A Grand Chorus of Silence. Also, WiPpet Wednesday

First off, everyone, thank you all for the kind comments.  I'm really sorry I haven't replied, but (while it's no excuse) I was just much happier being able to enjoy all your successes on your blogs instead...  I promise I'll try to reply to them soon.

I've run into a slight problem.  Although the idea of actually writing still makes me queasy and brings me out in a cold sweat (never a good sign...), my characters are conspiring against me, and considering one of those characters is Fayth...  And although you've not met the other, though technically you should have and I just skirted over his initial introduction (but don't worry—not that anyone has been—when he becomes relevant I'm sure I'll find some obscure maths for his introduction), he's just spent half the week making his presence known in my head.

And it's not fair.  <insert echoing howl of fury here>

Actually, less of the fair, it's more frustrating.  This character was only supposed to be a footnote, a handy source of clothes, but turned up again in the third chapter and then insisted—after I finished chapter eight, obviously—that he needed a chapter to himself, and that obviously had to be a new chapter four.  And some other stuff.  And now he won't get the hell out my plot again.

Not to change the subject (however much it looks like it), but last year I bought Machinae Supremacy's brilliant concept album Phantom Shadow.  One of the songs, The Villain of this Story, inveigled its way into my head the other day without my even listening to it and I'd always thought it suited Corliss (the troublesome character), so I loaded it and all the actual song (not the exposition) tracks onto my music player.  And now he won't shut up.

Machinae Supremacy - Perfect Dark

Well, it's some of them, anyway

So while I've written a grand total of 0 since last week (technically -2 according to Scrivener, as I finally lost my temper with a couple of sentences and rejigged them despite swearing I'd only highlight and leave for later), Fayth and Corliss are presently engaged in working out how to deal with the situation they've been left with at the start of chapter twelve and what I want apparently doesn't matter at all.

Incidentally, Corliss decided that Perfect Dark suited him much better, so in order to give my hands something to do I spent a lot of time listening to it and then wrote out the lyrics using a mediæval English style.  I might not have written fiction, but I'm at least improving on speed.  It only took maybe two hours... but at least I avoided typos.

WiPpet Wednesday

As always, much love and thanks to K. L. Schwengel who graciously hosts our work-in-progress blog hop.  If it looks fun, you can look at the other participants and sign up over here.

Today is the 11th February 2015, so I'm going to try to get a little creative here.  Or I'm going to butcher the date in order to get my own way, whichever way you prefer to think of it.  11 = 1+1 = 2.  2+2 = 4.  So for the 11th of the 2nd month, you're getting four paragraphs from chapter two.

This (as ever, unedited) section leads straight on from last week's, where Fayth found the Rose Queen and convinced him to leave with him.  Not that it's that easy, of course.

Fayth dropped his hand to the pocket not stuffed full with Matthew’s hackpad, nonchalantly withdrawing one of the metallic cords he’d brought for restraint purposes.  The sleeping guard in the cupboard was wearing half of his supply; he’d have to retrieve it before they left.  Assuming he had time.  He’d already spent longer here than he’d intended; they might be lazy, but they couldn’t be that blind.

Without a word, the Rose Queen held both wrists out to him, palms together.

He couldn’t help raising an eyebrow as he bound the cord around the thin joints, but the Rose Queen looked away, eyes hooded.  There’d be no answers forthcoming.  Suited Fayth just fine.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask the question.  Taking a firm—but not too firm, he saw how the Rose Queen was favouring his elbow—hold of his shoulder, Fayth led him towards the door while keeping an eye out for any curious crewmembers.  The habitat might look deserted, but it could easily mean that klaxons would sound and all hell would descend upon them the minute he led his quarry into the corridor.

Now the hackpad had an idea of what it was doing, it opened the door with a gentle hiss only a second after Fayth pressed it to the panel.  From the corner of his eye he could see the Rose Queen try to watch what he was doing without giving an outward appearance of interest; it would be comical if it didn’t seem quite so sad.  Then they were through and into the corridor, and Fayth realised that here was where the real difficulty began, because he’d be damned if he could remember his way back.

So y'know that sleeping guard?  Yeah.  Also, Matthew?  He'll become relevant too later.  He's another that likes to shoehorn his way into stories.

Rambley Encounters of the Writing Kind and WiPpet Wednesday

I'm atrocious at titles, but in my defense I'm not very well...

Work still has a pretty firm hold over both my brain and my time, but it turned out to be quite a relief to finish chapter 5 of The Reconstruction of Kirill.  I was starting to think it'd never happen...  Of course, now I'm on chapter 6 and there are all the others stretching out into my future so it was quite a short-lived relief.

Thank gods I actually planned this story out properly.  If I'd got a half-plan or decided to wing it I'd be struggling in the motivation department right now--although in my case, planning carries with it its own set of problems, like actually feeling like writing it when it already exists as outlined chapters.  There are so few surprises waiting in store when it's planned out, though it has actually managed two so far so there's still hope!  And chapter 6 brings with it the promise of smut so there's that to look forward to, though that brings its own issues: mostly that if there's anything The Destruction of Kirill and last year's NaNo taught me, it's that I can get very wordy when it comes to sex.  (Not a problem I had with the year before's NaNo; that was frequency instead.  I could barely prise them apart.)

And just to add insult to injury, I've picked up a ridiculous cough from somewhere.  Joy.  I prescribe myself lots of Johnny Flynn music, which is both the aural equivalent of wrapping myself in a warm blanket and is horribly inspiring while I'm at it.  One of his songs inspired The Reconstruction of Kirill in its entirety, another has given me a plot bunny for a short story that I'm desperately trying to ignore, and I'm pretty sure the others are just laying in wait for me at this point.

Music is a dangerous, dangerous thing when it comes to inspiration...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is K. L. Schwengel's genius idea, a work-in-progress blog hop.  If you fancy looking at everyone else's or signing up for it yourself, you can do so here.

My WiPpet maths is still not up to muster (as any and all of my maths teachers will attest) so it's still all kinds of simple.  It's the 21st January 2015 - 21/1/2015 - so it's 8 lines from page 3 of the first chapter of The Reconstruction of Kirill (yes, you get pseudo-steampunk again today).  Because--wait for it--2+1=3, 1=1, 2+0+1+5=8.

It makes sense in some world.  Honest.

When we left our heroes, Niko was teaching Kirill to swordfight and now the inevitable has happened: Kirill picked up a nick.  And Niko has his own ways of curing minor wounds...  (And again, first draft so... yeah, messy.)

“Nonsense.”  Niko’s head dipped, and the press of his lips to the scratch sent another spark of electricity the length of Kirill’s spine.  “Does that feel better?”

Kirill nodded, light headed, and Niko grinned wickedly up at him before kissing his chest again, this time much nearer the nipple than the wound.  He should object, this wasn’t going to teach him any faster, but how could he when it felt so good?  Then Niko’s tongue grazed over the tender pink nub and any thought of protestation dried up.

It didn’t take long for both their shirts to hit the floor and for Niko’s hungry mouth to cover his own, hands resting on his narrow hips and sliding now and again beneath the waistband.  A shiver ran across his shoulders that had nothing to do with the warm air; a year ago he’d never thought this could feel so nice and yet here he was, sensitive beyond belief beneath Niko’s touch.

Niko is very, very easily distracted, it would appear...

Writing Dust & Ash: Starting The Process

The other night, I wondered 'aloud' on Twitter whether anyone would be interested in following the creation of a book, from first flailing ideas to an actual finished product, bearing in mind that I am about as far from a proper, professional author as you can get.

One person liked the idea, so guess what?  I'm doing it.

Not just because Danni was interested (though it is a big part of it—no one wants to work on something no one's interested in) but also because it's something I might learn from the experience of and—fingers crossed—help keep me focused.

The project I'm going to be working on is one that crashed into my head a couple of days ago out of nowhere (I suspect it got lost en route to someone actually competent's imagination) and, in my case, the 'working on' bit of the process usually comes after characters with names decide they're going to infest me.  Sometimes even when they don't have names.

And 'names' is exactly where this all started, so it's where I'll start.

The Initial Idea

One thing I have in common with a lot of other writers is a notebook I use to jot down names that have either come to me out the blue, or I've seen somewhere and liked, or that might not even be names at all but could be worked into one.  They either sit on the page and wait until they're needed, or they randomly attach themselves to characters: for instance, Kirill wasn't supposed to be called Kirill, but once the name was attached nothing else seemed to work until I stuck with it.  In this case, I'd jotted down two names a couple of months ago: Dust and Ash.

So far, so generic.  At the time, I looked at it and thought, "I bet they investigate supernatural crimes in modern fantasy or something," and promptly forgot all about it.

I was working when suddenly I realised, apropos of nothing, that Dust was a twin and his brother was called Echo.  Echo had been born second, was a little smaller, a little quieter, and followed his brother everywhere.

And then I realised that Echo didn't follow his brother everywhere; he'd led the way once.  Echo was dead.

Refining The Idea

It's not much, but it's a place to start.  Now I've got the kernel of an idea, I've got questions I can ask: why is Echo dead?  How does Dust feel?  How does Ash, Dust's best friend, take it?  What genre is it?

For me, this is the part where I start to work out the plot.  Life is significantly easier when the plot appears first because you can sit down and start to work out the kinks almost immediately, but in this case I've still got a lot of work to do before I can get to that point—like find the plot.

For me, this involves asking more and more questions and writing down everything in another notebook.  Being me, I have different pens and inks for different stories at this stage: it's handy if you use one notebook for every idea.  I don't do it all in one go—I can't, it doesn't all pour straight out of my head, although damn I wish it did—so I write what I can and go away and do something else, and if something else comes to me, whether it's a question, an answer or a random idea, I scribble it down.

Music Helps

No, really.  I'm not kidding.  Sometimes, something in a song can spark an idea I might not have otherwise had, or made me realise something much quicker than I would have without it.  I usually construct playlists for stories I'm working on, which is partly a procrastination exercise (my favourite hobby), and partly because while I might not actually hear it while I'm writing, as I tend to tune it out, it helps keep the outside world from encroaching—always handy when you share an office with a parrot—and feels like it helps keep me focused.

In this case, I'd heard a song on the radio in the supermarket earlier and I couldn't get it out my head, so I looked it up on YouTube.

While listening to the lyrics, I realised something important: Echo's body might be dead, but Echo himself is not.  This gives me the genre: fantasy of some flavour.  And if Echo's soul is somewhere else, then it means someone has done this to him, which gives me the shadow of a villain—and a lot more questions.

And for no apparent reason, I can see a tea shop / café, which gives me something to think about for world building: what kind of fantasy world needs a tea shop?  Probably a fairly affluent one with good trade links and plenty of social time; now I can start to work out where Dush, Echo and Ash live.

This is about as far as I've got.  I still need to work out who the villain is and what he gained from doing what he did, what Dush and Ash are going to do about it, and an actual plot (always a good idea, right?), but it's a starting point.

Next time, I'll talk about plotting and, hopefully, I'll be able to start working on this in earnest.

Musical Interludes

Many writers are happy writing in silence; I'm not one of them.  I tune it out while I'm writing and couldn't tell you exactly which song I was listening to at any given time, but music creates a white noise for me that blocks out all surrounding distractions.

The side effect is that some bands and singers will become irrevocably stuck on certain stories.

Currently I'm listening to a lot of Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit, because only when I'd just finished The First Steampunk Novella (yep, still untitled) did I realise how perfectly his singing and the songs fit the story.  (The downside was that Barnacled Warship prompted a whole sequel...)  The side effect is that now, whenever I hear them, I'm transported back to Niko and Kirill's world and probably will be for the foreseeable future.

The same goes for The Killers, whose Day and Age album became synonymous with a story called Chime that (big surprise) is unfinished, but I do intend to complete one day; I listened to the CD in my car not too long ago and almost immediately found myself immersed in the plot again.  Three Graces is similar but not quite so specific, evoked by The Naked and Famous and The New Pornographers--and apparently a very similar theme with band-names.

It's even less specific with Unravel.  It's songs here and there that, left alone, provide a brief flash of nostalgia but when put together into a playlist--an exercise I did for a challenge last year--bring back memories of things that people who don't actually exist did.  It's a peculiar feeling, but between the experience of selecting songs that most accurately fit the characters and the arranging of them into a playlist, I felt like I'd learned a little bit more about my boys and their story.

Has anyone else created a playlist for their stories and, if so, how did you find the challenge?  Enlightening or frustrating--and did it spark any fresh ideas?

Memories Only Ever Lead To Trouble: 30 Songs, 30 Works, 30 Days

As you might be able to tell, I’m not very good at remembering to update things.  Well, no, that’s not exactly true: I’ve been thinking up blog posts now and again, but between work and life (and, yes I’ll admit it, some 30 hours in Tales of the Abyss) I’ve not got around to doing it.

It’s probably for the best; you’re all about this far from being introduced to my car.  Even if he is a remarkably handsome CityRover, I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one actually interested in him.

After scraping over the finish line of my last ridiculous challenge, I’ve been recuperating (this is why I’m not a professional author--well, that and the fact I’m a terrible writer), taking time to recharge my writing batteries and play with the Copics I was tempted into buying (you know who you are).  For most of the month my characters have been depressingly silent, but lately they’ve been waking up again.  It usually consists of Milos throwing things at Alex while yelling, and uncharacteristic tenderness from Alex that makes me think he’s itching to return to the real-world setting where he and Milos are coming up to a year of whatever kind of relationship they’re in, but I’m not complaining even if Milos is.

Which clearly means it’s time for another challenge that I will likely fail at!

Only this time, I thought I’d try to bring others along with me (who hopefully won't fail).

I’ve been reminiscing about an old LiveJournal group/challenge called ArtGrind I was once a member of.  The premise was that you took one of your characters and drew them every day for six months, then you’d compare your art at the beginning with your last pieces and hopefully see improvement.  I’d never managed to actually complete it--the closest I came was with Arkadiy, a sci-fi soldier with fun facial hair who returned to the military after a short period of retirement in search of revenge--and, to add insult to injury, I actually think I got worse over time than better, but reviewing the old artworks made me feel nostalgic.

It also made me realise there was a whole subsection of pictures that had been inspired by whatever I’d been listening to at the time.  Some of them were literal--Arkadiy pointing a gun at the camera, inspired by The Hoosiers’ Cops & Robbers, or sprinting forwards across a background of crosses sunk into the ground, inspired by Coldplay’s Violet Hill--and others were obscure, such as leaning against a stone archway because every time I listened to Cemetaries of London I saw the same (as far as I can tell nonexistent--certainly not London) city time and again, but they all reminded me that music can give us the ability to ‘see’ things and none of us will see exactly the same thing.

And it also reminded me that I don’t draw very often any more.

I’d been planning to call it “Pax’s Ridiculously Stupid Challenge Part II” until a couple of friends expressed an interest in taking part too.  Calling something ‘stupid’ doesn’t work so well when you’re trying to encourage others to join, does it?

So in the end I settled on the ever-literal 30 Songs, 30 Works, 30 Days which begins on the stroke of midnight of the 1st June 2013.  It’s not limited to starting then, of course: if someone wants to join halfway through the month, or in two months time, that’s up to them.  If they want to go longer than 30 days because they’re having fun, again that’s up to them.  If they want to write, draw, take photos, render in 3D... it’s all up to them.  The point is only to challenge yourself to create something once a day based on a unique song a day, and hopefully have fun doing it.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I managed to time it so that I’m in Nottingham meeting up with other writers when it starts!  Never let it be said that I am talented at planning.

If anyone feels like taking part, please look over the link and I hope we’ll see you soon.  ♪

Friday Status Update and Music Musings

I'm now three days behind.  This isn't entirely a surprise to me--what really is a surprise is that it's only three days.  I'm currently rocking a grand total of 35,191 words spread over 16 chapters, so I'm probably doing a little better than I thought I would, even if I am still disappointed in myself for those three days.

Hopefully by the end of today it'll resume being two days.

When I write, I tend to have specific 'soundtracks'--collections of songs that remind me of certain stories.  Radial has one, Unravel has one (which in fact proved awkward when trying to narrow it down to average CD length for a challenge).  Even stories I've not mentioned here such as Arkadian and Chime have them: they both share The Killers' Day & Age between them, along with tracks by Muse and Fair To Midland.

This Alternate Universe doesn't have one.  A lot of the ones I associate with Alex and Milos are too contemporary to move across, and after I removed those I found I had very little left on the playlist.  So I added in music from Sonata Arctica (somewhat a mistake: I associate a few of those with another story too), Orgy and Our Lady Peace in the hope some of those would stick.

Nope.

I'm enjoying the music, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing that's firing off random ideas.  Sixteen is having the occasional Mood over which songs he does and doesn't want to play--there's a few that if I didn't see them on the playlist I'd think I'd forgotten to put in--and I can't find anything in my folders that is giving me the right 'feeling' for a fantasy story about an arse of a knight and his long-suffering slave (although it's odd how much does work for an arse of a government agent and his long-suffering genetically-modified subordinate).

So... if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be incredibly happy to hear them!  And if not... well, I'll be over here staring mournfully at Sixteen's screen and wondering why I can no longer string together a coherent sentence.  And with this post, I think I've proved that...!