Yzabel / February 20, 2006

Not Dead

No, I’m not dead, I just haven’t been in the mood for blogging much these days. Coupled with being away the past week-end, fighting with scenes from my novel that wouldn’t go my way (see the “NaNo” blog for this), and falling sick (as usual every two months or so), life’s been full. Alright, to be realy honest, I need to blame Stepmania as well, though in a good way; I definitely needed to get back in shape, and doing mindless cardio on stationary bikes really isn’t my thing at all. I was looking at fun alternatives, and I remembered having tried DDR once… The fate of this author was sealed, and a dance mat went on its way to reach me.

Things are going well with the writing so far, in any case. In spite of my battle with scenes that will go to the unused basket, replaced as they are by more appropriate ones, the ball goes on rolling. Five chapters under my belt, it’s not that bad, and for a change, they’re planned ones, not written on the spur of the moment.

I’ll love this story as much as I’ve loved creating the universe it’s set in, which is an excellent thing.

Yzabel / February 7, 2006

Must remain a pleasure

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.

Yzabel / February 6, 2006

Working On Two Projects?

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.

Yzabel / February 4, 2006

NaNoWriYe

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.

Yzabel / February 1, 2006

The Future Before The Present

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.Read More

Yzabel / January 31, 2006

Self-Printing In A Virtual World

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.

Yzabel / January 26, 2006

Not Wanting To Finish A Story?

These days, I try to isolate and understand a few more writing matters, that I hadn’t perused before, and I’ve been wondering if it’s very unusual for an author to find herself, to say it simply, not wanting to finish a story? Not for fear of failure or rejection, that is, but for the sake of keeping the characters ‘alive’ for a little longer.

Coming from a RPG background and from campaigns/chronicles that would last for months if not for years, I think I took a few bad habits, in that I want to keep the story going for as long as possible before putting an end to it. However, this doesn’t work well for novels, lest for short stories. When I find myself in the position of reader, part of me wants to world and characters to go on existing, yet part of me also wants the whole plot to get to a conclusion at some point–no neverending series of a gazillion of books that tends to all look like each other after a while.Read More

Yzabel / January 19, 2006

The Simpsons Already Did It

I know that what matters is the execution, not only the basis idea, but isn’t it very frustrating when you’ve come up with an idea, either for a novel or a short story, only to realize, a few days, weeks or even months later, that someone already worked along the same theme in a book or a movie you weren’t aware of?

Sure, it won’t prevent me from writing, it won’t make me give up my story if I believe in it (and if I didn’t believe in my own stories, wouldn’t this be sad?), but it keeps on irking me, to know that ‘someone else thought of it before I did’.

Fate has a twisted sense of irony.

Yzabel / January 18, 2006

You Want To Write In What?

No kidding, I must really be doomed when it comes to short stories.

I’m working on a quick plan for a text in French, one that I will send to the Harfang association. I don’t have that many hopes, since everybody here knows how much I suck at short stories, but one needs to start somewhere, and if I don’t try and practice, I’ll never improve.

Now that I’ve found an idea, I don’t know how to begin the story.

I’m hesitating between first and third person. However, and this is way more of a bother, I keep on feeling like I should write it in English. I’m on the verge of banging my head against the table, because this is so very stupid. For once that I decide to work on an imposed theme and try to see if I’m able to pull it through, I’m hindered by the choice of the language.

I don’t doubt that in a few days at the most, I’ll be able to go past this block and write the story for good, but this is aggravating all the same!

Yzabel / January 15, 2006

Role-Playing Games, Novels and World-Building

This week-end, I went back to sweet hometown and met with friends I hadn’t seen in a few years. Knowing who we are and what our common background is, there was no doubt that it would end with a tabletop RPG session, and no surprise here, it happened. One of my friends had in fact built his own little world, complete with maps and background history, which is the universe we played in. It reminded me of a comment left on this blog some time ago, about handing out my characters to players, placing them in specific situations, and seeing how it goes.Read More