Another Sunday Morning Post

That contest for YWS is finished up. I'm now just eagerly awaiting the results. The person who runs it is kind of busy, so I'm not expecting a result this week. But I'm still very excited.

Hereis a resource that a couple of friends recommended to me. It's a really helpful database that you can use to find a market for your work. Check it out. It's awesome.

Gotten my story-writing groove back on. I've set up an alternate universe called the Nightwatchmanverse, It's a future set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, with humanity evolving into another form of life and being watched over by an old weather AI. I've got two stories in this setting so far, and am working on a third. Also have a story about a man who wakes up in a different universe every morning. And one about a kid who hunts the servants of animal spirits, basically. There's a lot more to that last one, but you'll have to read it to get that.

Work Stuff and Collab

Work is the pits. Especially since it interferes with my writing life so much. I try to write at work, on my breaks and whatnot. But in doing so I have discovered that my car is the one place I cannot actually write very well at. Who knew. And when I get home, I'm usually too tired to think about writing, unless I already said I would do something for someone. So yeah, fun times. But maybe with the loss of school I'll have more time to write during the day. That will be good.

I'm finally getting the opportunity to do a collaboration with that one guy from Oregon. What we'll do is sit down and create a situation, two people in conflict, and then write two separate stories from the point of view of each person. It will allow us to still work together while keeping our own individual styles apart. This is good for him because he doesn't think his last collaboration turned out all that well. I want him to be good with this as much as I am.

Tidbits From My Writing Life

A good morning's run is essential for my writing, I think. Usually, when I run, I take my iTouch, and play things like Disturbed and Korn and Blind Guardian really loud. I work out these violent fantasy things in my head as a run, brought to life by the music. This helps clear my mind, so that when I get back, I can write in peace without my own meandering thoughts interrupting me. It's almost ironic, needing to make sure my thoughts don't interrupt me while I write, but with me it is a particular problem.

When I do write, I listen to Brit Rock mostly, things like Oasis and Muse and whatnot. Unless I'm writing fantasy, then Blind Guardian takes a rare foray from my morning run into my writing. But the Brit Rock is good. It's energetic and bouncy, yet not too all over the place, giving me a nice stable listening foundation. That's because it's not really about what they're saying. It's just giving my subconscious mind something to be tuned to, to help me stay on course.

Usually I don't do my first drafts on the computer, not unless I happen to have a good idea right then and there. When I start a story, it's with a mechanical pencil in a notebook with college ruled paper. It sounds specific, but in reality you can pop in at your nearest retail store and find those cheap and easy. I fancy myself a common man, someone that my readers can actually relate to as oppose to some secluded hermit in a cabin in the woods writing on specially cured redwood paper with a squid ink pen. I hope this may inspire some people to try to write on their own, since I make it seem so easy. They might be worse than me, they might be better than me. Either one is infinitely possible.

When I'm finished with a piece, there are several people I like to seek out to find their opinions on what I have created. There's a kid from Oregon who writes slightly avant garde stuff that I follow, who in turn follows me. I've had to learn to raise my thinking level when I read and critique his works, and I've tried to get him to drop down a level and enjoy the common things. Another person is my girlfriend. She writes poetry most of the time, though is very good at critiquing fiction works. There are also a few more girls who are a bit more accomplished than me that I ask for critiques from. Their advice is usually quite helpful, and if two of them go over a piece of my work for me then I don't need any other help.

A Resource

I've been reading a lot of fantasy rants by this person that calls herself Limyaael. They're really helpful for people who are trying to write fantasy, in the sense that they point out a lot of the overused tropes of fantasy literature and suggest more interesting alternatives. I've already bookmarked it on my Mac. It's definitely on my "websites I visit daily" list.

Frozen Coffee

Dark and white chocolate frozen coffee is really good. I get this drink called a Black and White at a Davinci's on Sunday morning. It's really good. This morning, I'm wearing a nice shirt and slacks and a tie, and sitting drinking it, and feeling really sophisticated. The thing is, when I feel sophisticated, I start feeling like James Bond. Now I have an urge to drive an Aston Martin and carry a Walther P99.

Graduate on Tuesday. That will be rather interesting. Have an easy schedule this week. That will also be interesting. I told my manager I'm no longer in school after Tuesday, but she still scheduled me on Thursday and Friday like I was, from 4 to 12 in the afternoon. I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering why she went ahead and did it like that. Oh well.

Been working out the logistics of going up to New York for August, to see my girlfriend. And, in doing so, I discovered something. Plane tickets are freaking expensive. It's probably going to suck up all the money that I make over the summer just to get a roundtrip one. But I it will be worth it. I have faith in it, in her.

Ironing out more stories. This will be an editing week, minus finishing the last story I have to write for a contest on Young Writer's Society, and adding a bit more to a collaboration that I'm doing. I need to tweak a lot of things in some stories, to get them ready to throw out into the wide world of e-zine publishing. Also, I'll have an opportunity to think up a ton of new ideas. I'm starting to assemble lots of just little snippets and things in one of my notebooks, and it's approaching the status of a bible to me. It's crazy.

Centaurs and Collaborations

So, centaurs are still on the brain. However, I think I've found a couple of fantasy worlds where I can place them comfortably. One is set in a time period similar to the pre Civil War United States. The other one is a somewhat stock fantasy world, where there is a centaur warlord who acts as a messianic figure for them.

Working on a collaborative romance novel set in that first world, about a rich daughter of a Judge of a nation called The Affiliation that falls in love with her centaur servant. It's coming along rather nicely, though slowly. That's good though. I'm writing it with my girlfriend, see, and we both want to pour our best into it and make it something we will want to publish.

I seem to want to do a lot of collaborative works lately. I think it stems from me having so many ideas all running around in my head, and wanting to churn all of them out at once. Having an extra person there to help take some of the weight off allows me to do that.

Pretentiousness Rant

I hate pretentiousness in literature.

It seems anymore as though people have to add so much vocabulary into a piece of writing that you have to use a dictionary to read along, and they explore concepts that the common person will not easily understand. I'm not against either of these, I think they both have their uses. But don't do them both at the same time, for pete's sake. You have to do one or the other, or people won't get it.

I can already hear noses turning up and writers saying, "Well, then people just don't get it." You don't get it, you snobbish people with pencils up your asses. You are not writing for yourself. If that was true, then you wouldn't be attempting to get published. You are writing for an audience. You have an obligation to at least attempt to please people. It's part of your job. If you claim that your book isn't for most people, then why get so offended whenever they don't like it? It makes no sense at all.

I just wish people would stop thinking they have to use a multi-syllable adjective every other word and have all their works get into super-deep philosophical stuff that even the Dali Lama might get lost in. Simple sentences are your friends, and it's okay to just write about how happy you are that your girlfriend kissed you. Seriously. You aren't Cormac McCarthy, you're Struggling McGenericWriter, and no amount of imitation is going to change that. Read classics and find your own style. That's what writing is all about.

Been really sick. Had to call into work for the first time yesterday. I just hope there are no negative repercussions for that. I really was sick. But our manager, the person I didn't talk to, might not really understand that. :P

Graduation is in one week. I'm looking forward to it. :)

Graduation and Girlfriend

So graduation is creeping ever closer. It's hard to believe that it's only in a week or two. Then I'll be out of high school and ready to go to college. It's going to be an experience, that's for sure.

The plan to go to New York this August is moving along rather well. All that we need now is permission from my girlfriend's father. Then the wheels will really start to turn. It will be amazing, finally getting to go out and see her. :)

Audio, Movie, and College

Might be releasing an audio version of my NaNo for the folks at YWS. It would be fairly interesting to do.

Saw Quantum of Solace. It was a pretty nice movie. I'm going to be watching Casino Royale next. After that I think it will be the Harry Potter films. I can't get ahold of the books very quickly, and I've heard the movies are somewhat close to them, so I figure it ought to be good enough. :P Though audiobooks might also be the way to go in that respect.

College is stressful. I'll be glad when I'm actually there, rather than having to deal with all this planning and registering stuff.

Wall-E, Work, Girlfriend, and New Shorts

Stories are going well so far. Same old, same old on that part.

Saw Wall-E about three times at work. Really love it. It's unseated The Dark Knight in the position of my favorite movie ever. It's just a really stellar movie overall. Wall-E himself is really great, quite possibly the greatest protagonist I've ever seen. He doesn't have an overbearing personality and he's not out for any big thing. He's cute and curious, and all he wants is to be with EVE, and he tries so hard to do that. When he got [spoiler alert] crushed and then lost his memory of EVE and all his knicknacks, I seriously shed a tear. He's such a lovable guy, it's impossible not to love him.

I don't have to go back to work until Thursday, thank goodness. Our manager comes back on Monday, and I don't want to be around while she's getting the store back to how she wants it to run. I can only hope that Alco higher-ups decide to have pity on us and have Charlie come back. He was nice and cool, and we actually got tons of stuff done. Oh well, I suppose that pigs also might fly. That would be cool.

Today my girlfriend will hopefully ask her dad if I can come up during August. I really hope he says yes. Though I'm not exactly enthusiastic about the East Coast, having previously vowed never to cross the Mississippi going east, I'm willing to ignore that for her. She's worth it. It'll really be an adventure going out and doing things with her like a regular couple. I'm looking forward to it.

Working on creating a fantasy world to set short stories in. It seems that anytime anyone creates a fantasy world, they feel the need to write long, epic, multi-part novels in it. Why has no one really written short stories in a obviously fantasy world? Maybe it's because they go to all that trouble to create the world and want to exploit it as best they can. That's all fine and good. But I want to experiment with short fantasy that doesn't sound like Neil Gaiman. He's a fabulous author, don't get me wrong, and that's why I want to experiment with that, because I don't think you can get much better than him. He's pretty much got a monopoly on writing short modern fantasy stories that are set somewhat in our world. So, I'm going to branch off and see what I can do with my ideas. :P