Nethermore

Well, I finally finished my project for work. Week before last I worked 80 hours, didn’t leave the house for six days, and animated like a madman to finish the scenes for the video game. And that still didn’t cut it, so I spent last week tying up everything and sending it off to work.

And now I can breathe a little easier.

Well, actually I can’t. I’m still suffering from cracked ribs or something from when I coughed myself silly. And there’s the lingering breathing problems that seem to be some kind of asthma. At least I’m not contagious.

Saturday Matthias’ father took us to a castle in the town of Bueckeburg. The Counts of the surrounding area have lived in this place for hundreds of years, and their family still lives there and owns some of the other castles and fortresses in the Schaumburg area. One of the interesting things about this castle/palace at Bueckeburg is the ball room. Evidently the church has occasionally rented this pink marble room for youth dances. Now if that wouldn’t be cool! I’m not much into dancing, but throwing a party in an old castle sounds like a grand idea.

Outside of the castle there was a small antique store. We asked them to pull out their maps, and they did. I have had a fascination with maps ever since before I even read Tolkien, but Lord of the Rings sealed my love for it. I’ve been drawing them since 6th grade when my reading teacher read parts of the Hobbit to us and gave us the assignment to create a map, write a story in that world, and draw pictures of the characters.

Isn’t that coolest assignment ever? I wish I could remember the name of that teacher, because she might very well be one of the most-influential teachers in helping me choose what I want to do with the rest of my life.

But anyway, back to the maps. I picked out five of these (reproductions, unfortunately) and wish that I could’ve bought them all. Most of the ones I did get are medieval drawings of cities I’ve already been to whether on this trip or when I was an exchange student here twelve years ago.

So, now with my employer project done, it’s time to do a little work for myself. I’ve already started back on Nethermore. I haven’t done as much writing as I’d have liked, but I’m back into it, and that’s what matters.

And now this week we’re going to Munich! I’ve been excited about going back to southern Germany for several months now. We may hit some of the more interesting towns on our way down, stopping in Nuremburg for the night and then moving on to Munich by Wednesday. I don’t know what’s planned for the rest of the trip. But maybe we’ll make it into Austria or Switzerland or maybe even Northern Italy.

One of the places I’m really excited about it going to again is Neuschwanstein. Everybody’s seen pictures of this castle. It’s the one on which Disney based the Disneyland castle. It’s so beautiful that it’s surreal.

So today I realized that I only had a backpack that was way too small for all my clothes for a week’s trip. I went into town to see what they had there, and went to the grocery store on the way back to pick up a few food items for the trip tomorrow. I must’ve looked lost as I was looking for Ziploc bags (although I’ve been to this grocery store many times before) because a lady came up to me and asked if she could help me.

How do I explain a Ziploc bag in another language when I don’t know the name for “little plastic bag thing”? So I told her, “I’m looking for a small plastic pocket sacks that one can put things in like gummy bears and stuff.” She was very nice and gestured for me to follow her back to the meat department where she pulled out two sacks with handles and put all my groceries in them. She thought I was tired of carrying what I was going to buy! I thanked her and later found the Ziploc bags in another part of the store. I wonder if I could have just said, “Ich suche Ziploc” and that would’ve been enough.

I found the coolest bag ever! I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’ve always had a fascination with backpacks and luggage and plastic containers to store things in. Maybe it’s OCD or something in my head that figures everything has to be organized. This works in theory, since my stuff looks like it’s always in random places. But I assure, it’s organized!

So anyway, this bag works as a duffle bag and a backpack. You can zip the arm straps handily away and stuff this thing as full of clothing or chocolate or whatever, throw it over your shoulder, and then travel to places like France, Vienna, and Orem and eat your chocolate there. And you have enough room for the spare clothes in case you get a little messy eating that chocolate! Ooh boy, I’m on one today. Let’s just leave it at: I like my bag.

Anyway, I’m standing in line at the cash register. By now I’m pretty good at being able to get around and ask questions (though I may not understand the answers), so I was asking some questions of the lady at the register. I’ve got an American accent like you can’t believe, and I probably structure my German sentences like Tagalog sentences. If I keep my mouth shut, nobody can tell I’m not from around here. The moment I open it, it’s like spray-painting my face bright green. After I started talking, the girl behind me in line visibly craned her head to get a good look at me. Or maybe she just thought I was attractive. I mean, she was cute, too. Maybe it wasn’t my accent at all. Maybe it was Chemistry. But alas, I will never find out.

Yesterday I was the victim of a pernicious trick. I went upstairs to correlate with another coworker, when my next-door coworkers decided to change the wallpaper on my computer monitors.

There, tiled across two monitors in all its glory, were twenty posters of Turner and Hooch. Pretty funny joke. And not in bad taste. At least it was Turner and Hooch and not something like

But then we got to talking. Turner and Hooch is the prototype plot for everything written in Hollywood.

I mean, let’s examine the plot.

Man meets dog. Man hates dog. Dog saves man’s life. Man loves dog.

Every popular actor in the Eighties did a movie like that. Even James Belushi did K-9.

“Didn’t Mel Gibson do one too?” asked one coworker.

Yeah, he did Lethal Weapon.

Cop meets new partner. Cop hates new partner. New partner saves cop’s life. Cop loves new partner.

Not to mention that Schwarzenegger starred in Kindergarten Cop and Last Action Hero. Same plots, just substitute the word “kid” for “man” or “dog.”

This is also the plot of most Hollywood love stories. Take While You Were Sleeping, for example.

Girl meets boy. Girl hates boy. Boy saves girls life (figuratively). Girl loves boy.

No wonder Hollywood has gone downhill lately. Why am I not applying these secrets to Nethermore? I’d better get started.

(Have you noticed that the progress bar is moving lately? I’m writing again!)

Well, that’s the longest break that I’ve taken from the blog. Didn’t help that I was in Idaho, which one of my friends has called “information purgatory.”

It seems lately as if the powers of earth and hell are combining against me to keep me from writing Nethermore. Last night when I went up to the college to write, all my favorite writing spots either had people sitting in them already or were being cleaned. After 45 minutes of walking around (yes, the building is that big) I finally gave up, went home, bundled up in a blanket (my roommates like the house cold) and did a little typing before bed.

Things are shaping up. The progress bar will soon show the changes and additions I’ve been making. Right now, the whole story is such a mess that I’m not exactly sure how many words I have. I should be approaching the half-way point on the book–depending on how much I have to cut on some of the characters.

As far as Nanowrimo is concerned, I’ve taken the progress bars down for that one. I didn’t do very well. Again, I blame my own excuses for that. If I had a word for every excuse I’ve used to keep myself from writing then . . . well, the book would be done.

Back in May I posted about how it was interesting how the novel was shaping up. The first scene of each viewpoint established the character in his society. The second scene of each viewpoint established how the character’s personal conflict related to the main conflict. I wasn’t sure how this was working at the time, but now I can report on it.

It wasn’t working. As I’ve been trying to get back into the novel, I’ve been reading what I wrote back in May and the first part of June (can you believe that I wrote 80k words in about a month?) In each case, each character’s first scene is expendable because I infodumped for however-many-thousand words. The second scene was almost always a better introduction–and more exciting too.

What’s more frustrating with the book is realizing how much I’m going to have to rewrite because I kept losing focus of the characters’ goals. The plotlines for some of the characters began to get uninteresting as I accidentally meandered in some of the chapters, seeking for the character’s purpose in the story.

All in all, the book is a trainwreck right now. I went home last night with a headache and a determination. Even though I’m going to have to cut at least half of what I wrote in May, I’m still trucking ahead. There’s still a lot in this book that I like and is spurring me on to finish it.

Two hours of work is only showing 212 words of actual writing on the Nanowrimo word meter. That seems pitiful, but this is my first day back to writing. I actually read through and edited a 4500 word short story called “Robes of the Gods.” Those 212 words count for the final scene of the story, which I wrote tonight.

Otherwise, I’ve been going through Nethermore notes in order refamiliarize myself with the story. Expect progress on that one in the next few days. I’m really getting excited for this book again.

Occassionally I go with Brandon to booksignings in order to sign the Mistborn maps and just generally help out by cornering readers and asking them if they like fantasy books. I have a great time each time I go. I used to work in a book store, and I loved recommending books to people, so the signings both feed my desire to share cool books with people and also motivate me in my own writing. After all, someday I’d like to be signing Nethermore for people.

Brandon posted this picture to his blog yesterday, so I thought I’d pass it on by posting it here. This was the Mistborn booksigning in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three television stations dropped by to interview us, and we just had a lot of fun in general, especially when people I knew from home dropped by to say hi and get their books signed.

I just have to say, Brandon’s a stellar guy to let me tag along at these things.

Last night, a friend of mine recounted a familiar story and offered his two-cents on the story’s theme.

When I was little, I remember Mom reading me the story about the Grasshopper and the Ants. Grasshopper comes along in the spring and wants to spend all his time playing. He tries to get the ants to play along, but they’ve got work to do, storing food for the winter. They suggest that he does the same.

“But winter’s such a long way off!” says the Grasshopper, and he plays all summer.

When winter comes, and Grasshopper has no food, he comes begging to the Ants to let him in. They do, of course, since this is a sugar-coated story and shows that the Ants have compassion.

The story should’ve ended with the Grasshopper freezing to death. That’s what would have happened in real life. The Grasshopper, stuck in the snow and dying, would have shaken his fist in the air and proclaimed, “It isn’t fair!”

But, by golly, it’s fair. He discovered the rules when the Ants told him, and he chose to play instead of to work.

In order to succeed in life, you have to figure out the rules and play by them.

One of the rules of success stems directly from the Grasshopper/Ants fable:

Every one of us will pay a price eventually. Life is a toll road. To use it, you pay up front, or you pay at the end, but no matter what, you will pay one of these tolls.

Feel the Pain of Discipline. Or, Feel the Pain of Regret.

A little bit of work/discipline daily goes a long way to erasing the regret at the end of the road. Lack of discipline at the beginning feeds into how much regret we feel later on in life.

Luckily, we know the rules. We get to choose.

The Pain of Discipline now. Or the Pain of Regreat later on.

Part of the reason I started this blog was to note the patterns in my life and the obstacles in those patterns that keep me from writing. Since April I’ve noticed many patterns and have even been able to use some of them to my benefit in getting writing done–as long as I stick to the “Writing Rules” that I’ve given myself.

One of the obstacles that I’m still having trouble with is my tendancy to do too much. A lot of us artist types are interested in just about everything. For example, I like to draw. I like to paint. I like to build things. I write music. I play the guitar. I love languages. I love to read.

I’m just naming a few things. I mean, I’d love to learn how to do metalurgy and fix cars and write screenplays. I’d love to create a podcast for the website and a webtoon and a webcomic, among other things.

There’s not enough time to be a jack-of-all-trades. The addage holds true: “Jack of All Trades; Master of None.” I’m proof of that.

But I’m trying to rein myself in and focus. I took my guitars and amps home to Idaho this weekend to store in my parents’ basement. I gave back the German books I borrowed from my brother. And I’m trying to get all my outside art projects taken care of so that I can spend more time on what I want most: to write.

These other things all have feelings of accomplishment linked with finishing related projects. But writing is what I love. The moments I get to spend working on my book are like breaths of fresh air in a world otherwise polluted.

Regardless of what I’ve been doing to trim unnecessary things out of my life, one fact still remains.

I still feel overloaded. I’ve got to learn how to say, “No!” And not a wimpy no, but an emphatic NO! that carries with it the unspoken message, “If you ask me again I’ll your hair on fire.”

So lately I’ve been going full steam to get these outside projects out of the way so that when I get home, I can write instead of worry about deadlines for projects I’ve promised to help people with.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind helping people out.

But it’s time to help myself out and get that book done and then send it out and write another book.

I’m going to accept the occassional project. But writing is my priority.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about Vernor Vinge. My friend just finished reading A Deepness in the Sky, and I’m still partway through A Fire Upon the Deep. A lot of people have told me that they like to read Vinge because he makes his readers feel smart. He doesn’t spell everything out for them.

The conversation got me to thinking about my own style of writing in the first draft. My super writing weakness (one of them, anyway) is using big sections of text to explain what’s going on rather than revealing character, setting, and plot by showing what’s happening. Usually I go back through on the second draft and delete these infodumps in order to let my readers connect the dots.

So, revealing the story so that the reader can figure it out seems to be a balancing act. It’s akin to those old connect-the-dots exercises in activity books. The writer’s job is to draw enough dots that the reader can connect them correctly in order to see the big picture.

The writers who draw too many dots, or connect dots that readers can obviously connect by themselves, make a reader feel stupid. A writer who draws just enough dots and lets the readers connect the rest make readers feel smart. A writer who draws too few dots will make discerning readers feel smart and the rest of the readers feel stupid and/or confused.

According to my friend, Vinge makes some readers feels smart and others feel stupid/confused. I can’t tell from my own experience of Vinge, since I’m not done with the book yet. But the prologue to that thing had me scratching me head, wondering where exactly to connect the dots.

Anyway, just another way to look at infodumps. I’m striving for the middle ground. Not too hot, not too cold. But that medium amount of dot drawing that is considered just right.

Last night I had a discussion with a member of my writing group about Focus and Conflict in fiction. It reminded me of a man I met when I was a missionary in the Philippines.

Orlando Salcedo worked for some time as a writer for comics. Now, the comics in the Philippines are less the superhero kind and more on a subtle, relationship level. He gave me a stack of photocopies of the comics that he wrote before I left to return to the States. The stories ranged from “What should the family do for Christmas?” to “I think my girlfriend loves another man.”

Regardless of whether these types of stories have any interest to you, the principle these stories presented can be applied to all types of fiction.

One day Orlando pulled me aside. “You want to be a writer?” he asked. “Then there is one thing you should always remember. A story starts with a problem and ends when that problem is resolved.”

This fits right in with how to fix a sagging middle in a book. Most times when this happens, the author has forgotten to keep the conflict–the problems–coming in. When the problems stop but the story keeps going, the story slows down because the reader unconsciously thinks the story should be over.

I discussed this concept with Janci from my writing group, and she shared a little about what she’s learning from revising her latest novel.

Every writer has a different modus operandi when it comes to writing books. Some focus on plot, others on character, etc. Janci focuses on character and has felt in the past that her stories lacked plot.

But this latest story has a plot! she says. And she didn’t even have to “plot” the story. The reason this works for her is that she keeps the conflict coming, the problems rolling. If one problem is about to be solved, she makes sure that there’s another problem that arises. This keeps up the tension–and the reader’s interest.

I’m going to try this method of “plotting” as I write one of the viewpoints in Nethermore and see how well it goes. I figure it can’t turn out all that bad. Afterall, this is the same way that Stephen King describes his writing process in his book On Writing.

In other news, I came across an interesting website called Write a Novel. It looks like it’s basically tutorials on how to write. Seems like it might be a great writing resource. I’m still in the process of perusing it and seeing what I think.