Writing – Page 13 – Teel McClanahan

Cheating, Death – chapter 12

Almost done, now. Chapter 12 went well, I think. Got it done before lunch, even! Twitter being almost totally useless may have been a contributing factor; it wasn’t there to distract me or allow me to procrastinate. I think The Mountain Goats’ The Life of the World To Come has also helped, as I’ve been streaming it continuously from colbertnation.com since some time yesterday, as I write. May have to buy that one.

One more chapter to go, then I ought to write Appendix Z. I’d meant to write Appendix Z before starting work on the novel, but … didn’t. Lucky for me, I already know what I mean by ‘zombie’ for this universe. Chapter 13 might be a little harder to write, it’s basically just Melvin Spall by himself again, thinking, but I should be able to bang it out before the end of the day. Then if I get the rest of my sh!t together, I can register an ISBN or 3 for it, apply for a PCN, and work on proofreading it & getting it ready for print.

It took me a little over two weeks two write this one. There are three weeks left in October. Have to decide whether to try writing another book before NaNoWriMo or not. And whether to do something like this again, posting it as I write it, or to write it “in secret” until it’s done. A lot of people have said they don’t like reading a book before it’s finished & are waiting to read Cheating, Death. Well, it’s an experiment. Maybe that’s the result. Anyway, time for lunch, then on to the final chapter.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 11

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Only one chapter, again, today. Still on track to finish the book this week, but it’s slower than I’d expected. I think most of the resistance I’m running into at this point comes from something I’ve had trouble with for as long as I can recall: I know the story. I know the story, so it’s harder to write the story.

When I just sit down and write, when I don’t know what’s coming next or where things are headed or even, in some cases, anything about what I’m going to write at all, it often flows quite freely. Even with the Untrue Tales… where I know the basic character/story/universe arcs as well as I know my own past, I don’t know how it’s all going to come together on the page, and it comes pretty easily. With Forget What You Can’t Remember, the most difficult parts to write came after I’d realized how it was all going to come together at the end, because then I had to push these characters through those situations and lead them to be at the right places at the right times … and that’s less like watching the story unfold as it is hammering cold iron into shackles. And it’s always felt less like creative expression to me and more like work.

I’ve been doing somewhat better with this book than I expected, considering I’d had the bulk of the story outlined months ahead of time. In fact, the parts of the story I knew the best, toward the beginning, were some of the easiest to write. This may have had to do with the extent to which they were unconstrained; I knew what had to happen, and I knew what the last scenes of the book would be, but everything in between was unknown. And until I’d reached the middle of the book, I didn’t even know how long it was going to be or how much more time/space/words/chapters I’d have available to get Melvin and Stacy and Frances to where they needed to be, when they needed to be there.

It was after that I slowed down, I guess. After I’d more thoroughly outlined the remainder of the book. After I’d created a bit more of a financial plan for the book. Something vital happened in chapter 11, and getting everyone and everything in place for it has been a challenge. Then, writing it was a challenge. Now I’ve only got two chapters left: Chapter 12, in which I have to get everyone in place for chapter 13, in which Melvin has one more important place in the story to be, and Stacy’s final fate (in this book) is revealed. I expect the core of chapter 13 to be technically exacting, but easy to write; this is my favorite moment, the brilliant thing that makes me love the book (and that I think will lead many to despise it/me). I expect the vignette that closes out the novel to be reasonably easy to write and, in case I haven’t mentioned it, I plan to write a new short story to include in a 2nd Edition of More Lost Memories that expands on something that happens in that vignette. ((Actually, I plan to write two more stories for MLM; one based on that something in ch.13, one written from a zombie’s POV in the Denver outbreak.))

Ooh. I’ve just had an idea about the length of Cheating, Death. I could add a 2nd appendix which includes all these blog posts. (I’m already planning on writing an “Appendix Z – About the Zombies” where I detail what the zombies are and are not in my book. ie: they are dumb and slow, they don’t use tools or language, and they are spread by infection/bites, so the uninfected dead are just dead, and no one is coming up out of graves (Contrary to the cover image. Hah!)) They seem like they might be an interesting/relevant addition to the book. I’ll look them over and consider it when I get to doing the layout. Tell me what you think of the idea, in the comments.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 10

Go read Cheating, Death now.

This was another difficult one to write, actually. I seem to have spent the last 9 hours working on it. Not all of that time was spent writing or, as it were, staring at the bottom of the document, trying to figure out what to write next. Some of the time was spent on Twitter, quite a few times I stopped to eat and/or to cook. I’d meant to write chapter 10 in a couple/few hours, then write an essay about the price of books, and then work on writing chapter 11 today, as well. I’ve only just finished writing the even-more-difficult paragraphs featuring Frances at the end of chapter 10.

It shouldn’t have been this difficult, I’d thought, since there were multiple people in this chapter. And at the beginning and end of the main part of the chapter, that was reasonably true. I spent some time here and there making sure my characters’ wanderings around downtown Denver were both plausible and accurate. Google Maps and Street View make this a lot easier and more accurate than simply relying on my memories of my one visit to the city. I mean, the story was designed and developed and laid out in the Denver I remembered, and I haven’t had to re-arrange anything or even change the directions people drove/wandered, but all the street names, driving directions, walking durations, et cetera are accurate/verified. It was really neat when, after having described that that’s what Melvin would be seeing, I walked through on Street View and discovered that they’d driven that road at the same time of day/year and the sun was in the sky directly over the road in front of him.

Then there was the middle of the chapter, a long, introspective section where Melvin is walking around alone again, thinking. And then there’s the vignette with Frances at the end. She’s so far beyond real speech, surrounded only by the walking dead and the dead dead, operating beyond conscious thought or motivation, that trying to come up with 500 words to describe her situation was a challenge. So right now chapter 10 is the shortest of the chapters, by a few dozen words. And chapter 11 will be difficult for … other reasons. Someone dies. Someone else gets bitten. And then I have to explain why Max and Stacy didn’t notice the Sergeant’s people when they drove right through Civic Center park – they must not have been there, yet. Right?

Sigh. And I’ve just corrected the spelling of the word “awesome” toward the end. Let me know if you find other things that need correction. I need a nap, and I’ve already waited for the Smashwords conversion queue twice (since I forgot to give chapter 10 a subtitle, at first). I’m into my 3rd litre of Diet Mountain Dew today; I shouldn’t need a nap.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapters 8 & 9

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Chapter 8 took me a long time. Writing it involved a lot of procrastination. I first sat down to write it at least an hour before midnight, Sept. 29/30 – and immediately spent an hour and a half re-writing the end of chapter 7. (If you read the version that’s been on Smashwords since 9/29, which ends with Chapter 7, be sure you re-read the end of 7; I turned 2 paragraphs into a 900-word vignette.) Then I stopped for food, watched a movie, and otherwise procrastinated & stalled, writing only ~600 words in the next 6 hours. By 10PM on the 30th, having had only 3 hours of sleep, I’d read dozens of articles about Google Wave, started a blog post on Self Publishing, posted an episode of the Modern Evil Podcast, and only managed to get about 1500 words of chapter 8 written. Then stayed up until almost 3AM on the 1st, adding only a couple of paragraphs in the next 5 hours.

Why was I procrastinating so much? In a tweet I put it this way: “It feels like I’ve been avoiding an actual argument with someone I care about, rather than an argument between 2 of my characters in a book.” – If that’s not clear, I’m saying that I had become emotionally involved with the characters in my book, and I was avoiding writing the argument in a way similar to how one might attempt to avoid an argument they knew was coming with someone they care about in their real life. But the argument was important. I’m not sure I’ve got it right, either; I’ve been avoiding re-reading it in the same way I was avoiding writing it.

October 2nd I didn’t get any writing done. I tried a couple of times, wrote a sentence or two at most, but it was a struggle. And then it was the Art Walk, downtown. And then it was the weekend (spending time with my wife seems to supplant getting work done – I realized recently that this probably represents an unconscious but real prioritization where my wife & my marriage are more important to me than my work/art/writing, which seems like a reasonable prioritization), and then… well, then last night I woke up at 11PM and … after checking my emails and eating breakfast and a watching an episode of Dexter, at around 3AM I was ready to get to work. Monday morning, as it were. In about an hour and a half, I wrote the final ~750 words of chapter 8, and updated it on Smashwords.

Ouch, that was a long one. One hour shy of six days between updates, after having taken only five and a half days to write the first 7 chapters (over half of the book!). Then, I spent the rest of today writing chapter 9. Twelve hours is a lot better than six days, though it’s nowhere near as fast as I wrote the first half of the book. There was plenty of stopping to think instead of writing right through. It was a struggle. It even required a change of venue (I wrote the 2nd half of chapter 9 at the library).

But Stacy is back in the picture for a while, now. It’s a lot easier to write when there’s more than one living person present in the scene. Heck, even one living person and some specific zombies is easier to write than one person and a nonspecific zombie infestation they’re effectively avoiding significant contact with. I’m trying to keep this book from getting to be too introspective. I mean, it’s still introspeculative fiction, but leaning toward action and somewhat away from contemplation. With Stacy in all the remaining chapters (in one way or another), I’m thinking they’ll flow somewhat smoother.

If sleep goes okay tonight and I’m able to concentrate tomorrow, I should be able to finish at least chapters 10 & 11. Maybe more, if I’m really on a roll. Still on track for 13 chapters. Maybe I’ll hit the end of the first draft by Wednesday afternoon. That would be nice. If you haven’t started reading, yet, the first four chapters are still free, or you can buy access to the full text (including all future updates and the final eBook edition), currently priced at $2.99. Remember, the price you pay is all you need to pay, so the sooner you buy in, the better for you. Feel free to wait & buy the paperback from me, currently estimated to be ~$10. 😉

Go read Cheating, Death now.

looking toward NaNoWriMo 2009

Coming up in less than a month is National Novel Writing Month, 2009. I have been a participant since November 2002 (and actually staged my first month-long novel writing challenge in May 2002, since I’d just barely missed out on the “real thing” in 2001), and of seven attempts have “won” four times, including last year. My successes have since become Lost and Not Found (NaNo’02), Dragons’ Truth (NaNo’03), Untrue Tales… Book One (NaNo’04), and More Lost Memories (NaNo’08). ((For those of you who are both unaware of NaNoWriMo and who didn’t just go to their site to see, it’s a novel-writing competition where you try to write a novel in a month. It’s on the honor system, it’s more about getting something done than about doing something well, and the prize for most winners is simply the knowledge/pride of having written a novel.))

Among the many features that make NaNoWriMo what it is, some of the most important are the online forums and the in-person gatherings of participants. On the forums, writers can connect with people from all over the world – usually to procrastinate, but sometimes for writing prompts, factual details, help with character, setting, theme, whatever can get them from zero to novel in a month. For anyone living far from other participants, the forums are the community. For people in large urban areas, there are usually hundreds or thousands of other participants they have the opportunity to meet and write with in person. There are, traditionally, write-ins scheduled throughout the month; ostensibly to get together and write (esp. including group “word wars” to spur bursts of high-word-count activity), but also importantly to chat and connect with a community of like-minded people. Like-minded only in that they also wanted to write a novel & had the audacity to try to do it in a month: NaNoWriMo participants come from all walks of life, which is why it’s such a great way to meet new people. People who love books & writing & words…

Back in 2002, my first year doing NaNoWriMo (the 4th year of its existence), the Phoenix area had never yet been organized, had never had a Municipal Liaison, and I wanted to interact with other writers in person -I’ve never been a fan of online “forums” and that was the only alternative- so I volunteered. I organized. I scheduled write-ins. I contacted local writers. I contacted the press & got articles in both the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic (the latter featuring a photo of our group at a write-in, which I thought was pretty cool). I started novels that I was having trouble with, tossing them out and starting form scratch over and over and ended up writing an entire novel in 8 days, finishing at 10PM on November 30th, not long before the deadline. It was a great experience.

Then, within months, my whole life situation changed and I was living in the tiny Northern Arizona town of Pine when NaNoWriMo 2003 rolled around. The nearest meetings were 100 miles away in each of three directions, and … and I still didn’t much like forums. I took a couple of days during the month to drive down to Phoenix, and got a fair amount of writing done at the same coffee shop I’d written my first novel at (though I don’t think I ever managed to connect with other participants, that year)… and it wasn’t the same. I very nearly didn’t finish, and I think the result is my least favorite of my novels, and I put a lot of that on how it felt to be doing NaNoWriMo by myself. It’s one thing to be an author working on a novel and to do that singly; it’s something else to be doing a worldwide challenge in parallel with tens of thousands (now over 100,000 every year) of other people, none of whom you ever see or speak with.

Then, by NaNoWriMo 2004, I was back in Phoenix. The Phoenix area had two co-ML’s who did a great job finding great places to write, getting people motivated both on the forums and in person and a lot of people were showing up to the write-ins. It was great, again. A lot of the participants continued meeting, and writing, and editing &c. for months and months after November ended. [details removed] and when NaNoWriMo 2005 hit, I wasn’t welcome at the write-ins and other community gatherings, nor to post on the forums. I felt like shit, rejected, threatened and emotionally abused by a few members of the group, and I think I ended up writing about 1200 words that year. (Or maybe it was 5k that year and 1200 the next?) It was basically the same thing in 2006. If you look at my blog posts for November, 2006, you see I only made 1 post, on November 30th, about how much not being able to participate in the NaNoWriMo community was tearing me apart.

So, in 2007, I’d decided that I was going to participate anyway, and if the few people who’d had a problem with me were still participating & still had beef with me, that was their problem, not mine. I wasn’t going to let it be my problem, any more. And I had a good time, again. One of the great ML’s from when 2004 had been so good was still ML, and the group dynamic was pretty good (though smaller), and there were write-ins all over the valley. I wrote a story, I finished the story, and it wasn’t anywhere near the 50k words minimum to “win” but that didn’t bother me too much. About half-way through the month, Mandy and I decided to get married. On December 1st, we did. Which is to say that, rather than starting a new novel attempt and easily finishing before the deadline (which I could have done), I instead planned a wedding & honeymoon in under two weeks. Now December 1st will always be a happy day for me, whether I’ve just finished a novel by November 30th, or not.

Then in 2008 the ML that had done such a great job for years moved to the East Valley, and for the first year, Phoenix NaNoWriMo participants got split into two groups. Phoenix, and East Valley. Another person wanted to split off North Phoenix (where I live) as well, but the new ML-in-charge-of-Phoenix said no – so she scheduled her own “unofficial” write-ins in North Phoenix anyway. I only went to a couple of the East Valley meetings (because I live 30-60 minutes away from where they were), but when I did I had a good time and saw a great group. All the “official” Phoenix write-ins were scheduled in the new ML’s neighborhood, the forums were nearly dead, and few bothered to show up to the write-ins. Mandy and I both participated in 2008, and we went to a couple of these “official” write-ins, and they were deadly dull. It was frustrating as heck, and I barely got any writing done in their stifling silence. Alternatively, we also attended some of the “unofficial” write-ins in our neighborhood and found that not only was attendance equal or greater than the “official” ones, but the attitude and atmosphere were much more cordial, friendly, and conducive to writing. After about mid-month the new ML stopped showing up to her own events, failed to plan anything for a non-writing gathering that she’d put on the schedule, failed to organize a TGIO party… Mandy and I continued attending the North Phoenix write-ins, and both finished our 50k words before the month was out.

Looking forward to NaNoWriMo 2009, I’d been thinking, a couple months ago, that the ML who had totally dropped out of NaNoWriMo in mid-month last year wouldn’t be back. I’d been thinking I might even volunteer. I’ve been ML before, I’ve done NaNoWriMo 7 times before and have 10+ books published, plus I don’t have a day job other than being an author and artist, and working with the writing community in the Phoenix area is certainly something I’ve been wanting to at least try to do more of. Except that when I went over to the NaNoWriMo site to see what it said about Phoenix’s ML situation, I found that last-year’s failure of an ML was apparently gung-ho to get started and excited to try again. She’s put together a (sparse) “PhoeNoWriMo” website, and created a PhoeNoWriMo Twitter account (with 3 tweets), and… uhh… yeah. Said she’s planning fewer write-ins, more non-writing gatherings, and putting an emphasis on doing things online, online chat, forums, et cetera, and minimizing in-person interaction. Plus, she hates dislikes me, and doesn’t mind saying so to my face. I don’t like her either, and say so right back to her.

On the other end of town, there’s the East Valley, with two great MLs who I know I can count on to host lively events and encourage everyone effectively to reach their writing goals. It’s only the minimum 30-minute-each-way drives to the East Valley events that makes that difficult; money is tight, and that could add up to a lot of gas… though if the Phoenix ML schedules all the events in her neighborhood again, it’s still a 20-25 minute drive. Or perhaps a few of us North Valley participants can “unofficially” write together again, this year. In the “official” NaNoWriMo-is-only-a-month-away email, the Phoenix ML specifically told us not to schedule any “conflicting” events, and implied that us North-Phoenix writers better not be having a good time at unapproved events. The whole thing is making me want to contact the real NaNoWriMo staff & ask about officially creating a North Valley region, if not for this year then for next.

Oh, and what am I planning on writing? I don’t know. Depends on what other writing I’m able to get done between now and then. Cheating, Death seems to be paused temporarily in the middle of Chapter 8, though if I can get my momentum back, I should be able to finish it this week. If that happens, I may be able to start work on the next zombie novel, and then I could either work on a totally new & random project for NaNoWriMo 2009 or I could write the Self Publishing book I’ve been thinking of. And then there’s the question of whether I try to podcast excerpts from my NaNoWriMo novel as I’m writing it, like I did last year. The podcast version of Untrue Tales… Book Three runs out mid-November, and I think I run out of pre-recorded poetry at the end of October, so … probably, yes. Lots to do. Always lots to do. I may not be earning much money doing it, but I’m going to continue working, writing, painting, podcasting, and otherwise creating as long as I’m able.