The comments on my previous post made me think some more about something important:

With my mind focused on “doing it seriously so that my stories get published one day”, I could very well start treading on a dangerous road, the one of writing “because I have to do it”, and not exactly because I like it. I’m not sure it’s a road I’d want to take, really. It’s already hard enough as it is with technical writing. Sure, maybe it’s more efficient in terms of success and money, but even this I’m not convinced about—I’m able to tell when I poured my heart into it and when I did it because I was forced to, so if I can, how many readers could as well, and not enjoy the reading? An author who’s bored with her craft, now this is something crappy!

Yes, I think I can do it seriously while working on two or three projects at the same time. It’s all tied to keeping on writing, instead of procrastinating, and this I can do (with a kick in the bottom when TV, books and games call and try to lure me out of the creative rut!).

Thanks for having shared your feelings, because this triggered good thoughts, and good thoughts are always welcome.

Y Tags: writing

I’m considering working on two novel projects this year. Well, this is maybe not a good way of presenting it, but the idea I wanted to keep for the next NaNoWriMo, if I take part, I won’t be able to hold it off for very long, since I feel so much like giving it life as well. And truth be told, don’t we write for the sheer pleasure of the act, after all? I know it’s about doing it seriously if we really want to become published authors someday. However, in my eyes, our writing must also remain something interesting and enjoyable—a sort of a reward. Else, what would be the interest to want to become an author?

The second novel… so far, I’ve titled it Here Comes Trouble, it’s a sort of prequel to Unsung Heroes, and focused on the characters, rather than on specific events. I’m not sure this would be publishable. I’m not sure, and I don’t care. This one, I’m going to treat it as pure enjoyment, and I don’t even need to go over my leg to plan it, since the plan itself is already contained, or almost, in the characters’ profiles.

Yes, it may not be wise to work on two fronts at the same time. However, as long as it’s even remotely enjoyable, I think I’ll be walking a safe road.

Y Tags: novel | writing

That’s National Novel Writing Year—same as NaNoWriMo, but over the span of 2006. Now this is nothing impossible to do, right?

To be honest, I hadn’t planned on joining at first, but given that I’ve given myself this year (less if possible, and not more!) to finish the first volume of the triolgy, I thought that it could be worth it. I like sharing the progress, and having some kind of accountability on top of the one I need to have toward myself is always something good for me.

I’ve also turned my old NaNo blog into a blog for all NaNo-like things I do/have done/will do, including this one, so if anyone’s interested, that’s where I’ll post the really detailed updates. Or so I plan on doing at the moment, at least.

Y Tags: blog | nanowriye | writing

Today’s the first day of the month, and as planned, I’ve started writing down the plan for The Wall of Silence (first volume in the trilogy). While doing so, and while referring to previous writings I had done for this project—which I’ll keep, but only if they fit the new plan—I came to wonder about the way I had been introducing the story and the universe. I think I’ve in fact started by a technique that may be better in movies. However, I’m not sure about that; perhaps it can work in this novel all the same.

The technique I have in mind may be close to the flashback one, except that it’s not a character remembering an element of the past, but an element of the future placed before the present. Back when I started writing this, I intended my first chapter to be an action scene introducing the place my characters are from, but only briefly—they’re running away, and the end of the chapter would see them thrown into the other main setting of the world (there are two main geographic settings, but let’s not enter into this too much). Later on, I came to wonder if I shouldn’t add some more to this, a few other scenes happening before this one.

I know I haven’t done much in terms of blogging this past week, but this is something I plan on remedying to. Somehow, this mini-break was a good thing anyway.

In the meantime, I’ve found (completely by chance) a few interesting things in Second Life. I’ve had an account there since the summer of 2004—I like building houses and creating clothes, it helps in furthering my graphic-related abilities—and although I’m a casual player most of the time, there are moments when I like to explore and see what the world has to offer. This is how I stumbled over a system called THiNC, that allows a player to create and distribute their own book in world.

It’s not regular writing, of course. The book itself must be made of textures, which means that one needs to prepare it offline in images before uploading it all, and this can take a lot of time. Albeit very basic, the result is interesting enough—a book that can appear as an item, and which pages can be flipped. Nothing to do with simple text, since the author can give it whatever look and paginating s/he wants.

Another interesting tidbit: last summer, Cory Doctorow allowed his book Someone comes to town, someone leaves town to be distributed in Second Life, under the shape of an animated book and under the Creative Commons license.

Reading this way is special, to say the least, and I’ll still prefer printing a PDF of the book; on the other hand, it’s interesting to see that the online boundaries of writing don’t stop at websites and blogs, but also extend to other means of distribution.

Y Tags: books | second life | writing