JulNoWriMo Day 3: A Little Setback

I wrote no words on day 2 of JulNoWriMo. Why? Because I spent too much time on the JulNo and 50/90 forums! All these Internet forums tend to distract me, especially since I'm stuck with a slow dialup connection. But I have a remedy for my problem: write myself a note!

I went online ostensibly to get some information that would help me write Black Science. That information is on Wikipedia and other sites. I didn't go there, nor did I search for any other sites related to what I wanted to write. Instead, I posted to forums and wrestled with Facebook and Twitter. And I uploaded my second photo to Flickr for the Project 365 thing (take and post a new photo a day for a year), as I relate here.

For day 3, I intend to start writing again. But I need to write myself a checklist so I can get all my research done. Then I can write. I can post to forums and wrestle with Facebook later.

And I'll have previews of the new draft of Black Science right here on this blog. Wait for it!

JulNoWriMo Day 2: Starting Again From A Standstill

I haven't written anything in my novels for two months. So it's taking me a little while to get back into the swing of things. Once again, words are trying to evade me; once again I have to chase and capture them so I can type them in Word. I may have to force the inspiration to come if necessary. Finishing Black Science won't be a cinch. This JulNoWriMo won't be easy at first.

Some of my fellow writers have a similar problem: the words don't come at the proper pace immediately. Some are slow writers anyway. The words pour out of other writers; sometimes it seems they can't even stop. I'm the kind of writer who needs to build up my pace. That's why, during any given WriMo, I do most of my writing in the second half of the month. And anyway, I've barely even started. Day 2 is early.

Current word count: 337, all in Black Science.

In site-related news: I ran out of room for tags for my blog entries. I was going to eliminate all the character tags, but that may be more trouble than I need. However, I had all these tags for individual WriMos. I condensed almost all of them into the single tag "WriMo". So you probably can't search for individual WriMos (e.g., NaNo, JulNo) anymore, but at least I have room for new tags now.

JulNoWriMo Day 1: And They're Off...

At midnight I start completely rewriting Black Science for JulNoWriMo. I'm looking to beat the almost 65,000-word WriMo record I set with Bad Company last JanNoWriMo. And I'm doing it with not just Black Science, but with at least one Spanner Side Story ("Mind Bomb") and maybe some still unwritten scenes of BadCo as well. And all this while I'm doing 50 Songs in 90 Days and resuming my Project 365 (I'm in the Flickr group).

So what are my plans for JulNo '09?

First thing, start writing Black Science at midnight my time. I'll be writing it as if it were a brand new NaNoWriMo novel, basically a first draft of a novel of which only one scene survives from the original fiasco I wrote during NaNo '06. I want to write as much of it as I have time for before my busy July 4, in which I'm recording two songs for 50/90 and playing my first songs live (albeit in front of family members).

Second, there's the first of my Spanner Side Stories. I've decided I'm going to use my neglected DeviantArt account and post these short stories to it. "Mind Bomb" will be the first. I'll post it chapter by chapter, and of course hope there's not too many chapters to call it a short story. After that, I'll start a new one. I hope to do one a week — if I don't pour out too many words of Black Science.

Third, I intend to start drawing again. At first, I intend to spend at least a few minutes a day on practice sketches so I can get back into it again. It'll be rusty at first, since it's been so long since I've drawn anything; I've spent too much time over the past couple of years writing novels and songs.

Of course, I'll write songs.

I've got an ambitious agenda for the next month. Let's see if I can actually pull this off for the first time...

Goal before I go to bed: 1,000 words. After I wake up: 5,000 words.

Black Science: Preparing for JulNoWriMo

Instead of returning to Bad Company, I started a new short story (which is turning novel) instead. I'll post the first few chapters soon, and I'll inform you here (and elsewhere) when I do. Though I'm now delaying BadCoFiMo, I still plan on doing the complete rewrite of Black Science for JulNoWriMo. I'm already assembling reams of old handwritten story notes, writing new ones, and collecting a small library of books and websites as research material.

A short synopsis of Black Science, or a rough treatment for the eventual plot: After the disastrous events of Bad Company (in short: Barack Obama gets elected, and giant military corporation Dictel invades America in a futile attempt to restore Operation Permanent Republican Administration), the government psychologist Willa Richter-Thomas is confronted with a choice to either join the super soldier project at Dictel Research or get railroaded for espionage. She chooses to fight. The big question: Why does the new Democratic government want to bring back the evil corporation that tried to destroy them in 2008? The answer, in one word: Afghanistan. President Obama is escalating the Afghan war into yet another Vietnam. And the Pentagon sees Dictel as the key to victory.

BadCoFiMo Delayed...But A New Strategy Emerged From Its Failure...

Turns out that, unfortunately, there will be no BadCoFiMo in June. The strategy just wouldn't come together, at least not now. If I start editing Bad Company, I'll have to take my time doing it, since I'll be focusing on Black Science for JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo while taking part in the 50 Songs in 90 Days challenge. But instead of BadCoFiMo, I decided to take a different strategy: writing short stories to prepare for BadCo, Black Science, and especially Spanner. It's called "Mind Bomb", and it's the first of a new set of "Spanner Side Stories". And it's already expanding into at least a novella...

"Mind Bomb" takes place in 2025 (or 6025 by the "Neo-Egyptian" calendar), almost a decade after the spectacular ending of Spanner. Shira and Desiree are back, in a new post-"Corporate Empire" world dominated by a large collection of constantly warring imperialist governments dedicated to the economic philosophy of state capitalism. And guess what? Even despite the fall of the Corporate Empire and the leading member of its ruling Cartel, Dictel Corporation — guess what? Dictel's back, and it's up to no good yet again! This time it involves the latest version of its infamous mind-control machine, the "psychotron", the biggest project of Dictel Research since the 1950s. When word gets out, thanks in part to a new recurring character named (in a sudden spasm of geekiness) Lala Sun-Microsoft (note name of corporations used as family names, something I'll explain later), a notoriously insatiable gossip, word gets out. When the state-capitalist empires all find out, all hell breaks loose in a free-for-all over the new psychotron. So a new character I created just for this story, calling herself Lucy Williams (formerly a Russian businessman [male], now a young [and very much female] roving activist), hires Spanner and asks her to repeat the "mind bomb" trick that took down Henry Becket, only on a larger scale.

This short summary omits several elements that I created for it, of course. First there are the factions: Corporates, Imperials, Crusaders, and so on. Then there are the posthumans of various kinds, including the strange cyborg-beings prominent in Spanner and a new breed of cyber-entities who have uploaded their consciousnesses to the Internet and/or Hans Moravec-inspired robots, and thus abandoned carbon-based lifeform altogether.

Unlike the Dictel trilogy, and far more than even Spanner, "Mind Bomb" is a true science fiction story — cyberpunk, in fact.

So this is what I've been doing instead of BadCoFiMo. That and writing notes on the Spanner and its spinoffs, from Bad Company all the way to "Mind Bomb" and beyond.

I'll keep you posted here more frequently. And I'll make sure to tweet updates.

Bad Company: BadCoFiMo Starts Late...

After losing Script Frenzy, I took a break from the whole WriMo thing. I took May off. As it turns out, I took almost the first half of June off too. That means my "Bad Company Finishing Month" is starting late — when the month is already half over. But at least I've actually started BadCoFiMo...

I changed my BadCoFiMo plan when I started trying to insert those JanNo/FebNo scenes from their standalone files into the main manuscript. Each day during JanNoWriMo, I wrote scenes from various parts of the novel and saved them in separate files to make sure I could count the words more easily and not mess up the main file. However, some difficulties ensued when I tried to put the scenes in their proper places in the novel. So I realized that I need a new strategy:

1. Separate the chapters of the novel from the main file and put each chapter into a separate file, named in the order I find them in the main file.
2. Separate each of the JanNo and FebNo files into the separate scenes, one file per scene.
3. Organize (and, if necessary, reorganize) the files so that all the scenes are in their proper order.
4. Take out the index cards I've already used and write ideas for the missing scenes on new blank ones.
5. Map all the storylines and character arcs so that I have a better idea of those I've already written and how to write the unfinished and unwritten ones.
6. Write all the remaining unwritten scenes and put them in their proper files (new ones if necessary) in the proper order.
7. Organize the scenes and chapters again if necessary.
8. Finally, put the whole thing back together, restoring the main file with all the original and new scenes in their new order.

This should make everything a lot easier for me to write and edit, even if it's more unwieldy on my hard drive and in Word.

I still plan to finish the first complete draft this month. I've simply gotten a late start on it, as I've gotten distracted by news and opinion websites, which can get addictive...

Bad Company: Preparing for June's "BadCoFiMo"

So far this month, I've been pretty much content to take a break from writing. Mostly, I've been focusing on my guitar lessons. But on June 1, my break ends. Sure, I'll continue with my guitar practice; after all, I've got songs to rerecord. But on June 1, I will return to the '07 NaNoWriMo novel that has given me so much trouble over the past year and a half. For me, June '09 is "BadCoFiMo" — "Bad Company Finishing Month"!

I have a whole bunch of small files in the BadCo directory on my hard drive, built up over a period of about two months from mid-December (NaNoFiMo '08), through January (the JanNoWriMo in which I pulled off my most spectacular WriMo victory ever, with over 65,000 words), and fizzling out in February (in which I shifted my emphasis from NaNoPubYe's FebNoWriMo to FAWM). Some of these files contain scenes from different chapters in widely separated parts of the book. My first challenge, which I never bothered to get around to during NaNoEdMo, is to assemble all these files and all these scenes, putting them all into their proper places in the book. That is my first task for BadCoFiMo.

Even once I've put every scene back into its place, there will still be some plot holes remaining. My second task is to fill them. I will plot every single storyline, determine where each scene fits within the various storylines, find where the plot holes are, and write all the new scenes I need to fill them. This will give me my first complete draft.

My third task: a one-pass revision to create the second complete draft. In her workshop, Holly Lisle strongly suggests that her method will get you "from first draft to last in one cycle". I'm going to see if I can actually pull off such a feat. The first draft will still be rough, even after all the revisions I put into my many incomplete drafts. The second draft will be much smoother and read much easier.

Once I get the second draft finished, I'll prepare an "e-book" version that I'll have certain friends, relatives, and fellow "wrimos" read and critique. They may give me criticisms and ideas that could result in a third draft — but if I don't have the time left, I'll leave a third draft till later, like after I'm done writing the first draft of Black Science during JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo. Interestingly enough, it was on the first day of last year's AugNo that I burned out on BadCo, pretty much preventing me from even touching my computer till almost the end of NaNo '08, which I would have lost but for one of my most productive Panic Times in my entire WriMo career. A book never emerged out of it, but at least I won...

Now I'll get back to my guitar practice, and spending way too much time on the Web, and trying to find some way to get broadband access (I'm poor, I'm afraid) so I can avoid those long dialup load times. And I'll continue my rest from novel writing till June 1. But in June, I'm going to finish Bad Company, no matter what!

Bad Company: The Script Frenzy FAILS!

I made my third attempt at Script Frenzy last month. However, it seems, attempting to adapt my NaNoWriMo novels jinxes my Screnzy. Once again, I failed to adapt a novel. Plus, I had a huge complication: I moved across town. Moving takes your attention away from creative things. And so all I ended up writing was 15 pages of the movie adaptation of Bad Company, basically the "Intro" and "Outro" from the novel.

So I decided to take a break for an entire month. I'm skipping MayNoWriMo.

So what am I doing this month? Mainly, I'm focusing on learning how to play the guitar. My guitar lessons started almost serendipitously in the middle of FAWM, while I was furiously writing 38 songs (write 14 and you're a winner — some extremely productive FAWMers actually wrote over 100 songs). Early this month, I got this year's birthday present from my mother two months early: a new Stratocaster-type electric guitar. One of my goals is to record all the FAWM songs I haven't cut demos for, and rerecord almost all the songs I've already recorded (the one exception being "Stayed Up Too Late" (MP3 link), the "Casiopunk" tune, in which I'm keeping my MIDI-simulated guitar sound). I'm not practicing my guitar(s) as regularly as I'd like, but at least I can actually play guitar now.

As for Bad Company — after the failure of my Script Frenzy in April, and limited success in NaNoEdMo in March, I've decided to dedicate June to finishing the first draft. Sure, I'll still be continuing my guitar lessons (in part, to prepare for 50 Songs in 90 Days). But my main focus in June will be what I call "BadCoFiMo": Bad Company Finishing Month. My goals:

1. Assemble the many fragments I wrote during NaNoFiMo and JanNoWriMo and import them into the main manuscript file.
2. Fill in all the remaining plot holes, and finish the plotlines I've left incomplete.
3. Give the finished manuscript a one-pass edit.

During Script Frenzy, my goal was to adapt Bad Company into both movie and graphic novel scripts. As I said, I only managed to adapt the novel's prologue and epilogue. Since the adaptation attempt was unsuccessful, I'm going to focus on the novel for one more month. Any adaptations will then have to wait.

Meanwhile, I've started to get a fresh new set of story ideas for Black Science. But I'll save that for future posts...

Bad Company: The Script Frenzy!

It's been way too long since I posted here. The reason? I got way too wrapped up in FAWM! Well, after 38 songs, 24 of them recorded, and after nearly missing out on NaNoEdMo, I'm working to complete the first draft of Bad Company again. This time, for Script Frenzy, I'm writing not one but two scripts: the movie, and the graphic novel! And I'm drawing the latter, and may even release it in regular installments (the frequency depends on how fast I can draw) as a webmanga like Spanner.

I have these periods when I can hardly write anything (like 4 whole months last year), and others in which I get so obsessed with something that I can't do anything else. In February and March this year, that obsession was FAWM. February was the month in which I discovered I can actually write songs, and write them well. I don't have the guitar or keyboard skills to actually play those instruments yet, so I used TuxGuitar and my MIDI keyboard to simulate a rock band. The result sounds okay, but the MIDI-simulated rock guitar is only satisfactory, and the simulated acoustic guitar is even worse! I'll eventually redo all my songs with real guitar and keyboard parts, and they'll sound tons better.

Bad Company: The Spectacular Finale of JanNoWriMo

For those of you who have been paying attention, one of the goals I made for this year was to finish Bad Company once and for all. So, when I found myself falling behind in the last week of JanNoWriMo, I pulled off a series of 10,000-word marathon sessions. I won JanNo in spectacular fashion, breaking my all-time WriMo record in the process. However, even though I ended up with pain in my neck and shoulders to go along with my satisfaction, I didn't finish the first draft. That's my next goal: finish BadCo before NaNoEdMo begins on March 1.