Yzabel / October 9, 2005

A pen name: here’s one of the little somethings I’ve been pondering, yet never bothered so far to really take a decision about. As a technical writer, I’ve been working under my real name from the start, since it seemed the most logical thing to do, but what about fiction works? What about, well… everything else?My last name isn’t terrific. It’d sound decent in English, but in French, nobody’s ever able to pronunce it right from the start, and in other people’s mouths, it ends up as some kind of bastardized garble more than anything else. Serves me right to have a name of German origin. I can’t use my boyfriend’s last name, since I’d then irremediably be mistaken for a singer, and one I don’t even like, at that. I’ve been considering taking my grandmother’s maiden name (my mother’s is even worse than mine, albeit still less horrible than my cousins’!), and I must admit that this would mean a lot to me as well as to her. However… I’ve never had very defined ideas regarding this matter, and never chose one. I figure out that I’d better not start piling pen names, else I’ll drown myself in them pretty fast.Would I really need a pen name? Do that many authors use one, or is it simply a preconceived idea? Does it make it easier to separate one’s works, non-fiction from fiction, or books in different domains of competence? Would it on the contrary be a problem, by creating confusion? Would it be perceived as a refusal to assume my “real identity”, as a rejection of my origins?Granted, this isn’t essential to my career, and there are moments when I couldn’t care less. I’m simply wondering at times. Is it such a big deal, or shall I better go about it the way I’ve been going until now, by not worrying my head about it? After all, some things are only worth the bother when they come, not years in advance.name, writing

Yzabel / October 7, 2005

In today’s post, I’m going to admit a little secret: I seriously suck at finding titles. For someone who aspires to write fiction stories and keep her readers entertained, this is pretty… embarrassing.Giving good, interesting titles to my stories is something I’ve never been really talented at. Either I struggle with them for ages, or I just can’t find any (I still have no defined title for the series of books I’ve been planning for, er, 5 years now?). If I can base them on other titles, such as making a pun on a song’s or novel’s name, things are easier, but then, of course, I’m certainly not going to plagiarize existing titles for my stories, right? This would be even more pitiful than ending up with a boring title.Where to get inspiration for good titles? Is there some kind of secret? Is it nothing more than a matter of gathering key thèmes about a story and its events, and mixing everything until I find a combination of words that sounds good (which doesn’t work that well for me—I always find the result somewhat cheesy)? I’m seriously growing tired of giving temporary hackneyed titles to my stories. I haven’t even found one yet for my NaNovel, in spite of already having quite a defined idea of the story’s plot and development, and I need it in three weeks.Isn’t this a stupid situation? Please, tell me that I’m not the only one to be left facing such struggles with titles, that they’re not as easy to find as they seem to be to an external eye. I’m starting to think that I’m title-impaired. All I want is titles that sound good, neither too cliché nor too complex/occult/pedantic. It’s not asking too much, is it?Ah, the pain. Why do I feel like everyone else finds terrific titles, and I’m only left with the non-exciting ones and the feeling that “I should have thought of this one!”?…inspiration, titles, writing

Yzabel / October 6, 2005

When I write, I can’t do it properly without music—come to think of it, there aren’t many things I like to do without music, anyway. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this case. In a way, I’ve been quite lucky in my respective jobs so far: in almost all the jobs i’ve done until now, I’ve always had music with me, except when I was teaching. It’s been part of my life for so long that I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t listen to whatever I’d lay my hands on (alright, almost whatever).One of my long-lasting crushes lie with KAJIURA Yuki. It’s been four years I first stumbled upon her compositions, which at the time was the Noir OST, and since then, not only did I fell in love with her style, but I sticked to it through other, different soundtracks. Whether it is for Noir, .hack//sign, Madlax or Boogiepop, I always find several pieces on each album that really trigger my inspiration. My favorite ones definitely are on Noir (Canta Per Me, Ode to Power, Salva Nos, as well as Intoccabile‘s theme, that I can’t find anywhere, only in the series) and .hack//sign (In The Land of Twilight, A Stray Child, Limits, Aura and its “evil”, creepy counterpart). Some of the themes for Madlax are also pretty interesting. I’ve already put a few of Kajiura’s compositions in the radioblog here a few weeks ago, and I’m pondering making a “special Kajiura” playlist someday, if only to give a full-fledged preview of her music. When I prepare my list for NaNoWriMo, I’ll no doubt include some as well.In general, anyway, OSTs will often be a good source of inspiration and writing music for me; moreover, when the music doesn’t have any lyrics, I can focus better, so it never harms to have a stack of pieces without words lying around.music, OST, writing, yuki+kajiura

Yzabel / October 4, 2005

Since yesterday, I’ve been testing Writer’s Cafe, developed by Anthemion Software. As far as I know, this is a UK-based distribution, and I’m not sure if it’s available in other languages than English, but this is all well for me, as long as they allow people from other countries to purchase their software, which they do.Read More

Yzabel / October 2, 2005

Am I weird or not, this is the question. I find that it’s easier for me to write certain scenes—especially the ones containing lots of dialogue—if I “act” them first. I know it may feel, read and sound very weird, yet it helps me to get the feeling of the scene, of the atmosphere, and even to create the dialogue itself without having to struggle with the words to make them sound like what real people would say. Nevertheless, I know that were anyone to see me do that through my window, with a pencil and notebook in hand and pacing around acting, they’d probably think I’m a weirdo. Or repeating for a play, with some luck!Evidently, I don’t do that for every scene. I’d have a hard time trying to act a swordfight or a spaceship attack without breaking the furniture by accident in the process, and I know where to stop and where to pick the pen or keyboard again to let only my mind and fingers work, instead of my whole body. Sometimes, I wonder if this tendency hasn’t been enhanced by the few years I’ve spent taking part in theater plays, back in high school, although I know I was doing this whole acting part way before that already.Perhaps I’m a performance person who isn’t fully aware of this yet.acting, scenes, writing

Yzabel / September 29, 2005

This is a little detail I’ve noticed recently, while writing a scene: I tend to not describe what I call “one-time” characters. You know, these characters you’ll see once in the novel, then never again—or so much later that it’ll always be time to give a more accurate physical description about them if they’re important enough at that moment. The taxi driver that has only one line of text to say, the new manager that the main character will only meet briefly before being fired from the company… I like to call them “courier-types”, too, because I often use them to carry a message or fetch a more important character; in themselves, they don’t have any role.Read More

Yzabel / September 28, 2005

I did a word count on my novel yesterday. As the software I use (TexNotes Pro) allows me to create separate notes instead of a huge file, I also did a word count per note, each note holding a chapter. Roughly, my chapters are around 3200 words long. I must admit that I have absolutely no idea whether this is too long, too short or just about right, since I’ve never took the time to count words in chapters of a published book to compare. It’s just the way things are at the moment, in what is my first draft.I have the feeling that my chapters aren’t “long”—I often end them on (semi) cliffhangers, and I have a natural tendency to not make gazillions of scenes occur in the same chapter, since it’d then make it too crammed and complex. However, this made me wonder: what’s the average length, anyway? It probably has to change depending on the kind of story told, and I very much doubt there’s any “law of writing” about this (except “don’t make chapters containing 100,00 words each”).In any case, out of curiosity, what is an accepted number here—or rather, what’s your own accepted number?chapters, word+count, writing