How Do You Make Holiday Deadlines Fun?

The most beautiful thing to this writer on a deadline!

So, I've come to the conclusion holidays and work should never mix. Ever. Then again, if I had my way, there would be no Penumbra in November and December. Readers would be very sad to have to live without their speculative fiction. That and they may demand to have their money returned to them. Something I'm certain my boss would not be pleased to hear.

I have far too much fun visiting family and kibitzing with friends around a table full of warm seasonal drinks. I enjoy hugging my sisters and scratching the ears of my old dogs as we discuss favorite foods, funny stories, and cute quirks. I also enjoy the prospect of ending my day without having to write, though this box of chocolates I'm gnawing on is making the whole experience much more marvelous.

Tomorrow one of my blogs for Penumbra is due. It will be an easy thing to write, but it is not my ideal of fun at the moment. I will just have to motivate myself with some music or continue to down copious amounts of sugar until I can't help but smile. I'll work on it tonight and edit it tomorrow before I send it in for posting. I won't have "bellow" instead of "below" this time. I don't think I could take the humiliation if I did.

My writer's block left me on the drive north today and I quickly wrote two pen and paper pages of notes for God Syndrome. I'm not wholly satisfied with it at the moment, but at least I got my grey matter into functioning order again. Next week I start the plot mountain for the book; I was surprised to find myself excited about the prospect of moving forward with it.

I'm exercising regularly now, so I'm sure just a few more pounds of chocolate will get me through the rest of the holiday season.

Have a Merry Christmas this weekend. Happy Kwanza. I hope your Hanukkahs went well. And for all the Pastafarians happy Holiday. Good will to all!

Happy Writings.

Is It Possible to Write an Original Story?

I made the cover for a SF course I took in college.
I had decided to make a comic out of the manuscript.

One of my greatest fears as a writer is to write a book that's already been written. I admit sometimes I'll see a book already published with a flap copy that is similar to an idea I have. So, instead of reading it, I put it back on the shelf. Afraid that my thoughts were already someone else's.

I think that's why I stopped my first major project, Dreida. I had written two full chapters, almost thirty pages, when I became acquainted with the movie Blade Runner. While the stories weren't even fifty percent the same, they did have very similar elements. The main underlying question they both had was, what makes us human?

I had plans to add alien cultures. The story was going to take place between India and Germany. The characters were going to be a bit over the top, a little science fiction mixed in with fantasy. I had side stories about the scientists who created the humanoid beings called humanisapiens. Humanisapiens are biologically human, save for a few minor brain adjustments that makes them emotionless and obedient.

The thing was, those plans felt silly after I had watched the movie. Part of me is now worried that God Syndrome, my current project, will be similar to some other story line I'm not yet aware of. Part of me thinks I need to get over this worried mentality. The story, as far as I know, is original. Unlike Dreida I've been taking notes on this baby for almost a month now. I have thirty pages of just notes on viruses, deities, doodles, and plot ideas. I should feel secure that even if this sort of story has been written before, that I can do it in a way that is better. In a way that is all my own.

However, I won't lie I'm hoping that God Syndrome is an original piece. One that won't make me want to chicken out. Right now though, I feel pretty certain I'm on the right track.

Happy Writings!

Planning Ahead

I'll admit it, I used to be a worthless writer. In high school I received mostly A's. So, thinking all was well, in my junior year I took Advanced Placement Composition, a college level writing class. I received an "A" and decided to take the eighty-nine dollar test. A.P. tests are scored 1 through 4 with four being excellent, three being normal, two being poor, and one being awful.

I received a two on the test. POOR.

I remember being stunned that I had done so badly. My grades certainly didn't reflect the score I received, but my parents knew. They had known for awhile. They were not happy when I showed them my final portfolio. My parents went to the principal to complain about my good grades. It was plain to them that I didn't grasp some of the basic rules of English and therefore didn't deserve them. It was humiliating to say the least.

The next year, against the advice of my high school, I enlisted in a remedial English course for college students. That course taught me grammar, spelling rules, and how to compose a paper properly. She drilled into our heads that pen and paper helped you think while writing. She mandated we edit every paper we turned in. We had to have a first and second draft for every paper.

I haven't picked up The Classic Guide to Better Writing since then. Part of me was naive and embarrassed  I never wanted to face my weaknesses or pick up the book again. Reading the book reminded me how feeble my memory can be and that even after my remedial class it helps to review some of the rules.

The first chapter is about mapping a plan for what you want to write. It basically says while you might be able to deliver a message nobody will want to listen to the garbled mess you'd make up on the spot.

The last few weeks I've been producing notes and research on various things for my future novel The God Syndrome. While these notes will help me keep information short at hand, they won't help me write my story in a fluid fashion. They are a garbled mess that have no meaning by themselves. My story requires a fleshed out plot mountain. I have one I did when I originally thought of the story four years ago. However, that diagram is very basic and doesn't help me know what I'll write in advanced or how I'll stitch together all the notes I've taken.

I think the last week of December I'll start fleshing out this plan. Making sense of the amalgamation of notes in my notebook. It will give me a good jumping point for those first 50,000 words in January.

I may have been a poor writer in high school but that won't hold me back now. I'm going to use every tool I know to make my writing enjoyable.

Does Exercise Effect Writing?

Last week right after I woke up, I ran for a half an hour down to the lake and back. I say I ran but what I really mean is that I ran, jogged, huffed and puffed out of breath, walked, and ran again in a repeated fashion. My lungs burned from the air and my nose stung from the cold. My body was screaming at me that it was out of shape.

There were several reasons I chose to take that jog and one of them was writing. I had recently been told through work that the best writing is produced by those who are in the best physical condition. While I was a little tired later that day, I did find that I was much more focused than usual. I was able to get through a great deal of work I hadn't had the energy to pursue before. I felt more in tune with what I was doing.

The next day I found Dottie, my dog, paralyzed. It broke the cycle for me on the second day I was supposed to maintain exercise. I didn't want to do anything after losing such a good soul.

I want to approach this again. The workout may not have been all fun, but it gave me a focus that I haven't really had since high school. It figures, high school was the last time I had mandatory physical education. Though I did participate in mixed martial arts at college I did that late at night. The rush of energy the MMA club provided me was at the wrong time of day. Night was not a time to be productive or creative.

Interestingly, these days I find myself tired if I don't exercise. A constant lethargy sinks in down to the bone. Fighting that exhaustion is one of the best things I've done since college. This weekend, when I'm back from traveling, I'll start running again. Hopefully able to accomplish more writing for work, more blogging, and more notes for my January novel run.

For now I leave you with the music that was running through my mind as I was writing this. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk.

How Wicked is Wikipedia?

Almost every professor I had at college told their students not to use Wikipedia as a source for their papers. They did say that it was a good place to start to gather information to start research with, but never to rely on it wholly. I heard the same spiel when I was in high school.

I understood on some level that it wasn't completely trustworthy. It is after all an amalgamation of knowledge from individuals around the world and while there are monitors and editors on the site you never know how often misinformation might be added to a page.

The incident that best demonstrates the sharing of misinformation was Steven Colbert introducing and the quickly demonstrating the concept of Wikiality in the summer of 2006. Wikiality was defined on Colbert's piece The Word as, "together we can create a reality we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on."

He then went on to encourage his viewers to alter the information about elephants on Wikipedia. I was between my Junior and Senior year of high school as I watched people flock to the internet and write, "The elephant population in Africa has tripled over the last six months." Wikipedia ended up having to freeze the changes being made to the words elephant and Africa as a result.

Because this was such a highly publicized event Wikipedia responded very quickly, but the idea still stands that any article could be altered by anyone all too quickly.

That being said, I've never found any inaccuracies in my use of Wikipedia. I did as my teachers suggested and followed the sources at the bottom of each page and I used books at the library regularly. In fact I like finding physical sources more than I like using the internet when it comes to research.

Mostly I find a guilty pleasure in checking out a book that hasn't been used since before the seventies or eighties. I did it several times when I was at college and nothing gave me such a thrill as seeing a book getting it's stamp card taken out and replaced with security and due date stickers.

This week I've been doing my research on viruses exclusively on Wikipedia. Over the next few days I'll go through and find primary sources to back up the information I found.

I'm just curious if anyone has some wild or wicked Wikipedia stories out there. Rest assured, I will let you know if I find anything interesting.