So, apparently, the Clarion West Write-A-Thon begins today. Hm, maybe I should start thinking about what I’m going to write over the next six weeks…
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So one of the things I’m working on in my head as I open this new chapter in my life, especially when it comes to my writing, is flipping the script from “I have to do this” to “I want to do this.” I’ve spent most of my life laboring under one massive obligation or another. Whether it was school or a job, I’m doing things because I have to. Only on rare occasions have I found myself laboring because I wanted to do something. Working at conventions is such a time. So is gamemastering sometimes (though often I do feel the weight of obligation to my players). There is no obligation now, at least not to other people. I still generally feel like I “have to.”
But a couple times in the last few days I’ve been able to hear myself say it’s what I want to do, that I could walk away from it with no penalty, and what’s keeping me at that desk is self fulfillment. It’s a very unaccustomed feeling.
Well, I’ve completed the short story I started last week. I would up with 5500+ words, a little over my target of 4000, but that’s okay. I’ve a bit verbose at the moment. I should be able to tighten it up eventually and bring it under 5K. But for now it’s in my “marinating” file for a few months. I’ll get back to it when I have more distance from it.
I’m behind where I want to be, but I’m not hugely concerned. I do have the write-a-thon kicking off next Monday, so I will be spending some time in the next few days laying as much groundwork as I can–story ideas, titles, interesting characters, maybe a few plot notes. I won’t have my usual amount of time to work this week as I’m attending PolyCon in San Luis Obispo this weekend.
Just a brief update today to celebrate the progress made on this week’s short story.
While my writing productivity wasn’t exceptional today, I did manage to add a solid 1500 words to the project, bringing the total to 3480. Although my initial goal was 4000 words, I anticipate reaching nearly twice that amount. However, when the time comes for editing, I’ll need to sacrifice some beloved darlings to adhere to my maximum target of 5000 words. Such is the life of a writer.
Fortunately, I will have some uninterrupted time over the weekend, allowing me to hopefully complete the first draft by Sunday evening.
One of the reasons for the slow pace of the writing lies in its subject matter. Unexpectedly, it has evolved into a neoNoir-ish procedural, which was not my original intention, but sometimes following the muse proves most fruitful. I find myself grappling with the challenge of getting the details right, particularly since the story my protagonist believes to be unfolding is revealed to be its complete opposite in the end. Striving to make both narratives plausible based on the provided clues, with a bias towards the ones misleading the hero, has proven to be quite demanding. I’m embracing a partially “seat of the pants” approach in my writing for this story, relying on the muse to guide the specifics while having an overarching plot already outlined.
Once this piece is completed, I plan to set it aside for a few months while I work on other short stories, particularly during the upcoming write-a-thon. I always relish returning to my stories once the details have faded from memory. Approaching them with a relatively fresh perspective allows me to identify areas in need of revision.
Overall, progress may be steady yet slow, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the process and honing my skills by making subtle adjustments to my process along the way to bolster my creative endeavors.
Hi, friends!
This year, from June 25 to August 5, 2023, I’m doing something positively ill-advised, namely participating in Clarion West’s Write-A-Thon. This event is Clarion West’s primary fundraiser for programs throughout the year, including their yearly writers workshop. My plan for the write-a-thon is to complete the first draft of a short story every week of the event. I don’t promise it will be a good story, nor a publishable one, but much like NaNoWriMo, it’s the discipline that counts. If you would like to sponsor me, and to sponsor an awesome program, I ask that you visit my fundraising page, which links to more details about the event and the programs it funds:
I belong to the group of people who prefer referring to the various Large Language Model systems as “plagiarism machines” (you can read my previous rant on this topic here). However, I must admit that they do serve their purpose.
Lately, I have been experimenting with these models to enhance my character descriptions. Although these descriptions won’t directly appear in my writing, they help me generate genre-appropriate details. I start by roughly outlining my characters, providing names and brief descriptions of their appearance and clothing choices. I also try to include a personal trait that reveals an inner aspect of the character, and sometimes establish connections to other characters. Afterwards, I turn to ChatGPT and ask it to expand on the description.
ChatGPT does an impressive job of returning several paragraphs that elaborate on the information I provided. It adds supplementary details to the description and offers insights into what the character’s choices, particularly in clothing, might convey to others or even themselves.
The best part is that since this is a highly connected language model, once I establish the mood and style of the setting, the LLM suggests stylistic details that harmonize with that particular context (assuming the setting is similar to other known settings, of course). For instance, if I mention that the character wears a ballistic leather jacket and magnetic boots, ChatGPT might propose something like the following:
Dressed in dark clothing, Gerald exudes an air of professional readiness. His ballistic-proof leather jacket serves as both a stylish accessory and a practical safeguard, providing protection without compromising his mobility. Magnetic boots, designed to secure him to any surface in zero-gravity environments, demonstrate his preparedness for any situation that may arise.
It is truly enjoyable to witness the additional depth brought forth by this LLM. I am always somewhat amused by how well it aligns with the desired mood for my characters. As I mentioned earlier, none of this text will directly appear in the piece I am currently working on. However, as a means to fully visualize my characters, I find this tool to be quite valuable.
As I continue to seek out what works best for my writing process, I expect my daily schedule, the routine that works for my ADHD brain, will evolve. This is the current iteration, just so I have a reference point for the future.
- 0700 – 0730: Wake, catch up on major headlines, do my daily Sudoku, etc.
- 0730 – 0800: Quick writing prompt practice
- 0800 – 0830: Brainstorming for story seeds
- 0830 – 0930: Morning ablutions and breakfast (free reading)
- 0930 – 1230: Principle writing time
- 1230 – 1300: Walking time (with podcast accompaniment)
- 1300 – 1330: Lunch
After lunch I’m allowing things to be more free form. Sometimes I’ll feel like continuing the morning writing, other times I want to relax and enjoy some leisure activities. If I don’t write in the afternoon, I often start feeling like doing more writing in the evening, if I don’t have other plans. I usually spend at least two additional hours a day with my writing for a total of six hours a day.
At some point during the week I need to spend an hour or two doing prep for my weekly D&D game, but I don’t have a set schedule for that yet. It would probably help me if I did.
Anyway, that’s the current schedule plan. I’ll revisit in a few weeks to see if it needs additional work.
I’ve had some friends who strongly advocate that I shouldn’t be as structured in why approach to writing, that I should write when inspiration strikes as many famous authors are known to do. While that is certainly a popular image of how an author gets their best work done, it’s not a true image. Sure, some authors were known for that approach to their writing, many more are significantly more structured, especially those who are commercially successful, which is one of my goals. I also know myself well enough to know that if I don’t work within a structure such as this, I’ll nearly always put off work until a mythical “some day” when I’ll be inspired. Rather than wait for that mythical muse to whack me upside the head, I give space in each day for inspiration and the muse to join me at the desk. Throughout my writing life, I’ve found keeping to a schedule was the best way to ensure satisfactory progress. I’m going with what I know to work for me.
I took a prompt from the Revised edition of Judy Reeves’ awesome book “A Writer’s Book of Days” and set a time for 25 minutes. I went a few minutes past the end of the timer so let’s call it a 30 minute sprint. In that time I wrote more that 900 words. I surprised myself. It’s just a practice narrative, no real story, just stream of consciousness imagining an alien trying to pay a visit to Paris. I had no idea where to go with it but was beginning to head towards the alien being from a gastropodal species (wearing a human disguise) and sampling the tastes of Paris only to discover what escargot was made from. Hardly original but maybe could be fun? I’ll file it away for later cogitation, as I do with all my practice writing. Still, 900 words in 30 minutes is a damn good rate. I’m happy about that.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve left my high tech job to pursue my dream of being published. That’s a lofty goal, but how does one achieve it? Well, being an engineer by training and aptitude, I’ve planned out a possible future, and am beginning my steps along it.
There are many ways to become a published author. Self-publishing is one path that many have taken. Traditional publishing is another. My personal preference is to start with traditional publishing. Not many self-published authors wind up with books on bookstore shelves, and that has been a driving image for me (possibly because my dream started nearly fifty years ago when I first discovered the magic of bookstores).
One of the major milestones I wish to make on my journey is to become a member of the trade organization for my preferred genre of science-fiction and fantasy, namely SFWA, The Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. When I first started looking into joining SFWA, the eligibility requirements were very specific: an author could apply for membership after having three short stories published in qualifying magazines or websites, or one novel published by a qualified publisher. A couple of years back, they changed the requirements to simply being paid a set amount across all of the various ways to get paid for writing fiction in the genre, but the original requirements are still a pretty good guideline to me.
Here is where my engineer mind kicks in. What is the most cost effective way to earn $1000 (the current threshold) by writing science fiction and fantasy? I believe it is to write short stories and submit them to the various paying markets. A short story is generally 2000 to 15000 words. My average tends to be just shy of 5000. A novel in the genre is typically 90000 to 120000 words (though epic fantasy often clocks in with much heftier word counts). In the time it takes to write a novel, one could presumably write 20 to 30 short stories, each one having a chance to be published.
Now, I’m fairly practiced at writing novels. I’ve been working on writing novels for years, and have several in various states of completion. Writing short stories uses many different skills than novels, and I’ve not developed those skills yet. But I imagine that the skills I need to develop for writing short pieces will in the long term benefit my long form writing, especially skills related to packing a lot of description in short sentences, and getting to the point quickly.
Another reason to focus on writing short fiction right now is that it would look good on my writing resume (or in my query letter to agents) to have a list of published works I can cite. Which is an agent going to take more seriously, a novel from someone who’s never been published, or a novel from someone who has a record of publications in various magazines? My money is on the latter.
In the final analysis, it seems much more beneficial to me at this state of my new career to focus on writing and publishing short stories. It will probably make me eligible to join my desired professional organization sooner, I’ll have more chances to get my writing in front of paying eyeballs, and it will help develop skills I can leverage in my novel writing. So, for the time being, my focus will be on writing short fiction.
With that in mind, I’m looking at some other statistics, namely statistics around my own performance. I find that when I’m focused, when I have the story clearly in mind, I can crank out 500 works in 30 minutes. I’m generally happy with that output as a first draft. In theory, if I were to be focused for my entire writing day, which I currently plan to be six hours per week day, I would be able to write 6000 words each day. I do not believe that rate is sustainable, but 2000 working words per day certainly seems to be. Given that, over the span of five working days, I should be able to brainstorm, develop, write, and edit a 3000-5000 word short story every week. I think this is doable. Will all of the stories be worthy of submission to magazines? I doubt it. But in 52 weeks, will some of them be? I’d like to think so.
So that is my plan. A short story a week every week. And when I can, a little more so I’ll have something to count as a completed story during those weeks I’m on vacation. The hardest part, naturally, will be coming up with enough ideas to support the plan.
Time to start brainstorming!
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