Meta Writing

In the computer world, data about other data is called "metadata". For instance a weather instrument records how much rain falls, the temperature variations, and the wind speed throughout the day. That's the "data". It also attaches information such as the time of day for each recording, the date, and the geographic location of the recordings. That's data about the data, or "metadata".

My intention with this blog has been to talk about the writing process and document my first major attempt at fiction. I got to thinking about that this past week, and realized that my blog was really writing about writing - that is, "metawriting". I thought that that was such a good name for the blog that I decided to change it.

Unfortunately "metawriting.blogspot.com" was already taken, so I've set up a new blog at WordPress: http://metawriting.wordpress.com. See you there!

"It works"

Well, this week was supposed to be my writing week, but as it turns out my day-job project was delayed by a week, so writing was delayed the same amount. Houston, please reset the clock to T-minus 3 days and some change.

In a curious twist, though, I've been able to spend a lot of the last week (particularly in the evenings) organizing my thoughts, and getter much better prepared for next week. This included filling the largest hole in the story - the climax.

I certainly didn't start out intending to write the buildup and the conclusion first, and then fill in the connection between the two last. In fact, as I fleshed out the end pieces, I realized (a couple of nights ago) I had no idea how Alina, my protagonist, was supposed to beat her opponent. I knew what the aftermath should look like, and what the ante-math should look like, but the "math" was proving to be a hard nut to crack.

I did finally manage to come up with a scene that I was pretty happy with. My wife gave it a very reserved "it works" when she read my outline for the scene. Hopefully I'll be able to find ways to make it a little more suspenseful for the general reader, and rate a little higher than "it works".

With the climax written, I now had a complete skeleton, and of course by "complete" I mean it connects the story end to end, much like a chain-link fence is a solid wall. A small triumph, but one that I think I'm allowed to enjoy.

Middle Names

George Bush, come here this instant!

George Walker Bush, come here this instant!

I've always been amused that if someone uses your middle name when they're angry, it means they're REALLY angry. It seems to be one of the most common use for a middle name, and one that we apparently learn at a very early age. This past week, my wife addressed our daughter with her first and middle names. It was done in jest, but my wife was met with a very serious-looking 4 1/2 year old: "No Mommy, you're only supposed to say that when you really mad."

Now, I was 4 1/2 years old once (a few years - ok, decades - ago), and my middle name had a few "angry-uses". In fact that's about the only times my middle name has gotten used. I've decided to change that with this first novel, hence the name "M. Edward Gilbert".

I don't really expect it to completely eliminate its angry-use ("Mark Edward, where is that draft?!"), but at least the usage will be a little more balanced.

Wine = Not Whine

Well, the countdown to "W" week has been reset. My current day-job project was extended by a week, so I've pushed "W" week back to start July 23. I'm not disappointed about it at all - having an additional week in there allows the thoughts to ferment that much longer.

This of course assumes that thoughts are like wine and get better the longer you can ignore them, unlike whine which possesses the exact opposite quality.

Using those Extra CPU Cycles

There are several points throughout a typical week for me where I'll have some mental downtime - times when I can run on autopilot physically, and let my mind drift. These could be times when I'm driving into work, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry - all situations where I don't need my full mental powers to complete the task at hand. The leftover brain cells tend to act like a SETI@Home screensaver, and churn through whatever has been on my mind that week.

Lately, the extra CPU cycles have been spent working out various pieces of this novel. Sometimes it's the backstory for a particular character; other times it's some artifact of the world; still others it's a plot twist that I'd like to incorporate.

All of these thoughts eventually end up in the "loosely organized document of my thoughts and wishes" that I mentioned in my last post. This document started as a single paragraph that described a dream I had which forms the central struggle of the story. I kept adding bits and pieces to it until it finally achieved the state of "utterly disorganized mess", or UDM. I'd like to think that the UDM stage was an accomplishment rather than a roadblock: I finally had put enough material together that I felt the need to organize it. I say "enough" because this will have been the seventh story that I've tried to start, and the previous six didn't go very far after the initial idea was written down.

Up until this point I had been dating the notes and thoughts that I came up with. I have continued to maintain that list but have started another one - one that breaks the story up into chapters. I've been organizing the thoughts from the chronological list into the chapter list, trying to see how the various pieces should fit together. In the course of that process, I think I've discovered the need for a third, intermediary list: a description of the various story threads that need to be woven together to form the overall story. This will be a topic for a later post.

So far this system has given me the flexibility to jot down anything that comes to mind, without the pressure of fitting it into the story right away. Once I have the thoughts down I can start to see patterns form, and where to fit each point into the story starts to make more sense. Sometimes the points play off of each other - pieces that I've thought of weeks apart click together in an unusual way. If I had forced myself to find a place for it to fit as soon as I thought of it, I may never have seen that connection.

I suppose this is an odd reformulation of David Allen's "Getting Things Done": write down what's on your mind so it's not taking up mindshare, but work it into your system where it makes sense. That frees up those extra CPU cycles for future points of brilliance.

Countdown

I decided a while back that I would take a week off from my day-job developing software, and try to give this novel a good solid start (sometime in July, when my current project is complete). I had originally intended to wait until that week to REALLY get started on the story, but I keep coming up with things that I want to include in it and ways to organize my thoughts throughout the writing process (its amazing what can occur to you when you let your mind wander while mowing the lawn). As with most things in my life, if I don't write them down, I positively WILL forget them.

To that end I've been keeping (for the last couple of months) a very loosely organized document of my thoughts and wishes for the story arc, the characters, the plot twists, etc.. As I get more and more into this "research" phase, I'm beginning to view that week in July as a way to organize those random thoughts.

I'm also intending to try to use that week to put myself in the habit of writing. Having a day-job looks like it will be a double-edged sword. It will be nice to not have the pressure of writing to support my family, but at the same time that day-job is full time plus a little more, so it will be very easy to push off the writing in order to meet its demands. I tend to be a morning person, and a person who does best when there is a routine to be followed, so I'm thinking that waking earlier than usual and writing before I head into work will be the simplest way to make continual progress on the story.

The countdown to "W" week has been set. We are currently at T-minus 34 days (and some change).

So, what's the point?

I am running a little experiment, and "All-Mark Moment" will be my lab book.

I get to play both the researcher and the lab rat in this experiment. Researcher-Me is putting Lab-Rat-Me through a maze known as "writing my first novel", the cheese at the end being, of course, the finished manuscript.

But enough of the rat race.

Over the years, I've found that I think better when I write things down. For me, the act of writing is akin to Dumbledore's Pensieve - a tool that allows me to pull out memories and threads of internal conversation and put them into a medium that can help sharpen them into focus.

This blog will be my muggle-Pensieve for the seemingly random thoughts, musings, problems, etc. that crop up while I write my novel.

So, what's the point? Fairly dull right now, but it aspires to be sharper.