Been a while since mt last update, but I've been busy. I'm editing Chapter 3 of The Citadel for Elfwood right now and making progress on Chapter 4. I've just started on a new story, not too long, about the Overworld, from the Plug in universe. That is going well and happily writing itself. And I'm working on a decription of a place called Samma City as the basis for the dark fantasy story mentioned below. I'm trying my hand at urban landscapes at the moment and appropiate characters for those places. Most of my work is dark but I want to write somethings that really wear their darkness on their sleeves and put themselves ot there for readers to deal with. Some 'in your face' difficult stuff!
Still writing but progress is rather slow. I failed to write 50,000 words for Plug in but that is not really surprising when I write so slowly. Must do some more, I'd like to have some new stuff ready for when Elfwood comes back, hoepfully the next couple of Citadel chapters - chpter three needs editing and I've only just got into chapter four but I'd like to be ready for Ronwyn's entrance - and the next two for Road to Ennion and possibly The Ragged Man if I can finish that.
The Citadel is on hold this month because I'm devoting all of my writing time to Plug in, Drop out my sf story (the first chapter is on my shelf) in an effort to accutally finish it. I'm attempting to write 50,000 words this month NaNoWriMo style which should get me though the first complete draft of the story. I've been thinking about sending it out to publishers when it is done because I've never acctually tried to sell any of my writing and it would be a nice experiment to see if I get a response. Hopefully though I can just prove to myself that I can finish stories!
It is probably because I'm thinking about writing non-Citadel stories but I've had a few new ideas (or rather dragged up some old ones). I've just stated on a short story called The Ragged Man which is semi-autiobiog
Must get on and edit Chapter Three (of The Citadel), I've been too busy distracting myself with Sf and fantasy forums and not writing. I decided that Haydain should hit Mirendhan at the end of Chapter Three and that works quite well I've had to change the ending a little though because otherwise I would end up with two consecutive cliffhanger endings and I don't like repeating myself too much. On that subject I am going to have to go through the second half of Chapter Three and make sure I'm not overusing words in the descriptions of Mirendhan's madness.
Chapter Four is looking more and more likely to contain monologues but it may be very Haydain-centri
The Road to Ennion is not progressing as well as I would like but that is because it is too tempting to start reading some of my old versions and trying to order them proberly on the computer. I can't believe I wrote so much of this, I keep finding documents more than 50,000 worlds long that I don't remember writing! Mind you I had a sleeping problem back then so I used to write all night like a zombie.
I've finished Chapter Two (at least until the next time)! It could use a quick run through with the spell checker but I don't think I'll need to add anything new, just dig out the typos. Unfortunatly I tend to make the kind of errors that the checker does not pick up on because they are spelled correctly but the wrong word (I had plenty of problems with 'stopped' and 'stopper'). There were a couple of real stinky mistakes that I will share, 'eyrie' instead of 'eerie' was a good one! Even though I consider myself to have a good grasp of my language it still gets me sometimes. Still my English is far better than that of the spell checker and I'm usually happy with my faithful dictionary.
I've started working on The Road to Ennion so hopefully I can have the next couple of chapters ready for when I can go online with my computer. I've nearly done Chapter Three and I've planned most of Chapter Four so that they can be published together in the same way as one and two. I want to get some reaction from Chapter Three as I'm started to inclued some hints about the big revelation.
Acctually any kind of reaction would be good, some of the new Citadel stuff still has no comments (although in the case of Chapter Two that might not be a bad thing). Probably my fault for taking so much time out from writing and Elfwood. There is only so long someone will listen to 'I should get it done soon'!
Welcome to editing hell! You know you have hit a rut when changing the font of chapter headings becomes more appealing than writing (it was Balthazar but it is now Dauphin)! I have been doing plenty of wok on Chapter Two though, only about 1,000 words to go and then it should be better. Then I can start revising Chapter Three even though it is not finished (well I've written the end of the chapter but I think I need to fill it out a bit more and work on the dramatic stuff). At this rate I'm going to reach the limit on my next ticket just with new uploads of old stuff (must must must do some Road to Ennion). Not that I'll be updating any time soon because my computer has gone crazy and won't connect to the internet (I blame my ISP though rather than the computer). Still I'm stuck using other people's computers and my story is on mine.
Unfortunatly I don't have any good tips to pass on about writer's block. I usually try to write through it or wait for something inspiring to strike. Not that I often get writer's block, writer's apathy maybe or writer's 'just don't feel like doing much now'.
I'm slowly growing more tempted to dig out my pencils and get some drawing but I think that is more as a diplacement activity than a need to draw (although I've finally started mapping Estelisÿn because I thought I should before I forget where everything is!). You might think I plan things really carefully but often I like to let things evolve until I have enough ideas floating around to make something solid. My stories have just been evolving for a long time!
Haydain seems to be growing angrier and angrier at the moment, I used 'intense' in the story. Origionally he was far more gentle (and a few years older) and more like Mirendhan without the maddness. Mind you I've never written such a long opening with him before so I suppose I had not worked on his development pre-Rhonwyn and then I just defined him through his relationship to her. Which is pretty stupid because in this version Haydain has always been his own person and he drives the plot along most of the time so he needs to make sense on his own as well as within the structure of the story.
In each of the three parts there are three young male characters who, in various ways interact with Rhonwyn. Haydain is the intense one, her teacher and their relationship is passionate but (mostly) platonic. In Part Two the character is Sabhal (mentioned a couple of times in The Road to Ennion) who is noble, honest, good and loyal and is not really Rhonwyn's type and she is not his despite the issue of an arranged political marriage! In the third part the character is Asphodel who really combines the best of the previous two and who Rhonwyn falls in love with and, well you have to wait and see :-) I have a soft spot for Haydain but Asphodel is my 'boi' of choice. Things in The Citadel often come in threes; each young man had an older teacher; the book is in three parts; three characters in a scene is my favourite arrangement and so on. There are more love triangles than I can throw a stick at (usually between Rhowyn and a couple of male characters but quite a few of the others have their own triangles). My subconcious really likes the number three!
Not much writing going on at the moment, I'm overhauling Chapter Two because I started correcting typos and ended up re-writing whole scenes. I've shifted the emphasis a little in the long conversation between Padrÿnduil, Mirendhan and Haydain so that the point that Mirendhan's beliefs are being challenged by the other two comes over more. Since one of the things I want to do with the story is write a fantasy where religion and myth are not set in stone and are only true for certain definitions of that word, I thought it would be best to make that a little clearer earlier on. Besides in Chapter Three it is Mirendhan's belief that is shown as his weakness so more on that would not go amiss.
I'm thinking of writing Chapter Four as monologues for various characters, the most important one being Haydain's as he dispares in the Twilight Garden. I was going to write one for Mirendan but he is probably going to spend most of the chapter a bit out of it or perhpas having feavoured visions and things (at the moment Haydain pushes him down to stop him when he is under the influence of 'ther powers' but I quite like the idea that Haydain acctually hits him because I think he has quite a bit of pent up emotion and it might do him good to start hitting people - then of course he can feel really guilty about it!). I think the story needs to revisit Torandal and Padrÿnduil and the Barbarians so I'll put them in too. I'd like a third but I can't decide who that should focus on, possibly Mirendhan's demons but I did think about Nisréaval too if I can do it without giving too much away about her - the story focuses on her attemps to discover herself after she appears on Midgard so I can't just give it all away! I shall see where it takes me and if I don't like it I can try something else.
I managed to hit 20,000 on Friday night so I'm happy about that. I just have to focus on the next 20,000 now! I feel as if I've been writing very emotional and depressing scenes for ages now but when I look back it is not really that much in the story, far less than the happy parts in Chapter One and Two. It just takes quite a bit of work and I still don't know if it is properly blanced between emotion, explanation (how do you try to describe something without saying too much? I've put it in terms that the characters would understand and explained through their beliefs although this makes it sound very vague), action and language play (a lot of this section is written in a similar style to my short story Brave New World, it's quite disturbing).
Chapter Three is wandering a little, I'm plaing with my plan and moving a few things around. It looks as if I will have to spread most of what I want to write over two chapters rather than one, unless I condense it back again which I don't really want to do because I would lose some good stuff (I am very please with the description in the observatory room and Mirendhan's maddness scene and a few other little details to set up for some new ideas and events). My word count is about 18,500 and I want to reach 20,000 by the end of the week, then I will be a hapy writer!
I do like to set up things before they happen just to prepare the reader and make them aware that whatever it is is possible. I think it is pushing it a bit to try and introduce something or someone new at the moment when it/they play their part in the story, because then the introduction gets ties up in the action and I don't have the opportunity to cover the explanation througherly. For example I've started introducing the multiple universe theory - wrapped in Dragonian ideas and terminology of course - which does not really come into the story as an agent until the third book but it needs to be in there because Book Three is very reflective (origionally I planned to have Rhonwyn, and her male companion, re-tell the story but to tell the truth without the Narrator's interfearence) and besides this idea affects the whole story in one way or another. Writing good set up introductions is my tip of the day, give it a go :-)
So for the foreseable future I now have Chapter Three The Summoning of Nisréaval, Chapter Four On a Moonless Night to deal with the fallout from Chapter Three and Chapter Five Rhonwyn of the Storm to cover her entrance and first night in Estelisÿn. Never mind, you get a whole book of Rhonwyn so I think I can afford a few chapters without her.
So my ticket was published and I've just noticed all the typos in Chapter Two (argh!!!). Never mind though because there is nothing I'm going to do about it until I do my next full update and for now it will give the commenters something to write about.
Chapter Three is coming along slowly, what with random sickness and work and everything I've not had much time to work on it. So this afternoon I'm going to write lots and try to get it done (once I could write all night and do a couple of chapters in one go but that was when I was young and did not understand about editing). I'll just have to work myself into the emotion of it as I go along becauseI'm in a good mood at the moment and Chapter Three is not a very happy chapter, I'm just begining to work on Mirendhan's breakdown and I have to send Haydain into poetic pits of dispare before the chapter is over. What fun!
Accutally I'm a bit worried about all the high emotion because I have to double it in some scenes with Rhonwyn and I'm already pushing it now. And I don't want to sentimental or predictable or too drammatic about it, it is supposed to pull the rug from under the reader and really throw them in a different direction (which is why I had to spend so long in Chapters One and Two setting up for Chapter Three). I'll have to get some nice crit writers to judge it for me and give me some feedback.
I must do some Road to Ennion as well and not just amuse myself looking back at the old versions of the story. Hopefully I can puiblish the next two chapters of that with Citadel Chapter Three and a version of the creation myth I'm working on in the Author voice because I still don't have an updated version of that. Although it won't matter too much because in about Chapter Six, Haydain narrates a version of the myth to Rhonwyn which should cover that part of the story. To publish or not to puiblish? We shall see, Chapter Six is a long way away.
I've done some work on Chapter Three at last!
I've involved some of the most complicated aspects of the story so I'm not sure if I will keep it that way or hold it back til later. Haydain has a vision of Nisréaval which I am working hard on getting right, I'm going to write an essay to go with the vision to focus myself and I will put that up here when it is finished. The whole thing is very very complicated but the story really revolves around the idea of multiple universes and different realitires. Essentially there are two characters, Nisréaval and a male character called Torm, who only exist once (for the normal chracters there are infinate different others) and they control this whole thing and manipulate it in grand schemes of their own making, related to their need to find each other. When Haydain has his vision he is pulled into 'the place between worlds' where Nisréaval and Torm operate, and he sees her there. This disrupts the process by which Nisréaval was travelling to Midgard and it effectively wipes her memory of everything she knows.
Incidentally Nisréaval is the name that the Dragonians know her by, she does not have a name for herself and in the vision she fits into Haydain's expectations of her so when she appears as Rhonwyn she looks like Nisréaval is supposed to look. The rest of the book concerns her rediscovery of herself and her efforts to find Torm and the effects she has on Midgard. I describe her as a 'force' since she is neither good or evil but she is very powerful and her power affects everthing around her, she had very little control over what she does and she causes a few diasasters along the way! Of course it is abut more than that, it can be deep and complicated at the same time - such as the debate through the book about religion (as a method of control, the origions of belief and my attempt at writing a fantasy where gods do not exist) and about stories (Torm and Nisréaval disrupt stories and they create their own thought the worlds, the book also asks about the reliability of myths and other such stories since Rhonwyn begins by trying to follow the Dragonian interpretation of herself and does not succeed). This is why I've never finished the thing!
I want anyone who reads my diary to tell me "Get on with Chapter Three!". Please :-)
Acctually I don't think I'll be able to do some serious work on it until after the weekend (I'm being very social this week). Sometimes I find it harder to write from a plan that I do being a bit more random about it. I've planned Chapter Three quite closely because it is an important chapter since it builds up to Chapter Four. Although not that closely because I've not really thought about the details of the summoning ceremony Mirendhan performs (although I know I want it to be dark - flaming torches and chanting and that kind of thing - to show another side of the Dracogean). Added to that I need Haydain going crazy in the Twilight Garden (which is the result of him being really angry in Chapter Two) and calling out for help. It's all a bit twisted because, although Nisréaval turns up, I don't want to be too obvious about why she arrives and who she is answering (it is not the Dracogean!). Hence the 'strange air' in Chapter Two to show something is going on even before they summon her (implying she was on her way already). Gosh this is complicated!
I am engaged in the sport of ticket watching; the new stuff will be published soon (fingers crossed!).
I've been a busy editor over the weekend and I'm going to upload the Prologue and Chapters One and Two tonight. I did a bit more editing than I planned, I totally rewrote the scene in the training room because it was too long, not very exciting and did not really add much to the story (origonally this scene was supposed to be a bit of light relief for the reader but I decided that was not enough because I like my scenes to work hard and reflect several aspects of the story at once). I inluded some information about dragon riding and explained the dislike between Haydain and Elórfilad which I had not really elaborated on before. I also played with the description of Haydain and made it even more pervy.
I revised the Author's Note that goes with the Prologue and made a few changes to some of that information. I really need to work some more on my langauge soon but I have made a few changes along those lines. I decided that I wanted to be more consistant with the name I use for the Dragonians; now they are Dracogean throughout the story but still Dragonians everywhere else. I also made a new letter 'ÿ' to represent the 'y' vowel (so Estelisyn is now Estelisÿn) and moved the position of the rolled 'r', 'rh', to consonants rather than vowels and updated the story with the changes (but I've not updated Nisréaval's Song yet).
I probably managed my 1,000 words but I have not written anything new for Chapter Three. I plotted it in the bath though and came up with a few ideas to get things to the entry of Rhonwyn in Chapter Four, when I will probably go back to following the old plot. I managed to work in Silmaldur's sword too which was helpful (in the previous version Haydain took a very quick trip to see the Midgardians, in the middle of Chapter One, so they could give him the sword). Note that it is not a magic sword or anything like that, it once belonged to the Dragonian leader Silmaldur, who Haydain really admires and wants to emulate when he becomes Lord. Its a symbol that the Dragonains and Midgardians can not get along (so Haydain is a bit misguided thinking they will, the sword is there to remind the reader that Haydain is not always right) and also comes in later when Rhonwyn finds it (but I'm not saying anything more about that, some things are too important to spoil!). This is not magic sword or magic ring fantasy!
Chapter Two is now finished (I've just done a quick edit and spell check). I set myself the target of having the Prologue and first two chapters ready for Elfwood by the time I went back to work, which was toady. I don't think I'll upload just yet, I want to leave a bit of time to have another look at it but it should be done by the weekend. I've been writing solidly since Christmas and I have around 15,000 words done now (Prologue - 500; Chapter One - 7,000; Chapter Two - 6,000). My daily word count should be around 1,000 words if everything goes well (I went to a talk by Phillip Pullman a month or so ago and he said he tried to write 1,000 eveyday so I'm in very good company!). I'm pretty happy with it :-)
I'm still on the introduction of the story really and I will be until Chapter Four. Those Dragonians are very complicated! The Prologue is their version of the backstory and the history of Midgard. Chapter One introduces Haydain and Mirendhan and gives some insight into their society. Chapter Two is more focused on the characters and their ideas, it is dominated by two conversations. The first is between Mirendhan, Padrÿnduil and Haydain and that follows on from a conversation between Haydain and Mirendhan in the first chapter. There is quite a bit of subtext to their words and it ends with a bit of an argument between Mirendhan and Padrÿnduil. The other conversation has to work even harder, it is between Haydain and Torandal. I like my words to say more than one thing to the reader so this conversation is not only about the Barbarians it also has to bring in hints about their relationship which, I will build on later in the story. It also contains a revelation about Haydain's parentage which is a new development in the story, I''m not sure if I will keep it in or not but it does make sense.
Just to get away from all the serious debate, I've written a couple of comedy moments to split up the conversation. I like to keep a balance in my stories so I'll write a comic scene after a tragic one or a discriptive passasge after dialogue (Chapter One was mostly discriptive so Chapter Two balances that).
That was not my only reason for all the dialogue though. I wanted to show that the other character's have views on what is going on. In The Citadel I am experimenting with using an unreliable omnicient narrator almost like another character (called The Narrator). I don't really like the sort of books where the narrator's word is taken as truth so mine is mostly unreliable. The Narrator is another sign of the wrongness in the story (there is plenty of decay in Midgard but I also wanted to show decay in the story itself because the story, like the characters, is a part of that wolrd). She is a big fan of Haydain, slightly disturbingly so at moments (look at his introductory description for example, I wanted it to seem very voyeuristic and a bit pervy) and presents his views as being more valid than those of the other characters - if he sometimes sounds a bit arrogant them it is down to her thinking things like 'Haydain was barely able to swing [a heavy sword] and he was no physical weakling' and '[Torandal] had nearly fallen ... but Haydain had been quick eough to catch his friend'. I like to think of her as his hopeless girlfriend, unable to think bad of him and always emphasising his important role.
Although I'm not saying Haydain is wrong, I wanted to give the other characters a chance to say how they feel and I can only do that with direct speach because The Narrator messes everything else up. I want the reader to be able to understand the different arguments and even take sides if he/she wishes (my view is closer to that of the Dragonians than Haydain).
The Narrator aslo mixes with another voice, mine or The Author's (because it is not always what I think). That voice is strongest in the more objective discriptive sections, such as the discription of the Twilight Garden in Chapter One or the information on the Barbarians at the end of Chapter Two. The Author voice is related to that of Mirendhan in the notes for The Visions of Therathiel and both, like so much, comes from Tolkien. I wanted a sort of academic style to The Author's voice, rather factual and perhaps slightly old fashioned - like they are studying what is going on rather than being involved with it (I'm thinking of the voice of the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings).
Unfortuantly The Author can not always be relied on, the information she gives still has some spin on it (so she sees the Barbarians as the Dragonians do rather than getting to the truth of who they are) and it rarely contains the whole truth. There is only one character in the whole story who speaks the universal truth all of the time and unfortunatly he only comes into the story in the Third, and final, part!
All notes, biographys and this diary are written by me because they are outside the sorty and do not follow the style of it. The story has its own truth which is not that of this world.
This writing diary will contain spoilers so if you don't want to know what might be coming up in the story then I would not advise you to read this diary. Not that many people are that interested in my story but you never know, I would not want to spoil it for you if you were reading in suspense of what comes next.
I've decided to use the diary for something more interesting than my random thoughts (which go in my LiveJournal). I'm going to start a Writer's Diary, following the progress of my novel. It's something I've thought about doing for while as a way to share my experiences and any tips or ideas that I find along the way. i studied English at university and I like nothing better (ok, maybe I like some things better, vodka probably and shopping and pretty boys and some others) than discussing stories, especially my own!
I'm probably a few months late starting this because it should have tied in with me starting version number 13ish of The Citadel back in the summer. What with one thing and another I've not written much for the story and I'm having a mini rewrite anyway so I guess it is not too bad a place to start. Like the plot of the story the wriitng of it has a lot of history so I'll fill that in first just so you know.
Check out my Wyverns shelf for the story so far but The Citadel is basically a fantasy epic set in a secondary world called Midgard, which is a name from Norse mythology meaning Middle Earth.
This was a concious decision because my story was inspired by Tolkien (who I like to think of as J.R most of the time), partly because I love his work but it is also a reaction to it, and to the other writers who followed his style. In a way I'm trying to create a dialogue between his work and mine, which is a rather grand thing to do and I'm totally out of my depth but I want to do it anyway because I like to be ambitious.
The idea of trying to establish this dialogue really came to me about five years ago (when I was 17/18). I had to write an essay about someone I admired and all the things I wanted to talk to them about if I had the chance. I've always been a fan of Tolkien, discended from fans of Tolkien (I first read Lord of the Rings when I was eleven, The Hobbit when I was a bit younger, which was the first book I remember really enjoying). I had been writing The Citadel at the time, under the title The Citadel Under the Mountain which I call The Old Version or OV for short.
That began when I was fourteen or so and was a story I began in colaboration with a friend of mine, Liz Street. She came to my scool from Chile and we were both fantasy fans and liked writing and the story began as a school project. A year or so later Liz moved to the North of England with her family and we lost touch. I carried on with the story myself, writing the earliest versions on paper and then switching to computer when one arrived in our house (I did have a very short lived attempt at using my mother's old typewriter).
I started university in 2000 and it was around that point that I abandoned the OV and began the NV, New Version, which I wanted to make even more complicated than the story was before! I have always thought of the story in the context of Midgard but I wanted to create a history and mythology to feed in to that and so the story changed based on all the backstory and world building I'd been doing. I wanted to focus more on a race of people I had created for the story, the Dragonians, rather than on the more-human Midgardians who had been the focus of the story (see The Road to Ennion on my shelf which is based on the earlier Midgardian story). Most of the wold building was to do with the Dragonians and their culture.
During my time at university I did not have a chance to do much writing but I did lots of thinking and learning. I also got back in touch with Liz, the story is dedicated to her althought I'm not sure how she will take some of the changes to it (she is very religious and the story is a bit anti-religion) I found my course very useful and it introduced me to lots of new ideas and ways of looking at literature. Many of those ideas I've incorporated into the story and into my way of looking at it objectively. I have never taken a creative writing course, I tend to back analyse my work once it is written and change it accordingly. My writing is close to the stage where I'm including things during the process rather than thinking about it when I edit after. I don't know if I'll ever be happy with my writing but I'm getting there (incidentally I have never ever written a complete version of the story, the longest was about 145,000 words).
I graduated last summer and I finally returned to The Citadel seriously in July, working mostly on The Road to Ennion rather than the novel. I took a long pause in mid-October (for real life) and went back in earnest at the end of November. I've written my way though Christmas, working on The Citadel and I have almost finished the updated version of the Prologe and Chapter One, I'm currently working through Chapter Two which I will then edit and publish on Elfwood with the new Prologue and Chapter One.