Week of May 25, 2008 Writing Update…

It was another incredibly busy week. I am hoping this next week will be a bit less hectic.

Nonetheless, I was able to get a bit done on my story this past week,

I was sorely disappointed that I was not as productive as I was last week but I am proud of the fact I over came my lethargy to get some writing done.

I started with one scene that I wanted to add but it tanked and I only got one page. I am reviewing this scene to see if I really need it so it may not even exist in the near future.

I then came up with some things that needed to be included in the story and so I was able to pull out four more pages. Not what I was hoping for but then again, I wrote.

One benefit for not having already posted this week is that I can add the fact that I did come up with thirteen more scenes last night so I now have a total of eighteen scenes to flesh out. I think that is cool! There is some sort of formula about how many words your novel will be and the number of characters and the number of scenes each character should have but I am not that organized at this point so I am winging it. There have been a number of times I just wanted to chuck the whole thing but I persevered and it continues to move forward.

Missing names are starting to surface, I have a line on some cool bad guys and I have a chorus of heroes that are ready to march! I have an end goal now and I have the freedom to change the whole thing! All in all I am feeling like things are progressing nicely if not as quickly as I would have liked!

(I really wanted to have a full novel the first day. I feel it's good to set lower goals so they are easier to attain!)

I am also preparing a study in the book of James for Sunday School which starts this Sunday so that also has been taking my time but I think it will be fun! I am learning already and can't wait to see what God will teach us through the book of James. I fully anticipate feeling less worthy than I already do! LOL! Good thing God is merciful and full of grace.

Well, that about sums up the past week. Logan has at least three more baseball games this weekend so I don't know what story writing will hold. The only thing I do know is that I am anxious to get started.

I know it looks like I am just a weekend warrior but that is just how my time has panned out so far.

 

Good bye for now. Go in the grace of God.

Story Update: Week of May 18th

One thing that I have grown to love about the craft of writing is that it is so dynamic, alive and growing.

This week was very busy in the Larson household and at work.

Ten to twelve projects sprang to life at work, all coming at me at in various conditions and at different points in the project process. One is just beginning and requires a great deal research to start. Another one needs to be started and finished ASAP, in other words, today is too late. The others are there and need attention, are clamoring for attention in fact but are not at a level requiring immediate attention, they're simply there, buzzing in the annoying ways untouched (unloved??) projects can do. All in all it makes for busy day.

Home life is not much less busy. Baseball games, baseball practice, choir concerts, honors banquets, graduation parties...we are simply social butterflies! (Not my style but one must do what one must do! J

All in all this kind of lifestyle is not my number one choice and wears me out mentally if not physically. I am drained. I went through the entire week without stepping foot into my haven which means nothing happened other than more ideas to add to the story. I despaired of moving forward this week, if at all.

A happy opportunity came up on Saturday that broke the despair and opened me up to something that I have not experienced in a LONG time: writing.

The happy opportunity? A minor spat with my wife. Actually it was all me and not her. I was in a mood, an irritable mood and we were trying to clean out the other half of the room my office was born from…our storage room.

I had tried to be helpful but my wife made an innocent comment and I let irritation posses my soul and I walked out before I blew a gasket. (Actually there is some wisdom there perhaps…)

I stopped off in my office and sat down with a heavy sigh, looking at the notes that I have put together I sank deeper into despair. How and I going to move this forward? My mind is not cooperating here!

I need to put in more details! More details! The more my thoughts went to the details the more depressed I got. I want more details, I love details, perhaps I am a detail junkie. (Someone help me!)

Anyway, I whispered a prayer to the Great God, picked up a pen and began to write. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I did not care how crappy the prose was, and it is crappy, and I did not care what scenes I wrote, I just wrote. And as I wrote words came to mind. Conversations, locations, details.

In my writing the story changed and evolved and grew. I worked on a scene, no particular order and wrote. When I felt I was done with a scene I wrote another scene and at a certain point I stopped.

When I finished Sunday night I had fourteen pages! I felt great!

I know, I know! I've read the words: Real writers write. They write all the time. In fact, they can't not write they are compelled. This makes me think less of myself as a writer but as I think about it, I am a writer. I did have to employ discipline to get in the seat and begin but I wrote. And while I was writing I was focused. It was awkward writing a conversation between two people as it happened but I believe that rewriting is what will solve that issue. Now I am just getting the words done. A form of controlled free writing, controlled chaos. It is FUN.

God's grace has been enabling me to do this and I can't describe how it feels to do what I should and how I should. It is exciting, exhilarating.

I do not know where all of this is going but it is fun!

 

Keeping questing for the Lord. He will be found.

 

Bye

Week of May 9th Writing Update…

Life has a way of creeping up on you and taking over and when you have teenagers this "life creep" can be overwhelming to any personal schedule or desire.

This was the past week. Now before you turn away in disgust, thinking I have not done anything with my writing again this week, take heart! I spent almost every night this week in my office doing at least something on this story so I have some updates for you all.

I have pretty well knocked out names for my main characters and that was really helpful. When I was struggling with this I went to the name generators out on the internet and used that to try and come up with names. I am not a fan of these things. The names they produce just seem phony to me. Don't get me wrong I think they are cool but the names they generate never seem to work in the stories I have been working on. If you need a name for a character and are really struggling to come up with one, these little tools might be what you need to jump start your story, but so far they have not worked for me.

The best thing I have come up with for names is just listening and observing. I have one character that I named based on a book my daughter was reading. The main character was Alice. I don't know why that name stuck but it did and I started messing around with it by adding a letter here or there. I finally landed on Halice. I like the sound of it and it fit with the names I have been using.

When I started working last weekend I had a ton of exciting things going on and I felt I could really crank out some scene ideas but I ran into a wall that stopped me dead. This has been a problem with my writing since the beginning and it drives me crazy! I will get an idea that is pretty cool and I will start to develop it when suddenly it becomes dull and boring causing me to stop. To be honest if I look back on some of those first attempts, they don't look as bad now. This can be a lesson for all of us: Leave a story alone for a while and maybe it will come back to life for you after time, kind of like a fine wine.

Anyway I found myself in that spot this week. I hate that! I really do, but I was determined to spend at least spend some time on this project each day.

Did I mention teenagers can throw a wrench in your plans? I have two of these creatures now and they seem to spew activities. I do not dare think I have free time until I check with the calendar. If I do not see purple ink (my daughter) or blue ink (my son) I feel a bit safer, but last week was busy! The quintessential teenage household, something almost every night or, at best, taxi service needed to and from these events. In light of this, my daughter had a play at school on Thursday that she had been working for a "No Talent Night". Normally I would be excited to see her perform because she has some real talent in this area if I do say so myself, but since I was already feeling down because of the wall I had hit, I was not looking forward to this time at school.

The very first play was an interesting one-act that I normally would not be excited about in the least (Other than the fact Alyssa was in it) but, as it turned out, it was the one thing that broke my block! I was so excited! I knew where I was going to start and how the important book in my story would be stolen! The only problem was that this one-act was the first of many little acts and I had to sit through them all!

When I finally got home I quickly wrote down the scene idea and by the time I was done I had three scene ideas. I know, that is not many but it is a start and I have others that are percolating just below the surface, just taunting me and energizing me to move forward tonight as well!

The next two weeks for sure will be no less busy than this past week but with all that is going on with this story I know, Lord willing, I will be in my office at least a little each night!

That's it for now. I hope to improve what I put in these updates but that is it for this past week of writing.

 

Keep faithfully questing for the Lord!

Bye!

 

Some Things that have Been Accomplished – May 5, 2008

I had a very productive weekend working on my story. I spent three hours Friday night, a couple of hours on Saturday and just a half-hour or so yesterday but I was wiped out from a whirlwind weekend. (The positive is that I still managed to work on the story at least a little bit.)

I filled out most of the details of my map (although I just realized I do not have a name for the overall land, but that's not very critical at this point), wrote several pages of back story that has enabled me to know where the story has come from and where I will take it to. I created a list of potential names for my characters but I have only settled on one name for sure for the female thief.

My next step is to corral the back story that is, get it organized so I don't have any conflicting data, finalize on character names and start creating scene cards.

No real surprises so far but I have added a bad guy point of view character and I have added an important book that the bad guy will be stealing.

My goal for this next week is to have names and some back story for the characters. I like doing this because it helps me to understand how they will act in any given situation and why they respond the way they do to said predicaments. I love the details!

I also want to have several scene cards made. I can use these to map out my story and using note cards allows me to lay them out and create an order that fits properly. The scenes will just be a sentence or two that I will expand for the novel. A fun exercise, I hope. (At least I have been told it's fun. I will let you know).

I also have a piece of software that I can use to do this. I might try using that; it would certainly keep things tidier…J

One thing I have realized through this process is that I do not have to get this done by Friday. In fact, I want to take what I have, start molding it into a story and massage it into a good story.

Another thing that has come to mind is that I am more focused on the cool items in the story and I need those to take a back seat to the characters. I want the characters to come alive and the goals they have will just boost their characters. I think that if the story is about a magical staff or an important book it will not have the depth I would like to get it to. We'll see what I can do.

 

I will send out another update later this week or next Monday.

 

Entering Back into Integrity – May 2, 2008

Ok so now my failure is complete, I have NOT been keeping up on my blog as I had promised! But in spite of my failure I have been given good friends that are doing their level best to keep me on track and I am GRATEFUL! It is encouraging.

I would like to let you all know that though I have not kept up on my blog I HAVE been working on my latest story and I will give you an update on that shortly.

Have you ever been in a candy store or a toy store when you have a little money to spend? You have been so good and your chores are done, your room is clean and you even cleaned the cat litter without being told. Now mom and dad give you your allowance plus a little extra because you have gone above and beyond and it's time to treat yourself.

You might have a few ideas of the kind of treat you plan on getting and what sort of things you will do with what you are about to spend your hard earned cash on.

Maybe you're going to buy a BIG box of candy and savor it over a long period of time. Or perhaps you have a whole day planned on how you will utilize your new toy. Boy, it's gonna be fun! And then…

And then you walk into the prescribed store and almost faint due to the overwhelming amount of treasure you find in there. There is a reason why the phrase "kid in a candy store" was coined!

It is overwhelming! Where do you start? What should you buy? It sometimes makes you want to turn right around and forget the whole thing. There is just TOO much!

This is what has been happening with my writing at this stage. I have so many bits and pieces that it's hard to know where to start.

Do I return to an earlier story that, as I read what I had written, I really liked but there's not a lot beyond that. I like a few of the names and the characters could fit in other story ideas but...

I have some cool maps of worlds that haven't even been explored yet; no more than an interesting shape but no substance. Snippets of ideas no longer than a paragraph, that sound so cool but they don't fit into anything else I am working on…."A kid in a candy shop"!

Not wanting to run away as my instinct screams for me to do…"TOO MUCH! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!" I have forced myself to enter into my haven, closing the door and staring at my scattered attempt at a story. One half hour minimum a day! That is the rule. Rules do have a tendency to be broken and this past weekend I was tied up redoing the website for the Grady Paul Larson Foundation. I think it turned out pretty good, for a beginner anyway, but it is quite simple. Check it out here if you're curious: http://gplfoundation.weebly.com/index.html

 

Now for the REAL update:

Some real frustration sets in for me when I don't have names for my characters. This is like working with a person who you know by sight but have never been introduced to nor have you take the time to introduce yourself. It's a very shallow relationship that. The same is true when I work with characters with no names. I can see them and hear them but they are distant to me.

I have, if you will recall, three characters so far that are heading for a meeting. Not a very popular meeting but a meeting nonetheless. I have them listed as #1, #2 and #3. (In my house you're a number not just a name!)

The first character is determined to get to a certain city (again no name! But I can see it!), the second is scared but compelled to go with the first. And last but not least, we have #3, a thief. She just came from said city after having stolen a large jewel. The jewel itself was not known in the city because it has properties that would cause the original owner to lose his head. He was not keen on reporting it missing, needless to say. That is where I am with the three main characters.

I have two ancient kingdoms that are legend to most but still exist: The Lost Kingdom and Evermore. I am strongly considering a new name for the Lost Kingdom but for now I get a great sense of peace simply having a name for something! J

This is where I am at this time. Due to the fact that my wife and I had a wonderful time conversing last night about any number of things I spent my writing time going over old ideas and story bits trying to pry out something I could use in my current tale. There are some possibilities but, you know some characters just do not belong in certain tails but those previous ideas can and do stir more ideas. It is amazing really...

 

Ok that is all for now. I hope to improve with my future ruminations but for now I am trying to get back to the level of integrity I promised in past missives.

Thank you, Lord for good friends like Greg and Rich.

Greg and Rich, Thank you for keeping me honest! I am striving to do better…

 

Bye for now!