Tag Archives: novel development

Why Not Try This?

Last week, having discovered the nine-year-old post I “reposted” yesterday, I decided to put the “discoveries” I’d made therein into practice. I would take all those pesky cards with all their suggestions and ideas that I’d found so confusing, and assemble them into a list.

Except, when I went to do that, I discovered that the cards had disappeared. After a few moments cogitation, spiced with alarm at the notion I might somehow have thrown them all away,  I recalled that I’d already made a list of them, and furthermore, that it had been more or less incorporated into a very wordy and long-winded “outline.”  (I use the word advisedly. It isn’t so much an outline as a… conglomeration. Maybe a step up from the non-ordered list mentioned in the last post, but nowhere near any kind of cohesive outline.)

That I forgot having already made my list, is yet one more result of the fractured nature of my life these days. I seem to get in a couple of good days of work and then… Things Happen that I must deal with, or that distract me despite my intention not to be distracted, and when I finally get back to work, I can’t remember where I left off. That’s because I never envision the latest weird distraction that may come up to consume my time the next day and keep me away from the office, so often I don’t make detailed notes of what I must do next. (And that assumes I even know what I must do next.)

If I do make notes, when I come back to the work after the interruptions, I often can’t figure out what they mean nor recall what I had in mind when I wrote them. So once again I’m left sitting there with a feeling of confusion, my head full of whirling thoughts and ideas and ‘maybe’s,’ but nothing concrete. So there I sit, staring at the computer screen, or the papers on my desk… getting nowhere, wanting to run away, and finally recalling that I should to take my problem to the Lord, which I did.

And He delivered the following, which I happened to find amidst my papers — which is to say, I can’t recall how I found it, only that suddenly it was lying there on my desk and I picked it up. And read it:

Cobble notes card

[Transcription if you can’t decipher this:  “Here’s something I’ve been doing (22 Feb 2005): Just putting my narrative notes right into the chapter, or cobbling snatches of dialog together in order to get something going — instead of sitting down and writing the sequence out whole cloth.”]

And by “writing the sequence out whole cloth,”  I meant “start with the fully realized scene and just write it out as it might appear in the finished copy” (yes, I was delusional, but often delusional people don’t realize they are being delusional). To do that, of course, I needed to figure out all the details in advance which was where I was getting hung up.

But hey, this note from the me of the past suggested I forget about trying to make it all orderly and cause and effect and logical… instead of all that, just get the stuff down. You can always change it later.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. If Sevorius is going to walk into the room Varko is in… do I have a description of that room somewhere? Grab it and put it in. What about Varko? Do I have a description of him? Oh yes. In fact I have pages and pages of notes on him, including all manner of details. So I copied and pasted the description, and worked in some of those others notes, and  so on.

As I saw again how sometimes that was all that was needed to get a scene moving. And if not, I’d just stop, type in a

**

and move on, inserting or laying down whatever other idea/dialogue snatch I had for that character in that general section of the story. It’s what I did yesterday and I ended up with 15 pages of chapter 14 which I’m calling it done for now.

More than that, several things happened along the way that I hadn’t anticipated. For one, Sevorius is suddenly having panic attacks and he has no idea why.  For another, Varko wants him to look into my hero’s past, and suddenly a whole line of conflict I hadn’t thought of has presented itself. Yay!

Next up is chapter 15 and I’m going to continue mining my outline and voluminous notes for material to “stuff” into the chapter. That is, see if there aren’t some new interruptions – distractions – crucial errands/tasks that must be run/carried out/endured Right Now This Very Instant!!!  that I can put into my next scene.

Back to the Writing Diary

 

writing journal

Back in February of 2006, when I began my first blog  (Writing from the Edge over on Blogger), I started out by saying that since I’d been keeping a writing diary for almost as long as I had been writing, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to start one online.

Thus the tagline for that blog became “The Writing Diary of Novelist Karen Hancock” and that was the fallback formula for the posts that I aimed to publish there. If nothing else, I could always put up a writing diary entry.

So, in view of my lengthy/erratic absence from the world of blogging, I’ve decided that maybe… just maybe… I can resurrect the spark by simply going back to that earlier format. For one thing, even though I haven’t been blogging, I have been keeping a writing diary.

Today’s entry began this morning at 10:19am…

I could’ve come in (to the office) at 9:30am, but my (retired) hubby came home and discovered the hawk has gotten another pigeon — my favorite pink/red one. 🙁  I believe it was female. It got her inside the broken down pigeon coop. And there’s an egg on the nest.  So that’s disturbing.  😥

Then I called our computer fix-it guy right after that about my computer issue (last week IE-11 refused to open in the desktop and was repaired; this week it refuses to open in the live tiles, but works fine in the desktop, which is really okay, because I can do everything I need to do through the desktop and furthermore I am declaring a moratorium on reading blog and news sites, but still… it bugs me that the program is not working properly). Alas, the computer guy had never even heard of that issue. I spent last week doing all manner of things trying to resolve the issue, including running the Apps troubleshooter, which gave me some error messages, which the computer guy asked me to email to him, so I did.

Anyway, then I hung out the laundry, and now I’m in here. Just read Sarah Selecky’s letter for today, What I’ve learned so far about how to write a novel.”  Amusing and familiar and comforting. Also comforting is the fact that I’ve written 6 novels and am working on number 7 and I actually know more about it all than she does! (Seeing as she has yet to complete her first one)

It’s hard. It’s messy and confusing — in fact, she talks about confusing herself with all her notes written in little notebooks, and says next time she’ll use index cards. Ha! I confuse myself with my notes all the time and cards don’t help. (But it’s comforting to know other people get confused by their notes, too!)  I use business-sized cards to keep notes on…

notecards

…notes about possible plot events, incidents, character bits, world bits, questions… The advantage (or disadvantage) is that you can spread out MORE of the little cards than you can the index cards, which ends up being even MORE confusing! Especially when I suggest on one card that Talmas should do “A” and on the other “Opposite-A.” Which I do. A Lot…

Sarah says she “can’t work with an outline and can’t work without one.” Yes, indeed. That is SO true. At least in the beginning anyway. You can only use a general outline then… because, as another writer put it,

“How can I know what I want to write until I see what I’ve written?”

For me everything kind of goes together — plot, character, backstory, events, incidents, the climax, the spiritual analogy — and so it must emerge together. Whenever I try to get hard-nosed about any of it, I end up running into walls.

Anyway, yesterday I worked on chapter 13, which at the start was 25 pages of confusing mishmash. I’m going slowly through it this week, editing, trying to find and fix what A/Not-A conflicts I could. In fact, discovering that I had portrayed one character as being of two different opinions in the same scene because I couldn’t decide which I wanted and just put them both in, very broadly, I decided today to just write it one way very clearly. That immediately showed me I didn’t want it that way, but the other way, so I went back and wrote it that way.

I’d forgotten that trick to deciding between two options when you can’t seem to do so: just pick one and “decide” to do it that way. Somehow going through the deciding and writing shows me just how committed I am to that option.  Coin flips work, too. Should this secondary character’s hair be blond or black? Can’t decide? Flip the coin and it comes up in favor of blond. Okay, he’ll be blond then. So off you go to write it thus and immediately you realize that no, he’s not blond at all, he has black hair…

Yes, I know. Writers are weird.

Anyway, I worked through about 7 pages today, adding two additional pages of material as I did so, leaving the rough chapter at 27 pages. So far.

Never Easy

Leaf portrait small

It’s been awhile since I’ve said anything about my progress or lack thereof on Sky.

That’s because, in part, writing all those posts about rebound took up a lot of words and mental energy.

It’s also because after a couple weeks of unrelenting distractions and interruptions, when I finally got back to it, the magic had once again left and I had no idea what I was doing.

I had brought things to a point at the end of Chapter 7, but couldn’t quite finish it off. Too many questions… too many options. Too many, “whys”. As in, if A does that, what will B do in response? If I don’t want A to be figured out by B now, how can I have events progress as I have them? B would have to be a nincompoop not to figure everything out, and he’s not supposed to be a nincompoop.

[Where in the world did that word come from? Nincompoop??]

Somehow those questions led to a re-evaluation of the surface of the world I am trying to build, which led to a re-evaluation of the government, this after an earlier re evaluation wherein I decided to change my world set up from a single empire situation to multiple nations…

Then an interruption would come in and several days would pass before I could get back to it, during which time I would have forgotten what I had been thinking about… Returning to the work was almost like returning to square one and the whole project would seem so vast and overwhelming I’d spend at least the first day back doing my best to run away from it.

But today I got back to it and in the course of writing one of those nonstops I’m so wont to write, I remembered this:

From my ruminations over today’s work:

“It occurs to me that I haven’t really thought all this out and this kind of thing, the ideas, the modification, the sudden realization of inconsistencies, the  major readjustments, the refinement – or the dumping as unworkable and starting over…  it’s all part of the hard work of building a world for a novel. So… nothing’s wrong here. It’s part of the process and the process is long, hard, confusing, frustrating, exciting, gratifying, rewarding, never easy. Nor simple. Nor fast.”

It’s been like this before. Many times. I’d forgotten that. Forgotten that I just have to keep plugging along, and be patient, It will come, in time.

Second Real Day Back

events stack

Well, finally, after all the catch-up I played last week after our trip, I’ve gotten back to work. It was a productive day!

When I started, though,  as I looked at the three hundred or so  2″ x 3″  cards scattering my desk, I felt quite overwhelmed. Over time I’d used them to note down ideas as they had occurred to me — ideas about character, about incidents or events that might happen, about a character’s intentions or desires or reactions… each to its own card, but the cards all in a jumble. All waiting to be put into some kind of coherent plotline.

Augh! How was I going to do this? It was all swirling around —  random events and occurences that seemed to have no relation to one another. I needed, so I thought, to form some kind of plot line, but I felt lost in a fog of indecision.

So I went to the Lord, which I’m doing a lot more now than I have in the past — about almost everything.

“What should I do?” I asked Him, wanting to run away from it all yet again…

Well, He drew my attention to the fact that I have three placemats on my desk and enough space for another, though I don’t have one.  That’s more or less 4 sections. I could at least divide up the stack into general sections…

So I took up my stack of “event” cards (above)

And began to go through them one by one… placing some of them on the “beginning” placemat, some on the “ending” space and  just parceling out the rest of them as seemed fit, more or less where I thought they would fit in the story. Some events were predicated on others, some had to come after others… Sometimes I had two cards with different options for the same event, mutually exclusive. Sometimes I had two cards with slightly different takes on the event, or different details or trappings for it.  I just laid them all down, some in rows, some on top of other cards, some bridging two rows. Some of them I even put between the placemats when I wasn’t sure.

It was kinda fun, because I didn’t have to decide, just generally divide up the cards. Some of them I even threw away. And it was something of a comfort to find that for several of the events I’d envisioned, I’d made two, three even four cards with the same event on it.

Once I had them all parcelled out, I divided them into four piles, which I gathered together in a rough approximation of the order they’d been placed on the table.

The operative word here is “rough.”  I was not demanding that I be precise and orderly, it was just to be a general dividing of the concepts.

parts 2 - 4 small

Above you can see parts 2 -4 all gathered up and secured with rubber bands.

Where is part 1?  Well, once I’d gotten all four of my stacks divided, I took up Part one and began to lay out those cards in terms of cause and effect, order, etc.:

cards part 1

And having done that I have the beginnings of a line of events to work with. Nothing finished by any means but a start. There are lots of holes, and some of them are just ideas that need fleshing out. Some — those either/or cards — require a decision to be made one way or the other.

But that’s all tomorrow’s work. Oh, and I’m still loving my Freedom program, which I blogged about awhile back. That and turning off the phones, continues to give me what feels like a safehaven in which to relax and focus on the work… Plus something about the suspension of being available for contact motivates me to use the time to advantage rather than simply dink around.

I Seem to be Wordless

work desk

I really don’t know why I haven’t been posting much lately. Or maybe I should say, I really don’t know why I can’t seem to think of anything to post. No, that’s not it either. I can think of things to post, but then I don’t feel like writing them down, so nothing happens.

I haven’t been keeping up with email, nor even doing much in my journal.

I have, however, been fairly regular with working on Sky. Six days last week. For at least three hours a day and often more. It’s been good, because I’m actually making some progress. The biggest thing that happened was that I realized that allowing the fact that I felt dead and empty inside with respect to the work to stop me was a mistake. Yes, it was certainly true that every time I thought about the chapter, or even the book in general, I drew a complete blank. I was so indifferent I began to wonder if I was barking up the wrong tree.

So I let myself stop trying for a bit and read my HUGE Tom Clancy novel, which I believe I mentioned. Then I read another novel, a Christmas present from Bethany House. I’m currently finishing up a third, this one a continuation of the Roman-based mystery series I started over a year ago. Oh and in the middle of that I read, um, about half of The Shadow Within, just to remind myself that hey, I really can write.

That was when I remembered all the days I spent being just as blank and helpless and dismayed as I was with Sky. Yes, days. In fact, it was typically about three full days of hanging around, lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, walking laps in my house or back yard, trying to come up with an idea, and being completely, hopelessly, helplessly BLANK.

And then after several days, something would come. It wasn’t something logicked out, or figured out or put together. It would just be there. And I’d write it down.

So recalling that, I’ve gone back to putting in the time. Not running off to do something else when I find myself blank. But just sitting or lying around exploring the blankness.

And it’s been working. I was working my way through what I was afraid was a boring and pointless party scene when suddenly a new character showed up, one related to an existing character who wasn’t even supposed to be in town… and a scene happened. I even like it!

And now, in describing that, I’ve actually come up with something to post.

How about that? (Well, this IS supposed to be a “writing diary” sort of blog…) Now I need to go get dinner started…

Game of Hot and Cold

Some time back in one of the messages I listened to about living in your spiritual gift, Pastor Farley described his own experiences in developing a sermon. He said that when he starts a message, he’s often stone cold. The Holy Spirit plays a game with him of hot and cold.

That immediately made me think of something I learned back during the time I was writing The Light of Eidon: if you’re bored and don’t want to go forward with a certain plotline or situation, that’s very often a “COLD”.

I remember planning out an entire sequence involving a fire in Southdock, and then could not make myself write it. Just could not. Finally it dawned on me that maybe this was not the way to go. Once I did that, and began to think of other ways to proceed. Sometimes in fiction, there’s an event you only want to “have happened” not actually portray dramatically and it can be difficult to figure that out. Sometimes, you’re just, flat headed in the wrong direction altogether and the event is either one you’ll never use, or something to be saved for another place in the book, or even another book.

I think that’s what’s been happening with Sky. I’ve been trying to take the story in a direction that seemed interesting and just is not where I want to go.

He is Not a God of Confusion

Sea Voyage: Leaving the Land Behind

I think the thing that most helped me from the discussion on the open ended writing process wasn’t so much doing the process itself, but realizing that what I am doing IS hard, and DOES take a lot of time and I WILL feel chaotic and disoriented, even frustrated with all the choices, but that it is okay. It’s actually the point.

The point of the sea voyage is to leave the old “wrong” ideas behind and find a new vision. New ideas, something based on the old, but not the old.

All that was on Tuesday. On Friday I listened to a Bible class from summer 2011 about how the spiritual gift works. I’ve been slowly working my way through those classes as time allows and it had been awhile since I’d listened to this particular series. I can’t even say why I chose to do it that day, but the content fell right in line with what I had been learning about the writing process. Again I found myself transcribing quotes into my journal.

From my entry last Friday:

(This Lesson from Sunday, July 17, 2011) is speaking directly to me!

“The power that flows through my spiritual gift and the results of its function are up to God.”

In my case “results” can mean what I’m seeing as accomplishment, as acceptable “progress.” So even when I can’t see anything, it’s still Him.

“So what does that leave for us to do? We’re merely to nurture a willingness to do the work (write the story) and be prepared. And to put ourselves in the place where the gift can operate. We let Him pick the right time for its operation.”

Which means for me, when the story “emerges” when things finally begin to come together, whether plotwise or world-buildingwise.

“This is new! This is different! This is not the way you’ve been trained (by the world) from birth to get things done.

 “The results are up to God, not you.”

“Therefore, don’t judge your effectiveness in your spiritual gift by the results. Be faithful to what God has called you to do, whatever it is. Just trust that He knows what He’s doing. Don’t freak out. Don’t get depressed, despairing, thinking that maybe you’re not doing what you’re supposed to. If you’re following the Word of God, hearing the Word of God, and being obedient to it, God’s gonna get you where you need to be.”

This on the surface relates to physical position, like at the corner where there’s a person waiting to hear the Gospel from you. But lately I’ve been reading about writing in terms of a journey – the sea voyage. You set out, leave land behind, get lost, don’t know what you’re doing and then gradually you come to a new land…. God will get you where you need to be.

This all SO applies to my circumstances right now. I’m looking through notes, reading various writings, doing open-ended writings and nonstops… trying to figure out/decide whether to have a more direct parallel to our situation today as a nation ( with other nations in my created world, covert ops, war, military actions… ) or make it a more abstract, even stylistic allegory, without all the grand political arena and dispensational stuff…Except I’ve already started both in the prologue, at least hints… And here I’m conflicted again. I feel like I’m getting nowhere..

But in all this mess I must stop and reflect: God will get me where He wants me to be.

Oh! And another message in today’s lesson:

“God is not a god of confusion. This is a very important principle when it comes to your spiritual gift because there’s a big temptation for them to get out of hand, lead to chaos rather than clarity. And God is all about CLARITY. Making things clear.”

So trust Him to do just that. Trust Him to show you the way you should go and believe that He is, even if it doesn’t look like you think it should look.

Update: Writing Again

Today I went into the office and worked on Sky. For at least five hours. In fact, I’ve worked on Sky for at least two hours every day this week. I finished a rewrite of Ch 5 and for the last couple of days have been working on rewriting Ch 6. Kind of amazing.

I also think I’m finally getting to a place of clarity relative to what’s been going on in terms of the distractions and such.  Regular readers may recall I have been waffling between “get control of your life, make a schedule, have a little self-discipline” and “relax and trust the Lord to see it done.”  Well, the answer seems to be… It’s both!

I am not clear enough on it to actually articulate it, but perhaps in time I will. I’m still testing out whether I really do understand what’s going on or not.

Anyway, I worked through a lot of questions and details of setting today. I’m hoping tomorrow I can move through more pages. We’ll see.

The Genesis of The Light of Eidon

As I mentioned yesterday, in light of this being the last week that the first volume of my Guardian King series, The Light of Eidon will be offered free as an e-book by various vendors, I thought I’d pursue a theme of putting up some posts about the book.

In a previous post, I related that the inspiration for the series sprang from my seeing the very first Star Wars film (A New Hope) – which, like a lot of other people, I fell in love with – coupled with spiritual truths I was learning from a Bible study book by Col R. B. Thieme, Jr, called The Christian Warrior.

In Star Wars, I especially loved the idea of the hero’s journey from weakness to strength, the light sabers, and the concept of The Force, which at the time seemed like a great metaphor for the Holy Spirit.   

Especially in light of The Christian Warrior, which explores the biblical subject of warfare, both temporal and spiritual, using the template of a Roman soldier as a metaphor for exploring, defining and illustrating comparable qualities, preparations and experiences for the Christian soldier.  (“Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”  2 Ti 2:3,4)

 Major chapter headings include Temporal Warfare, The Cause for Warfare, Jesus Christ Controls History, The Principles of Warfare, Military Metaphors in Scripture, Paul’s Contact with the Roman Military, The Roman Soldier in Paul’s Day, Roman Decorations and Surpassing Grace Rewards, and so on.  

Toward the middle of the book Col Thieme discusses the equipment we’ve been provided as Christians for the conflict, itemized in Ephesians 6: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit.

I loved the idea of the filling of the Spirit providing the light for the sword, something that might come and go depending on whether the soldier was in fellowship at any given moment. So that’s where I started.

The Bible teaches that our warfare in this age is invisible. We cannot see our real enemies, the fallen angels, nor do we see the Holy Spirit, indwelling all believers, nor Risen Christ, seated at the Father’s right hand.

Like them, if we actually learn to put on our armor, take up sword and shield to enter the conflict, we will be “Invisible heroes”. Which may be one reason why I am so drawn to many of the superhero stories: they often have a mild-mannered persona that leads most people upon meeting them to discount them – eg, Superman’s Clark Kent, Spiderman’s Peter Parker, Batman’s Bruce Wayne. 

I see in them a perfect metaphor for the Christian soldier, who is among the “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” of 1 Cor 1:26.  Like them we are “unknown but well-known” (2 Co 6:9). Unknown to most of the world, well-known to those we fight and those we fight alongside. And the angels who are watching us.

So I wanted that element in the story as well — someone who is perceived as weak by all, turning out to be not so weak after all. Especially as he uses the power of God.   Thus I would to tell the story of a man moving from weakness to strength, both physically and spiritually, and at the same time illustrate the entire trajectory of the Christian life, as well… chronicling the coming to faith in Christ, (or in this case Eidon,) then growing through the three stages of the spiritual life: babyhood, adolescence and finally maturity. Which is the ultimate of going from weakness to strength.

I was green enough, and deluded enough to think I might accomplish all that in a single book!

Somewhere toward the end of writing the first draft of what is now The Light of Eidon, I realized that was not going to happen. And even though trilogies were all the thing at the time, I had to settle for a tetralogy. The Light of Eidon would be Abramm’s journey to Eidon himself, as well as being molded into a hero strong enough to fulfill the destiny Eidon had for him.

In the five-year gap that occurs between The Light Eidon and The Shadow Within, I skipped over his baby phase and moved right to the end of that stage where he takes the first step of walking into his destiny… in this case, contesting his younger brother for the crown of the land that Abramm should rightfully wear.

Shadow over Kiriath brings him through spiritual adolescence and The Return of the Guardian King embodies the evidence testing, as Col Thieme called it, of the mature believer. By which he meant the believer’s ability through spiritual growth to reach a place where he can be deliberately tested by Satan as to just how far he will trust God, how much will he stick with what God’s word says. This is illustrated by Job’s experience and Jesus’s own testing in the wilderness by Satan in Matt 4– though Abramm’s testing is more like Job’s than Jesus’s.)

It was all so nice and tidy when I outlined it. Trying to put flesh on the outline was something else entirely, far more messy and complicated than I ever could have dreamed.

 Looking back, I should have known it was going to take a long time.  You can’t write about a journey like that without living at least some of it. The funny thing, at least for me, is that “maturity” always seems like something off there in the future.   The end of the story doesn’t really end until you’re dead. Or “promoted” as I like to think of it.

Col Thieme called it a “Permanent Change of Station.” I like that, too.

In any case, I originally had ideas for Abramm’s death, for his sons to carry on, for the Dorsaddi to return…

If we stick around as a nation long enough, and I finally manage to finish my current WIP, I’d like to go back to Abramm’s world and tackle that. But we’ll see what the Lord has in mind.

Again, if you’d like to try out the first volume of my Guardian King series, as a free e-book, click HERE.

 

Where I Get My Ideas

Sketch of the Grand Canyon’s Inner Gorge from Plateau Point

Last night and today I have been doing something I haven’t done in a very loooong time.

I’ve been updating my website. Yes, I have a website in addition to this blog. The link is in the margin to the right.  The last time I updated it was in 2009, when The Enclave came out and all I did then was put a notice on my home page and add a page just fro it. I didn’t even remember to change the “last updated” blurb in the header, so that it still said “July 2007” when I started to work last night.

I had no idea it had been that long. I’ve been thinking for some time that I need to integrate it with the blog, but that’s about all I’ve done: think.  And not much of that, either.  Too many options, too little knowledge and WAY too little time!

But with the re-release of Arena, and this month’s free e-book special of The Light of Eidon, I figured I should probably get back to the website and at least update Arena’s cover and mention the special.

In the process, I’ve found some fun things there; things that I’d forgotten.

Like the Arena Scrapbook I made to illustrate some answers to the question, where do I get my ideas?

Here’s the start…

“People ask where I get my ideas.  As with all authors, mine come from things I’ve experienced in my life, either directly or indirectly through reading, movies or things others have told me. Sometimes places or events surface that I think are completely original, only to discover later that I actually experienced them somewhere before.

It was a real shock to be walking down the upper switchbacks of the Grand Canyon’s Bright Angel Trail some twenty years after the first time I’d done it and come to a spot that was “straight out of Arena.” Until then, I thought I’d made it up completely.”

To see the photos of experiences that spawned various elements of Arena, I invite you to visit my Scrapbook Page HERE.