Minor loss and bitter resilience

UPDATE: A few days after posting this I discovered, in the darkest recesses of a back-up file local to only one of the household computers, the up-to-date version of my novel! The celebration has manifested as super-charged enthusiastic progress and a renewed desire to finish. I'm preserving the original post because, well, why not? It will serve as a reminder to maintain multiple back-up systems.

A friend recently suggested I use Sugarsync to back up my work. This made me realize that, now and forever, when I hear "sugar" coupled with anything non-edible, I think of Sugar-Lips Habasi, the drug-addicted cat woman in Morrowind who played fence to my burgling whims for many a year. I wonder how much of my life I’ve spent in places that don’t exist.

 Why am I telling you this?

If you’ve checked my blog recently, you might have noticed that my novel’s progress bar was steadily creeping up, up, up before plunging back down, below the coveted 50,000 mark. On Tuesday, I opened my novel .scriv to find it had reverted to a two-week old version, with no explanation, and no trace of the most recent 10% of my book. For reasons beyond all freaking conceivable logic, DropBox ate part of my manuscript. Just gobbled it up. Nonchalantly, maybe with a spot of tea, and no hint of regret. There once was text where now there is none. 

Before you ask, I have tried everything to recover the files. I’m past hope. And while it sucks, at least I didn’t lose the whole thing. Even then, losing a novel-in-progress still isn’t as bad as, say, getting deported, or dumped, or ebola.

But it still sucks. 

Completing this book has been a struggle, as you might have gathered from my last post. I’m not in love, or inspired anymore. It’s a new feeling, as I often stop working on something before the honeymoon even ends. Yet I have persisted this time, because I owe it to myself, and my writing group, and my wonderful White Wolf group (whom I regularly subject to supernatural malice and cultish evangelicals in the backwoods of almost-Georgia), and above all, to the story itself. And although 5,000 words doesn’t sound like much to lose, it feels like a slap in the face when you’ve had to grit your teeth to get there. Especially since there was no good reason for it to disappear! The thought of rewriting the missing pieces deflates what enthusiasm I have. It makes me want to give up. “Maybe I could,” I thought briefly. I could take up belief in cosmic thingamajigs and interpret this as a sign to move on. Why not?

For one thing, giving up is stupid.

It came to me in a moment of vanity. If I were Patrick Rothfuss, slaving away over book 3 of the Kingkiller Chronicles, I would have no option of giving up. I’d be contractually obliged to complete my book. I’d break my back to finish, under pain of mass fan disappointment and a fate plagued by rabid trolls with grudges. The pros aren’t allowed to give up. If I keep giving up, I will never get to strip off my timid “aspiring” label for something gold-plated and permanent.

Also, I’m too old to give up.

I’m grateful for how much of my life still lies ahead of me (in theory!). Twenty-six has been awesome so far, and I feel more aware of each day’s brevity and importance than I used to be. That said, I was fifteen when I started my first major novel project, which you might know as Neiomir (“Kneomir”? How many of you go that far back?). That’s right. Neiomir happened OVER TEN YEARS AGO. Writing-wise, have I accomplished all that I set out to in that time? O, di immortales no!

I’m not going to quit after one stumble. I’m also not going to rush headlong back into a project I’m indirectly furious with. Frustration does not beget good writing (in my experience), nor resentment a beloved manuscript. I’ll cool off, pick myself up, and, with any luck, write it better than I did the first time... when I’m darn good and ready.

Sexy Other Book Syndrome

You’ve been at your manuscript for months, maybe even years. Every day when you open the document a new blank page stares back at you, petulant and demanding attention. After all you've done for it, this manuscript won’t cut you the least bit of slack and write some of itself! Your book is needy and you are tired of it. But you are not without ideas.  You are inspired, but in all the wrong ways: you have fallen for another book.

If this describes your situation, you may be suffering from a debilitating and absolutely 100% real condition known as “Sexy Other Book Syndrome.”

Pictured: a journal for every project I've
started since 2005. And some good books.

You may be feeling guilty. You may doubt your ability to finish anything worthwhile. So what can you do when the daydreams that fog up your mind and cause you to tread on the heels of fellow pedestrians have nothing to do with your work-in-progress? Should you:

a)  Abandon your WIP because, let’s face it, it’s dumb and this new idea is much better.

or

b)  Uninstall your word processor and wait out the slow, withering demise of your creative impulses. After all, if you don’t care, you won’t worry.

Give up? Neither! You are a capricious creature, addicted to beginnings. Your “grass is greener” view of new endeavors borders on chronic, and logic dictates that at some nascent stage every book you’ve ever started has seemed as sexy as this one does now. As for the second option… come on. You will never stop thinking about stories; surrender would be futile.

Instead, consider some of these patented strategies to help you keep Sexy Other Book Syndrome in check and finish what you start. (Disclaimer: the following tips target a specific set of symptoms. If you are suffering from similarly named but unrelated conditions like Sexy Other Job Syndrome or Sexy Other Person Syndrome, seek actual help.)

Write new ideas down for later

Say you don't want to delay your new story for the indefinite length of time it takes to finish your WIP. I personally find writing more enjoyable if I commit ideas to text within the day, or moment, that they occur to me. Why put a project off when half the fun is in losing yourself to spontaneous inspiration?

Simply put, saving your ideas for the right time is an act of discipline. If you find yourself completely taken by new ideas, write them down for later. Keep a list in a journal or Word doc. While you're at it, add a little flesh to the bones of your new ideas through freewriting, the act of continuous, stream-of-consciousness writing with no regard for grammar or form. Freewriting is a good way to explore  whether ideas have any legs to stand on. What you write doesn't have to be good, and it likely won't make sense, but you'll probably find some gems amid the rubble a few weeks or months down the road. This approach can be a particular boon to outliners, who like to know what they're getting into before they start a draft. With any luck, you'll be able to hit the ground running when you've completed your WIP and are free to embark on that Sexy Other Book.

Don't devote too much time to this, of course, as it will quickly eat into the time your WIP deserves. Consider enforcing a strict policy that every one hour or X-thousand words you add to your WIP earns you an hour of freewriting time. 

Indulge in some short fiction

Maybe you can sense a seed of a story budding in your brain, but you suspect it won't develop into a novel-length work. Since short works are easy to initially churn out in a couple of days, perhaps it's best to just write it! Commit yourself to finishing it quickly so your WIP doesn't lose too much momentum (or begin to feel jealous, neglected, vengeful, etc.). The precise art of crafting short fiction may even hone your writing and benefit your WIP.

Besides. You're probably knee-deep in a manuscript that aims to reach 50,000+ words. What's a 2,000-word detour in the grand scheme of things?

Look at the big picture

When you're really desperate, you can probably think of half a dozen reasons to just chuck your WIP out the window: it's not turning out like you'd hoped; the premise is lame; the writing is terrible; it's a veritable spaghetti junction of incomplete plot threads and mismatched character motivations that even you can't keep track of. 

Resist the urge to quit! Published authors often talk about their early books, which they've confined to a chest under the bed, never to see the light of day. Not once have I heard them call these books mistakes. Everyone has written crap at some point, but only tenacious writers get to stamp "THE END" in big bold letters at the end of their failed attempts. If you're anything like me, "finishing" may be an achievement sorely missing from your repertoire. Your WIP is worth committing to, if solely because you owe it to yourself to finish something. Do whatever it takes. Plug yourself in to Write or Die during your lunch break. Write on your phone while you're waiting in queues. Recruit loved ones to hold you to your promise of completion; guilt is equally powerful when used for good instead of self-harmy evil.

If you've ever wanted to abandon ship, or found yourself completely out of love with a project you once raved about, you're not alone. Other writers have addressed this urge to jump between projects in one way or another. There's a brilliant article over at Writer's Digest on what to do with too many ideas (Too Many Ideas Syndrome). Here's Joe Bunting's take on making writing fun again, over at The Write Practice. There's more than enough encouragement out there for all of us. 

Something about your book must have inspired you once, or else you wouldn't have started it. It falls to you to find that "something" again.

I hope you've found this thinly-veiled cathartic rant helpful. From one writer to another, good luck and don't give up!

Tools of the Trade: audiobooks and the writer's journal

I've been working on a longer post that's turning out to be more research-intensive than I expected. Ideas need to simmer and details need trudging up. Suffice it to say it will be full of pseudo-Celtic goodness for fans of Civ 5 to gobble up. In the meantime, some thoughts on my new-found media love.

Audible app for iPhone, the bane of my checking account.

I'm pretty late to the audiobook party, so what is revelation for me may be redundant for many. Since learning the ins and outs of Audible last month, and getting the app to sync properly with my phone, I have not been without a book. I listen to books while cooking, while (seldom) cleaning, while tramming it up on my way to work, while shopping, while exercising, while drifting off to sleep. Just yesterday I chose to walk home, despite grim weather, because it would triple my listening-in-transit time. Combined with my Kindle, I can honestly say I've never read so much in my life.

I have always tried to be an active reader, engaging as much with the writing as the story in any given book. Unsurprisingly, ingesting a book differently (omnomnom) makes me think about it differently. I have started to notice aspects of writing that I didn't always used to.

Here's what I mean.

I keep a writing journal (as every aspiring writer should) with a section for "prose to emulate," where I record sentences, phrases, images, and really anything I find stylistically impressive. The entries range from simple yet elegant, to rhythmic, to punchy, to startlingly beautiful, and some are just words I don't know or want to use more.

Entries noted while reading on my Kindle tend to look like this:

From George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, Kindle edition. Converted to chicken scratch by Yours Truly.*

"...his hair was a soft brown tumble, and his eyes were brown as well, and bright with insolence."

I adore Martin's description of Loras Tyrell, simple though it is. "Tumble" and "insolence" aren't dazzling words but their employment here makes me downright giddy: "insolence" to describe eyes, rather than personality directly; "tumble" as a noun and not a verb. As well, Martin's use of "was" and "were" go against the ubiquitous advice that humdrum "to be" is as foul a thing as "thing" itself. Not so here, where anything more flowery would have distracted. Heh, flowery. Sorry. Nerd joke.

Meanwhile, here's an extract I noted from N. K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I've been listening to:

"The alcove suddenly seemed to stretch, its entrance moving impossibly farther away while I remained still. There was an in-breath of tension and then I shot forward as if from a sling. Walls flew at my face. I screamed and flung my arms over my eyes even as they passed through me. And then everything stopped."

The movement is quick, effortless, and almost visceral. I could feel the narrator being pulled by magic, and could visualize her believable body language. Yet I had to pause, rewind, and re-listen with care to figure out exactly how Jemisin had pulled it off.

Hearing a story read aloud tunes me in to the movement of a scene, whereas my reading eye gravitates towards striking images and word choice. 

Of course, ours being a print-based culture, I feel like I am not conditioned to deal with some of the downsides of not having a tangible written story in front of me. I wanted to share a quote from Saladin's Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon, but since I didn't copy it down in full, the thought of digging for it in the audiobook made my brain hurt. No matter how friendly I get with the Audible's interface I don't think audiobooks (or ebooks for that matter) will ever be as convenient for marking and referencing as printed books. Nor can they be displayed as trophies, worn and creased with repeated use, or as easily lent to friends. 

Yet the balance of multiple formats offers something invaluable to writers, who can hone an ear for rhythm from some stories while practicing word-level awareness with others. I've come to view it as a crucial blend of skills. Not only is this mixed-media approach exposing me to different facets of writing, but it's also reminding me of the sorts of things people will notice in my own work. Now that I've got the hang of it, my tech-addicted brain always has a story orbiting somewhere around it, in one form or another.

*A million points if you can identify the book under my journal.

CampNaNoWriMo

For those of you who haven't heard me ranting about it for years, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has become an annual ritual for me and thousands of others, wherein we commit ourselves to writing 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November. 

No, you read that right. 50K in 30 days. It is sweet mayhem.

I've attempted for years, and succeeded a handful times. I even served as a Municipal Liaison for the event when I lived in Galway, calling local writers to arms with pep talks and group writing sessions, and throwing prizes at them when they did well. CampNaNoWriMo is the quaintly-themed summer version of NaNo, a sort of "NaNo lite," which lets you tailor your word goal and join other writers in a socially-supportive network.

Over the years I've learned a lot about what makes this marathon approach to writing work for some and not others. It's thrilling to participate in, but the premise isn't fail-safe. Just because a digital widget tracks your word count and those of your friends, you are not guaranteed to "win" NaNo, achieving the esteemed 50K mark. I've failed more times than I've won, usually attempting to do it "right". Start from scratch. Write 1,667 words a day for a month. It's as tough as it sounds.

With a goal that big I often find myself flagging, mentally and physically. Running dry on ideas is defeating, and usually leads to my demise. But what's worse is being unable to dig myself out of a rut like that due to swollen hands and tingling arms attached to shoulders that grind audibly and a back in titanium knots. It sucks. 

That's why this time I'm only aiming for 25,000, a reasonable 840 words a day. On a good day, that'll take less than an hour. I'm using the Pomodoro app to cut out distractions and build in rest/stretch breaks. I'm using the recumbent-bike-and-scratch-paper technique as an alternative to desk work when the going gets tough.

I'm also going in armed with a beginning and an outline. Gone are the days when I'll actually attempt to start with nothing and discovery write to the end. That approach, which some NaNoers swear by, has left me with a heap of bad, directionless prose more often than I can count.

By turning some of the NaNo rules on their heads I'm making the event serve my story, not the other way around. I think my expectations are reasonable. Today marks the first day of CampNaNoWriMo 2013, and how to do I feel? In the immortal words of the eHarmony cat girl, "I'm nervous, but I'm excited at the same time". Here, have a happy-making dose of internet meme with a generous helping of the Gregory Brothers.

Because you can't hug every cat.

Review: 750words.com

I heard about this web app in an episode of Pat Rothfuss’ The Story Board. Deciding anything endorsed by the illustrious guest Mary Robinette Kowal is worth a try, I checked it out. 

Turns out the donation-funded 750words.com is one of a slew of tools designed to motivate writers through the raw wordcount-reward/carrot-stick method. Except this one has some cool twists. 

Its premise: 750 words = 3 formatted manuscript pages, a substantial yet manageable daily goal even for amateurs. Since a writer's brain is like an athlete's muscles, waning in strength without regular use, the site rewards day or month-long stretches of writing, and provides a juicy bundle of stats after each session to make you feel accomplished.

Why it makes my heart do happy somersaults

Badges! Sticking with the program earns you adorable cartoon animal pictures. On the first day you get an egg, which is of course “how we all start”. For writing for five days in a row you get a penguin with a bowtie! What could be better?

Why, stats of course! Oh yes, those are better. Creator Buster Benson’s ingenious program analyzes several dimensions of what and how you’ve written. Texts receive MPAA-style ratings. The program decides whether you were inward-looking; negative or positive; past, present, or future-oriented; even which senses you employed most. 

Here’s its partial breakdown of a scene where my protagonist frets over how to explain her abrupt disappearance to her loved ones.

Not too shabby.

Where it falls short

Text stays private but online. While sites like Written?Kitten! and WriteorDie reward you for what you type (or punish failure dearly) and send you on your way, 750words stores your text as a blog would. I find this feature fairly useless as I paste everything into my novel .doc anyway. It also ties into the site’s biggest drawback…

Limited explanation of “privacy” and no license agreement. Call me paranoid (go on, I won’t hear you) but I’m wary of storing my actual writing on the web. I’ve passed up the style, ease, and utility of cloud storage services like PangurPad and Yarny to avoid accidental theft or loss of my work. I’m not alone in this: the 750words thread “This site needs an official privacy policy” still tops popular topics list after three years. The site seems perfectly trustworthy, but stuff happens. I want my work, however rough or embarrassing, to stay mine.

Would I recommend it?

Most definitely, depending on your intentions.

If you want a web-based tool to unclog your writing process through stream-of-consciousness keyboard mashing, you’ll have a lot of fun here. It’s about to become a paid site, but personally, I think smartphone ownership has desensitized many of us to paying paltry sums for shiny app-style entertainment. If it sounds like your cuppa, try it for a few days. It might surprise you.

The State of the Magpie: Spring 2013

I love to talk about goals, accomplishments, and ideas (just ask my writing group). The first quarter of 2013 is nearly gone, so what do I have to show for it?

I published my first academic article. (HippitahoppitaWAHOO!)

I’ve made no secret of this fact, as many will know from Facebook. My Masters dissertation was published in February in Riocht na Midhe, the journal of the Archaeological and Historical Society of County Meath, Ireland. The kernel of the idea came from an early Irish law course I took six years ago, and it had been developing ever since. “Why did the Irish have such sophisticated and elegantly stratified laws to protect trees?” I had wondered. Perhaps they worshipped trees. After all, Tacitus tells of Germanic peoples who did. And incidentally, the chief population of my then-fantasy novel came to do the same. The quest to understand medieval Ireland’s (frankly adorable) love for trees led me to legends and pseudo-histories, annals and saint’s lives and assumptions of “Celticity” running decades deep. It all culminated in my Masters project, completed under the tutelage of the indomitable Prof. Thomas Charles-Edwards, about the context and evolution of the Old Irish word bile (“sacred” tree). This about sums up my position:

Yippee! Now I can quote myself!

Getting published was a tale unto itself, but that's for later. For now I’m honored and thrilled to contribute to the academic conversation with a long-standing and respected journal as my platform. I even had a former colleague, a postdoc specializing in place-names, request a copy for her research. Imagine that!

Another one’s in the pipeline.

This summer, Routledge will publish an academic book called Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages. 

Wait. Just think about that for a second. Digital Gaming [check] and Middle Ages [check] in the same title. It's a marriage of the two nerdiest possible topics! And it's basically the story of my life.

Anyway, the book is packed to the gills with essays covering everything from game adaptations of medieval literature to "the Gendered Body in World of Warcraft". My chapter is on the texts in the Elder Scrolls series of computer games. You'll know that these games are littered with original books if you've ever played Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim. As a long-standing fan of the series, I chanced an exploration of just how medieval those texts could be, and made my way into the pages of Routledge's spectacular upcoming volume.

I'm writing a novel.

Of course! When have I not been? My current work-in-progress is what I've styled "supernatural semi-horror," my first major departure from fantasy. The idea came about last summer when I was pining for home, for all the special oddities that I didn't realize made North Florida cool until I'd lived it and left it. I missed the sounds of traffic and the smells of leaves and woods and humid Florida air. I though about all the aspects of America's history that had converged there. About how it's scattered with dot-on-the-map towns that move sluggishly through time. One part sentimental history, one part American Gods, my book entertains the question "What if conquest didn't kill off everything it intended to?"

The project has been eye-opening. I've had to do a lot of research outside my field, particularly on consignment businesses and first European contact with Florida. It calls for a delicate balance of fact and fiction, with caricature being the farthest thing from my goal. 

It's also got story elements that work. The protagonist must make life-altering decisions, small enough to be believable in the scale of her life, but big enough to drive a plot forward. Pacing this book and working towards the end doesn't feel like my usual random scattering of stones which, luck provided, might form a path across the pond. This time I've built a  bridge of action and reaction with deliberate care. I could not be more excited to see how it turns out.

I'm also aware that new writers fail. Often. I love this book, but I'm pleasantly objective about its future. It might amount to a "practice" book. Even so, it'll be some mighty fine practice.

More info on my CampNaNoWriMo profile. I'm attempting to add 25,000 words to the manuscript in April, with hopes of finishing the first draft before my birthday. I owe it to my teenage self and her big dreams to finish a book before I cross into the far end of my 20s.


Boy, that was a chunky post. Well, that's the jist of it! More updates the come. To see them you can join in one of two ways: click the blue "join this site" button on the top right of the page, or subscribe to posts by email. 

What are your current goals and projects, Readers? You know I love you for your brains.

Introductions

First posts are daunting. No blog wants to bust the door down with content overload, beating its chest and proclaiming, "I have validity!" But a rambling mission statement won't entice readers to so much as remember your name. Is it better if I bowl you over with a bearhug, or only stand as close as I need to to shake your hand? I find both approaches wanting. What is a magpie to do?

What's that you say? A simple signpost is all you need? Aha! Now we're onto something. Say no more.

Hello Reader! You are [X] here:

De Natura Picae: a blog "On the nature of the magpie"

I am not actually a magpie. Though I did once live on Magpie Lane.

In reality I'm a wayward medievalist and English enthusiast residing where three countries meet. My dream is to have my fiction works join the published ranks of my academic ones. For now, I am still learning to echo, like the creatures Pliny the Elder endearingly described thus:

"There is a certain kind of magpie that can learn words; they become fond of some words, and not only repeat them but can be seen to ponder them... When they forget a word they cheer up greatly when they hear it spoken."

De Natura Picae, a fangirlish tribute to De natura rerum, is where I share my discoveries on the road to writing seriously. Here's hoping that the fun is in the journey.

So welcome. Have a hug and a handshake, and stay a while.