Writing update

We had Thorby St Writer's Group on Sunday, and I submitted my "written using five random words" story, Copycat for critique. It's a horror, though not speculative, and is a "coffee cup" story - written around two people having a cup of coffee.

I rewrote the bones of the story with an eye to improving my description, and was very pleased to have people comment on the effectiveness of the imagery. The group liked it, describing it as intense and dense, but they didn't have a clear handle on the female character. They all had some very useful tweaks, which will help to make a couple of the more cryptic hints I included become more overt and help to characterise the female character further.
Even though she wasn't at group, Wendy had some additional tweaks, too. She has this uncanny knack of making me question the central conceit of the story. In this case, it was a damn good thing, as I hadn't totally figured out the central conceit myself. That's the problem with growing a story from five words -- the meaning insinuates into, rather than infuses, the piece.

Alinta submitted a story set in a space-station/habitat, which was chock-full of symbolism. Actually, it might just be that I see symbolism lurking in every corner of most stories. Alinta writes really strong pieces, which start off a sturdy skeleton, and gain power and magic in her rewrites. Her stories go to the gym twice a week, and do rigorous exercise.

Our new Thorby, Susan, sent us a story which she described as "Pre-Clarion", and perhaps you have to be post-Clarion to understand what someone means by that. We...mostly agreed, but it's a salvagable piece that needs a bit of excavation before the story shows.

This week, I've been working on Random Transmissions, which has grown by 900 words and two scenes since Saturday. I now know what motivates my character, which is embarrassing. How could I have written a first draft without knowing what motivated her? Sheesh, Zara.

Motivation and Description. These are my two shiny new tools in my writers toolkit. They join characterisation, voice, sentence rhythm and dialogue. I haven't figured out all their features and specifications, but I've already put them to use on a few projects.

I'm saving up all my work credits for Plot.

Club100 for writers

I'm on day 3 (again). Club100 has helped me to complete my current Thorby's attempt, CopyCat, which is a ... mainstream horror, I think. Possibly just mainstream weird.

Genre, schmenre. I have no boundaries.

Thorby's this week will see several new additions -- all Clarion South 2005 folks. It's going to be really interesting to meet them, and see what kind of thing they write.

Nose back to the Grindtone

I'm back into it. I joined Club 100 for writers, thanks to Eugie Foster, and I started yesterday. The aim is complete 100 days in a row of 100 words.

It went better than I could have imagined...

I debated for a while about what I would write. A few ideas suggested themselves: robot stories are in my head at the moment for some reason, and I'm trying to get them out by putting some on paper. I don't really know very much about robots, though, which doesn't make it a simple task. Heheh.

So, I started a robot Auesop's fable.

I paused after the first little abortive attempt to write a beginning, and checked how many words I had. 79. Bugger.

I took my brain and pen away for a little while to think, and when I cam back I wrote a bit more.

1400 words later, and "Subroutine" is complete. The theme is not the theme I had in mind going into the story, but it's a softly interesting story nonetheless. I'm still practising conflict, and trying to use the tools I have to bring the conflict to the front of the page, rather than the back of my imagination where it usually lurks. It's a first draft, but I think it's a publishable story, once I get the wrinkles ironed out. Maybe I should submit it in the Swancon short story comp.

So, that was yesterday. Today? Another 100 words. There's this robot story, you see...

It's a secret. Shh.

Don't tell anyone, but I've started writing again.

Not revising, which I've been doing since april, but writing.

New stories.

It's as though I turned a corner. Ideas started to flow again.

I've been having three or four nifty ideas a day for almost a week now. This feels much more like the pre-clarion Zara: bursting with ideas, of which 90% never amount to anything worth a full story, but find their way into walk-ons and bit parts of stories in-progress, or stories to come.

I have so many things to work on, and I'm feeling excited about them.

I'm especially excited about the one I've been thinking about for three weeks, and have just begun to write. The speed of my writing is normal Zara pace -- which is to say, breakneck -- but the language coming out of me is almost pure week six Clarion. I look at my words on paper and the difference to my first draft words of this time last year are just astonishing. I wonder how many people would recnognise the same writer behind them. Probably lots, come to think of it, since I'm sure I still use the same words, but just in better and more interesting ways.

Goals for this story:

* To clearly visualise the scene in my head before committing it to paper.
* To only include the details which capture the scene, and the needs of the reader.
* To feel passion.

David G would be proud

I cut the sex from Fantastic Creations, Inc.

..and having done so, the flaws of the basic plotting become more obvious.

So I'm fixing it up.

New look, old journal

Something a bit different. And I've finally cleaned the Clarion fluff from my sidebar. I plan to put my entire Clarion journal into a separate page, which will have its own link Real Soon Now (tm).

Writingwise, I'm gearing up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), although I have no idea what to write a 50,000 word novel about as yet. Something will turn up. I'm one of those writers who has ideas falling out of my brain because I can't hold them in. You're welcome to my spares, if I can borrow some Revision-Fu, or lease your Muse for a weekend retreat.

I'm heading off to the South Coast Writers Retreat at the end of the month, which should be fun. I'm going to try and use the opportunity to revise _Understanding_. I could also try and finish the story I'm collaborating on. Decisions, decisions.

One more, with fearing

So, I've withdrawn from my main writer's group for a while. I withdrew from the others by attrition, post-Clarion.

My issue of Andromeda Spaceways is out, finally (go BUY it, already) and I feel like I'm done for the year. Clarion is over. ASIM 14 is over. I want some time to be me before I take on the world again. I want to enjoy being a fan, and enjoy reading, and enjoy managing the editorial process at Andromeda Spaceways as a traffic controller.

Writing-wise, I feel like I want to go it alone, for a space. I want time to continue my revision without feeling guilty for not producing work for our monthly writer's group. I know it's only me making feel guilty, not anyone in the group, but taking myself out of that cycle of guilt is what I want right now. I also want to work out the inner voices I should be listening to before I hear too many opinions from other people about what and how I should be working.

And I want to see what I can do, if left to my own devices. I went through a process of rediscovery at Clarion, and I want to do a solo rediscovery now. I feel like the way I look at and interpret stories internally has shifted dramatically with both clarion and editing an issue happening in a six month period. I want a break to settle into my new writer mantle, and give all my writer cohort time away from the old Zara to see the new butterfly.

...all quite scary, but challenging and demanding of myself, I think.

I finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter, too. Yay me!