If there is one thing I fear in regards to my professional life it is stagnation. The field of computer programming is far from a closed field; it is an exciting industry to be a part of, one with low barriers to entry, huge rewards, big payoffs, job satisfaction, and dynamic, vibrant, change. It is because the field is still open and being explored that stagnation in this field is especially dangerous, and yet I’ve met far too many people who have grown stagnant, and I have yet to meet an employer who actually combats it.
» moreI’m restless. At this time of night I should be calming down, relaxing, and preparing to go to sleep. I should be putting the day in a box and that box on a shelf, ready to archive it in some great warehouse of dusty, forgotten, boxes with faded labels. I’m not. I’m agitated; I’m frustrated; I’m wound up so tight I want to scream, yell, and engage in some full-contact physical activities (preferably ones where I’m the only one doing the full-contact, or I won’t last a minute).
» moreI may have stumbled upon something today, something I’m not sure I want to deal with. Some time when I was a kid my folks cautioned me against being lazy. My memory is hazy on the occasion, but knowing me I was probably being admonished for staying indoors reading books rather than going outside and playing, a condition I still suffer to this very day. Since that day (and probably even on that day) I’ve taken offense to being construed as lazy, but I’ve also been quite afraid of becoming lazy; somewhere, somehow our society has determined that laziness is a horrid trait placing a social stigma upon it. Quite often we blame things on the lazy, and quite often we label people as lazy when they don’t do what we think they ought. So when I force myself to be lazy and then feel physically better for it I find myself in a weird state of inner turmoil.
» moreI find myself in a situation I honestly thought I would never be in; and yet I am not altogether surprised at the turn of events bringing me here, just greatly disappointed. An event that should have been heralded with cheers, celebrations, and loud buffetings of congratulations has instead been met with shock, stunned silence, and a general miasma of upset feelings. I have been made an uncle, by my very own brother-in-law, to a bastard.
» moreLife has been a whirlwind these past months. Some say time flies like an arrow, but I rather think time plays tricks on us advancing forward when no one is looking, and before you know it half your life has passed you by and all you did was blink. I should be back from whatever blogging limbo I was caught in. I have a few things on my mind that I will make time to write about, and as we decide to sell our house and buy a new one I’m sure that will present all manner of blogging fodder (read: I’ll have one thing to write about which I will put off due to packing and un-packing, and will then forget about and thus make up some drivel about the stress of moving).
» moreI grew up with stories; when I learned to read I consumed as many stories as I could. Somewhere along the way I wanted to tell my own stories and write them down. Somehow that goal was never quite true, for I also wanted my stories to be complete, and somewhere I got it in my head that a story is not complete unless it has been published. I am beginning to question that: what does publishing do?
I used to think that publishers were a sort of filter but I have books on my shelf that flagrantly violate the rules of grammar and I'm utterly shocked; I was taught that we should use complete sentences, and every sentence must have a verb. Some authors and publishers disagree. So this cannot be true: bad books get published.
I have also caught myself thinking that publishing in some way validates a man or woman as an author. Put another way, you aren't a "real" author until you are published. Does publishing validate the writer as an author? Am I something less if I never sell a book to a publisher? Does self-publishing not count? Does self-publishing only count if I function as both a publisher and as an author, and publish authors other than myself? And if publishing does validate, does a small-press count, and if so, how small can I get away with? Here's a good one: do you have to publish to paper, or can you publish electronically?
Some time ago I concluded that being published means only one thing: your particular story is marketable. If a story is published that means that some person (or persons) believed they would be able to sell the story for a profit. It does not guarantee a fan base, although it probably does guarantee that a few people will at least read your manuscript.
As someone who would love to call himself an author I really only care about one thing: I want an audience. I've given up on the idea that I'll ever make a living at writing. I have a day job, and that is consistent with all the writing advice I've ever heard. So if I only care about having people read my writing I'm seriously wondering why I still have this pipe-dream to one day be a published author, although I now no longer know what that means, nor what it would mean.
What does it mean to be published, and what does publishing do?
A friend of mine reportedly owns Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which I have heard about and summarily dismissed as it sounded corny and a bit cheesy. Upon discussing it tonight I may have changed my mind. The idea of a victorian gentleman having to fend of zombies is immanently interesting to me. There is a great juxtaposition of victorian mores and the usual zombie tropes. There has got to be some really fun conflict inherent in that, not to mention all manner of ending possibilities (does the hero give in and abandon polite society never to return to it, or does he succumb to the horde and die a martyr to his ethics?).
And then a second and more light-hearted possibility sprang to mind: a steampunk zombie hunter. Battling zombies with the lasted mechanical inventions that only the steampunk genre can provide could make for a not-so-horror but quite action oriented tale. Sort of a steampunk version of Army of Darkness and how could that not be cool?
Here's another thought: why not use this as a basis for an RPG? I would love to play either a victorian gentleman or a steampunk lad faced with zombies. Any takers?
It dawned on me tonight after I finished reading yet another short fiction horror story. Horror is too broad of a category and is more often a miss than hit with me, and so I thought about what kind of horror stories I really like: ghost stories. I like haunted house stories too, though those are largely ghost stories, but I'm realizing that most anthologies and magazines of horror stories have quite a lot of stories that just don't interest me at all, and yet even the oldest and most classic ghost stories still keep me coming back to read them. Maybe I need to find some modern ghost story anthologies.
Addendum: Upon further reflection I can add what I call "creature" stories to the list as well. This would include stories like Frankenstein, the Mummy, wolf-men, and Dracula. The more imaginative the monster/creature the better, which may be why Lovecraft is quite fun.
Maybe I'm alone in this, or in the minority, but I cannot play any kind of horror video game (survival horror or FPS horror) when it's bright and sunny outside. The juxtaposition is just too great. I have a small collection of horror video games I'm itching to play, and now that the October has arrived bringing with it dark clouds, grey skies, and the nearing of an end to this accursed Daylight Savings Time, I will have plenty of time to indulge myself in some zombies and monsters!
All stories have a climax, a high point. Most stories put this at the end, leaving only a little room to allow the reader to climb down off the metaphorical mountain. There is good reason for this: when the point the reader cares about is resolved, they lose interest. I cannot help but wonder how, or even if, that point was missed with the latest Batman movie (The Dark Knight). We just got back from seeing the movie and I thought the movie was over and wrapped up a good 20 minutes (or more, I didn't check my watch) than it actually was. I spent that last bit just sitting there wondering why the movie was still playing and how I could have misread the signals. I'm not sure I did; either the climax came too soon, or I assigned too much importance to a minor plot point.
Did this ruin the movie for me? I'm not sure. It did leave me with a very different experience than with the first movie, and I will need to re-watch it in order to really judge it, now that I know how to watch it. I will have to conclude that for a first-time watcher who knows a little about the Batman universe, I thought the story was over before the director did, and that is probably not a good sign as far as I'm concerned.
Birthdays are a curious event; they are curious because we wait a full year to celebrate a person's entrance into this world. We were all too eager to celebrate Emma's first birthday, but in truth, I celebrate her birthday every day of the year. I suppose I could be accused of being a Proud Papa, for Emma is a delight and a joy. If there is one thing holding me back it is that God is the author of her life; all I am doing is raising her. I often think of what a gift Emma has been, is, and will hopefully be, and with a humble sincerity thank God for her daily. It is not because she is always cheerful that I thank God, nor for those precious moments when she clearly indicates she wants Daddy Time; I thank God because He gave us a child to love, to care for, and to raise to become an heir of the Kingdom of God. Of all the ministries God could bestow upon a man (or woman) the ministry of raising a child may very well be the most important and most profound. It is humbling, and at times frightening, that God would leave such an important task to broken, inferior, and imperfect people. If there is one thing I have learned in my first year of being a dad, it is that in this too must I rely upon God's strength and God's will if I hope to be at all successful.
» moreI clocked off work a bit earlier than usual that fateful Thursday; I had managed to drag my sorry self out of bed before my usual time, thus I had more time in my afternoon to enjoy the sudden rain storm. Holly and Emma were out at a swimming party, ironic that the heavens would open up to overflow our gutters and flood our streets with their thirst quenching rain. I opened a couple of windows, grabbed a fiction magazine I have been wanting to read and set my mind upon relaxing. Before I could even sit down and settle in a loud explosion crashed through my neighborhood: the freak rain storm was in truth a thunder storm. Even better! We don't get much in the way of thunder and lightning, and it's always a treat to watch it from a safe distance.
» moreChristmas, while still a religious holiday in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, has always been a family affair in my life. For good or for bad, when I think of Christmas I think of family first and church activities second. There is a joy in giving gifts, of seeing someone's face light up when you get them something they want. The joy is especially great when it's a child's face breaking at the seams with excitement. We'll have to wait a little while for that, not because Emma doesn't get excited — there are many pictures to prove Emma's face is nearly stuck in a perpetual state of happy-happy-joy-joy-oh-boy-am-I-excited — but at her age Christmas was more about family than it was about presents and toys, with one exception: foil tissue paper and gift bags make the best toys!
» moreCultural icons are a fascinating study. It amazes me how an idea or symbol can travel well beyond it's contextual borders and yet still convey something of it's original meaning. Take the White Christmas as an example. There exists, in my mind at least, this ideal that Christmas should be flocked with snow; this image is powerful enough that while my family sold Christmas trees years back, people were in the market for flocked trees, which were normal green trees painted white with fake snow. Salem rarely sees a white Christmas; I can only remember one in my three decades, so when one comes around it seems like a special occasion begging to be marked with joy and celebration. I say this by way of painting a picture of my soul as I sped away from my happy home, flecked with melting snow, with the promise of a heavy snow storm on the wind. This year we made merry in the southern climes of Northern California, which while southern were still cold and wet (alas, no snow).
» moreIntentions being what they are it won't do much good to declare I had many in regards to documenting the aspects of our lives these past three months. Three months in the life of a small child can very well be half of it! Life has been moving at either a break-neck pace or has become ensnared in the muck and mire of circumstances that are better left historical and thus forgotten. With Christmas nearly upon us and two holidays already passed with nary a word it is high time I write something, though I fear it shall not be in any great depth.
» moreIt's November and NaNoWriMo is in full swing. A co-worker of mine is participating for the first time this year, and chatting with him has given me occasion to reflect on writing, my process, NaNoWriMo, and why I'm not participating this year. To be honest there is a small part of me that wishes I was in amongst the crowd of people furiously pounding away at their keyboards desperately trying to keep their word count up so they don't fall too far behind. I loved the sense of camaraderie, knowing that you are not alone, and that people are there to cheer you on. In looking back at the two times I did NaNoWriMo I have a few things I can say I learned.
I don't know when or why I decided that I was too good for a rough draft, but it was somewhere during my school years, probably sixth grade which was the first year I can remember actually getting to write short stories for our English classes. One thing that NaNoWriMo helped me see is the value of having a rough draft. Due to the relentless pace most of what I had to write was below my standards, but I needed the word count, so I was happy to prattle on and on about the most stupid stuff, just because it got me closer to my goal. I knew I was going to have to edit it out later, and I would make notes in the margins to that effect. But something happened that I did not expect.
Somewhere along the way my mediocre prose started showing promise. That wasted conversation that I thought was good dialog only insofar as it was extra words, suddenly turned into character development. My story started having a stronger structure to it and a greater sense of depth due to the all the other silly things I was adding in. The dialog was still too verbose, and I still had to remove the kitchen sink during editing (which I'm sure I'll get to one of these days) but forcing myself to write things I would have normally rejected before writing allowed me to see the promise and potential I would have otherwise prematurely aborted. It's easier to cut things out of a rough draft than to insert new things.
I am a perfectionist's perfectionist. I wish that were mere boasting. Some years ago I took a personality profile (the DISC Profile) and among other metrics it will ascribe three adjectives and mine were "perfectionist", "perfectionist", and "perfectionist" (this compared to another guy taking the test with me only had one of his come up "perfectionist"; lucky guy). Some people have hailed it as a blessing, and I see their point, I on the other hand am intimately familiar with how much it is a curse, especially when it comes to writing.
I have this critical voice inside me analyzing everything I do, say, and think, and that works against any kind of a rough draft process. I'm usually editing while I'm writing, which worked great all through school, because you can do that with essays and research papers; writing fiction is different. Rather than write about what already exists, or make a logical argument for a particular philosophical position, fiction is a work of creation. I spend my professional day writing code, and it too has aspects of creation to it, but the main difference is I have been trained to accept that refactoring code is an acceptable practice. Somehow my inner critic remains silent while I'm writing code, and is satisfied with writing a draft copy and then to iteratively revise it.
I am finding that while my inner critic will motivate me to make sure my writing is the best it can be, there is a time and a place for it, and the rough draft is the wrong time and place. The same holds true for the brainstorming and outlining processes, and I am trying to convince myself that the rough draft is just an extension of that process.
Despite my need to quell my inner critic I cannot escape the fact that I need structure to my stories. The first time I did NaNoWriMo I had a detailed outline. I had six pages of plot points one after another, in an outline format, each one taking up no more than one line. I never got through the entire outline because there are probably three books in that one outline, however, when it came time to write I knew exactly what I wanted to happen, in what order, and I had a clue as to why. The second time I participated I drew up a looser outline and got stuck after just a few days, and I only wrote 13,000 words. I got stuck and I'm still stuck with the story.
I'm finding that even with the short stories I write that if I do not have a clear picture of how the story unfolds I get stuck in a hurry. I used to think I struggled with the plot and finding good plot points, but now I think it's more that I'm working against my natural tendencies. When I do any programing I have some kind of an outline document or project specification that I go by, and all the architecture is done there; all the hard questions, all the little details, all the bugs and assumptions are thought through first before I even start programming. It works wonders for me with programming, and I've come to accept that I need the same level of detail when it comes to writing fiction.
This doesn't mean I don't give myself the freedom to write an impromptu story without much more thought than a brief exchange with a buddy over IM, but it does mean I will be less frustrated with my stories and make better progress if I first know where I intend to go, with whom, why, when, and how. I don't have to follow the plan exactly, but having one at least gives me something to start with.
When I am frustrated I can't be creative. If I am stressed or anxious my creativity cramps up and nothing happens; I'll fight the story, I'll fight with the characters, and nothing will feel natural. I'll only write a few words and end up discouraged. Conversely when I am relaxed I have found that the words flow without effort and I can easily double my word count; not only am I more productive but I'm happier with what I write and I'm less likely to want to attack it with a red pen. I'm still trying to figure out how to pull this off consistently, but more than anything else it's an attitude. Either I decide to enjoy the process of writing and see where it takes me, or let myself get frustrated and give up.
The reality is bad days happen. They are not a reason to give up, instead I should adjust my expectations of what I'll get done, and spend more time trying to figure out how to unwind and then re-start. I found that it was important for my momentum to at least do something on the bad days, but it was more important that I let myself have a bad day and then do whatever was necessary to have a better day next time. In the end perseverance paid off, and if I worked at it I could spend more time relaxed while writing then uptight; it is oxymoronic but I have found I do have to work at relaxing, but the creative benefits are tremendous.
I'm still not sure how it works out, but I have noticed that when I engage in a creative process it sparks ideas and inspiration along the same vein and suddenly I have an overabundance of things I'm excited to work on. It has held true when I try my hand at graphic arts, game design, and at writing. If I just get out and write, even if it's less than mediocre prose, I'll often get hit with all kinds of inspiration for stories, more than when I just sit and brainstorm for ideas. This is one thing that makes doing NaNoWriMo worthwhile, for if in writing for one month solid I can also fill a notebook with story seeds I will have gained something I could not otherwise possess.
In the years since I have done NaNoWriMo I have not always had an idea that I thought was worth pursuing, and yet during NaNoWriMo I was constantly fighting with myself to stay with the story I was working on and just make notes on the other stories that kept invading my brain. What I learned, and forgot, is that during the dry spells I need to just write, even if it is an exercise or a disposable story; doing so I will often come up with a better idea I will be excited about and then I can work on that. In order to write I must write.
NaNoWriMo taught me a lot about myself as a writer. More than anything else I think that is the biggest gain from the process. Even if you will never make it to 50,000 words fight through to the end and see how far you get. The best thing you can do is get it done, keep some notes about how it is working out for you, or how it is not, and regroup later to figure out how you write. There is one thing, though, that NaNoWriMo cannot teach me, and this is the main reason why I am not participating this year.
My first attempt was in 2004 and I've not yet finished the full rough draft of that story. I hit the 50,000 word goal, but I still have more than half of my outline left. I was so tired of writing that I took a few weeks off, then a few weeks turned into months, and then when I did want to get back to it I forgot where I left off. One day I hope to return to the story and finish the draft, and then edit the beast. The pace NaNoWriMo set is not a reasonable pace for me. Sure I can write more than 2,000 words in a day; I just wrote a 2,300 word short story, on a whim, all in one day, and had it complete before my daughter woke up from her nap. But the main issue is one of time and priorities.
I have a few important responsibilities in my life, and they will always take precedence, and I cannot always make time for a two hour writing session. I need to establish a more long-term writing habit. I still don't know what that will look like, and I'm toying with things here and there. I doubt writing only one night a week will keep things fresh in my mind, but I know I probably cannot commit to an hour a day. This is the biggest weakness in me as a writer right now. I do not make the time for it, and while I can convince the people around me to cut me some slack for a month while I try to write a novel, I cannot do that every month indefinitely. Once that problem is solved maybe I will once again join the frenzied fray of frantic fiction folks flinging furious fingers for fun.
I grew up with stories; when I learned to read I consumed as many stories as I could. Somewhere along the way I wanted to tell my own stories and write them down. Somehow that goal was never quite true, for I also wanted my stories to be complete, and somewhere I got it in my head that a story is not complete unless it has been published. I am beginning to question that: what does publishing do?
I used to think that publishers were a sort of filter but I have books on my shelf that flagrantly violate the rules of grammar and I'm utterly shocked; I was taught that we should use complete sentences, and every sentence must have a verb. Some authors and publishers disagree. So this cannot be true: bad books get published.
I have also caught myself thinking that publishing in some way validates a man or woman as an author. Put another way, you aren't a "real" author until you are published. Does publishing validate the writer as an author? Am I something less if I never sell a book to a publisher? Does self-publishing not count? Does self-publishing only count if I function as both a publisher and as an author, and publish authors other than myself? And if publishing does validate, does a small-press count, and if so, how small can I get away with? Here's a good one: do you have to publish to paper, or can you publish electronically?
Some time ago I concluded that being published means only one thing: your particular story is marketable. If a story is published that means that some person (or persons) believed they would be able to sell the story for a profit. It does not guarantee a fan base, although it probably does guarantee that a few people will at least read your manuscript.
As someone who would love to call himself an author I really only care about one thing: I want an audience. I've given up on the idea that I'll ever make a living at writing. I have a day job, and that is consistent with all the writing advice I've ever heard. So if I only care about having people read my writing I'm seriously wondering why I still have this pipe-dream to one day be a published author, although I now no longer know what that means, nor what it would mean.
What does it mean to be published, and what does publishing do?
I made a personal discovery last night: I finally know what it is I like about H.P. Lovecraft's stories, and by extension what I like in the horror genre. For a long time I have been trying to figure out what I like in these stories and what it is that draws me to Lovecraft that does not draw me to other horror writers. At first I thought it was just that Lovecraft wrote "weird fiction" but that is too vague a category to be of any help at all. While some may argue that what I'm about to say would be an inaccurate summation of all of Lovecraft's work I would like to point out that this is the element I like about his stories (and thus his stories that lack this element are not among my favourites).
Lovecraft's stories are detective mystery stories. The stories I gravitate to are the ones where something unexplained has happened and now the protagonist will go about figuring out what is going on. It is the same reason I like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and a host of other detectives. What I like more about horror mystery-detective stories is that the story is not about a murder and a who-dun-it.
So now I know. I like stories where something inexplicable has happened. An impossible thing has occurred and our protagonist will seek to uncover the truth. She may be an unwilling protagonist, caught up in an event far beyond her ken or control. He may be an intrepid investigator on the trail of a great mystery, soon to engulf him in a world of madness. They are tales of the bizarre and the unreal, but made real, and told to reveal the mystery (but not quite!) in a detective sort of way.
The good news is I hit my goal of 2,000 words for tonight, and even better, I had time left over to relax and watch some TV. That was the good news. The not-so-good news is in a few different forms. First of all, my writing program of choice decided to stop counting words after it reached 354; so while I was hammering away well beyond 1,000 it still read a paltry 354. I've sent a little message to tech support to see what they have to say, and I suspect this is a Leopard induced bug. The second issue is one I was afraid would happen and is the reason I am not sharing my story: the tone is all wrong.
If I am to hit 50,000 words this month (and really the story should probably top out at 40,000 words) then I'm going to need to just write. But since I want to write a weird fiction tale in the vein of Lovecraft I need to pay attention to mood, tone, and atmosphere. Already I've had to eschew those things for the sake of getting the skeleton of the story down "on paper". This means, that as I suspected, I will need to edit the story (probably more than once) before I'm willing to let people read it, because the tone and atmosphere are really supposed to be important.
In the end, if starting a project is the hardest step then I'd say things started well. I was a little distracted trying to figure out the word count issue, and if the developers cannot fix it soon I'll have to spend time and effort switching my writing software. Hopefully I can cope until a patch is made available. Two thousand down; forty-eight more to go!
I have decided to write a Lovecraftian story for NaNoWriMo this year, and as if that were not enough of a challenge the protagonist is a woman. Not only will I be conscious of atmosphere, pacing, tension, and suspense, but I'll need to maintain a believability in regards to how a woman would act in the situations I'll be putting her in. This should be interesting, and my wife has offered to help me out, to which I am grateful.
