Hello all.
Holy crap, it's been a while. A lot has happened since the last post, and I feel like I owe you guys some updates.
First of all, I got engaged! It's exciting, and it's a lot more involved planning-wise than I had planned. Wedding planning has kind of taken priority over book writing, but don't fear, the book is still alive. I thought that being on nights would provide lots of uninterrupted writing time, and sadly that's not quite working out. The night's off do have lots of downtime to write, but lots of trips to and from Kansas City and not being able to fully adjust to a consistent night schedule, has made it hard to stay awake long enough to do anything productive.
Luckily I've been able to keep some creative juices flowing. I've begun creating and writing my first home brewed Dungeons and Dragon's campaign. It is a little easier to do in bursts of 20 minutes to an hour than novel writing. The positive part of this is it's kept me doing at least some form of creative writing; however, short D&D adventures and maps, are still not novels.
So I will be getting back into the book; don't worry. As a bonus though, since I realized about twenty minutes before writing this that I'm sitting on a nice pile of potential content, I'll also throw in some posts about my adventure creation and maybe some campaign diaries so you all can follow along the narrative of what my adventurers are up to.
I think it'll be pretty cool. So along with the urban fantasy book I'm writing, you can get a glimpse into sort of a more traditional fantasy genre where I'm creating stories. The stories created and particularly the process in which they are created in the D&D campaign are interesting. As opposed to me sitting down and writing every single thing that will happen, I just write up a loose background and the players have a huge impact on how the story plays out. For example, in the first session most of everything I had went along according to plan, but I did wind up completely improvising a non-playable character who turned out to be pretty popular at the table.
As I continue working on both projects, it'll be interesting to see how project affects the other.
That being said, I'm glad to be back, and will do my best to stay in touch much better than the last couple months.
The Writer's Block
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Thursday, September 15, 2016
5 Things I Learned Writing Chapter 1
I’ve officially reached my first checkpoint. Chapter one is finished! Well, the first draft of it is
anyway. Still, that’s super
exciting. I also have exceeded my
word count goal for this two-week period.
As it stands right now, Chapter 1 is 2,950 words. That roughly translates to 10-12
pages in a paperback. So this
first two weeks of writing has gone as well as I’d have hoped. I’ve still got a long way to go, but
the momentum is there, and I want to keep that going.
On top of that, I managed to learn a few things about the
book, my characters, and myself during the writing process. This is another encouraging thing for
me. Take in mind that this is very
much a rough draft. After I finish the book I’ll be going
back and fixing a lot of stuff that sucks or doesn’t make sense. The fact that I was able to identify
things I learned after writing just one chapter gives me more faith and confidence
that things will continue to get better and that the revision process won’t be
as humbling and terrible as I first imagined it would. So here are the five things I learned
that I’m going to take with me to keep making the book better and better.
1. Setting a
Scheduled Time to Write was a Great Idea
It was really hard for me to get back into writing after
taking a couple years off after I got out of college. It’s like lifting weights. When you stop going to the gym for a while and suddenly
decide one day that you’re going to get back in shape and start pumping iron
again, you get super excited.
You’re getting back into something you really enjoy! Then you go. Then you go home, and you body feels like it’s been
stretched out on a medieval torture rack.
You feel like garbage and wonder why you even bothered in the first
place.
In college I wrote a lot of short stories. Some for class, some just for
myself. It made it easy every time
I took a new class to just jump right back in and start churning stories
out. Then real world stuff
happened and other things that honestly are just excuses. Bottom line is I stopped writing. I would jot down ideas or even do some
outlines for story ideas, but there was no actual writing going on. When I would try to start a project, my
writing muscles would hurt from not being used; I’d feel like I was wasting
time and then stop the project.
The biggest thing I’ve done that has helped so far, is
setting a schedule up for when to write on my days off. Working 12-hour shifts, I made the
decision to stick to writing when I’m off. Anything I try to write after 12 hours in a bulletproof
vest, 20-pound belt, and boots in summer heat wouldn’t be worth keeping
anyway. But for each of my days
off I set aside a couple hours to be devoted to writing the book. Then I made a nifty spreadsheet and
printed it off so I would have to look at it each day off as a reminder.
An amazing thing happened then. I sat down that first day and wrote. Not very much, as you probably remember
from a previous post, but I wrote.
The next day, I woke up, did some adult chores or something like that,
then saw what time it was and sat down to write. More words came out.
Work and training and being called in on days off took away a few
writing days, but that’s something I knew would happen. Then today, I woke up, watched some
YouTube videos, then I noticed it was almost 10:30. Time to write.
So I did. More words came
out and a chapter was completed.
There’s something magical about a spreadsheet telling you
what you’re supposed to be doing.
2. I’m Really Digging this Discovery Writing Thing
I’ve mentioned before how my previous attempts at a big
project have either died in the outlining stage or shortly after. In my whole academic career I’ve been a
huge proponent of outlining. Well
I fell into the same problem that a lot of writers who try outlining fall
into. When I finish the outline, I
am bored with the story and feel like I’m done.
So I made the decision on this project to take more of a
Discovery Writing approach. For
those unfamiliar with the term, it’s what you think of when you imagine a
writer sitting down and just typing words that turn into wonderful
stories. Stephen King and Robert
Jordan are very popular writers who use this method. Other writers like Jim Butcher or Brandon Sanderson write
these detailed outlines for their stories that provide a great framework for
them to work off of.
Being a huge fan of both these writer’s and being an
outliner in all my academic writings naturally led me to lean this way. Well guess what? It works great for them but not for
me. It was a little strange to
think that my writing style possibly mirrors two writers whom I’m not a
particularly big fan of and not two guys who I have a tendency to have silly
fan boy moments over.
But it’s true.
I’ve had way more fun writing this chapter as a discovery writer than
any other chapter I’ve attempted in other projects where I wrote a long
detailed outline.
3. Naming Characters is Hard
I put some time into coming up with the name of my protagonist
and a couple of side characters. I
thought of names that sounded natural, but also would stand out so the reader
could easily remember them. As I
sit down and write along in the story, it becomes evident that there needs to
be a new character here to accomplish a certain thing. Coming up with cool names on the fly is
really hard.
The solution is pretty simple though. I just use my gut and come up with a
potentially cool name, and remind myself that it is 100% okay to come back and
change it later.
One of the harder parts about naming characters is keeping
the names unique. I’m not out to
name every character after one of my friends, or come up with nasty villains
for the sake of naming people I don’t like after them. I want the names to be unique and not
something someone can point at and say “Oh Sean named this person after his
favorite character in a David Eddings book,” or “Oh this character is totally
meant to be Sean’s boss.” I want
people to read it and think, “Whoa, Officer Baxter is kind of a bad ass,” and
“I totally can’t blame Sergeant Andrade for wanting to punch the main character
in the throat.”
I want the readers to think about how much they like or hate
the characters more than I want them thinking about where they got their names.
That being said…
4. Focus on Making the Characters Cool and Cool Names Can
Come Later
As I previously mentioned, I can go back at anytime and
change the names of characters. So
I have until the end of this book to come up with a super cool name. If Sergeant Andrade later needs a
cooler name, I just need to hit a couple keys and I can search and replace
every Sergeant Andrade with Sergeant Väinämöinen. Don’t worry. I
wont. But I could if I needed to.
The important take away was just reminding myself to make
the character cool and focus on that before wasting too much time on names.
5. Blogging About this was a Great Idea
This entire process has been very fun. Writing the story has been fun. Talking to friends about it has been
fun. Blogging about it has been
fun. Blogging about it being fun
is fun.
It’s also been an interesting experience. On my Blogger Dashboard I can see how
many times different posts have been viewed. My blog about actually getting the story started has gotten
82 views so far. That still blows
my mind. Before that 40-something
was the most viewed post I had, and even that was ridiculous to me.
I know I paste it all over Facebook when I put up a new
post, but it’s a little humbling to see that people actually take the time to
click the link and read this. The feedback
is always appreciated and the support of everyone reading provides another
little boost to keep going.
I guess that means you all are still stuck with me blowing
up newsfeeds with blog posts for the foreseeable future.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
The Creation Station
Today I was able to find an hour to sit down and bust out
another 900ish words on the book today after lunch. I came to a pretty good stopping stop and then decided it
was time to go out and take care of a couple adultish responsibilities. Groceries, book a hotel for an upcoming
wedding, pre-order Skyrim for Xbox One (What? I said ish).
Today when I sat down at my desk I noticed something. It was a whole lot easier to sit down
and get going than in past attempts.
I wrote the other day how on day one of the novel I wrote a less than
impressive 84 words and on day two it jumped up into the 900s almost
instantly. There are several
reasons for the boost in productivity.
One that I actually thought about as I was driving around taking care of
those important adult responsibilities was my workspace.
Being a writer has some cool advantages that other jobs
don’t have. If a writer wanted to
wake up at 6 am, make breakfast, put on a nice shirt, and pair of pants before
sitting down at a fancy desk for work he can. He can also totally decide to roll out of bed, pour a beer
over his Cheerio’s and write a couple chapters in his underwear and Chewbacca
snuggie at the kitchen table. Both
are completely viable options.
Part of the big planning period for this project was coming
up with where I was going to do my writing. I have a pretty nice desk that was covered in crap from the
last couple months. Ammo boxes,
unread Ducks Unlimited Magazines, a guide to beginning a bicycle commuting
advocacy group, and tons of old bills (that are paid and up to date I might
add) covered the surface. I
decided that eventually I should probably get around to cleaning it up.
Well on Monday when I kicked off the writing with the 84
disappointing words, I just so happened to be attempting to write from my
overstuffed chair in the living room while my girlfriend played Nintendo
64. Sitting on a comfy chair while
watching my girlfriend controlling a sassy bird and a silly bear in her quest
to thwart a witch was definitely distracting.
The next day I finally cleaned up the desk and set up my
workspace, and voila. Magic
happened. Having a nice clean desk
that was organized with what I needed was a big help. Today it continued to be a nice writing experience. That is what got me thinking today
about what other writers have as a writing set up.
I got on the internet and managed to keep myself from
getting too distracted and started looking around for different setups writers
have.
A couple workspaces I particularly liked were Chuck Wendig’swriting shed and Neil Gaiman’s Garden office. This was when I started going down a rabbit hole on the
internet. I found myself researching
tiny houses that could be easily set up as writing offices, and wondering how
much money I’d need to make from that first big fancy book deal to afford one
of them. I guess a positive
way to look at it would be finding new long-term goals.
I really dig the idea of having a little space separate from
the house to work. The desk in my
house is working great for now, but something just sounds cool about walking to
my back yard office to create awesome stories and feel important and
stuff.
Maybe one day.
For now, however, I’m going to be completely happy typing away on my
setup at home. I’ve got plenty of
surface area to set up my iPad next to my laptop, and have a couple notebooks
with ideas open as well. I’ve got
a silly caricature of myself on the wall staring at me to keep the mood light,
a Yoda picture telling me the “do or do not” line to keep me on track, an old
Troll Knight that I got when I was six years old to keep me nostalgic, and a
jackelope to keep me from taking myself too seriously. Pretty good stuff to both keep me
productive and in a good mood for writing. Keeping the area clean is going to be important, but
sticking with the writing schedule I’ve made should help with that.
What are some of your favorite examples of creative
workspaces that were posted? Got
any cool ideas for one that wasn’t shown?
I’m particularly a fan of Wendig’s writing shed. Feel free to share your thoughts in the
comments.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
We Have Lift Off!
Ladies and gentlemen, my book officially has words written
in it! That means I am writing a book. I’m no longer just planning a book, or
talking about a book, or doing research for a book. I. Am. Writing. A. Book.
Yesterday was day one of writing, and it did not go
particularly well. I sat through
my Sanderson lecture, which was entertaining and informative like usual, and I
had every intention of settling in for some hard-core writing as soon as it was
over.
For a quick recap, the way the actual class is set up (with
all the real people who take it) is a lecture followed by a workshop. The workshop students are required to
have 2000 words a week ready to submit to their writing groups. Because of my schedule I’m watching one
class every other week. At the
conclusion of the first episode he announced that no submissions were required
for week two. I took those two
weeks to do some planning on what I want in the book, and how I want to
approach it. Now that lecture two
is over, I’ll be aiming to get 2000 words written by the time I watch the next
lecture.
Well, yesterday I managed a measly 84 words. There were lots of distractions going
on with it being a holiday, but the main reason was just that I wasn’t sure how
I wanted to get that first chapter moving. I toyed around with a couple different intros and got some
good notes down, but not much otherwise.
Today, I decided to jump right into it in the morning and
see what happened. The low word
count on day one wasn’t ideal, but there was still a small victory in that
there were actual words in the story now.
Plus, I reminded myself I needed 2000 by September 12, totally doable.
So I sat down today and was able to get things moving. I’m now sitting at a nice 943
words. I’m happy with that. I’m almost half way to having my
required word count for the next deadline, and I’ve got a pretty good idea
where I want to go for the next couple chapters. I’m hoping that as I get deeper and deeper into this story,
the momentum can take over and I can have a couple nice marathon sessions where
I can really go crazy.
I don’t foresee any problems easily reaching those 2000
words, and I hope to shoot right on past that mark. However, if I manage to write 3000 words this time, it does
not mean I’m only responsible to get 1000 the next couple weeks. I’m still going to require myself to
write 2000 words every session, averaging 1000 words a week. If it gets to the point where I can
easily bust out 2000 words a week, I’ll probably up my required word count for
each session.
That said, I’m excited for the good start.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Tweaking my Writing Approach
I’ve made some good progress during the prewriting stages of
the story so far. I’ve had some
productive brainstorming sessions that have led to some pretty cool ideas that are
going to stick around and probably play some prominent roles in the story. Lots of things are getting accomplished
in the prewriting phase (which is good), but at the same time I started
noticing that my brainstorming file, was getting longer, and the cool things I
was researching online were filling up my bookmark bar, but the actual story
still had zero words written. As
of a couple days ago I could feel that sensation of becoming overwhelmed creeping
back into my brain.
Luckily, I was able to get that turned around pretty quickly
after reminding myself that those little adventures in brainstorming and
exploring the internet were going to make my book better in the long run.
Still, I needed to take a step back for a couple hours and
jumpstart myself again and figure out what keeps getting in the way. I realized that the root of that
feeling of uncertainty and doubt had to be coming from somewhere. But where? I’ve got some cool ideas for characters, my magic system is
starting to feel like something legitimately plausible (for a fantasy book of
course), and I really like several of the plot idea’s I’ve brainstormed. So why is the doubt trying to screw
things up?
It actually didn’t take long to figure out. I had my Writing Stuff folder open on
my computer as I was watching a Story Board episode on YouTube with Patrick
Rothfuss and Mary Robinette Kowal when I noticed the file for my brainstorming stuff
and the actual file for my novel sitting next to each other. One has been worked on several times
over the last couple weeks, and the other was merely created to remind me that
it needed to be worked on.
It was the prospect of finally starting the book that was
playing with my mind. Figuring that
out was a big relief, which made paying attention to the video much
easier. I was able to sit
back and watch a couple authors answer questions on…how to actually start your
novel. Holy crap.
It was one of those serendipitous moments in life where I
was able to stumble across just what I need, just when I needed it. They discussed various things a person
needs to consider and have lined out before starting, and it actually helped me
decided how I want to approach this book.
I’ve been debating whether or not to do a detailed outline
or just sit down and discovery write the thing for a while now. I’ve always outlined every major
writing project I’ve done ever since high school. I’ve outlined short stories I did for my college writing
classes, I’ve outlined research papers, and I outlined my big ambitions
NaNoWriMo project that failed a couple years ago. Most of those went really well, with the exception of the
NaNoWriMo story. So why didn’t it
work that time? It seems that
outlining is kind of my thing.
Rothfuss and Kowal brought up the fact that different
approaches work for different people, and one of the things that could lead to
an outline failing is that the writer gets so bored with the story after
finishing the outline. That made a
lot of sense. I did distinctly
remember looking at one of the scenes I outlined and thinking, “Ugh, I don’t
want to do this one right now.”
So, I made a decision after that video was over to go with
more of a discovery writing approach.
This whole journey is to do something I’ve never done before: finish a
freaking book. So, why not try
something different? It’s not like
I’m breaking away from something that has proved to be successful for me for
years and years. I may decide part
of the way through that it’s not helping me and take a break to outline. Or I might write the next great
American novel. Either way, I’m
going to get something finished.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
So It Begins...
I kicked off my project Monday by sitting through the first
lecture the Sanderson writing class.
Class number one was mostly a general overview. He mentioned how writers are generally
sorted into two groups, outliners and discovery writers, and that most writers
actually use a combination of both approaches. He touched on the three major aspects of a novel a writer
needs to be cognizant of: character, setting and plot, and he talked about
which writing approach typically lends itself pest to which major aspect.
So that may have seemed a bit rushed, but that is because
I’ve actually watched other lecture series of his before and that is his
typical Lecture 1 lesson plan. So
it was kind of expected. Each year
he covers those parts in Lecture 1 and then talks about expectations for the
class and what the class goals are.
These are the cool fresh parts each year.
He announces how long the writing project needs to be in
this part. One year it was a 50k
word novel, one year it was a 25k word novelette, and a couple years he focused
more on novella length works. This
year with the word count minimum being 35k words, he’s going for the novella
again. I was pretty excited
because I was leaning toward a novella for this project anyway.
For those who aren’t entirely sure about what the difference
between a novella and a novel is, it’s basically length and depth. When I mention depth, I don’t mean it’s
just a simple fluffy piece. They
generally just skip all the subplots that come in long novels and focus on
really intensifying one plot.
There are also fewer characters, so the writer really focuses on making
the few that do make the cut for the story as unforgettable as possible.
This is actually pretty perfect for newer writers in my
opinion. I’ve mentioned before
that one of the biggest contributors to my massive failures in previous
projects was that they got too big and ran away from me. By doing a novella I can really knuckle
down and get some decent practice
while I’m working.
Sanderson also frequently compares writing to playing a
piano or a sport, and the way he explains it makes total sense. People don’t wake up and decide they’re
going to play the piano and book a concert at Carnegie Hall, and Michael Jordan
didn’t just decide he was going to play for the Bulls and be the best
basketball player ever. It takes
work, and people sometimes forget that writing is a skill and a craft that
needs to be honed. Sanderson wrote
12 novels before he was ever published.
That’s a lot of practice that has paid off. He’s pretty damn good.
He also gave a timeline of how long it typically takes a
writer to develop enough to make a living writing. There are “lottery winners” who can do it in less (Sanderson
openly admitted he himself won the lottery), but the timetable he gave was 10
years.
It is important to realize that 10 years is 10 years of
working at it. Because I wrote a
few blog posts in August of 2016 and started a novella derivative of The
Dresden Files does not mean that 40-year-old Sean will be scheduling book tours
in August 2026. As cool as that
would be, it’s not realistic. Ten
years sounds like a long time, and that may not be something I really wanted to
hear, but it’s something I needed to hear. Maybe because I started
a blog and a fun urban fantasy novella and continued
with the blog and continued
writing and continued developing new
ideas, might mean I hit it big when I turn 40. I’d be totally cool with that. And think! You dedicated followers of the blog could be all hipster and
tell everyone that you were reading Sean Schooley way back when he was a cop in
Liberal, KS in 2016.
He also gave the word count minimum for his select few
students in his workshop. They’re
going to be responsible for finishing about 2000 words each week. I’m watching these lectures -- from now
on, I’m just going to refer to it as taking the class – every other week, so
I’m going to shoot for 2000 words every two weeks for now for a very important
reason. The Day Job. I still have 12-hour shifts to work,
court to go to, on-call schedules and callouts, and other less glamorous work
stuff I have to sincerely devote time to.
It’s a fun job and a very valuable resource for cool fiction stuff. I love and respect my job and the
people I work with, and it wouldn’t be fair to allow this project to hamper my
performance and reliability. The
good news is, with long 12 hour shifts comes more days off. And I have scheduled plenty of writing
and research time on those days off.
So 2000 words to be completed every other week is totally
doable.
September 5th is the next day I’ll be “attending”
class, but don’t worry. You won’t
have to wait a week and a half for another blog post. I’ll keep on working on other cool stuff to post along with
these class and project updates.
And as the project proceeds I’ll have more to talk about concerning the
story as opposed to just paraphrasing class. Lots of cool things to come.
Monday, August 22, 2016
So What is the Book About? (Big Project Post #2)
Now that we know the content for the majority of the blog
will be following along as I write a book, I’m sure you are thinking, “Gee,
Sean, what is your book going to be about?” Well, dear readers, I’m very excited to announce that I’ll
be writing an urban fantasy book about a police officer who happens to be a
necromancer.
As long as I’ve been making up stories, I’ve gravitated
toward fantasy. I remember being a
little kid and sitting next to my older sister telling fantasy stories I made
up as she practiced her typing skills and pretending to be a knight as I walked around our farm wielding an aluminum tent pole as a sword and a cardboard shield hunting for dragons. (For those of you thinking, "But Sean, there are no dragons in the Oklahoma panhandle," you're welcome.) Fantasy has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and I've always dreamed of writing a fantasy novel that I can share with others.
I have attempted a bigger fantasy story in the past
when I tried to do NaNoWriMo several years ago and was quickly overwhelmed by
the immense scale of the project. It
was quite an ambitious project and I jumped into it without much planning. Needless to say it didn’t get finished.
I’ve also done the outlining for an urban fantasy project
about a police officer who dies and becomes a guardian angel who investigates
demons and other nasty stuff. I
figured that as a police officer, I could bring some interesting things to the
story to flesh out that side of the main character while adding the cool
supernatural stuff along the way. The
most frequent response I got from friends when I told them that idea was, “Oh
cool, so it’s like RIPD?” I
haven’t seen that movie but evidently it wasn’t the cool unique story I had
envisioned. My enthusiasm for that
project deflated pretty quickly after that.
A little while later I was listening to a Writing Excuses
podcast where several of the writers strongly advocated writing derivative
stories when you’re starting out.
As fate would have it, I also just finished the fourth book in the
Dresden Files series (which was awesome).
So I decided I’d take the idea of using a police officer as the main
character and making him a necromancer.
It’s totally different than a private investigator who is a wizard
right?
I was instantly excited about the possibilities that started
flying out as I started brainstorming.
I particularly liked the idea that an officer of the law would have to
deal with the moral dilemma of being someone who seeks justice and wants to
protect people while also using a type of magic that is generally regarded to
be unwholesome and evil.
The two main things I am focusing on most as I work on this
is finishing the story and creating an engaging main character. I’ll work on the magic system and world
building as I go, but this round I’m really going to work on character
creation. My long-term goal is to
actually make a trilogy with this character and focus on making significant
improvements each time to different aspects of the writing process. First, I’ve got to get this book
finished, and I’m excited to bring you all along with me.
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