Do you write and drive?

It's illegal to text and drive but can I write in my head and drive at the same time safely?  Ponderous.

Anyway, I came to a crux on Sunday.  It's one of those moments in story-telling where your decision could affect the outcome of the whole story.  It's the "Death" decision.  Many writers at LTUE agreed that killing someone is a great way to keep interest.  Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Professor Lupin.  They all needed to die to force Harry to stand on his own and become a man.  But even in the end, Harry doesn't cast the death spell on Voldemort. 

My crux came because I'd had this great idea to have my main character, Kyle, discover a spell.  It's a cool spell.  But it had the potential of making him invincible.  DOH!  And then it came.  The death decision.  If you mean to shoot and kill someone, there is guilt but there should also be justification.  But if the gun goes off unintentionally and someone dies, can you ever touch a gun again?  But could I do that?

So I turned to my  lovely wife and asked for help.  She guided me wisely as she always does. It took me to new depths and created a more complex character.  It reminds me of the movie "Stranger than Fiction".  I'm not really a big Will Ferrell fan but that was a great movie.  And it taught me same thing my wife did, sometimes they don't have to die to make the story great.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Write a textbook to support your fiction habit

The organizer of our writing club shared a stat with me once that 80% of what publishers put out there is non-fiction. This was backed up by a comment by one of the authors at LTUE who said she is the only fantasy/sci-fi author that Covenant has published.

I've been going to college for three years now and textbooks are horrifically expensive. But why? Because they know they have a fixed audience. They know how many books they are going to sell (roughly). AND college kids EXPECT to pay a lot for textbooks! Sure we grumble about it! But when I have a textbook that costs less than $50 I'm shocked. We don't want to let those college kids down. So my philosophy is this: If you like writing fiction, that's where your love is, write a textbook to make you money (and you can say you are published) while you write fiction to feed your soul.

Or get a day job. :)

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Clubbing

I attended writing club last night for the first time in just about forever. This school thing is killing me. But it was a good meeting. We went over our notes from LTUE for those who couldn't go and shared ideas and thoughts. Our fearless leader asked for suggestions on how we could better organize. Good discussion followed. I did leave more inspired to write. Now I just need to find time.

Current projects include: The Oak Wand, Sword and the Stone, Poetry book, and Burning (the Phoenix Chronicles). Who has time for life??

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Back on the typewriter again

Did you hear the "Back in the saddle again" music playing through your head? Yeah, me too. A quiet Sunday morning seems like a good time to write. Until all of your kids crowd around you sitting on the couch and all read over your shoulder. Then you get too distracted and have to stop.

But still, I got over a page written and some more plot worked out in my head and stuff. That's always good. And I haven't written in several weeks so I liked getting something down. Now off to bathe kids and get ready for church.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

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*