Archive for March, 2008

Mar

30-in-30: The Final Analysis

Posted by: Michell in SWN Archives

Well, I managed to complete the 30-in-30 personal challenge last week and it was everything I had hoped it would be. Before I spend any time talking about the lessons I learned on this, let’s have a quick recap of the 30 days:

February 19: Title: The Exhibit (946)
February 20: Title: The Blood Red Moon (759)
February 21: Title: Politics (6)
February 22: Title: The Story (6)
February 23: nothing… final edits on my book and packaging
February 24: Title: Conscription (1,189)
February 25: Title: The Old Boys Club (767)
February 26: Title: To be a God (1,064)
February 27: Title: The Grunts Have It (256)
February 28: Title: A Disturbing Trend (978)
February 29: Title: Responsibilty (16)
March 1: Title: The Power of Can’t (501)
March 2: Title: Explosion (6)
March 3: Title: Of Men and Mermaids (1,387)
March 4: Title: Our Friend the Poisonous Gas (590)
March 5: Title: In Search of an Opinion (391)
March 6: Title: The Herd Mentality (815)
March 7: Title: Fellowship (6)
March 8: Title: The Truth about Living (950)
March 9: Title: The Verdict (352)
March 10: Title: What is Reality? (6)
March 11: Title: Surrogate (2,806)
March 12: Title: Water Guns At High Noon (1,061)
March 13: Title: Dungeons and Dragons (6)
March 14: Title: Departure (975)
March 15: Title: The Move (6)
March 16: Title: Save Money, Die Better (598)
March 17: Title: Wii Come in Peace (728)
March 18: Title: A Bad Invasion Day (234)
March 19: Title: The End of the Journey (6)

A Quick Recap

So how do I think I did? Well, I didn’t quite manage 30 short stories in 30 days like I had planned. I came close, but you will note the one day where I did editing instead (for submission no less), so I don’t feel like I failed too badly.

I wrote more six-word stories than I had intended (8), but I still don’t consider that a negative. I still needed to come up with a story for each and I did have to plant butt in chair to actually write them so that’s still alright.

The 29 stories I wrote totalled 17, 411 words. That’s an average of just over 580 words per day. If I were to maintain that rate for the next year I would have over 178,000 words written. That’s one very long novel or two shorter ones. Not bad for a year.

I also wrote a real variety of stories. There were Science Fiction, Fantasy, Parody, Literary, Horror (Zombie), and several other genres I never thought to write in.

Lessons Learned

Lesson 1 – Where do I get my story ideas from?

The whole personal challenge was extremely rewarding to me. I had originally envisioned pulling story ideas out of the daily newspaper and twisting them with some SciFi or Fantasy theme. The newspaper was the source of some stories, but instead of the majority starting that way, only about 20% came out of it. The rest of the stories came from a multitude of sources. That was a huge learning for me. As I went along, story ideas came more easily. I think it was simply a matter of training myself to keep my eyes open for ideas from everywhere. As a result, I also have several book-length ideas to work with that I didn’t have before.

Lesson 2: I can write Anything

As I alluded to earlier in the article, I did write a number of stories in genres I never expected. I think that was partially because of Lesson 1. I would see or hear something and then I’d throw an interesting “What if?” at it. For example, I never thought I would write horror, especially horror with Zombies. Now, several of my colleagues seem to have a special affinity to zombies for some reason, so I do hear about them more now than I ever did before, still I never thought I would write about them.

Then I had a story idea. 600 words later I had a story.

Is the story good enough to send out? No, but then none of them are in their current forms. Every story I wrote needs some editing. Just like during Nanowrimo, the 30-days was intended to produce content.

Lesson 3: A goal is a Great thing!

I know I’ve set goals for myself before. I think we probably all have. Just like most of you, I’ve had differing levels of success. In this case, I set a very specific goal. I think that’s why I was successful. So the lesson to keep in mind here is Always make your goals specific and time-sensitive.

Lesson 4: Practice makes perfect

Yup, that’s a tough one, isn’t it? But, as we should all know by now, the more you write, the easier it becomes and (hopefully) the better it gets.

Lesson 5: Writing is great therapy

Over the course of the 30 days, I experienced a lot of differing emotions: happiness, sadness, anger. That’s par for the course for everyone, isn’t it? The cool thing with trying to write a short story every day is I was able to channel those emotions into the writing. What that gave me is a range of stories that have different feelings embedded within them. It’s actually kinda cool when I go back and read them; I can often see how I was doing that day. That’s something that tends to get lost in longer fiction since the entire story tends to reflect an overarching emotional state.

Would I do it Again?

That’s an easy one. I most definitely would do it again! There’s something about challenges like this that bring out the best in me. I have had huge benefits from Nanowrimo the past two years that I’ve competed and this little self-challenge was no different. Now I just have to get a few more of my fellows to put their fear aside.

…and that raises a question from me… how many of you wrote any short fiction during the 30 days? I’d love to hear what you managed to get down.

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Mar

Out of Adversity…

Posted by: Michell in SWN Archives

I’m not afraid to say it: I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. But at the same time, I’m also rejoicing in the fact that I’m sick. Maybe that just goes to show how really unwell I am.

Seriously though, feeling like crap and not sleeping has given me story ideas. In fact, when I told one of the stories I had thought of, my wife laughed out loud. Since that was the intended outcome I thought that was a good thing.

It has also given me more insight into what it means to be sick. We’ve all been there, I expect, but as soon as we are well again, all is forgotten. But what about those people who are never completely well or people who don’t have the option of seeing the doctor, taking their medication and sleeping off whatever ails them? How do they deal with illness?

Granted, I wasn’t dying and I was able to take a couple days of sick leave. That gave me time to read and think. That’s where the insight came in.

I started playing the lives of different characters through my head, trying to picture what a day of sickness would be like for each. I realized how lucky I have it and how two-dimensional some of my characters have been. That new perspective will be put to work when I do my next rewrite.

I also got several new story ideas, some humorous, some serious. One of the humorous short stories (the one I told my wife) has been written as part of my 30 in 30 self-challenge. Now, I’ll let it sit and age for a while. Then I’ll edit it with an eye towards finding a publisher.

Now before you all go running out to the Doctor’s Office and start asking people to cough on you I do need to point out something: being sick royally sucks, it really does. All I’m doing is trying to spin this into something positive and it has been. I’ve been able to further hone my craft and the fact that my family loves me has been re-enforced in spades.

What more could I ask for? Well… except to not be sick, that is.

30 in 30 Update

March 13: Dungeons and Dragons Words: 6
March 14: Departure Words: 975
March 15: The Move Words: 6
March 16: Save Money, Die Better Words: 598
March 17: Wii Come in Peace Words: 728
March 18: A Bad Invasion Day Words: 234
March 19: The End of the Journey Words: 6

Final Note: Yes, Aaron, I know you used Adversity as part of your title yesterday too. Why can’t we all just be friends

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Mar

It’s All Fun and Games…

Posted by: Michell in SWN Archives

Aaron’s post yesterday made me laugh… and think. Maybe that was Aaron’s intent, maybe it wasn’t, but for me, that was the net result. So what about it specifically made me think? Maybe it was the silliness of the post. By his own admission, Aaron was feeling silly. Why shouldn’t that reveal itself in his writing?

I know we have all touched on the whole “Why we write” thing. Most of us say that we have stories to tell and need to get them out. I think I can include myself in that. But here’s a different question… Should we enjoy writing those stories?

The first novel I wrote took me seven years to complete. Sure, part of it was written for a writing course, but it took SEVEN years to finish. Did I have fun writing it?

In all honesty, the answer must be a little bit of yes, a lot of no and a healthy helping of maybe. It was a LOT of work. There were days when I didn’t want to look at it ever again. It was tedious and stressful but when it was done, I felt fantastic! The satisfaction I felt at that moment (and to a lessor extent still feel) made it all worth while. It was my first book and by finishing it, I learned I could do it and I learned a lot along the way.

Move forward to my first Nanowrimo (2006). I had just finished my first book, but I had a busy month ahead of me without Nano. Could I do 50,000 words? I didn’t know, but I was sure going to find out. Over the next 21 days, I made certain that I wrote every single night. I set aggressive goals for myself and met them. I sometimes even exceeded them.

I had fun.

How was Nano different from my first book project? There were many differences: (1) I knew I could write a novel-length work, (2) I had figured out how to write a book, (3) I was part of a writing community and (4) I wasn’t second-guessing my self by continuously editing the work. I remember writing scenes that brought tears to my eyes and scenes that made me laugh out loud. That was missing in my first book.

And that is why I write. I write to tell a story, yes, but I also write to experience the feelings of the characters. To make worlds that feel real to me (and hopefully to the reader). To dream.

I can readily admit, that my self-challenge of 30 in 30 has allowed that to happen. It has given me a means to bitch about things that bother me, praise things that I admire and dream of a better world. It has been glorious. And that’s what it’s all about for me.

30 in 30 Update