run into a problem like this? A story where, for what ever reason, you just can't seem to move forward on? I'd love to hear some suggestions, because at this point, I've planning on shelving RAZOR for a few months and seeing if coming back to it later helps.
OLD SOLDIERS, NEW WOUNDS is almost ready for beta. It's an Ult-X/Ultimates story about Cap and Cyclops, focusing on the change between the mores and attitudes of the early 40s and modern day. I've had to rein in the darker aspects I was going to infuse Cap with, but have found I can still softshoe a lot of the East Coast racial profiles of the time. Rereading a lot of period novels and articles from the time, just to get his voice down. Fortunately, Miller has left Cyke's origin pretty open, so I can play around with that as well. While writing it, a sci-fi story called THE TIME TRAVELLER came to mind, about a man who spent 20 years in a third world prison, with no access to news or anything, and trying to readjust. Cap's got 60 years of intense changes to deal with, and the story's gained a lot more depth while working on that angle. I need to redraft the beginning and tone it up a bit before beta. Maybe in Febuary or March.
FALL ON YOUR KNEES is clipping along at a nice rate. It's rather fun to write, playing heavily with the lush British arcana history and the many borrible horrible things that come with it. Working on the direct nature of magic itself and how to manipulate it; tumour golums, demons from the past, punk music. The only part that I'm having difficulties with is, of course, the Buffy characters. I've still seen less than half of the series, and I don't feel comfortable enough with the characters to just wing them yet. Fortunately, I'll get to plow through season 3 before I post, and I've been reading a lot of transcripts. The plot itself is turning into a very nasty little tale; that fun 'mistep just a fraction and find yourself in a new reality' British horror/fantasy. Layering on top of that the intense weirdness of Lord Fanny and John's worlds. It's a lot of fun, and writing very quickly. I'm really not focusing on it, but it's moving smooth enough that I don't think I'll need to do much redrafting.
Alright, non-fanfic writing. Where I am?
THE LARISSA INCIDENT is almost ready to go out for the round of magazines, to be chewed up and rejected. MANY SHADES OF NUDE is close to being finished, so I might send them out in tandem. Biggest problem I'm having is finding the right sort of magazines. I suppose the stories qualify as 'new fiction', but they lack the stylistic twists of Palanuik or Walsh. It's straight prose, about fucked up things. I used Birmingham as a model, but don't think I can get Rolling Stone or Maxim to buy it. If anyone has a good list of magazines that go for comtemporary first-person satire and social humour, let me know. I've only found a few up here.
THE SUM OF ZERO screenplay is ticking along nicely. I'm hoping to finish in a couple of months, and get it down to Xander to rip it apart. Big changes from the fanfic, obviously. However, it does have some fun bits, maintains the sheer creepiness of the original and the devious methods of death might be the hook that gets it bought. Biggest trouble of course is figuring out how to write a screenplay. I've done stageplays (my first set of published works), and radio scripts, but this is my first screenplay. I finally, after several false starts, chucked away the books and found a comfortable format. I write the environment first, in a rambling way, and then shorthand the dialogue in until I hit the end of the scene. I then go back, edit it, and put it all in proper format. Seems to be working well. Hopefully I can sell it. I atleast have the advantages of cheap accomodations in LA if I get some interest and have to fly down.
It's been an interesting year. I've gotten a lot of original work done while still cranking out my usual amount of fanfic. (I do about 6-8 pieces a year). I've got a couple of articles ready for publication, and a lot more focused ideas about future projects. It's time to see what we can do with it.
