Write or wrong

My writing this week has been all school related. A tad depressing indeed but I've been thinking about my writing even if I haven't been doing it. Specifically, I've been pondering pace. At LTUE, more than one panelist mentioned that you can't have a story that is constantly on the run. People need some time to breathe, digest, think, care. If you push too much, then what should be a roller coaster ride becomes and exhausting climb. That's bad. To that extent I've been pondering my stories and wondering if I have those peaks and valleys that keep a reader interested but not out of breath. Because the other extreme is equally bad. It's called BORING!!

I believe I see a need to go back and identify those moments when I'm done with my stories to make sure I have a good flow and some inconsistency to mix things up a bit. I'd love to do it now but I need to write. The temptation to go back and fix before you are finished is something I struggle with all the time. But that, is for another post.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Code and Prose

I had this odd thought last night as I was working on code for class and I remembered something I heard somewhere, I'm not sure if it was at work or school. But the comment was made that code can be written so it's functional but not as efficient or as clean as it could be. After learning more about writing, I realized that prose is the same way. I guess poetry is too.

I can write prose that gets the point across and tells a story but two paragraphs in my reader has fallen asleep or gotten confused. Unless my reader is my daughter who loves everything I write. But good prose, like good code, cleans up the boring parts and has better description to let you know what is going on as the plot/program moves along.

So a software developer is a lot like a novelist, just with a different syntax.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

In The Beginning...

And so it was that I attended LTUE (Life, the Universe and Everything) conference at BYU for the first time. Of course it's the first year they require payment as well. Awesome. Anyway, I'm glad I went because I learned so much and had a great time. I got to meet published authors, get great advice and suggestions and come home and realize I've written a lot of crap.

Ok, so it's not all crap. But I do have one short story that I wrote in high school for a girl I liked. Then I revised it around 8-9 years after that. I've poked at it now and again since but not really looked at it in at least a year. So for the first time I'm looking at it with the eyes of someone who has become a much better prose writer and wow. It totally sucked. So I sighed at my suckiness and opened a new Word doc and started writing. I like the story. It's a short story but it is my very original idea and it's been through several re-writes making the plot better. Now it's finally getting written better.

One other thing that was suggested to me was to self-publish my poetry book. I have tons of poetry just hanging around and I did, at one time, compile a bunch into a book format. So I think that sometime soon, I will revisit that as well and hopefully by next LTUE, I'll have a poetry book that is self-published and available to the public. I hope someone NOT related to me will want a copy.

Until then, this is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*