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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 16, 2016 18:01:57 GMT -5
AWR's activity levels and member count were dropping kind of in parallel with one another. Hyper-active AWR of 7 years ago dwindled to the far less-populated, less-active AWR of 2 years ago. Then Inklings happened. I honestly think it saved the forum. Actually, not 'saved', rejuvenated. This is the Second Golden Age of AWR, in my opinion. The Inklings announcement and Adam being made an admin happened on the same day. Adam is Jesus in this metaphor? I've been Jesus before. /shrug |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 16, 2016 23:59:51 GMT -5
The Inklings announcement and Adam being made an admin happened on the same day. Huh. Really? What an interesting day for AWR. Thanks, Hawaiian Jesus! |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 0:27:19 GMT -5
The Inklings announcement and Adam being made an admin happened on the same day. Huh. Really? What an interesting day for AWR. Thanks, Hawaiian Jesus! You could say I'm kind of a big deal. |
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Post by James on Feb 17, 2016 1:27:51 GMT -5
A Diary for the Arena I have no idea how this is going to go. Essentially, I'm just going to detail the thoughts I had throughout the competition. It's probably going to come off quite the stream of consciousness. I'm not sure if it'll be remotely interesting to people. I'm going to discuss writing, though, so maybe it will be useful? Let's see. Pre-CompetitionI came into this competition with a clear purpose in mind: stay clear from my comfort zone. The Arena has always been a good competition to do this. You don't have any control over the introductions you get. Sure, you can probably try and force them to squeeze into what you know, but it's a lot easier to go where the stories take you. What's my comfort zone? I'm really pleased to say that it's becoming an increasingly hard thing to define. Over the last couple of years, I've written about middle-class romances, really weird, personalised magical realism and even an absurdist sci-fi black comedy. I'd still define my comfort zone as urban fantasy, particularly with a very distinct British feel. So I wanted to stay away from urban fantasy and I wanted to stay away from Britain. But I also just didn't want to skirt away from my comfort zone, I really wanted to push myself. My competitive streak is ebbing with these competitions, which almost makes them even better. I still want to win. I'd love to win. But I want to write good stories more. I wanted to write perspectives and stories I've never told before. For short hand, I'll call all that “the goal”. The only other thing to mention is really quite ridiculous now that I write about it after the fact, but it was definitely something that had an impact on my first two stories. Bowie. His death really shook me up inside, both for better and for worse. But we'll get to that more when I discuss my Stranger story. Round One – Teach Yourself Physics Here's what -usually- happens to me with these competitions: I see that my topic has arrived. I instinctively hate it. I wander around and maybe even complain about it. Eventually I come up with an idea and then slowly grow to appreciate the topic. There has been a few exceptions, the most obvious being Pete's Manoel the Vampire introduction that I fell in love with instantly and led to one of my strongest stories, I think. Interestingly, the Future introduction fell more toward the exceptions categories than the norm. The mistakes in the piece needled me. And I hated the beggar character straight off the bat. He seemed incredibly boring. But the idea of “selling futures” really appealed to me. Remembering “the goal”, I instantly ruled out telling a fantasy story, even though the idea of a travelling salesman really called to me because Something Wicked This Way Comes always cheated me on that itch. The obvious next step was science fiction. Despite the inconsistent end product, I'm really pleased with the brainstorming stage. I spent the first day of the round figuring out how you could “sell futures”. I had just finished a pre-Arena time travel story that had toyed with my limited understanding of spacetime and that seemed a strong start. It turns out an idiot with wikipedia can teach himself a fair bit about science. I started diving into the Many Worlds Interpretation and its consequences for selling futures. The future selling industry very quickly came together. With future selling being a central point of the story, I very quickly settled on Jim as the protagonist rather than the beggar. Which suited me just fine. It required some massaging in the first segment of the story, because the introduction was clearly from the beggar's perspective and I had to subtly try and shift it to an omniscient narrator to allow Jim to become the protagonist. It was important to me that Jim wasn't just a piece of meat to talk about the future selling industry. I've come at speculative fiction from the fantasy avenue, where characters have always been important. I'm actually really poorly read when you think of the titans of science fiction. I've hardly read any Asimov. Very little Clarke. Not a lot of Dick. I've never read a page of Dune. Matteo would slap me. However, it does mean I don't think I could feel too comfortable writing a place holder character to be there to enable cool sci-fi shit. I need the characters to be important. My inspiration for Jim was very much Arthur Miller's A Death of a Salesman: needing to be exceptional, losing sight of what you've already got. A very basic analyse but basically the main point. And so I now had a story in mind. A man who was living perfectly fine, saw a chance to do something "better" and then ruin everything. For that to work, it seemed important that not only did Jim come off as likable enough, but also that the supporting characters at least had some personality. The first scene between Jim and his wife seemed really crucial. I didn't actually start at the beginning. The first thing I wrote was the post-sale scene. Maybe that's why the beginning felt a little clunky because it was the -last- thing I wrote. In all honesty, I think I could have moved straight to the next scene but I'm sure people would have been upset about me ignoring the introduction. I had the plot set out before me as I wrote, but very quickly I became aware of a pretty fatal flaw. The pacing. There was no time for Jim to really think on things. His despair at Charlotte's life. And then his agony at realising his family was different in the universe. They were too rushed and no matter how much I tried to fix that, it was a structural issue. It did lead to those big paragraphs, though, as I rushed to fit everything in. What I ended up with, then, was something quite jumbled and messy, but I hope ambitious. Finally, a word on -that- ending. It was intentional. The formatting was definitely intended. I wanted to convey a sense of a record skipping, of violent jumps taking you to somewhere you shouldn't have been. Evidently that didn't quite work. Next time: We've got five years... |
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Post by James on Feb 17, 2016 2:10:16 GMT -5
Round Two: Station to StationI really loved the start to this. It's so unlike how I'd write a beginning (which is trying to cram as much information in as quickly as possible – which is the wrong approach, ladies and gentlemen). It was short, poetic, and to me, it just felt very melancholic. And for some reason, I instantly knew what I wanted to write... So, let's talk David Bowie. A lot of things were written after he died. But the one that really struck me was a blog post by the New Zealand writer, Danyl McLauchlan (he wrote an excellent Dan Brown piss-take). dimpost.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/inevitable-bowie-post/The part in particular is this: “What sets Bowie apart – for me – is the way all of those elements combine to produce a unique, very intense interior state that is impossible for me to describe except by saying ‘That is the way I feel when I listen to Heroes.’”That really stuck in my mind. Now that someone put it into words, it really made perfect sense to me. Bowie's best songs almost invented new emotions by throwing so many different feelings into one melody. I am nowhere near as talented as to do something like that. What I wanted to do though was take 'That is the way I feel when I listen to...” and convey that feeling through a story. With its Berlin destination and a sense of “just for one day”, it may be easy to think that I had Heroes in mind. But I didn't. There is a moment in Five Years, when it's the end of the world and everyone is freaking out, that Bowie sings about someone sipping his milkshake, smiling. Then there's the line “don't think you knew you were in this song.” It's my favourite line, possibly from any song ever. I can't put my finger exactly on why. Maybe it's because Bowie's songs are actually really bleak and I'm an optimist so there's an odd conflict in why I love his music. Maybe I just like meta things (I like meta things). Regardless, that line has always made me feel a weird jumble of emotions that can only be described as “the way I feel when I listen to Five Years”. And so I tried to show everyone what that feeling was. The universe falling apart and just carrying on, not just carrying on, but living and smiling and ignoring everything else because what else can you do? The planning stage was pretty easy. I knew there was going to be very little plot. It was going to be a character story. This was partly as a response to the justified criticism of my last story taking too much on. So the characters demanded the few plot-esque things to happen. I knew that once Johan arrived, Mikkel was going to be infatuated. And it's very hard for an infatuated person to be proactive, to not be a passenger. So I knew I had to give him stuff to do. To make him more likeable to the reader. Hence the giving away his old toy. The sad backstory. Mikkel had to feel alive before Johan arrived in the story. Johan was a different kettle of fish. I wanted to write a really distinctive character, but that meant not making him too over the top. A lot of his dialogue got cut. There was shit about comparing God and Evolution to cathedrals that just didn't work (you see the idea reworked later in the story, though). Instead I kept the thing slimmed. I'm really proud of how his dialogue turned out, though. I think I struck a careful balance. I'm actually pretty happy with Mikkel's dialogue as well. With that, the only other thing I felt I had to do was get across how Johan was making Mikkel feel. I wanted to use the sparse poetry of the introduction to do so. It was about little details and then not spelling them out to the reader. I think Adam thinks I may have gone a little too far with them, but I don't know if I would want to cut any of the lines. From the very start, I decided Mikkel and Johan would both be young men. Their gender literally did not matter. And in that position, it seemed right to actually write a gay story. Where it wasn't tokenism, but rather just a natural aspect of the story. I'm surprised Reffy thought Mikkel was a woman because I actually tried to signpost very early on that he was male. I didn't want it to feel like a “trick reveal”. The fact that they were gay, or bi, or pansexual, did not matter and I didn't want to even mention it in the narrative. In the end, I am really, really pleased with how this turned out. I think it's possibly one of my best stories yet. I'd actually like to try and publish it because it's the type of story I want to share. But I have no idea how I would even classified it. Is it a romance? A literary story? An apocalypse story? I have no idea. To finish this entry, I'll say I felt I had to end with the Wall. Yeah, the story was mostly a study on Five Years, but a lot of Heroes did sink into this. It was a great experience. I did genuinely feel a lot more connected to the songs than I ever did. Just for one day. Next time: [redacted - but no more about Bowie, I promise]
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 14:37:45 GMT -5
James, remember how you were saying you were considering a blog...
This is the sort of thing you should put there. I would read that religiously.
That said, I was planning to do a similar write up for each of the stories I put up on my blog, as well as an Arena breakdown once the competition is over.
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Post by James on Feb 17, 2016 14:55:46 GMT -5
James, remember how you were saying you were considering a blog... This is the sort of thing you should put there. I would read that religiously. That thought did cross my mind as I was writing it. Maybe I'll start one. Maybe. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 15:10:22 GMT -5
James, remember how you were saying you were considering a blog... This is the sort of thing you should put there. I would read that religiously. That thought did cross my mind as I was writing it. Maybe I'll start one. Maybe. Well, if you do, use Wordpress so we can network up. In fact, everyone should do this... Make my vision a reality. |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 17, 2016 18:26:46 GMT -5
Well, if you do, use Wordpress so we can network up. Ugh. Sell me on this, Adam. Convince me that blogs aren't narcissistic cesspools of loneliness. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 18:27:50 GMT -5
Well, if you do, use Wordpress so we can network up. Ugh. Sell me on this, Adam. Convince me that blogs aren't narcissistic cesspools of loneliness. How much world building have you done that nobody other than you will ever enjoy? |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 17, 2016 18:31:05 GMT -5
Ugh. Sell me on this, Adam. Convince me that blogs aren't narcissistic cesspools of loneliness. How much world building have you done that nobody other than you will ever enjoy? The process of doing that worldbuilding is inherently satisfying. It's something enjoyable in and of itself, for its own sake. Finding a way to showcase it to someone else is, ultimately, always secondary. Are blogs written for the inherent fun and enjoyment of writing them? Like diaries? Every blog I've ever encountered was written specifically as a way of conveying thoughts and opinions to other people. Their purpose and intent depends upon their accessibility to others. If you knew your blog literally couldn't be seen by anyone else, would you still be writing it? If the answer is "no", and the amount of people reading it is "one or two", then ultimately -why aren't you just having a conversation with that person-? |
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Post by James on Feb 17, 2016 18:40:08 GMT -5
Adam's posts about people he meets on the bus are genuinely amazing. I'm not being sarcastic. This better be a series.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 18:47:15 GMT -5
How much world building have you done that nobody other than you will ever enjoy? The process of doing that worldbuilding is inherently satisfying. It's something enjoyable in and of itself, for its own sake. Finding a way to showcase it to someone else is, ultimately, always secondary. For you, perhaps. I thrive on interaction and discussion; often times it's that discussion which helps me formulate ideas which further enhances the world-building experience. I think that depends on the blog and the person writing it. Mine is still evolving, and it's that exploration of the medium which is really enjoyable for me, moreso than even the writing. Playing around with it, figuring out what I can an can't do with it while at the same time sharing my work with people who might be interested. I've also been using it as a sort of word-dump. A place to put shit that's on my mind. There are certain posts which I'd like people to see, other's that I post just to get them out of my head. Fact is, I gotta word-dump somewhere... why not share those thoughts rather than write them on paper, crumple them up and throw them away? Same thing with you're world building. You're writing it down somewhere, why not somewhere where it can be seen by other people. People who can offer feedback, or ideas, or even just encouragement. If AWR, as a community, were to create a network of individual blogs, they could each (in essence) serve a similar, albeit more versatile, purpose as the "Project Forums." Well, part of that is the fact that I moved away from a huge portion of the people I grew up with; friends and family. Having the blog not only serves as a place to share my writing with these folks (now that I've grown a little more comfortable with sharing that aspect of my life), but it also allows me to keep people in the loop with what I'm up to and what I'm doing without having to make a bunch of phone calls. Part of it is just helping me get more accustomed to getting my writing seen, more confident in he process, an get an idea of what resonates with people and what does not. I dunno, like I said, it' still evolving; but I started out being really reluctant to even fuck with it, but I'm -beginning- to enjoy it as an activity in itself. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 17, 2016 18:48:10 GMT -5
Adam's posts about people he meets on the bus are genuinely amazing. I'm not being sarcastic. This better be a series. I fully intend for my "Letters to Strangers" to be an ongoing thing. |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 17, 2016 18:52:17 GMT -5
The process of doing that worldbuilding is inherently satisfying. It's something enjoyable in and of itself, for its own sake. Finding a way to showcase it to someone else is, ultimately, always secondary. For you, perhaps. I thrive on interaction and discussion; often times it's that discussion which helps me formulate ideas which further enhances the world-building experience. I think that depends on the blog and the person writing it. Mine is still evolving, and it's that exploration of the medium which is really enjoyable for me, moreso than even the writing. Playing around with it, figuring out what I can an can't do with it while at the same time sharing my work with people who might be interested. I've also been using it as a sort of word-dump. A place to put shit that's on my mind. There are certain posts which I'd like people to see, other's that I post just to get them out of my head. Fact is, I gotta word-dump somewhere... why not share those thoughts rather than write them on paper, crumple them up and throw them away? Same thing with you're world building. You're writing it down somewhere, why not somewhere where it can be seen by other people. People who can offer feedback, or ideas, or even just encouragement. If AWR, as a community, were to create a network of individual blogs, they could each (in essence) serve a similar, albeit more versatile, purpose as the "Project Forums." Well, part of that is the fact that I moved away from a huge portion of the people I grew up with; friends and family. Having the blog not only serves as a place to share my writing with these folks (now that I've grown a little more comfortable with sharing that aspect of my life), but it also allows me to keep people in the loop with what I'm up to and what I'm doing without having to make a bunch of phone calls. Part of it is just helping me get more accustomed to getting my writing seen, more confident in he process, an get an idea of what resonates with people and what does not. I dunno, like I said, it' still evolving; but I started out being really reluctant to even fuck with it, but I'm -beginning- to enjoy it as an activity in itself. Hmm. I could see myself turning this narrative project I've been cooking up into something that's got a 'blog' element to it. Because I've really enjoyed the posts that you and James have made about the process of your writing Arena entries. And I was talking with James on Skype yesterday about my wanting to make a post on AWR breaking down "how to write a plot". And I do think that, if AWR created a network of blogs and we were all reading one another's, then I think blogging would be worthwhile. Like you said, it'd be a better, more engaging version of the 'Projects' board. I'm going to seriously consider accompanying the narrative story with a 'behind the scenes' blog. I wouldn't post, I don't know, personal shit there. I don't feel the need to "get things on paper and out of my head" or any of that. But I do like -writing about writing-. |
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