Wednesday Writerly Words: The Power of Crap!

I also posted a non-Wednesday update:

Non-Wednesday Writing Words

Now, we weren’t aiming for quality.  Just the opposite, the goal was to create a script worthy of The Asylum and Syfy movies of the week.  We called the effort Trilobite Terror, and it is an exercise in dubious science, cliche dialogue, and thin plot.  However, it does have a plot, it is a complete plot with a three act structure, and it does all wrap up nicely at the end.  It was really just a fun exercise in seeing what we could do when we sat down and just churn out, putting ourselves in the roles of contract writers who were given a title, two already cast stars, and a weekend to spit out a first draft.

The schedule:

Saturday night we finally sat down and outlined the plot.  It took about half an hour and three sheets of paper to scribble down all the bullet points that we wanted to hit.  We were neither writing what we hoped would be a good movie, nor one that would ever actually get produced, else we might have spent a whole hour just to make sure there was a b-plot.  As it is, the movie is a little under length at just 64 pages of script when I’d really hoped for at least 75.

Sunday I started writing.  Act one was half finished by breakfast, and done by lunch.  Act two was written between lunch and dinner.  Act three was started but not completed as I burned out around 9pm.  Along the way I kept giving the script in half-act chunks to my wife for her approval, and kept getting green lights to go.

Monday I finished act three, and did just a little bit of editing.  No point really stressing over edits for something that’ll never see any light of day.  Maybe one day The Asylum will have a script writing contest and we’ll clean it up for that.

As a writing exercise, it was great mental acrobatics, just to practice working in screenplay format, proving that we could quickly turn out a plot, and showing that I can actually script write rather quickly when given the chance.  My characters tend to talk in paragraphs, so that’s something I’ll need to work on, but in terms of speed, I worked at a pace that I’d have to work at if I ever became a contract script writer.  Which is nice to know I can do.

We’re already considering out next project, potentially for the weekend of June 26-27.  Might do another Syfy quality script, though we’ve also been considering a Dodgeball-style comedy called Shuttlecocks.

I was asked, way back when I agreed to be a weekly contributor to Unleaded, to share how I came up with some of the 2070s technology I’m using in the novel Capsule.  The simple answer is: tech blogs.  I’m addicted to these for reasons other than my writing, but found that addiction helped me shape how far technology might go by 2070 and what directions it might go in.  Just to share my two absolute favorites, which I tend to check four or five times a day: [more]

A new contributor signs in.

Greetings from your new Wednesday contributor.  I’ve been asked to join in this blog to provide the occasional perspectives about horror, near future science fiction, self publishing, and whatever else comes to mind to write about.  But I thought I’d start a little about who I am for people who don’t follow my blog.

My name is DL Thurston, and I’m a member of the Cat Vacuuming Society, the writing group that has largely spawned this blog.  I’ve written science fiction, horror, the occasional dalliance in humor, and various combinations of the three.  Currently I’m working on a novel called Capsule, which is a a sci-fi horror novel set in the mid 2070s, which has given me the opportunity to do a lot of research into tech trends and predictions for where near future technology is leading us.  I’ve also written a Gothic horror novel called Conqueror Worm, and an apocalyptic humor novel called End of the Line.  Outside of novels, I’ve collaborated with my wife on a teleplay pilot and will soon be writing a camp horror screenplay called Trilobite Terror.  In general I dabble in whatever interests me at the time.

[Read more]

Currently available from SmashWords.  (Coupon code available)

Coming hopefully soon to the iBook Store and the Sony Reader store.

This online distribution stuff is fun.

Gene Weingarten: You want big and famous? Here is big and famous:

On Jeopardy! a few weeks ago, this was the answer:

“He is a South Florida writer whose comic novels often deal with political corruption and criminal intrigue in Miami.”

The buzzer-ringer said:

“Who is Dave Barry?”

–

That’s big. To be a WRONG answer on Jeopardy!

When I told Dave about this he wrote back:

“It’s about time I got credit for Carl.”

Damnit, now I want that!  Oh, and to be a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, who I apparently just missed last week at the 9:30 Club.  Is that so much to ask for?  It’s not like they already have a trombonist, and doesn’t every band need a trombonist?

PS:  Look for Rust on Kindle in the next 24 hours.

Also this week, look for my first contribution to Unleaded: Fuel for Writers, which I’ll cross post here.  Ya know.  For all my faithful readers.

Thing One: Look for me soon (this week?  next?) as a regular contributor to Unleaded – Fuel for Writers, a blog that is slowly turning into a group blog for the Cat Vacuuming Society, and is going to be a major focus of our new cross promotional plans.  These contributions will include both blog posts and related podcast episodes, with all posts cross linked back here when I make them.  My focus will be on my experiences writing near future science fiction, my problems with horror, and my experiences playing with new channels of self promotion.  To that end…

Thing Two: I announced a few months back my plan to start serializing my first novel, Rust.  And then I never did.  Did you notice that?  Of course you didn’t, because no one reads this blog.  Seriously, post a reply and tell me I’m wrong!  Anyway, I’m looking at two new channels of digital distribution, one which will happen quite earlier than the other.  First up will be Rust’s availability on Kindle, which I hope will happen within the week.  Right now I’m doing a quick editing pass that involves searching for all the bugaboo words and phrases I used to over use.  Such as “started” and “had been” and “a bit” and “seemed”.  This process had been starting to seem like a bit of a bad idea for awhile, but I’ve made it through most of them.  Had is the biggie, since it is a legitimate word so often, but not nearly as often as I used it.  The other distribution I’m looking at is podiobooking Rust.  Right now I haven’t even started recording, and I’m not likely to start serializing the podcast until at least half the chapters are in the can.  Still, I’m working on my setup and my delivery, so look for that in the future.

This Three: I’m working on a few ways to self promote myself, especially with Balticon fast approaching.  First idea is something I played with a few years ago, the idea of publishing a 1000-1500 word story as a little eight page booklet, printed on just one sheet of paper and clipped and folded up to a book form.  Second idea is something newer: QR codes.  Not sure if everyone who is reading this (seriously, post a reply, let me know you’re out there) knows what these are, but they’re two dimensional barcodes that can hold up to 250 characters of information and can be read by smartphones with cameras and the right application.  The best of these apps will automatically recognize links.  They can be used for business cards to put a lot of information on them, including a full range of phone numbers, email addresses, and web sites.  I’m planning on using them on business sized cards, with both some human-readable text, and some teasers.  For example, a QR Code after the break:

Scanned and decoded it reads: “A human for a human’s work! –King Ludd. Rust, a steampunk murder mystery by DL Thurston.  Available now for the Kindle, coming soon to podiobook.  http://DLThurston.com/blog”.  I’m still working on exactly what to include, I still have a good 90 characters left, but I’m happy.  It’s got a key phrase from the book, identifies the book, advertises its new availability on Kindle, and provides a link to this blog.  I might also include a price point, once I figure one out.

Yes, I see the potential irony in using a smartphone technology to spread a message used by Luddites in the book.  The idea is to catch people’s eyes in a different way, and I hope this succeeds in doing so.

So in order to explore my thought process, and to provide myself more things to talk about here, I’m going to occasionally give a glimpse at the real technology that is moving towards the technology of Capsule.

In part, this was motivate by something that Microsoft unveiled, as reported by Engadget and Gizmodo, the ability to create computer input through tapping different parts of your arm.  In Capsule, I’ve got The Wrap, a piece of technology that was originally based on a Nokia phone concept design called Morph, though more of a full fledged computer like we would imagine available in a laptop, rather than just a phone and personal organizer.  As of today the Morph is still a CGI concept, but the Skinput idea is actually a physical product, requiring just a sophisticated wristband to project images and detect where someone has tapped their arm.  It’s not really a useful thing in it’s current form, but it’s an interesting step towards the ability to integrate computation more thoroughly with the human body.

So hopefully I’ll be back on pace soon, I’ve been turning over some ideas for getting Capsule restarted (including even a shift in POV for part two of the novel), but it’s likely still going to be a week or three before I really feel up to writing.

So here’s the plan going forward:

December I’m going to do all the writing I can, but between moving the last week of the month and a big photo scanning project with a Christmas deadline, that might not be much.  I’ll be thrilled if I can add 10,000 words to the manuscript by the end of the month.

January I’m going to pick back up.  With my current estimate, that should leave me needing 30,000-60,000 words to finish the draft.  I’d love to get that done in one month, but I’m going to give myself a reasonable deadline of February 15th.

Then I’m going to sit down and do an honest assessment between Capsule and Conqueror Worm, and decide which needs less work to get into a position where I can shop it around.  Once I’ve decided, I’m going to start a chapter-a-week program to get it ready to go.  That will take several months, but once I’m about 2/3 through, I might start actually (gasp) sending query letters off to find a literary agent.

I know.

So there’s the plan.  It’s nearly New Years, a good time for resolutions, and for realizing that I said similar things about last year.  I don’t know how I’m going to do better this year, other than really hoping and trying.  And hopefully engaging some ass kickers to help me out.

Then, I figured out why she died, who killed her, who suggested she be killed (gasp!), his motivation behind suggesting it, and where she was killed.  Because just bouncing questions of my wife is the single greatest writing exercise I know.

I’m starting to think I might be able to write this thing.

Reminder:  Less than a month til Capclave.

Capclave:  Seriously, a great place to be a writer and just to hang out.  This will be an early trial for CVS 2.0, but will not yet be the official coming out party.  Still, several of us are talking about being there, and at just $55 head, it’s a rather good value.  Last year I went to both World Fantasy and Capclave, and would you believe it’s Capclave I got more out of?  Well believe it.

Nanowrimo: This is when I’ll be doing a lot of work on actually writing Capsule.  There’s something about Nanowrimo that just gets me writing in a way that is hard to duplicate at other times in the year.  I’ve been victorious four out of the last 5 years.

Balticon:  When you see us talking 2.0, this is what it’s about.  This is where several CVS members have some name and face recognition, and this is going to be the big coming out party.  But the time Balticon rolls around, I really am hoping to have a first draft of Capsule, and at least a good chunk of the second draft of Conqueror Worm.

Renee puts the mantra of 2.0 perfectly in her post:  “I’m tired of being a fan. I’m tired of being a wannabe writer. And I’m ready to do something about it.”

9 months until Balticon 2010.  Perfect amount of time to allow our ideas to gestate.

Okay, I apologize for that joke.

I need to know where I’m going.  I need a map.  So, thus, I need to start by making one.

I’m going to attempt a process called the Snowflake Method, as it feels very organic to the way I approach things, and lets me be as fiddly as detailed as I want to be before I get started.  It’ll be a modified approach, I know, but it’s at least some way to get my brain to start thinking in terms of breaking the story down into workable chunks, and then writing them.

The novel, I’ve mentioned it here, and at CVS (2.0 in the house) is called Capsule.  Step one of the snowflake is a sentence of no more than 15 words meant to provide the highest level most abstract view of the novel.  Think of it as opening Google Earth and seeing the globe just sitting there, waiting to be zoomed in on.  It’s earth, there’s no question, but there is so much more hiding that needs to be explored.

A greusome murder forces a detective to explore the horrific underbelly of a utopic future.

Fifteen words exactly.  Let’s do this thing.

I might be trying to hard.  CVS 2.0 has got me excited, but perhaps it’s gotten me a little too excited, and has me pushing myself beyond comfort limits.  That’s why I’m hoping the vacation will help, just get completely out of my head.  The laptop will go along, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get anything written.  At the same time, I don’t want to leave it behind just to have inspiration hit one evening after dinner while just lounging in a hotel room.

I’ve been listening to the Drabblecast lately, enjoying its slight (or sometimes extreme) quirkiness, and it’s got me itching to try some drabbles, which might be good for me.  Get me writing and working on something with such a short distance between starting and payoff.  I’ve always been dismissive of drabbles in the past, perhaps because my only previous association with them was at various fan fiction sites a decade ago when I would actually visit fan fiction sites, usually trolling for the worst of the worst.  I suppose if I shouldn’t judge short stories by fan fic, I shouldn’t judge drabbles by fan fic drabbles.  I’ve actually been rather impressed at how people can set a tone, mood, characters, and get a resolution, all in fewer words than are likely to end up in this paragraph.  Several of my thing-a-week concepts I never really liked cause they ended up all broody and naval-gazing probably because I was trying to take a 100-word concept and turn it into a 3000-word story.

I’m also strongly considering sending Sleep to them.  I don’t know if it’ll work in audio format, but I do feel it’s a stylistic fit, and it’s not my job to reject stories for them.

If I like them, I’ll post some here.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ve also discovered, through his letters and other non-fiction writing, that a certain character of mine who shall remain nameless was a racist, xenophobic luddite.  And another character of mine is a Slavic inventor.  Which I’ve also got to take care of this draft.  And a certain horrific otherworldly realm of horrors and nightmares that shall remain nameless is presented as, if anything, silly in the first draft.  I always knew that was the problem, and was kind of hoping that would be the focuse of my second draft, reworking those sections, but with the need to potentially change the whole interpersonal dynamic between two characters…this is going to be a hell of an edit.

But really, I’ve gotten almost nowhere, and for that I blame the fact that I’m running off to get married in two weeks (my god, is it only two weeks?) and just haven’t had my mind in the game.  Hopefully when I get back, I’ll be more focused, and more ready to really tackle CVS 2.0 and the big editing pass on Conqueror Worm.

Oh, finally got my Writers of the Future rejection for Belmeth, a few weeks later than usual and after the submission deadline, but I didn’t have anything else ready to go anyway.  What with focusing on Conqueror Worm, my short story career right now will probably be to just cycle Belmeth, Sleep, and Div0 to a few different markets, possibly to include Escape and Pseudopod, which someone got me hooked on (though good timing, since my favorite radio station just got taken away, screw you very much CBS Radio).  The same someone that really needs to make a blog post about her vision for CVS 2.0, since she’s one of the ones who started it, dagnabbit.

Look out world, the Cat Vacuumers are coming.

Where’s this attitude coming from?  A recent trip that two of our members took to Balticon, where they saw the power of motivated groups, realized they actually had the ears of more than a few people there, and came to one conclusion: it was time to attend cons not as fans, but as writers.  So then who are we?  We are the Cat Vacuuming Society of Northern Virginia, a group of rather motivated writers who have been meeting for nearly a decade with most of the core group having been together for about 4-5 years now.  Most of us are ready to break out.  Several of us have short story sales, and we’ve all got longer projects that we’ve been working on.  I’ve got novels, and with my fiancee we’ve got the pilot.  She’s got another pilot and several novel concepts that she’s starting to take through to completion.  Our founder has a novel she’s been working on for years, and a new attitude on life towards getting writing done.

This is a powerful organization.

This is a group that can get things done.

We just didn’t really realize it until now.

So here it goes, refocusing.  Two projects.  Right now I only have two projects, everything else goes on the back burner.  Conqueror Worm needs to have a serious editing pass.  Arkham is getting closer and closer.  That’s it for me right now, through probably November.  Cause if we’re going to be serious, I need to have things to be serious about.