I finished the second draft of Chapter 7 tonight. It's the chapter where Lara Brand travels to Grisandole and searches for the Incanto. It's quite a fun chapter with a few surprises and a gruesome twist. But that's not what I want to talk about tonight. I thought I'd write a few comments on writing a book when you've got a full time job and a young family. It sounds like a recipe for frustration and fatigue, if not disaster, but I'd like to comment on why it needn't be this way.
I think the first thing I got right was I incorporated the novel-writing process into a 'system'. By that I mean that writing Caliban's End is simply part of what I do. Rather than getting shitty when something interrupts my writing (the twins fighting for example), I accept that as part of a system that allows me to write with a certain amount of colour and movement.
I'm not sure I could write full time. I admire those who can but I think I would get exhausted. However, by making writing something I do when the kids are asleep, or during lunchtimes at work, it means that each writing experience is a positive one - it's a break from the routine of the day.
I think the other thing that I have found works for me is the realisation that you actually can stop writing to attend to nappies, a child's bad dream or to answer a phone call about someone's computer problem. I don't think my writing is so perfect that I can't leave it for five minutes. Often I find that a little break can help with my focus on the narrative and the clarity of my expression. If I come across an idea that is too good to leave, I just jot it down and play around with it in my head as I attend to less literary matters.
Perhaps more established writers would disagree, but I do not see writing as a sacred act. It's just part of my system. I would be guilty of hubris to think that my writing is so important, the world must stop spinning whilst I commit my ideas to paper. And I wouldn't want it to stop anyway. If time slowed down to accommodate me, I think I would slow down too.
I know this introspection may seem like a great big pile of shite to some, but it works for me.
Next blog post: Caliban's End, The Motion Picture
Showing posts with label Chapter 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter 7. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Critters
They're a lot of critters in Caliban's End. Some are wildly fantastical like the Cabal, a group of arse-kicking monsters. I finished Chapter 8 last week, the climax of which is a fight with one of the Cabal - big ugly bugger called Katcochila. This creature is a little bit like a half-deflated hot air balloon. He has countless legs which struggle to move his fat body around. Katcochila has a few other quirks. He has no skin. His stomach lies on the outside of his body which is rather unpleasant for anyone who falls onto it. He also has a long thin neck with a tiny head at the end of it. Many of my monsters are quirky and hopefully a little bit disturbing. I didn't want to go for archetypal monsters. I want the reader to have the same sense of incredulity as our heroes have when they come across these behemoths for the first time.
This week I also created Puddy who is currently my favourite character which, I admit, is something that changes every week! (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) Poor Puddy doesn't stay in the story for long, but I think I managed to infuse him with plenty of character for his brief stay. He's a huge flying lobstery thing, is very childlike, a bit of a sook, but wonderfully loyal. He's basically a big blue puppy with a hard shell. We meet him in Chapter 7 which I should finish tonight if I have a few cups of coffee.
It's probably worth commenting upon something whilst we're talking about critters. I have a bit of a challenge in this book - I can't refer to any animals in our world. Doing so would break the suspension of disbelief as there are no horses, or dogs, or cats, or lions, tigers and bears in Terra. All the creatures of Caliban's End are unique to the novel. So why's that a challenge? Well, I am quickly discovering how bloody hard it is to avoid animal metaphors and similes. If I have a crab-like creature I can't describe it as having "claws like a crab". That would be too jarring. Perhaps I could emply a word like 'crancriform' instead (which is a word I do like), but this makes the novel a little inaccessible to some. Luckily, they more I write, they more techniques I discover to get around problems like this.
The first technique is to use the sound of familiar words to evoke a sense of a made-up creature's design. For example, Puddy is a lobbsle. Hopefully that conjures images of lobsters because Puddy looks a bit like a crustacean. I have used this simple technique quite a bit. In the novel I have shelps (which are like sheep), snorses (which is kind of a cross between a horse, a snail and a taun-taun from The Empire Strikes Back), squirls, turtla and gillygulls, to name a few. It's turning out to be quite a menagarie. I may have to add a bestiary page to my Caliban's End wiki (http://calibansend.pbwiki.com/).
Another technique is to use a sound that evokes something of a creature's nature. For example, in the book you'll meet some grizzum which are melancholy, stubborn beasts of burden. The look a bit like a cross between a bear and a yak (that is if bears and yaks were ever predisposed to mate). I think the name grizzum creates a sense of the creature's grumpy and recalcitrant nature. Similarly, marroks are nasty, cunning beasts and for some reason I can get a feeling of this from their name. One of my favourite animals is a bird called a quawk. It's an ugly, vindictive bird. Out of pure spite, a flock of quawks will shit on any unwary people below. They even do it high above fierce battles. Fortunately the act of defecation is painful for these avian menaces, so they release an ear-piercing shriek just before dumping on their victims. Soldiers have been known to momentarily cease hostilities just to avoid this beast's vindicative noisome deposits.
The last technique I utilise to escape the need to use traditional animal imagery is to focus upon a creature's characteristics to suggest what sort of animal he/she/it resembles. For example, Puddy is a lot like a goofy labrador, so describing him in a way that would also befit a labrador is a way of bringing a little more clarity and definition to this fictional beast.
I am also enjoying placing a twist on conventional and cliched metaphors by using the creatures of Terra to describe people in the book. Phrases like 'cunning as a marrok' or 'as proud as a staggorn' are becoming quite prevalent in the book. Note to self: take care not to overdo this.
Lastly, on a totally unrelated matter, I installed Vue on my laptop today. It's basically 3D rendering software. I've used it once before for a couple of hours and you can get pretty good results from just a little bit of effort. I plan to use it heaps in the year to come. The past few days have seen me writing about Lara Brand's journey up an unnamed peninsula to the Isle of Grisandole so today during my lunchbreak I did a quick picture of Grisandole. It's not brilliant but for 45 minutes' work, it's not bad.
I'm going to sneak downstairs and have the chocolate Drumstick that's sitting in the fridge and then I'm going to finish Chapter 7 before midnight swings around.
Cheers, Paul
This week I also created Puddy who is currently my favourite character which, I admit, is something that changes every week! (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) Poor Puddy doesn't stay in the story for long, but I think I managed to infuse him with plenty of character for his brief stay. He's a huge flying lobstery thing, is very childlike, a bit of a sook, but wonderfully loyal. He's basically a big blue puppy with a hard shell. We meet him in Chapter 7 which I should finish tonight if I have a few cups of coffee.
It's probably worth commenting upon something whilst we're talking about critters. I have a bit of a challenge in this book - I can't refer to any animals in our world. Doing so would break the suspension of disbelief as there are no horses, or dogs, or cats, or lions, tigers and bears in Terra. All the creatures of Caliban's End are unique to the novel. So why's that a challenge? Well, I am quickly discovering how bloody hard it is to avoid animal metaphors and similes. If I have a crab-like creature I can't describe it as having "claws like a crab". That would be too jarring. Perhaps I could emply a word like 'crancriform' instead (which is a word I do like), but this makes the novel a little inaccessible to some. Luckily, they more I write, they more techniques I discover to get around problems like this.
The first technique is to use the sound of familiar words to evoke a sense of a made-up creature's design. For example, Puddy is a lobbsle. Hopefully that conjures images of lobsters because Puddy looks a bit like a crustacean. I have used this simple technique quite a bit. In the novel I have shelps (which are like sheep), snorses (which is kind of a cross between a horse, a snail and a taun-taun from The Empire Strikes Back), squirls, turtla and gillygulls, to name a few. It's turning out to be quite a menagarie. I may have to add a bestiary page to my Caliban's End wiki (http://calibansend.pbwiki.com/).
Another technique is to use a sound that evokes something of a creature's nature. For example, in the book you'll meet some grizzum which are melancholy, stubborn beasts of burden. The look a bit like a cross between a bear and a yak (that is if bears and yaks were ever predisposed to mate). I think the name grizzum creates a sense of the creature's grumpy and recalcitrant nature. Similarly, marroks are nasty, cunning beasts and for some reason I can get a feeling of this from their name. One of my favourite animals is a bird called a quawk. It's an ugly, vindictive bird. Out of pure spite, a flock of quawks will shit on any unwary people below. They even do it high above fierce battles. Fortunately the act of defecation is painful for these avian menaces, so they release an ear-piercing shriek just before dumping on their victims. Soldiers have been known to momentarily cease hostilities just to avoid this beast's vindicative noisome deposits.
The last technique I utilise to escape the need to use traditional animal imagery is to focus upon a creature's characteristics to suggest what sort of animal he/she/it resembles. For example, Puddy is a lot like a goofy labrador, so describing him in a way that would also befit a labrador is a way of bringing a little more clarity and definition to this fictional beast.
I am also enjoying placing a twist on conventional and cliched metaphors by using the creatures of Terra to describe people in the book. Phrases like 'cunning as a marrok' or 'as proud as a staggorn' are becoming quite prevalent in the book. Note to self: take care not to overdo this.
Lastly, on a totally unrelated matter, I installed Vue on my laptop today. It's basically 3D rendering software. I've used it once before for a couple of hours and you can get pretty good results from just a little bit of effort. I plan to use it heaps in the year to come. The past few days have seen me writing about Lara Brand's journey up an unnamed peninsula to the Isle of Grisandole so today during my lunchbreak I did a quick picture of Grisandole. It's not brilliant but for 45 minutes' work, it's not bad.I'm going to sneak downstairs and have the chocolate Drumstick that's sitting in the fridge and then I'm going to finish Chapter 7 before midnight swings around.
Cheers, Paul
Saturday, November 11, 2006
I don't mean to neglect you
Should I apologise to my blogsite? I haven't paid her any attention for months. Despite this, she was patiently waiting for me when I logged in. To make it up to her, I did upgrade to the Google beta version. I'm really pleased with this version as it has tags! I love tags. I'm addicted to del.icio.us where I tag everything. I can now tag pages on my pbwiki sites too which is pretty cool. Now I'm back blogging, it will make this page a lot easier to navigate.
Where have I been, blog? What have I been doing (apart from playing Resident Evil 4 until 1:30 this morning?) Actually, I've been very busy on the book. I have more or less finished a rough draft of it and last week I finished polishing Chapter 6. I'm really pleased with what I've done over recent weeks as I've sorted out quite a few details that were causing me problems (such as how can Caliban have all these agents up on Terra when he has been locked away in the Endless for 30 years?)
So the second draft of the book is finished up to Chapter 7. What else have I been doing? Well, I did my first podcast and I'm quite pleased with it. It is up on my wiki site: http://calibansend.pbwiki.com/ which is the other thing I've been concentrating upon. The site has really come along over the past few months. It has pictures (ones I've drawn and others I have created from Creative Commons Flickr pictures). It also has an incredibly detailed glossary that took me an eternity. I have written quite a few appendices as well. I'm taking a break from the wiki site because I don't want to put up a lot of stuff I'd have to change later based on the drafting I'm currently doing.
I'm currently redrafting a chapter on the Pryderi. These witches have so much potential but they're a little one dimensional at the moment. I currently developing the character of Arinna Brine. I don't want to give too much away but she's one of those seemingly minor characters who returns to the novel in a big way. I don't think that spoils anything, but readers who are paying attention when they read Chapter 7 will see little hints of what is to come.
The preceding paragraph really highlights what I've been trying to do lately - build in hints and clues that foreshadow things to come in the novel. Nothing that occurs in the latter stages of the novel appears without any antecedent. (Is that the right word? It's a good thing I can always go back and edit the blog!) I don't want readers to get to the climax and think 'Well that's just shit! Where'd that come from?' I want everything to be justified, albeit in subtle ways. I want to reward readers who bother to read the novel a second time. Hopefully they'll see all the whispers that preceded the shouting.
That will do for now. I plan to attend to the blog once a week now, so I'll see you shortly. It's a warm November night and I should water the garden. I hope it rains tomorrow. I've almost forgotten what rain sounds like.
Cheers, Paul
Where have I been, blog? What have I been doing (apart from playing Resident Evil 4 until 1:30 this morning?) Actually, I've been very busy on the book. I have more or less finished a rough draft of it and last week I finished polishing Chapter 6. I'm really pleased with what I've done over recent weeks as I've sorted out quite a few details that were causing me problems (such as how can Caliban have all these agents up on Terra when he has been locked away in the Endless for 30 years?)
So the second draft of the book is finished up to Chapter 7. What else have I been doing? Well, I did my first podcast and I'm quite pleased with it. It is up on my wiki site: http://calibansend.pbwiki.com/ which is the other thing I've been concentrating upon. The site has really come along over the past few months. It has pictures (ones I've drawn and others I have created from Creative Commons Flickr pictures). It also has an incredibly detailed glossary that took me an eternity. I have written quite a few appendices as well. I'm taking a break from the wiki site because I don't want to put up a lot of stuff I'd have to change later based on the drafting I'm currently doing.
I'm currently redrafting a chapter on the Pryderi. These witches have so much potential but they're a little one dimensional at the moment. I currently developing the character of Arinna Brine. I don't want to give too much away but she's one of those seemingly minor characters who returns to the novel in a big way. I don't think that spoils anything, but readers who are paying attention when they read Chapter 7 will see little hints of what is to come.
The preceding paragraph really highlights what I've been trying to do lately - build in hints and clues that foreshadow things to come in the novel. Nothing that occurs in the latter stages of the novel appears without any antecedent. (Is that the right word? It's a good thing I can always go back and edit the blog!) I don't want readers to get to the climax and think 'Well that's just shit! Where'd that come from?' I want everything to be justified, albeit in subtle ways. I want to reward readers who bother to read the novel a second time. Hopefully they'll see all the whispers that preceded the shouting.
That will do for now. I plan to attend to the blog once a week now, so I'll see you shortly. It's a warm November night and I should water the garden. I hope it rains tomorrow. I've almost forgotten what rain sounds like.
Cheers, Paul
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