Why is there an Elephant Riding A Motorcycle?

I'm not answering that question, and I never want it to be asked of me.

There are things that I love about NaNoWriMo, and there are things that I hate. I approach it a little differently to the official stance on how we should be writing (if such a thing could be said to exist). While I'm writing, deciding on the rules as I go and have all the freedom to write whatever I damn well please, I won't jump out of the rules of my worlds. It isn't that I'm incapable of it, but I just refuse to do it out of principle. My written world might have things that could be considered anachronisms in our own history, but they fit within the rules of that world.

What I loathe about NaNo, is the write-ANYTHING approach, though the main instigator for this is the NaNo dares. As a disclaimer, I don't loathe the people who write the dares, and neither am I adverse to spontaneity. I started using an absolutely awesome app (tm... I think it needs a tm anyway. And why arent they iApps or something redundant like that? someone ask iSteve?)... an awesome app called The Brainstormer. Not just any Brainstormer, and definitely not Brainstormer Who. It's like a convenient version of cutting up lots of cardboard, putting random words on each card, and fishing them out to form random sentences.

Guess who discovered that AFTER cutting up lots of cardboard and putting random words on each card? Yup. That said, it's awesome, and gives me a means to randomly throw a custom list of adjectives, nouns and verbs together, which gives potential ideas that could fit inside my world.

But if the daily dare is "Have An Elephant Ride A Motorcycle", well fuck that.

I want something at the end, where I can read through it (or more likely, someone else can), and not get lost with random abstractions that only detach the reader from the world that they're experiencing. You may as well have a dare that asks you to remind the reader that they're reading a novel, and none of it is real.

I'm not saying I could never write something that involved an Elephant Riding A Motorcycle, but it would be a world pre-established where that kind of thing could happen. In such a setting, I'd imagine that a surprisingly sane serial killer would be equally as incongruous. Things belong in their own worlds. You don't see MY alternate self coming into this dimension and messing around with her giant claws and lightblooms.

By the way, you're reading my blog.

Addition:

Link to The Brainstormer app mentioned above.

The Great Write Hope

Fifty. Fifty thousand words.

Yes, I'm fricking crazy.

Again.

Still?

Yes, it's probably still.

I'm most likely going to be repeating myself here, but here's the situation. No, not the oompa loompa - I mean MY situation. I want to write. I've always wanted to write. Even when I didn't feel like writing, I still wanted to write. This November, I'm going to write.

I'm taking part in "National Novel Writing Month" (aka, NaNoWriMo), where aspiring writers (and some actual ones) attempt to write FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS over a mere THIRTY DAYS. That's like 2 million fricking words a day... well, it feels like it at times. It's my second venture into the murky NaNo waters, and I'm a little nervous. There's a lot to live up to, especially cause I made it to the finish line last year, I've done more planning this year, and cause I talk a lot of shit to people about how it's not that hard.

Why, though, do NaNo?

Simply, because.

Convinced? No, me either.

I do spend a lot of time trying to get my writing right, when there isn't some alternate deadline attached. Even this sentence, which has taken three hours, feels like it could use some kind of improvement maybe *fix this later*. Some people might call me a perfectionist - I have no idea what they mean nor why they would think that, since I don't condone perfectionism, and some of my friends are perfections.

Okay, I have to stop using that joke.

I do often spend an ungodly amount of time trying to get my words right, which lead to one particular setting of mine being worked on sporadically over an eleven-year period, that ended up being an EIGHTEEN-THOUSAND word outline. YES, OUTLINE DAMNIT. I think I then spent a few weeks writing a first chapter of a mere 500 words using that outline, edited it into a better second-draft, and had a usb stick fricking die on me, meaning all my world-class edits were lost in time. How could I even ATTEMPT to edit that first chapter again, knowing I 'had it right'? Yes, I probably didn't, as time since has shown me, but that's how it felt.

Last year, though, I somehow managed it. I wrote a novel. I wrote it in a month. It was the biggest single piece of writing I've ever done, and it turned out better than I could have hoped for.

Was it perfect? No.

Was it entertaining? N... actually yes! It was.

It was raw, rough around the edges yes, but it had heart. Yes I repeated myself at times, cause it was raw - a little rough around the edges. It's stuff I didn't realise when I was writing, but could see it in editing. Sometimes even the editing was a little rough around the edges... raw.

The miniscule amount of editing I've done on last year's piece though, has opened my eyes a little more. Yes, what I wrote first up was good. When I first read it, I had a mini-cringe, but came to love it. Then I edited. My second draft felt like a revelation... I had unearthed the diamond, and it was now polished and shiny. NOTHING COULD COMPARE ohwait, I read it again. Oh, there's a typo. Oh, that word is used a bit much. Hey, that line is awkward. So on.. so on...

Obviously it could go on indefinitely, but it was a comfort. I might get it right the first time. I might make it righter the second. I could no doubt improve it at every stage, and thinking that I could have it right from the very start was just... stupid. So, given that I've done a fair amount of planning (far more than last year), that realisation has come at exactly the right time.

You needn't think you'll just be writing unfiltered crap. You will be writing unfiltered crap. However hidden in there will be specks of imagination of the rarest sort that must be extracted. You will find serendipitous outcomes. Your characters will not only do things you don't want them to, but that you don't expect them to. You will be sucked into a world every bit as real and engrossing as any you have ever read, and you will feel like the passenger on this tumultuous trip rather than the pilot.

All you have to do is try.

Shifting Gears

Time is like... actually, Time is just like Time.

So, I think that this blog is going to be the last of my time analogies. That, or it's at least the first where I decide to no longer make an analogy to time, though it's possible that some view blog entries might make the comparison.

I've had an interesting weekend. Probably one of my most-filled weekends in some time. I always tend to count Friday night as being part of the weekend, since my brain is no longer stuck on school-night mode (and indeed, this week even Thursday had a healthy dose of that). It wasn't so much a 'party-mode' weekend, but just one with lots of varied events. Kind of like the Commonwealth Games, but without things falling apart. I tend to save the falling-apart stuff for when I don't have anything on, and stay at home with a tub of ice-cream watching Only You, Poltergeist, and When Harry Met Sally. :'(

Hug?

I had work drinks on Friday, which is always interesting. Unlike most work drinks, I went out for dinner afterwards. Yes, there was more drinking, but unlike other times where I've eaten, it wasn't a seedy hotdog at three in the morning before catching the nightride home. The people I had dinner with were friends of a work friend, and of course my friend from work.

Now, I've historically been fairly bad in social situations, though somewhere along the line, I think I've come to have a greater appreciation for myself. Maybe it's the writing thing. Maybe it's the messy legal entanglements I don't speak about on this blog or Twitter, but that some do know about (it's the sort of stuff you share over drinks). Well, not the entanglements themselves, but the progress that has been made through them. It could even be my taking stock of where I want my life to go, and jumping at a chance to carve a niche for myself once again. That is, move out.

It's not often that I really think of myself as funny. I know that I'm a nice person, and yeah, I can make myself laugh, but I guess the bar for awesomeness in my eyes is always a fraction or two past what I can normally achieve.

Somehow, I've been exceeding myself.

I think this year's NaNoWriMo is going to be good for me - it's not just challenging me to stick with things, but to also try and be more social, to organise more than I might normally do, and to really step outside my comfort zone. I found myself speaking a heck of a lot about my writing on friday night, and to my amazement, captivating people with what I had planned. Not only was this not my last-year-established-piece-that-can-make-you-cry-and-laugh-within-30-seconds-of-each-emotion, but it was my as-yet-unwritten 2010 NaNo Novel.

Even just my concept had some people saying I really know what I'm doing.

I think that's where my life has to go next, though - into the writing. While I can do the sort of work that I do, I never feel quite as fulfilled as when I'm doing stuff related to writing. Whether that's writing my own stuff, editing, talking to others about their stuff, or.. really anything.

I once had a dream where I was walking down a road, trying to decide which story I should write. I came to the realisation that one of my ideas was THE idea, the first that'd catch people's imaginations beyond what I could fathom. That idea was once I lovingly refer to as "Once Upon A Time In The Sky".

That's not what I'm writing this year. No... this year's is something different, but not by much. Trail to the Sky. An immediate prequel to the aforementioned subconsciously-noted plot.

I have a great feeling about it, though only time will tell if it is the first step toward a life writing, or if it is merely putting on my shoes.

Appetisers

Time is like a wheel. No matter how fast or slow it may be moving, eventually things end up like they were before. This time last year, I was living in the same suburb I do now, I was single, trying to lose weight, still working at the job I do (okay, that's been over 10 years running now), and preparing to do NaNoWriMo. I hopped online last night, and spoke to someone I hadn't really spoken to since last year, and while yes, things have happened (OMG have they ever), I'm just in a different revision of where I was.

I had an awesome post earlier this year (Some kind of project) that talked about my awesome novel from last year, how I missed summer, how my next novel should be dark and gloomy - well IDONTTHINKSO! It's daylight savings time now, and it's fricking awesome. I leave work, and IT'S SUNNY. I know the weather and the seances are doing their part to keep it all nice and toasty (if a little humid), but it's such a relief.

Yeah, I have a great feeling about this year's novel - I was walking to the post office this morning. Actually, that's another great rant. WHY THE FRICKING HELL AREN'T THEY OPEN OUTSIDE BUSINESS HOURS?? I had a parcel to pick up (new intarwebs, yay), but the one I had to go is only open 9-5 weekdays. Seriously WTF.

But back to my point. Walking along, listening to my writing music playlist, and I had one of those moments I used to get last November. I've had this idea for a scene, towards the latter half of this new novel, where the main character thinks -- well actually, no spoilers (SORRY, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO READ IT)... that A is really X, when in fact it's not. And I worked out how he'd realise he was wrong, and it just came to me, and made perfect sense. WHICH leads to.. "then the real X is.... !" Yeah, super vagueness is still my speciality. That and the southern oracle.

It was a cool feeling. I hope it continues, though there's still 25 days to go.

Now, because of how smashingly well it went last year (and OMG, how about the pressure to do it all again?) I'm going to share something special. The following is not so much my usual zany bullshit, but instead, a sneak-peak of the second draft of what I did last year. Yes, it's a taste of Shimmer. It's the first four pages of the rewrite, stopping at a reasonable point.

---

It always felt like a jolt; an imagined fall, and never just like waking. The fluorescent glare could have as easily been a blazing sun as Joshua opened his eyes, echoing starlight speckles as he closed them tight. He pressed a fist against his forehead and winced.

".." he said, trying to speak though the words didn't catch. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

"Sage, status. How's the ship holding up?"

"The Essentir's manifolds a-" replied a hollow voice, though was cut off by Joshua.

"Short version."

"Optimally, Master Keene."

"So why am I awake?"

"We are nearing our destination."

"Already?" asked Joshua, the syllables coming through a yawn.

"See for yourself."

He rolled his body to the side, and squinted his eyes open. Greys, light and shadow, and not much else.

"Okay. Give me a minute. We got a minute at least?"

"We have."

Stars. Even though the ship was blazing through space, Joshua could only see stars; a spatter of dots set against the black of space. If it wasn't for the hum of the Essentir, he wouldn't have thought it was moving.

"I thought you said we were close. There's only... that."

"Do you really want the statistics, Master Keene?"

Joshua winced. He'd made that mistake before, having once said yes to Sage's question, though he'd since lost the naivety that made you take up an Artificial Intelligence on an offer of statistics.

"No, no... it's fine"

Sage sounded disappointed. "Very well. Anyhow, despite what your perceptions may be telling you, we are now within the gravitational pull of LX-126."

Joshua floated upward from the stasis chamber, hand pulling himself along a railing that ran toward the Essentir's fore. Muscle atrophy would have made it a difficult task under normal conditions, but weightlessness had advantages. He guided himself down into a chair next to the command console, and strapped himself in. He tapped commands into the console before him, though his eyes stayed focused on the viewscreen as his fingers moved, scrolling through information. A portion of it had turned opaque, showing a schematic of the ship, and diagnostics for the core systems within. He tapped another command, and the image changed to show a starchart with additional pieces of data. His lips mouthed the words as he read them... Speed, date, location.

"Really Sage, since when does seventeen hours count as almost? You could've kept me frosty for half a day more."

"Standard navigation procedures dictate that based on the completion percentage of the journey, all personnel should be brought out of stasis and refamiliarise themselves with the rest of the crew to ensure a cohesive team."

"Team, Sage. I think you could have waited. I can understand one or two hours. Even eight I could have probably dealt with, but seventeen?"

"There's no 'I' in team, Joshua."

"I am the team. And the team's going to bed."

"I can quote the exact regulations if you insist, as well as the supporting records that led to the installment of it. I can share this extensive catalogue of data if you wish."

Joshua shook his head, and leaned back in the chair. He closed his eyes, and lifted his feet on top of the console.

"Go right on. It ought to help me get to sleep."

"Really, Master Keene. I appreciate your desire for further rest, but idleness, now?"

He waved his hand aisde, then moved it to catch an escaping yawn. As Joshua started to shift from his waking state, he felt a jolt - a falling sensation. Then he felt a feet smashing against the console sensation, which reverted to the first feeling as he fell from the chair, and to the ground. He groaned.

"Really, Sage? Gravity?"

"Gravity, Master Keene."

Joshua picked himself up from the floor, a hand grasping the chair for support. His muscle atrophy was only slight, stasis having kept his body at the same level of fitness that he'd gone in with. Overbearing tiredness, coupled with an overbearing Intelligence, meant that adjusting was an adjustment. He sat down in the chair, fastened the seat belt, and put his feet back up on the console.

"I'm fixed on having this nap. What could it hurt?"

The console that Joshua was resting his foot on emitted a beep, then he felt a zap of electricity coursing up his leg. He tried to jump out of his seat, but the seatbelt meant he flailed instead. He pointed up at the screen.

"Not cool, Sage. I've warned you about shocks. You know I can get better pilot units, so just try me. The ApraNav Mark V is meant to work a treat. An absolute treat."

"I wouldn't recommend it. The Mark V is considered to be extremely anti-social."

"Compared to homicidal tendencies, I'd be inclined to take my chances."

"I'll concede then, Master Keene, and allow you to rest. Promise not to kill you."

It was almost four years he'd spent on the Essentir, though he'd gone in and out of stasis so frequently over that time, that it felt like he'd spent weeks wandering the ship. He was lucky; fortunate even for the help and the companionship that Sage provided. There were times when it overwhelmed him. The nature of his journey was hard enough, though stasis meant it didn't seem like the almost-four years that it was.

Every time he went to the pods felt like a mere blink. His body was rejuvenated, but his mind was exhausted. He didn't know how long it had been since the last time he slept, either in real time or waking time, but it felt like a week, interspersed by dozens of blinks that spanned countless months. He needed sleep - real sleep.

Joshua glared at the screen for a moment, then his eyes flickered shut. "Better not", he mumbled before he drifted off.

---

So that's what I write like. At least once I edit, though the off-the-cuff stuff is still surprisingly readable. While I do want to finish this oh so badly (but would ideally like it to take not one little bit of effort). Just glancing at it, I know it's not quite the 'final' quality I'm hoping to achieve, but it's still got something. Actually, I don't care if nobody else likes it, cause it entertains me!

I don't know if I'm going to do the hand-out-during NaNo that I did last year, cause it's a lot of pressure to write well (and this new one feels like a longer story, which means I have to continue indefinitely to get things right), but I guess we'll see.

My Two (Per)cents Worth

Time is like a cellar. Sometimes you put things into them, then when you take them out again, there's so much better. Obviously this is a lot like yesterday's "revolving door" analogy, but this one's better (and of course, as with all of these, this supersedes anything I said before).

Also, the use of a cellar requires time itself to make the cellar do the magical make-better thing that it does, so in this case we'll put the simile'd-cellar into a cellar too. This solves the obvious deficiency in requiring time to explain myself.

ONCE AND FOR ALL.

So, unlike the things that lost value, I have other things that have increased in value, or have otherwise gotten better. YES, they are things that had questionable value to begin with, though that were not without some redeeming features. Well ruv and randomness aside, this one's about writing.

I've been going through the long, excruciating, painful, torturous, difficult, arduous, nervewracking process of revising the novel I wrote last November. And by novel I mean the 52,000 word story that I wrote for Nanowrimo, which at least covered from the start to finish of a brand new story. It instantly became the longest thing that I've ever written, and also the newest idea that had come to me.

It also DIDN'T suck. How I managed that, I'm not quite sure.

Of course, it wasn't brilliant either. There's something raw and great about the novel, but it was very raw, and needed a lot of flesh added to the skeleton. Yes, just like how babies are made from tiny little skeletons and then you glue mince meat and then pastry to them, cause this novel is now my baby. Look, I don't know what you've been told, that's where they come from. Haven't you ever heard of the store bring a baby? A STORK? How's a bird going to bring pies??

Ridiculous.

Anyway, this unminced skeleton baby of mine I call Shimmer is in the process of being meated. Like a modern Jame Gumb, I'm cutting up the pieces and building a brand new novel in the process - fleshing it out. There's even a character that was a male in the original version being turned into a female - well, being rewritten as one. THAT more extreme type of character is part of a completely different novel/script that I thought about a few years back, project name of 'The Killing Rose'.

It's an interesting process, and essentially one I needed to go through. There's a saying that goes with writing - that you have to kill your darlings. It's one thing to cut something that's dear to you, but taking a bag of limbs, glue and a chainsaw along with you as you prepare to make your adjustments is something else entirely.

It's a strange experience for me - usually I plan out my little 'moments', those brilliant exchanges that seem to be the foundation of my plot - some that appear to be vital components of my novel. Well, they're all being changed. Like a weird reimagining of a familiar movie, it has the same tone as it previously did, but it's still the same story. What seemed like a rough idea is now taking a brand new shape, yet it's still Shimmer.

I'm now about 2% through the rewrite, and well, I have a good feeling about it.

Some kind of project

Time is like a tea cup. Until you actually put something into it, you're not really making use of it. If Agent 86 had a tea cup since it would also need to be a self-destructive kind of tea cup to properly be representative of how time gets used up even if you're not putting tea into it at all.

In the unlikely event you're having this blog recited to you by your man-servant in bright pink speedos, I would like to point out that in this case I'm talking about the beverage kind of tea cup, and not the T-sized cup that might make their presence felt in the daydreams of a young adolescent who was not concentrating in class and instead imagining a comically proportioned woman with curves to out-do Jessica Rabbit .

No, we're talking Tea. Earl Grey. Warm cause otherwise my tongue gets all ouchie.

I often struggle with ideas on what useful things I can fill my tea cup with, whether it's half-full, half-empty or WTFITSFULLALREADYSTOPPOURING. The whole idea of 'Say When' never really worked for my muse, since she's all like "yeah, I has ideas and you just have to keep up."

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently working on a novel. I wrote it last year from start to finish during nanowrimo, and it's since become the longest thing I've ever worked on. No, she didn't.

So, this novel, I'm trying to get past this one part in my editing since I'm doing it sequentially, and have set myself the goal of finishing it by the end of October. Earlier today that deadline was mid-October, to give myself a small break between then and the start of nano. It will possibly change as time goes on, to excuse my laziness.

I think I need to eat more fish and drink more coffee to get my mind BUZZING so I can just fix it all up.

I also hate winter. If you're like me, every summer you have a bunch of people on facebook saying "wah, it's too hot, i hate summer." and then "wah, it's too cold, i hate winter" when it's winter. Well I hate winter ALL THE TIME (except for birthdays cause I officially get older but will eventually hate that too)

The main reason I hate it isn't the cold. It's the dark.

It's not that I'm scared of the dark. It's just that I much prefer the safety and non-scariness of daytime. Today is the shortest day, and from here more sun will be out and about, and I dunno about you, but I absolutely love the sun. I really am a fan of it. The orange rays of the sun as it's going down (again, no she didn't) in the afternoon feels really nice. And sunshowers, how cool are they?

Anyway, I miss sunset. During nano, I used to walk down to the harbour, sit in the sun as the day died, and it was a great source of inspiration and my magnificent tan. It'd be nice to get both of those happening again. This is especially true at the moment, as I'm at a part in the first chapter edit of Shimmer (the infamous novel), where I really need brilliant visuals to inspire me, and in the midst of murky winter evenings is not much inspiration.

I think my next novel (AND I HATE THINKING ABOUT IT CAUSE THEN I'M THINKING ABOUT THAT AND NOT THIS (this THIS is meant to be even bigger, like in CAPS-CAPS but changing font-size is cheating) ONE).... um, I forget.

I think my next novel needs to be a darker one, at least in the visuals required. That, or something where a rainy day works. Actually the script I failed to write earlier this year started like that, on account of my brilliant imagination that was totally capable of imagining I was warm and dry while I shivered in 5 layers of clothing and a doona.

Don't fret, I'll get there.

Right?

RIGHT??

~T

Just one time

Time is like inspiration, in an inversely-proportionate kind of way. When you have lots of one, you never seem to have enough of the other. One of my biggest problems is that I often have way too much time on my hands. It just happens to be at the wrong times.

Actually motivation belongs in there somewhere, too. Like right now, I really couldn't be bothered to write aside from this where I'm just dumping whatever's on my mind as opposed to trying to write something amazing instead.

Considering writing is 'my passion', that's bad.

It's kind of annoying, since if I didn't have so much time at the times I did have time, then I'd probably seem a lot more sane. I don't know if it's a case of too much time, or if I'm just phenomenally brilliant at doing things quickly that when I reply to peoples and they take 30 seconds I think "WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG? I TYPED IN 20 SECONDS ITS QUICKER TO READ FFS"

I'm terrible at procrastinating for that very reason. I'll sometimes talk to a bunch of different people at once while reading websites, playing games, and checking my phone all at the same time and still have spare time to daydream.

Yeah, 'terrible' is probably the wrong word, since with that repertoire you'd have to say I'm actually very GOOD at procrastination. It's just being good at it is a terrible thing.

It's not that I have ADD, ADHD, AD or even BC. It's just when my brain kicks into gear, it goes kind of fast. Imagine if there were some sort of mechanical contraption which could travel so fast, it could actually lift into the air like the birds do. Okay, suspend your disbelief for a moment, and try to imagine. And imagine now that this mechanical bird is large enough to fit an elephant inside, and is decorated with jewels and all sorts of exotic metal like gold, silver, and ivory. And it played an awesome musical tune every time I press this beautifully ornate ivory button.

Wouldn't that be cool?

If anyone reading this is a reclusive billionaire that could make use of my services (blogging is the closest I have to a skill. Yeah, you know you want these... um.. blogginess), then I would totally take a job in exchange for my magical blingbird.

Right now I have a bunch of time, yet very little motivation. Tomorrow on the train I'll probably have time, and maybe even motivation, yet without a seat. Also maybe without inspiration, as there's a part I'm trying to get through that I'm just having trouble with. Considering it's a 3 paragraph piece I could maybe just skip it, but I is trying to make my novel really great.

Sometimes I'll feel like doing something new, though the next something new isn't probably going to start till nanowrimo. Or. OR. ORRR... I could christen my new writing books by writing something new - I don't really want to use them for something OLD until I finish with the book I'm currently midway through.

I'm thinking a western or vampires or maybe both. Or DINOSAURS

Could there be dinosaur vampire cowboys?

So yeah, while I should be working on my novel at the moment, I REALLY can't be bothered. So INSTEAD I'm stalking facebook waiting for someone, anyone, to talk to or reply to or be witty to.

But since I can't find none right now, is blog time.