Entries tagged with writing

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So, I've been working really hard for the past couple of days on Attack of the Space Bees from Outer Space and I'm excited to say that it's finished in draft! There are some major things I need to fix in editing, but I kind of feel like I'll be able to do it. It's daunting because it's humor and I find balancing out jokes is kind of difficult. But this is a story I've been working on for nearly two years and I'm just glad to have it finished in draft.

I theoretically need to fix some pacing issues as well, but I kind of like them. Editing it down will probably fix those anyway.

I wanted to finish it under 4K because I feel like at its length, it's a little bit too long for a humorous story, but I'm pretty sure it will edit down below 5K by the time I'm done with it. Which is hopefully long enough to keep someone's attention, especially on a story that doesn't take itself seriously.

And... it's kind of a rush having worked on a story that's not super serious. I mean, I have a special place in my heart for 50s monster flicks and bad science fiction tropes. And I've managed to incorporate a ton of these into the story, while being completely self-aware about it. I think. We'll see.

But it's been a long time since I've finished anything, so I should feel good about that.

SPACE BEES.

Current Music: Black - Colony 5

for some people it's even a hell

When I'm finished tonight, I should be about 10% done with The Clockwork Ghosts. It's been really fun to work on so far, but I'm not sure what the point of the dog is so far, except to make it a boy and his dog story. It really kind of makes me sad that the protag is male because who ever writes a girl and her dog?

I haven't gotten the desolate feeling of the setting down yet, but that's what revisions are for. I'd like to get to the point where I can introduce the female MC, but I don't think that's going to happen tonight. I merged a couple of chapters today to make it more readable, which seems to be working well. The flow is a little awkward, but again -- revisions.

I keep having flaily moments while writing this that I don't even know what I'd DO with a manuscript if I had one. I've been able to quell that some of that by telling myself that what you do with a manuscript is write it. And the fact that if I can actually finish this, I'll be able to write another novel more easily. Which will make going back to work on God Was Wearing Black a lot easier. I'd also like to sketch out the plot to Sparkle, but I don't think I want to work on it until I've finished this project.

Looking back at The Way You Whisper, I really want to figure out how to do the revisions on it. I love the story and the way that spirituality and relationships are portrayed in it. I love the fact that I've managed to write a scene with four characters talking at once. I don't love the rushed pacing at the end.

Tomorrow is Pride and I'm not sure if I'll be going. I have a ticket, so I may go for a bit and see if I can handle it. There will just be so many people and I have a lot of writing I'd like to get done on Saturday as I probably won't have a lot of time to write on Sunday with church and all.

I also need to transfer NINJA VERSUS PIRATE FEATURING ZOMBIES to my phone so that I can read it while I'm on the bus. It's not the greatest book from what I've read so far -- it thinks it's the most awesome book in the world, I think is part of the problem -- but it's been enjoyable.

A friend let me borrow a book that she got from the library, Luna. It's the story of a girl whose sister is in the process of dealing with her identity as a woman and going from open at night to going in public as a woman. It had a great way of pointing out the selfishness of embarrassment and wish that a loved one stay closeted for your own sake and had a realistic view of her sister dealing with that. I didn't like the fact that it harped on the Harry Benjamin Standards of care and some of the terms that Luna used to describe cisgender women and trans women, but I'm pretty sure the author is cisgendered and so may not know that much about the modern trans community.

It was nice reading something for once and it made me realize that I need to get a library card. In order to do that, I need to get more mail. (Anyone who wants to send me a letter is free to do so, but unfortunately it will have to be sent to my current legal name, I think, in order for me to prove residency. I will gladly privately share my email address with you.)

I never did recap my adventures on Disneyland. Needless to say it was a lot of fun and Space Mountain was an experience I'd like to repeat.

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Finished draft two of the story I wrote for my challenge. I'm going to try and get up the motivation to work on draft three, which involves much more serious editing. And by get up the motivation, I more mean stop staring at the internet and get writing. I think a scene or two is missing to connect to the end. I am slightly worried that this is a story where "things happen" rather than an actual plot, but I won't be able to tell that until I get some real critique on it.

It is definitely optimistic, linear, and full of healthy relationships, though!

~~I also need a better title.~~

I've been working on a shorter story that was originally going to be a flash fiction piece, but I'm not sure it's going to work out as a flash fiction piece. Which is fine. I need more character development to make the plot work, and I simply cannot do that in another 500 words. It'll likely still be a shorter story -- around 2,500 - 3,000 words, I'm pretty sure. I just have to figure out how said character development happens.

But basically, it boils down to the question:

What would you do if someone offered you the chance to give up everything going on it your life so that you can go on a spaceship and sail the stars? You have to go back eventually, but you can take from it what you can. A chance to fully be yourself, not confined by societal rules and what other people expect of you.

No, seriously. What would you do?

Current Music: Sunken World - Headscan

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excuse me while i see

So, I promised myself that I'd put the piece I wrote last week on hold for a day before I looked at it again, but I was sick this morning (just to the point of not being able to get out of bed until 2:30 -- lovely stabbing pains in my stomach) so I missed church and was stuck in a room with nothing to do for two hours.

So naturally, I poked at it.

I've done very heavy rewrites of the first four pages and moved some stuff around. I've cleared out a whole bunch of awkward writing and identified things that are brought up but never clarified. I've done several read-throughs to identify more problems.

In less boring news, Russian scientists are working on creating a robot that would be powered by a human brain, possibly allowing people to eventually buy immortality (and a robot body, which is good enough for me).

Current Music: Godlike - KMFDM

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if i could leave my burning skin

I finished my challenge. The pacing is all wrong. There are parts that need to go and parts that need to be padded. The ending needs more impact. But it's done. I wrote an entire story that broke away from my normal writing cliches. It is optimistic. It's completely linear. It centers around a healthy relationship(s).

Snippets will go in my writing journal (

holymachines). This story needs a more serious rewriting than anything I've ever written, but I guess that's what I get for writing it in 7 days. It's currently 3,800 words and I'd like to keep it around there.

My goal right now is to get the first rewrite done in another week. Obviously I don't expect to fix the story that quickly, but I feel like I should be able to do a decent amount considering all the spare time I have. As long as I don't keep dicking around on the internet, I should be able to beat that goal pretty easily.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

I need to put a new challenge together! The last one was created by putting together three things I've never really written about. I don't write optimistic stories, I tend to write non-linear, and healthy relationships aren't my cup of tea.

If you're familiar with my writing, go ahead and suggest something(s) I should add to my next challenge. Or if you're not, challenge me with things that are generally difficult. I'll look at them and figure out what I should be doing next.

I really have no excuse not to try and swap between writing a story a week and rewriting for a week.

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I have until Sunday night to finish my challenge. I think it won't be a great (or even good) story, considering all the last-minute rushing, but a week to write something doesn't really give me that much time, so finishing it at all will do me good. Then I'll have time for a rewrite if I feel it's worth anything.

Went to go see a movie with Transitions today. Unfortunately, it was Battleship. The science was all wrong (sending a beacon to space looks a lot like a laser, apparently) and the aliens were humanoid-ish for no reason with brittle beards and lizard eyes. Oh, and they had four fingers. that makes a difference, right? But they were bipedal with eyes, a nose, and a mouth, all bilateral symmetry. ...but what can I really expect from a movie based on Hasbro's game? I was supposed to feel bad for the protagonist, but I couldn't. I was supposed to buy a relationship based on a chicken burrito. Honestly, the only characters I really connected with were side characters that were given zero development. The ending was obvious. The more I think about it, the only thing they got right was the idea of a Goldilocks planet.

I'm having a lot of issues with a friend right now. She's racist (although it's the insidious kind of racism, not KKK racism [not that it helps]), she believes in reverse -isms (she was made fun of for being white as a kid), she throws around retarded and "imitates" developmentally disabled people to mean stupid, and every time I've tried to talk to her, I've been shut down or can't find the words I need. Which leaves me two choices: walk away or continue trying to correct her. I told her not to use gendered slurs on my facebook, which she respected but defended herself by saying how much she hates Madonna. In the end, she at least respected what I had to say, but it's more of a "I don't tolerate these things around me." She's very savvy when it comes to gay/trans rights (or else I really couldn't be around her). I just -- it's very tiring to teach someone tolerance and in a lot of ways, even though I'm an ally, I don't feel it's my place to teach her about racism. Ableism I should be able to cover, but I have white privilege. And from that, I am aware that I have issues of my own, even though I acknowledge my privilege and try to do what I can with it. I know it's an ally's job to educate when the minority can't speak for themselves, but I know she's just going to point out that growing up all of her friends were black. She also has a creepy fetishizing view of Europe. I don't know. I'll do what I can as I can. I don't have a lot of spoons, especially not with my leg going out. Having to walk even a couple of blocks is tiring me out and I have to save as much as I can to walk to church tomorrow.

Current Music: Last Chance - Colony 5

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makes your deception hard to see

Because of my living situation, I am asked every day what I'm going to do. I'm not looking for a job and that has left me with a lot of free time. And (sorry, got distracted by the fact that someone is wearing the same neon skater shoes that I own) they want to make sure that I'm using that free time constructively.

I don't always see the same case worker. And every time they ask me what I'm going to do, I answer honestly. I'm going to sit down in a coffee shop and write. This always leads to the next question: what do you write?

That seems like it should be cut and dry -- I write speculative fiction. I've dabbled in soft-genre, but I very rarely write something that doesn't have some speculative element. But then the question comes up: so what do you write about?

I could spout off a number of stories. I could tell them about EDEN and Izzy, Lauren and Marie, or Sparky and Walter. I could tell them that honestly, if I'm writing fantasy, it's still (mostly) science fantasy. I could tell them that I write about unhealthy relationships, sentient computers, and questionable morality, usually in a non-linear format. But that's not what they want to hear. Or is it?

I write speculative fiction that promotes diversity. Whether it's trans lesbian cyborgs, characters with autism, or strong women, I need some sense of diversity in there. I get tired of reading about white male protagonists (even though I am one).

I want to write characters that are fallible. I'm tired of that white male protagonist having a few minor setbacks, but in the end gets what he wants. No, scratch that, I'm tired of stories where a character is at point A, wants to be at point B, and makes it there with almost no conflict.

I want to write stories where the plot is in the background. I want to build and break characters. I want people to change in 4000 words, and not always for the better.

I write what I want to read, even though I don't have the skill to pull it off. I'm tired of stories about my neuroatypicality, my illness, my disability, my gender identity being the focus of the story, rather than just a part of it. Or erased entirely.

We're moving forward. I find stories I'm happy reading. But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of speculative fiction authors are cisgendered, able, neurotypical men, writing stories from their point of view.

There are markets specifically for the promotion of diversity, but I'd like to be able to open any magazine and find myself represented in some way. I think I'd read a lot more if that were the case.

Current Music: Chemical Bomb - The Aquabats

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i started thinking about human nature

My goal for the week is to write something that is:

1. Optimistic
2. Linear
3. ~~Has no unhealthy relationships~~ Has a healthy relationship

I have no idea as of yet how I'm going to do this.