Further Into the Brainstorm . . .

. . . and never mind the whipping winds and whirling whirlpools, the sheets of rain, and the frosty gale that seems to tear the skin from your face!

The unfortunate thing about brainstorming is that I can share very little without giving a lot away. Thus, it is difficult to write a blog post about my specific brainstorm. As I mentioned before, I have been thinking a lot about Torrson . . . and yes, I have written the first words of my re-imagined novel. These, at least, I can share:

      Torrsøn detested the cold. It reminded him how long he had been waiting. And taunted him with the prospect of waiting any longer.       

      Sitting with his back to the wind, he pulled his stiff nobleman's jacket tighter around him, but the frills did nothing to block out the biting frost. His nose was red as his frozen fingers, he was sure of it, and dripping with his inner mucus. He wiped it desperately on his sleeve. It would not do for the novice steward to have a runny nose. 

      Growling at the cold that persisted to stab him through the flimsy court fabric, he stood with a flourish and began pacing, as if by plodding back and forth he could run away from the frost.

My notebook in which I had begun, moths previously, to jot down notes about this re-imagination, has begun to fill up with pages of tight scripted notes. Specifying character's relationships, outlining their backgrounds, detailing their evil plots, listing their names . . .

And, of course, with all this comes the character sketches. Drawing my characters always re-inspires me, and it gives me a concrete face to gravitate to when I'm writing about them. (Does anyone else feel this way?) I have their personality inside my head, and I could write it out in words if I really tried. But somehow, in the raw early stages of their development, their personality more easily pours out of my drawing pencils than from my fingers on the keyboard.

With all the intricacy of the storyline in this particular character novel - political intrigue, plots and coups, intertwines relationships and devastating scandals (intrigued yet?) - I've decided to try a new method of brainstorming/organizing. The Bulletin Board.

This concept has both excited me and scared me ever since I first heard of it. I'm not sure if writing plot points on index cards, pinning them on a board, shuffling them around, lining them parallel to each other, adding things, and taking things away, will be an effective way for me to organize my thoughts. But I have yet to truly try.

"No time for idle talk! Back to work, you scalawags! Don't you know there's a storm a-brewin'? There she blows!"

Contest Cancelation And A Brainstorm

 I'm sorry to inform you that, due to a general lack of interest, the January Poetry Imitation Contest has been canceled.

Since no one has commented about my contest voicing their intention of entering, and since my schedule was a little crazier than I had anticipated (sudden, unpredictable inspiration) I decided to save this contest for a better time.

However, I still intend to do a post on Imitation (since imitation has been such a major proponent of my writing and the formation of my style of prose); and I would still like to do a contest in the future. But, for now, these things will have to wait.

In the meantime . . .

I have recently discovered how much telling other people about my novel both excites and inspires me. Along with a whole slew of ideas for the second draft of my manuscript, several long conversations about my ideas have propelled me forward into a whirlwind of frantic brainstorming and note-taking and drafting.

HURRAY.

The original draft of 'Enslaved' will always remain as it is. It's my baby - I can't bear to rip it apart until it's unrecognizable. However, I've been mulling over the idea of writing a character novel for quite some time, and my character Torrson has been nagging me about telling his story. He knows he's the one genuine character that burst out of my imagination. Of all the characters I have ever written, he's the one who wrote himself. He escaped from my brain and rampaged across the pages of my manuscript. Now he wants to take over completely.
 
I love his back-story. It's interesting enough to be it's own book.


Hmm.

 A character novel/political thriller in third person that slowly transforms into an adventure novel and ends in a crazy transition to a different character's first-person showdown?

Hmm . . .  

 

Submitted!

What a joy to log onto my email and see these words:

Thank you for submitting an entry to the 2012 Catalog Essay Contest!

We are grateful for your participation.

Your essay will be reviewed shortly, and a winner will be announced on March 1, 2012.

Now, all I have to do is wait.

I know that I promised to post the full story once the deadline for the contest had passed. However, it was recently brought to my attention that doing so may disqualify me from the contest. Vision Forum was unclear about who holds the rights to my story (they have the right to publish it, etc); so, in order that I may not be disqualified before my story is even read, I will only be posting snippets of the story.

However, if I place First or Honorable Mention (*fervently crosses fingers*) , then Vision Forum will post my story on their website. If I am among the winners, I will be sure to link to their site so you can read the whole story.

For now, here are some more snippets:

A sharp scream split the frozen mist.
I tore my eyes away from the malicious waves battering my ship, and whirled toward the deck. My heart skipped.
“Murdoch!” I called, sprinting from the bridge. The men in the wheelhouse jumped as I flung the door open.
“Captain!” All three of them stood.
I strode toward my First Officer. “Murdoch, what’s going on?”
He stammered, hesitating. “W-what do you mean?”
“On deck! Didn’t you hear the passengers yelling?”
His mustache twitched. Of course he had.
“So why aren’t you doing anything?”
“I left men in charge…” he blurted.
“I put YOU in charge! Do you see what’s happening out there?”
All three men turned and stared out the window. Murdoch looked up reluctantly.
The deck teemed like a disturbed anthill, erupting with a mob of Third Class Passengers, feverishly rushing to escape the sinking ship. Pale-faced men sprinted back and forth, or else bickered with each other, hollering curses. Women and children huddled like frightened sheep, herded toward the lifeboats by the deckhands.
And only one lifeboat remained.
“Do you see the problem now, Murdoch?”
He looked down.

And now to spoil the ending:

I looked around at my men, and they smiled resolutely back at me.
I couldn’t bear their loyalty. Not after I had been so heartless to the one woman in my life who deserved all of my loyalty and love. My men were putting me first, but I hadn’t put her before myself.
I had denied my responsibility as a man: to protect.
I glanced down at the little girl. My chance to make things right. Then I knelt, and slipped my jacket over her head.
My smile was tainted by tears.
I would go down with my ship. Redeemed.
But Sarah would never know.

(However, considering the historical fact that Captain Edward Smith did, in fact, sink with his ship, the end is already spoiled. The surprises are all in the middle, and I didn't spoil any of those.)

Now, one announcement before I go. There will, in fact, be a contest this month:

The theme? IMITATION
 
The Assignment? To write a poem of at least 100 lines in imitation of a specific poem selected from one of the masters (E. Poe, H. Longfellow, R. Frost).

There will be a forthcoming post on Imitation, along with an example 'imitation poem'. After that  the formal Contest Announcement will be posted (along with the deadline and description of the prize), and then
AWAY TO YOUR PENS!

And, UNTIL then . . . well . . . away to your pens, I suppose!
 

Editing . . . Groan

I've decided I hate editing.

This is something I've been dealing with for the past five months. I've avoided editing like the plague; ignored the suffering prose of my novel and tuned out the incessant cries of uncompleted school papers.

But now, of course, with a deadline of tomorrow for my Vision Forum short story, I can no longer avoid editing. Yesterday, I took my laptop and sat on my bed for an hour, managing to (somewhat) painlessly cut out the 52 extra words, plus another 16. 

This made me very happy.

Yet, after this minor victory, I remembered that  I now have to deal with content. Clarity. Keeping  my audience in mind.

And it's even more difficult with a limit of 1,200 words.

Though I can act OCD sometimes, I feel like it would be wrong for me to send in a story with exactly 1,200 words. I would feel like I 'barely made it'. I feel so guilty stretching the word-count.

Editing is annoying, but with a word-count is even worse. The way your stomach sinks when you finally find the perfect way of phrasing that troublesome sentence, and then you glance down . . . and the Word Count stares back up at you: 1,208 words.

Drat.

I hate editing. And, of course, I'm using this blog post as an excuse for not editing.

I feel antsy and restless whenever I think about going back to that Microsoft Word Page full of text, words I don't want to change. 

I always forget. Writing is work. Now to push through the grudge-y, un-fun part of it. Oh joy.

But oh, how I love it!

Finished

This was the cover I based my story on

About a month ago I mentioned that I was writing a short story for the Vision Forum Family Catalog contest. The instructions were to write the most compelling story which artfully tells the tale of the individuals depicted on the cover in the context of the theme "Women and Children First"

When I read about it, I was ecstatic, of course.

But I procrastinated, as is the nature of me.

So here I am, over a month later, three days before the deadline, and I am finally done.

In need of editing, yes (considering it's 52 words over the limit). But finished.

My story is titled 'Redeemed'. Here is an excerpt:

~

I tore my eyes away and stepped toward Murdoch.
“Were all the lifeboats full?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Captain. I was following your orders. Women and children first.”
I clenched my jaw. “And were the lifeboats full of women and children, Murdoch?”
He was silent.
I turned and left the wheelhouse.

Now, to edit . . .

Pushing Yourself

It's always hard, after the excitement of Christmas, to throw yourself back into your "groove" with writing. 

That is, if you had a groove before the holidays. But I didn't.

So now, to start a new groove! As much as I hate forcing myself to write (it all feels stinted that way) I realize that the stintedness is part of being a writer. And though I feel as if I've said it over and over, I can't call myself a writer if I don't write.

Part of me is nervous that, after writing Enslaved  I became so exhausted that I convinced myself the best thing to do was to distance myself from prose, and fiction, and writing anything that felt even remotely close to the genre of my novel. I was so tired of pushing myself through the stintedness that I didn't even want to think about my manuscript. All writing came to feel stinted, and thus I shunned all of it (except poetry, which is quick to write and fun to read).

And yet, through all of this, I felt as though I was abandoning a part of myself. I wasn't just taking a break. I was throwing in the towel. Telling myself that "I can't go on any longer". "I can't look at that story anymore". I began to question if I was meant to write at all.

But none of this felt right. Even though I was discouraged, giving up didn't just feel lazy. It felt uncharacteristic. Words have always been my friend. Fiction and prose have always been a part of me. To try to convince myself that "I couldn't go on any longer" - just because I was tired - felt as though I was forgetting part of who I was.

Writing is like a workout. You start off a little tired. Then you get a rhythm going, and you throw your heart and soul into it.  But after a while, your muscles start to ache, all your 'umph' is gone, and you want to just lay down and go to sleep.

But the only way to get stronger is to push yourself through the aches and pains! Find that buzz of adrenaline in the back of your brain, exhale, and finish with everything you've got.

So here's a toast to New Years Resolutions before the new year begins! I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say it to myself before I listen to me: but I must force myself to write, or else forfeit part of who I am.

And that would be quite unfortunate.

Does anyone else feel as though they have lost their "groove"? Are there any other authors out there making New Years Resolutions to devote themselves more eagerly to their writing? 
Let's hope that new life is born in our words as the new year begins!

Keep pressing on . . .

Even More Poems In December

Still, it hasn't snowed yet. That's a good sign I suppose. Maybe we'll have a mild winter, and January and February won't be quite as depressing.

Here's a poem I wrote a couple years ago, in the middle of the night. I love those moments. Yes, writing can be difficult sometimes, but, fortunately, we get those moments of sudden, inexplicable inspiration, too.

One more thing. Keep your eye out in the coming months - I'm planning to hold a contest after the holidays connected with poetry and imitation. The prizes will consist of full-color illustrations of your protagonist. So keep checking - contests will be coming soon! 

~

Hope in Shadow

Shick, Shack, watch your back,

The twisted dreams are turning black,

The drum of all the swirling shadows,

Come to meet us in the shallows,

                            When the world is quiet.

Trin, Trun, time to run,

The shadows come when there's no sun,

The shouting of all the wicked sins,

Cannot be heard over their din,

                            I cannot hide from it.

Bim Boom, in my room,

Hiding from the impending doom,

My sadness compels me to ask how,

My tears my only comfort now,

                            Darkness uninvited.

Hoop, Hope, prayers like soap,

Washing, tying, my dreams like rope,

They lift me from the treacherous ground,

They urge me on, I'm lost, I'm found,

                             I will turn and face it,

                             My weapon vanquish it,

                     With HOPE I can win.

                                                                      3/09