Winter, pt. 1

Ah, first day of winter break. After a very long period of slacking off and auditioning for an acting role, I finally have some time to write.

I wrote the above paragraph five minutes ago. In the five minutes that passed, I spent my time looking at clothing online.

I might have some trouble here.

Being given a large amount of time to write isn't good. There's no restriction and too much time to slack off.

Do not want.

Editing is annoying.

I began writing a novel last August. I finished it around February. Since then, I've gone through it half a dozen times, editingeditingediting.

It's at the point where I'm sick of my own work.

In other news, I've barely been writing anything at all. I like to blame school for this.

Routines and Playlists

Everyone has a different writing process. Some take the 10 o'clock bus to the library, sit down at a table, and begin writing. Some merely eat breakfast and go to their home office and start writing. Some begin writing an hour before sleep. Regardless of who you do it, it's good for every writer to have a routine. Getting into a routine can help a writer to access creativity on a constant basis.

Being a writer that's still in school, this routine isn't so easy. Sometimes I'll sit down, type a few pages, then not write anything for weeks. Some days I'll be consistent and write about a two pages a day.

Either way, I do have a sort of compensation for my lack of a routine. I have a writing playlist. Some writers have playlists that are versatile and work for any piece they write. For me, I have a specific playlist for each story that I feel has great potential. This may sound impressive, but it's not. I only have one playlist for one of my stories. I'm not saying that my other stories don't have potential -- I'm saying that once a story surpasses the 20-page mark, that usually means that I can make a commitment to the story.

I like playlists because it can easily set the mood for what I'm writing. For example, the only one of my stories that gets it own playlist takes place in a lot of forests and cabins and a lot of other hipster stuff like that. (Though it should be noted that the story isn't really hipster at all.) So for that sort of setting and the theme that goes with it, I decided that soft alternative or folkish music would be best for the story. (So basically anything really hipster.) Some of the songs include:

• Tin Man by Animal Kingdom
• New Morning by Alpha Rev
• Meet Me on the Equinox by Death Cab for Cutie
• On a Neck, On a Spit by Grizzly Bear
• Basically anything by Mumford & Sons, Blind Pilot, Sea Wolf, and City and Colour

Playlists don't easily make up for routines, but for someone who likes to procrastinate, it's pretty good.

Funny enough, this entire post is still me procrastinating on writing. Should probably get on that now.

Yep.

Soon.

Soon.

Well, now, I guess.

Naming

My method of naming characters hasn't been consistent over the years. When I was still a relatively new writer, I would scour the internet for names that could become potential character names. I remember when I was younger, I printed out a three-page list of names and their meanings. I would carry that list around in case I needed to come up with a new character.

Then I sort of stopped that and began relying on my instinct. When I began writing a character, sometimes the name would just come to me. For example, I had named a character Daniel without giving it much thought. Nevertheless, it just felt right. I'm sure that many other writers have this instinct for naming their characters.

It's not always easy, though. I've struggled with names before. Sometimes I'll spend a good hour on behindthename.com, trying to find the right fit. Even when I find a good name, it takes a while to get used to calling a character by their new title.

And sometimes I come up with a name that seems fitting, except:

• the name is painfully boring (Like John)
• someone I know already has that name (In which continuing to write that character with that name begins to become a little odd. I have only broken this rule once. Technically twice, but the second time doesn't really count because I really only knew this person in passing.)

For the Maybe Short Story, Maybe Novel, I'm still generating a list of names. In this, there aren't many main characters, but secondary characters are still extremely essential to the story. These characters have a bloated sense of self-importance, so they must also have names that show that off. And what's the most explicit way to show that characters have been raised to believe that they're the greatest things to ever walk the earth? By naming them after stars and constellations.

What is your quest?

Yes, I did have to open with a small Monty Python reference.

What, exactly, is the purpose of this blog?

Well, in my entire life I've completed two manuscripts for novels. Neither have been published, though I'm trying to get the second one published. Though it should be noted that right now I'm not even going to touch the first novel with a fifteen-foot pole. And maybe I never will. I finished it years ago, when I was still a budding writer. But I've managed to write a second novel within the last year (by forking up a social life, mind you--though I didn't have much of one to begin with). But I'm tangenting now, so I'm going to get back to my point.

Through both of the previously mentioned writing pieces, I neglected to do something. I neglected to document the process of writing. Now, I know none of this can be particularly interesting to anyone besides myself, but I'm doing it because I can. And someday when I'm a famous writer all of my millions of fans can fawn over this blog.

Now then! I haven't written much. Ever since I finished my second novel and since I've been on vacation, I've gotten a little lazy. But like every writer, I've got a lot of works in progress. I've got two . . . maybe three. No. Hold on. Let me go make a list.

Okay, I've got three novels in the process of being written. I've got about a page (probably less) written of the first one, though I've got most of the plot down. The second one has been sort of brewing in my head for the last month. I've written little snippets and excerpts, constructed a very basic plot, and created the main characters. But I haven't exactly started any manuscript of any sort. As for the third one--it's the oldest of the three. I had the idea in . . . oh, maybe April or May. Or June. I have about four or five pages of that one written. I've constructed a few characters and I'm sort of fuzzy on the plot, but I know the direction I want it to go in.

The problem with the third novel is that it's general fiction. I think it can even be deemed a "Coming of Age" story. There's nothing wrong with that genre--some of my favorite books are in that genre. But it's not the genre I'm used to writing in. About 98% of what I've ever written involves some fantasy or science fiction of some sort, however subtle or obvious. It's sort of hardwired into my brain to write about stuff like that. This is possibly due to the fact that I grew up on Ghostbusters and monster-y films the 80s. And like millions of others, I grew up on Harry Potter.

Anyways, yeah, slow progress on the Third Novel, blah blah blah, I've probably substantially bored anyone who decided to read this blog.

Then I've got about three-ish short stories that have also been brewing in my mind. And I've got another idea (my most recent one) that could really be either a novel or short story.

So I should probably wrap this up about now.

This will (hopefully) be a decent documentation on my progress with any of these stories.