Life does have an uncanny way of dumping everything it can on top of your head and then expect you to keep putting out stuff; be it quality time with friends, delivering tasks at work, making your running work even remotely well and pushing blog posts to the world at a regular schedule. Continue reading Quickie (update)
Category Archives: News
“THERE’S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.”
Sir Terry Pratchett died today and I’m not entirely sure what to do right now. My condolences to the family for their loss. It’s hard to fathom the loss I feel right at this moment, like a part of what made this world great and beautiful has been taken from me. From us. My childhood, adolescence and adult life was shaped by his books, his wit and humour made me laugh and cry, think and observe. Continue reading “THERE’S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.”
Being sick, Changing focus and Harry Potter
As it so often happens life has taken a stroll down cough-cough-sneeze-sneeze lane, so the articles I am working on have taken a back-seat in favour of hot tea, tissues, x-box and staring into the middle distance. I hope to be well enough to finish off a bunch of stuff for the coming weeks and keep up consistent output on this blog.
Also, the content of this blog will change ever so slightly to focusing on three things: Continue reading Being sick, Changing focus and Harry Potter
Site Update and the Amazon-Comixology Kerfuffle
As a spur of the moment thing I decided to invest in my own site for the blog, change the theme and will be adding content about me, projects I’m working on and a page on commissions. Isn’t it pretty? Well it is and who are you to judge?! It’s going to be a slow process, so be patient. Or at least don’t yell at me.
In other news; Amazon has apparently acquired Comixology, my favorite digital comic provider, and stripped out the ability to do in-app purchases on Apple devices in favor of sending readers to the Comixology website. This seems minor, but as this article over at comicbook.com explains, it is a major blow to increasing readership among the non-initiated audience. I recommend reading it now. Like right now. You’re reading this, so you have the time. Click the link. Clickety-click-click-click! Continue reading Site Update and the Amazon-Comixology Kerfuffle
Book Project Update #2.5 (The non-update)
Working Title: Dave’s Hammer.
Current Word Count: Nothing new. I’m sick!
Goal for next Monday: Complete overview of plot treads and 2000 new words.
So the fact is; I haven’t been writing. I was struck down Wednesday with a stomach bug which somewhat dominated my time. It’s not an acceptable excuse, but nothing to do about that now. But I haven’t been idle. I have been thinking (I know, its hard work. Love it!) about my characters and the relationship between the character and writer. Boiling it right down to basics, then any character you write is ultimately a mirror to how the writer thinks his or her character should/would/can/ought to interact with the world.
It’s a problematic process and can stump even the best of content creators. You can be an excellent orator in other ways, but once you take up the viewpoint of a fictitious entity the flow of creativity can dry up in no time like the crust of cheap store bought pizza. How should you write new and exciting content, keep you characters real and engaging, while still conveying a complete narrative? Take the situations below?
- How does Romeo react to facing down a fairly miffed fairy while climbing to meet his Juliet?
- How will Waldo react when he is finally found by Homeland Security and accused of being subversive to American society?
- What should Darth Vader say, when Luke offers him cookies to join the Light side?
So, here is how I see it:
Dave (one on my characters) is a canvas for me to paint a production on, he is an empty vessel to be filled with meaning and agency, or he could be a subject to be explored. What Dave is not, however, is real. Down the line, after I’ve taken him to hell (or heaven) and back, added scars to his soul and patina to his personality, he will feel real. But he will never be real. He is an expression of some other bit of me (and the people I base him on, which would still my interpretation of them). And regardless of how much care I put will be putting into making him, he is still faking it. He is still just a projection after all. He does not represent me (since he could be a horrifying racist and misogynist, which I am not), but does emulate my thoughts.
To make it worse, a writer wants to be original. To create something fresh and new and vibrant with awesomeness. Pheeew! Its no wonder the pressure is on to perform, even if what you write is only ever read by your mother. And is there a nifty little piece of advice to fix this? A net little trick that let you delve into the souls of your characters?
Put succinctly: No.
Put less succinctly: Hell No.
The character is in your head. The only way to get to get it out is to work with it. If this is writing up a character sheet and rolling for stats, then do that. If its writing a long back story with tons of little details that explain every little creepy character detail, then do that. If its going for walk and think, then do that. But in the end, it comes back to the story.
And that needs to be written.
By you.
Further reading:
John Scalzi puts an interesting spin on it in his Star Trek parody Redshirts. Not only is it hilarious. Its also thought provoking and essentially revamped my approach to character development. Whether I’m justified in claiming that is up to you, but to me it worked.
Book Project Update #2
Working Title: Dave’s Hammer.
Current Word Count: 5443 (less than expected) + 845 world notes + 3 character sheets
Goal for next Monday: Complete overview of plot treads and 2000 new words.
Writing sharpens the mind. It makes you curious, hungry for knowledge and ideas, for plot twists and tropes. It makes you consume content like a ravenous beast, not to steal or plagiarize, but to get inspired and engage with new ideas. So writing time gets expanded to include reading time, which becomes reading and watching time, which becomes reading, watching and note taking time, which become writing time once again. Its a peculiar cycling and recycling of content that gets digested by your brainz and then distilled by pen and keyboard to the page. And so the story grows, gains character and matures. Like wine. Or, in my case, maybe more like cheese.
I decided to work more on world building and structuring the story itself. It wonderful to have 10 different and exciting set pieces with action, drama and potential, but no actual link. So structure it is. So I’ve create the storyboard wall here at home. Hopefully that will become a lot more populated with post it’s, lists and look like some horrifying combination of a mine-laded mind map, a post-it note graveyard and a wall. At least somewhere behind it all.
So, to sum up: Added 800+ words, giving shape to characters (and named them), created world documentation and create a post-it note graveyard on a living room wall. Cheer, and a new update in a weeks time.
Book Project Update #1
Working Title: Dave’s Hammer.
Current Word Count: 4745 (woefully less than expected).
Goal for next Monday: 2000 new words.
Working on a book has taught me two things so far (not counting how fascinatingly creative I can be when it comes to procrastination):
- One: Research is key to building a strong, well crafted narrative.
- Two: Research is a pandora’s box that should be managed with utmost care.
This didn’t actually occur to me when I initially started writing, but should have been the first thing on my to-do list. Merry as f… I took flight and wrote my opening chapter, added a ton of headlines for individual chapter ideas and notes on everything from how the world works, political ideals, jokes (need more of those), oddball words like “Muffin” with no added context and phrases like “It should be like that thing with that guy” with no actual idea of how to use it. And then I took a well-deserved break.
And after that initial burst of creativity (and a day or two of reality snapping at it) I come back to it and realize that its filled with inconsistencies, phrases that retrospectively don’t make sense, characters that need fleshing out, etc. So that is what I been doing. I started looking into every aspect of my characters and the story, started reading up on runes, on naming conventions for the area (it will probably be set in Ireland), religious practices and certain historical events, that may be incorporated. And this took up almost all the time I set aside for writing.
The solution (and this is probably not the clever approach), is probably to continue writing and then revamp, revamp and revamp some more at a later stage as more research is done. I’m still in the first draft, so anything is game. Except the names of my characters. At least something is set in stone. For now.
So, to sum up:
I have an additional 500 ish words, 3 character sheets about each of my main characters, a ton of open tabs in my browser waiting to be read and whole lot of writing to go. On a positive note though, I am having a ton of fun with this thing. Will update you more next week.
Book Project Announcement: “Dave’s Hammer”
Yes, I realized today that I haven’t posted to this blog for a full six months and, to be fair, I have not been too busy. I could have posted maybe once a month and maybe those post would have contained some smidgen of genius (or rot considering the source), but no. Work, freelancing, running (a lot of running) and desperately pursuing other fascinating projects, left me with little energy to keep my creative writing up. Time, yes. Energy, no.
So what to do about it now?
Let’s use the blog for something else. Maybe I should blog about the world or post more shorts, but for now it will serve as my “I Am Writing” outlet. So here is the announcement, official and everything, of my new writing project. I call it “Dave’s Hammer”.
“Dave’s Hammer” is my first real attempt (because I made it official here) at writing a full length novel with the first draft finish some time before Christmas Eve. Its an ambitious deadline, but since its a first draft and I will be using the Nanowrimo month as motivation to work on it, I feel it an appropriate time frame.
A here comes the promise:
To keep myself accountable and motivated, I will post here every Monday about my progress (or lack of it), what obstacles I’m facing, what challenges I feel overwhelmed by and maybe post a snippet or two of actual finished text here. I solemnly swear to work hard and kick ass, not loose my place too often and to not give up until the thing is done. Even it takes me well into next year.
Lets us begin then:
Working Title: Dave’s Hammer.
Current Word Count: 4013 (hopefully more by bedtime).
Goal for next Monday: 5000 new words.
Wish me luck, an infusion of pure creative genius, lots of coffee and an attitude of sheer bloody mindedness. Couldn’t hurt!
Torben Jensen 
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