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Hello manic morning posts, my old friends!
12,000 words.
Today, I read part of Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus (any ideas on the best translations?).
I also read part of Hymn to Demeter, a Homeric hymn.
I also had to look up Servants of the gods in Greek myth. That link is not actually servants of the gods; it's just servants in Greek mythic literature. But that is an interesting thing to explore, I think! What I need are attendants of gods; I know there were demi-gods, dryads, and half mortals...
I thought of:
and
and
while thinking about a certain character, but as for what he looks like I'm keeping in mind Phantom of the Opera; I put the book because I'm mostly thinking, Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber, "like yellow parchment was his skin," and no one ever gets that down quite right, not even Lon Chaney. Though there's less parchment involved in what I'm thinking and more just a preserved in formaldehyde, cadaverous sort of look, which is rubbery, I suppose, and maybe that's how Lon Chaney actually looked in the movie, who knows. I am not thinking of:
But when I started writing Hades, I was SHOCKED, I tell you SHOCKED, to learn that picturing this is what works for me when writing him:
I guess I expected Hades to be more ugly, though Brett surely is sufficiently pointy. But apparently Hades laughs a very barking, harsh sort of laugh, and swoops about in a ridiculous manner; I love him and Persephone hates him already! This is most excellent.
At one point, I got distracted by this:
because I was looking at both of them for an Orpheus sort of look, even though I haven't gotten to Orpheus yet. Orpheus isn't Asian or American, but nor is he Greek in the story; no one is. The first iteration take place in a prehistorical setting, back around when the first woman was made or so on. Of course that's not an actual point in history, so there's no way to tell what people looked like then, but I'm working with the idea of something pan-racial, when homo sapiens was still first wandering around Mesopotamia. Does that make sense? So there's some um, amalgamation involved? Hopefully I can get someone to read it once I'm done and tell me whether there are race, color, and/or culture issues that could be offensive. I don't think Shang and Jacob Black actually look alike, but I do think it's funny someone else does, when I was thinking of them both.
I also came up with a plan today for continuing work after NaNo:
November: 50,000 words
December: another 50,000 words
January: rewrite
February: give copies to people to read and comment on by the first, begin drafting cover letter, research agents, etc
March: final revisions
April: send out
I would be fine with all of it shifting down another month if another 50,000 words is required, or even two months. If it ends up being 200,000, I'll need two months to revise and get it down to at most 100,000, which probably means one more month to do the rewrite. The rest should stay the same, so even in worst case scenario, should be sending it out by July.
Then I came up with another plan, which is this. If I get the amount done for the week in a space of three days, then I can spend the other four days of the week revising. I think we're sort of not supposed to revise? But if I can make the wordcount and also revise, it will make me happier. Especially since I am *really* feelin' it with the story now.
My favorite thing about writing long fiction is this:
My mom is a potter. She makes coil pots using slabs. As she adds each coil, she takes a paddle and thwacks it until it's really the shape it should be, and the cool thing is, you don't just thwack the part where you added the coil; you have to keep thwacking the whole thing every time to make sure it's the shape you want. If you haven't built it right, you're never going to get the right shape, but if your foundation is fine, it still might not look like a pot until you thwack it right. And then theres the much more fine detail work, which is fun too. But NOTHING is as fun as thwacking.
My second favorite thing about writing is thwacking. The first is that total rush of adrenaline you get when you're writing something and it's just COMING to you and all of it is brilliant. But very close second is thwacking, and it's something that's really only a part of the process (for me) for longer fiction. What happens is I start out with an idea, and yeah, I guess it has a general shape? But once I write, oh, usually 10,000 words or so, I start to see what the story is actually about. So then I go in and thwack until the first 10,000 words are aimed in that direction. Then I add another 10,000 words, and take a look again. Usually you have to go back over the whole 20,000 words, but because you already thwacked the first 10,000 words, they only get some minor detail work, while the second 10k get some major thwacking. And so on down the line. Sometimes (30k and 70k are major sticking points! Pot begins to collapse! Oh no! Clay, stick with me!) there's a major thwacking rehaul where you decide the direction you decided you were going in is actually all wrong, but that's okay. The worst part is when you get stuck, and know your vessel isn't shaped right, and don't know why, or what to thwack, and you start to feel like you've just got to scrap the whole thing and put it in the clay mixer and extrude new stuff. That's killer, man!
But anyway, that's thwacking. I love thwacking, and I don't want to deny myself thwacking. The biggest problem with thwacking is usually the urge doesn't strike while writing original fiction. The urge to scrap everything and start all over occurs again and again, but the urge to thwack is absent. I think the reason for this is because I'm far too controlling when I write original fiction; I'm always thinking people have to be a certain way and things have to go a certain way and yadda yadda. I'm also always worried about length, because I know everything I write is too long; I try too hard to only write what's essential, and don't let people wander or talk too much. I'm also always worried about setting scenes, because I'm not very good at that. When writing fanfiction, I usually just write people talking and doing stuff, and then go back in and set it, but in fanfic, you have pre-made sets, right? So it's alright to have them talking in outer space until you set them. Writing original fic, it's all a lot of nowhere. Nowhere! So I get terrified that there will be no sense of place, and I make myself sit down and think of where everything is. WRONG ANSWER. Because writing fanfiction, there's not always a set, is there, after all. When I wrote Angel got a puppy, there was nowhere! Nowhere! And then I just went back in and added places, and see, I think it reads fine. So adding places is fine!
So, anyway, some cool things about what I've written so far, is that I've stopped worrying about how much I'm going to have to cut. I'm sort of resigned to writing 200K and cutting out half of it; I realize that that is my particular burden to bear as someone who can write so many words so easily. Next, I really resisted drawing a map of the Underworld today (though I will soon). I think I'm lucky, though, because the Underworld is super cool and totally appearing to me like a MOVIE. Not one that I can see because I can't really see things in my head too well. But one I can DESCRIBE.
Another cool thing is I totally have the impulse to thwack, and I think this is coming from how I'm writing the characters. Now, don't tell anyone this, but I am not original at all. Really, now, don't tell. Because what if I get published and everyone finds out I'm a fraud? It helps, I think, that the story I'm writing is fanfic anyway; it doesn't get more ficced than Greek Myth. Unless it's Harry Potter. All jokes aside, Katara really is Persephone, and my Hades is a mix between Erik from POTO and Sherlock Holmes. To which![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
my_daroga said, "LOL WUT." That's totally what she said, guys.
ANYWAY, don't tell anyone this, either, but I once wrote a Wolverine/Rogue fanfic for a college Creative Writing class. No one knew it was X-men fanfic. NO ONE BELIEVED ME WHEN I TOLD THEM. I have given that story to many people since, many who quite liked it; honestly I believe it's one of my best. AND THEY DID NOT KNOW EITHER. But I knew. In my heart of hearts, I knew.
I think I'll always be writing fanfic, even when no one can tell it's fanfic. I've never, ever been good at original ideas. I've realized my strength is stealing other people's ideas and manipulating them until they're unrecognizable. It's fun! Try it.
This plan is okay for me!
Today, I read part of Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus (any ideas on the best translations?).
I also read part of Hymn to Demeter, a Homeric hymn.
I also had to look up Servants of the gods in Greek myth. That link is not actually servants of the gods; it's just servants in Greek mythic literature. But that is an interesting thing to explore, I think! What I need are attendants of gods; I know there were demi-gods, dryads, and half mortals...
I thought of:
and
and
while thinking about a certain character, but as for what he looks like I'm keeping in mind Phantom of the Opera; I put the book because I'm mostly thinking, Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber, "like yellow parchment was his skin," and no one ever gets that down quite right, not even Lon Chaney. Though there's less parchment involved in what I'm thinking and more just a preserved in formaldehyde, cadaverous sort of look, which is rubbery, I suppose, and maybe that's how Lon Chaney actually looked in the movie, who knows. I am not thinking of:
But when I started writing Hades, I was SHOCKED, I tell you SHOCKED, to learn that picturing this is what works for me when writing him:
I guess I expected Hades to be more ugly, though Brett surely is sufficiently pointy. But apparently Hades laughs a very barking, harsh sort of laugh, and swoops about in a ridiculous manner; I love him and Persephone hates him already! This is most excellent.
At one point, I got distracted by this:
because I was looking at both of them for an Orpheus sort of look, even though I haven't gotten to Orpheus yet. Orpheus isn't Asian or American, but nor is he Greek in the story; no one is. The first iteration take place in a prehistorical setting, back around when the first woman was made or so on. Of course that's not an actual point in history, so there's no way to tell what people looked like then, but I'm working with the idea of something pan-racial, when homo sapiens was still first wandering around Mesopotamia. Does that make sense? So there's some um, amalgamation involved? Hopefully I can get someone to read it once I'm done and tell me whether there are race, color, and/or culture issues that could be offensive. I don't think Shang and Jacob Black actually look alike, but I do think it's funny someone else does, when I was thinking of them both.
I also came up with a plan today for continuing work after NaNo:
November: 50,000 words
December: another 50,000 words
January: rewrite
February: give copies to people to read and comment on by the first, begin drafting cover letter, research agents, etc
March: final revisions
April: send out
I would be fine with all of it shifting down another month if another 50,000 words is required, or even two months. If it ends up being 200,000, I'll need two months to revise and get it down to at most 100,000, which probably means one more month to do the rewrite. The rest should stay the same, so even in worst case scenario, should be sending it out by July.
Then I came up with another plan, which is this. If I get the amount done for the week in a space of three days, then I can spend the other four days of the week revising. I think we're sort of not supposed to revise? But if I can make the wordcount and also revise, it will make me happier. Especially since I am *really* feelin' it with the story now.
My favorite thing about writing long fiction is this:
My mom is a potter. She makes coil pots using slabs. As she adds each coil, she takes a paddle and thwacks it until it's really the shape it should be, and the cool thing is, you don't just thwack the part where you added the coil; you have to keep thwacking the whole thing every time to make sure it's the shape you want. If you haven't built it right, you're never going to get the right shape, but if your foundation is fine, it still might not look like a pot until you thwack it right. And then theres the much more fine detail work, which is fun too. But NOTHING is as fun as thwacking.
My second favorite thing about writing is thwacking. The first is that total rush of adrenaline you get when you're writing something and it's just COMING to you and all of it is brilliant. But very close second is thwacking, and it's something that's really only a part of the process (for me) for longer fiction. What happens is I start out with an idea, and yeah, I guess it has a general shape? But once I write, oh, usually 10,000 words or so, I start to see what the story is actually about. So then I go in and thwack until the first 10,000 words are aimed in that direction. Then I add another 10,000 words, and take a look again. Usually you have to go back over the whole 20,000 words, but because you already thwacked the first 10,000 words, they only get some minor detail work, while the second 10k get some major thwacking. And so on down the line. Sometimes (30k and 70k are major sticking points! Pot begins to collapse! Oh no! Clay, stick with me!) there's a major thwacking rehaul where you decide the direction you decided you were going in is actually all wrong, but that's okay. The worst part is when you get stuck, and know your vessel isn't shaped right, and don't know why, or what to thwack, and you start to feel like you've just got to scrap the whole thing and put it in the clay mixer and extrude new stuff. That's killer, man!
But anyway, that's thwacking. I love thwacking, and I don't want to deny myself thwacking. The biggest problem with thwacking is usually the urge doesn't strike while writing original fiction. The urge to scrap everything and start all over occurs again and again, but the urge to thwack is absent. I think the reason for this is because I'm far too controlling when I write original fiction; I'm always thinking people have to be a certain way and things have to go a certain way and yadda yadda. I'm also always worried about length, because I know everything I write is too long; I try too hard to only write what's essential, and don't let people wander or talk too much. I'm also always worried about setting scenes, because I'm not very good at that. When writing fanfiction, I usually just write people talking and doing stuff, and then go back in and set it, but in fanfic, you have pre-made sets, right? So it's alright to have them talking in outer space until you set them. Writing original fic, it's all a lot of nowhere. Nowhere! So I get terrified that there will be no sense of place, and I make myself sit down and think of where everything is. WRONG ANSWER. Because writing fanfiction, there's not always a set, is there, after all. When I wrote Angel got a puppy, there was nowhere! Nowhere! And then I just went back in and added places, and see, I think it reads fine. So adding places is fine!
So, anyway, some cool things about what I've written so far, is that I've stopped worrying about how much I'm going to have to cut. I'm sort of resigned to writing 200K and cutting out half of it; I realize that that is my particular burden to bear as someone who can write so many words so easily. Next, I really resisted drawing a map of the Underworld today (though I will soon). I think I'm lucky, though, because the Underworld is super cool and totally appearing to me like a MOVIE. Not one that I can see because I can't really see things in my head too well. But one I can DESCRIBE.
Another cool thing is I totally have the impulse to thwack, and I think this is coming from how I'm writing the characters. Now, don't tell anyone this, but I am not original at all. Really, now, don't tell. Because what if I get published and everyone finds out I'm a fraud? It helps, I think, that the story I'm writing is fanfic anyway; it doesn't get more ficced than Greek Myth. Unless it's Harry Potter. All jokes aside, Katara really is Persephone, and my Hades is a mix between Erik from POTO and Sherlock Holmes. To which
my_daroga said, "LOL WUT." That's totally what she said, guys.ANYWAY, don't tell anyone this, either, but I once wrote a Wolverine/Rogue fanfic for a college Creative Writing class. No one knew it was X-men fanfic. NO ONE BELIEVED ME WHEN I TOLD THEM. I have given that story to many people since, many who quite liked it; honestly I believe it's one of my best. AND THEY DID NOT KNOW EITHER. But I knew. In my heart of hearts, I knew.
I think I'll always be writing fanfic, even when no one can tell it's fanfic. I've never, ever been good at original ideas. I've realized my strength is stealing other people's ideas and manipulating them until they're unrecognizable. It's fun! Try it.
This plan is okay for me!
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I'm much more comfortable writing fanfic than original fic, for a lot of what you mention here. Fanfic has a setting and a history and I don't have to explain it, people already know where things are or they don't care and it's about the characters. Here's the thing about Original Fiction, I think. There are rules that come from these Sources like publishers and teachers and critics that say "This is how you write" and "This is what a good story looks like". We box ourselves in and Genre Fiction becomes separated from Literature for no real good reason. For me, I know when I'm writing original stuff, my mind bombards me with the things that I've heard about how you're *supposed* to write and *what* you're supposed to write. It's exhausting and I usually end up throwing in the towel because who am I kidding.
Anyway, enough rambling. I am mightily impressed by your 12,000 words. I am at 3500, I think. So, one or two days behind. I didn't write yesterday, but I'll write tonight and tomorrow and then hopefully catch myself up this weekend. That's not going to be pretty because I also have a first draft on a paper due. Oh, joy (and Joy)! What on Earth was I thinking?
Totes love the "thwacking"
(Anonymous) 2010-11-04 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)Beautiful metaphor -- thanks for it. As to "stealing" your characters, stealing is a grand tradition in lit: "Good writers borrow. Great writers steal."
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And I love your Hades casting call!
Plus, hey, I guess that fanfic for Greek mythology includes (to be glib about it) more or less ALL WESTERN LITERATURE.
Not to mention that underworld journeying goes back to cave painting (this last courtesy of vague memories of having read The Mind in the Cave a while back - full of TOTALLY HIGH prehistoric shamans and cave walls as membranes between this world and the spirit world, which makes for a decent stab at explaining the 'realism' of Lascaux etc).
BUT ANYWAY. I just love the way that fandom and the internet lets all this snipping and stealing and shaping-up play out in real time. I am still ridiculously shiny-eyed about it!
I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a translation of Prometheus Bound, btw. I haven't read it, though, so I can't vouch for it.
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This afternoon I started to write a Persephone poem, and I got distracted and instead wrote the first five paragraphs of MY Young Adult Persephone novel. And then I stopped because I needed to look up the Latin names of several species of mushroom, but couldn't, because I was on the train. (This novel isn't going anywhere. In fact, I think I'm done. I have no plot, and way too many other WIPS I'm more invested in...but I thought you'd be amused by the way your brain makes my brain bobble around and squeak and sparkle.)
I cheer you on.
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Yeah, I really can't believe how interesting my Hades is turning out to be to me. He's crazy! I'm surprised I like him so much, and then I remember I'm just stealing him from other characters I love and am less surprised. But I do think he's original enough to hold up, particularly since Sherlock Holmes isn't lord of any underworlds, and Erik has that whole mask and music thing going which my Hades doesn't. As for Snape, for once our sallow, draped-in-black anti-hero has a very flat voice, instead of being rich and low and satin. Instead of all those hisses and purrs and animal things it's a very empty sounding cleverness that is clipped and cool and cultured. And clean. And other words that probably start with c.
Man.
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Yeah, you could say all western lit is greek myth fanfic, and it'd be true. But one thing that is interesting to me is that so many people don't know that what we think of when we think of "Greek myth" is all fanfic, because it's not like anyone has original versions. This is why sometimes I boggle when people have a problem with fanfic, because it's what literature is. People are crazy!
Mind in the Cave sounds cool!
Oh, interesting! One thing I was reading about Aeschylus is he conveniently leaves out Pandora. I wonder what Mrs. Browning made of that.
Re: Totes love the "thwacking"
Yes, thwacking. With beading, I would think, you have to take everything apart, which is a lot more like starting over. Though actually, what thwacking really is is working with pieces, and putting them in the right order, sometimes adding pieces to enhance other pieces, which I would imagine is a lot like beading. COOL.
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Hm. I definitely think that there are all kinds of people telling us how to write, which is a problem. I'm not sure it's my problem, because I don't listen to those people. HAHAHHA I am a snob. But my problem is definitely related; it's that I keep thinking about what is publishable. I do the same thing when I write fanfic, actually--I think about my audience and what people will really like.
I'm proud of myself in that I think I do that less with fanfic, now. It started when I wrote that Batman fic. I was like, who on earth is going to want to read Gordon/Bruce Wayne TDK slash? But I had such a bee in my bonnet; I really wanted to do it; and I did it thinking maybe one person would read it. But I did it, had a lot of fun with it, and actually got a really nice response considering. Which I think goes to show that if you love it enough to put the effort in to make it good, someone else will probably appreciate it.
(I used to also feel pressured to put porn in my fic, because porn is popular, and I like porn. But the more I analyzed it the more I realized what I liked wasn't strictly porn, like just any old sex scene would do it. It was some specific kinds of love scenes, and specific things that happen in sex, and actually sometimes it wasn't porn at all. So now I'm a lot better at writing what I think characters will do and say, which sometimes means sex and sometimes means just a lot of talking, both of which I find exciting!)
Anywho, originality. I know! And I agree with you. But I do think that some people sit down and think of an original character, and they're not thinking, "He's going to be sort of Giles-y with some Xander thrown in." They're thinking, "A rugged and repressed Englishman with a streak of rejection humor." But I can never think that way; I can only ever think, "Giles. With some Xander." I think there *is* a difference. Maybe we're both being influenced by the same things, but our intent is different. The interesting thing is I don't think the end result is necessarily different--witness the story I wrote in college. It had the characters, but changed the names and took away super powers and oh yeah, changed the story, so of course it was just as original seeming as someone who hadn't started by realizing they were actually going to write Wolverine and Rogue, you know?
Anyway, I miss this too, talking about writing. I should post more often when I'm dead tired. I say a lot of good and silly stuff then that at other times I think is too disorderly to post.
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WOULD NOT! I don't think there's anybody who could do this novel better than you. I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it. And btw, have you noticed how marketable it is? THE WORLD NEEDS IT, JOY, SO BADLY.
Oh, yeah. Gimme.
Man.Crikey. :Pno subject
Yes, I might have noticed how marketable it is. Just.
But it's true that the world needs it. I'm surprised there are not more retellings, but it's struck me that one difficulty might be ending it. It's rather a downer. But my ending is opposite of downer, since it ends in modern times with Persephone saying, "I don't need you in order for me to be strong; I won't be queen of your underworld and nor will I be my mother's or anyone's beacon of light; I'm just going to be me. Now. How about a date?" or similar, which I think is a nice ending.
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And hee to the thwacking! :)
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I'm writing...er...a goofy buddy-cop story. Which just took a much darker turn than I was expecting. I do not like murdered teenagers but my characters walked into the crime scene and that is what they found and at that point I stopped and stared at my pen in kind of an appalled fashion. (I am doing it longhand this year!)
Do you have a title?
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I really like buddy cop stories, particularly when the focus is on the buddy cops, and not the story, if you know what I mean. I never care about the mystery or the crime; I just want the people.
Whatever inspired you to write longhand? That's crazy!
Good luck.
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I'm writing longhand because at the beginning of November, I was on a sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and computer access is limited there. It's actually a lot of fun; I get a little more thinking time, even if I'm slower...