Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Another Check-In

Football ended last Friday for me, freeing up some time. The muse is waking up and stretching her wings.(I imagine my muse with butterfly wings, or on bad days, bat wings.) I still have to catch up with all the stuff I put off during the tumultuous end of the season. I suspect November will bring me back to being able to write a bit each day.

The real question is: what should I write. I've started two series. I'm about a quarter of the way into The Binder's Husband, but I'm not sure I want to work on that one. I might be a tad bit too jaded at this point in time to do it right. The themes and undercurrents I had planned for that one were related to specific situations in my own life. Situations that have since changed.

Instead, the story that is calling to me is the one I started on here. Some of you might recall Damian. I wrote some fictional posts with him as a character. He's darker than my typical protagonist (which is still to say, probably pretty light... I'm just not a horribly dark person), and I'm feeling a bit dark myself.

I didn't originally have a plan for a novel featuring Damian, but the idea has slowly formed in my head over the last few months. These would be shorter books for me (I want to shoot for 50k words instead of my usual well over 100k). I have (very) loose plots for 8 such stories. They'd be more like quick hour-long TV shows than full-length movie (at least in my mind).

I wrote a scene from the forming novel last night. I've done pantsing. I've done loose outlining. I generally write linearly. For these books, I may just write scenes, and then, like a puzzle, fit them all together later. For some reason, that sort of approach really appeals to me right now. It makes it really hard to scope the project though. How will I know when I've written all of the scenes, especially without a real outline? I'm not really sure, but that's part of the appeal as well.

To borrow a saying from one of my all-time favorite fantasy series: "The wheel weaves as the wheel wills." I'm not going to fight it. In fact, I'm just pleased as punch that it's still rolling.

I might share some scenes on the blog. Completely out-of-order, completely unedited. I figure, why not, and I'd love to get feedback. I guess we'll see how it goes.

7 comments:

koalabear said...

Definitely bring back more Damian! Those short stories (coupled with your WoW fan fiction) is really what drew me into your writing.

Don't get me wrong, I would've bought your books to support you regardless, but the genuine enjoyment I received from reading them was fueled by my previous happiness with Damian.

Matt said...

Yay! I'm glad you like him. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it yet, because I've never really written out of order scenes before. I want to share them, but it may be completely confusing. On the other hand, it could be completely interesting too, putting the different pieces together. I've not really decided yet, but I will do something.

koalabear said...

I think it could work assuming it all ties together in the final chapter.

Almost like a constant flashback story.

Matt said...

Yeah. I may just knock a bunch of it out too. I was plotting it to be shorter and more episodic that my other novels, so I think I'll be able to write it more quickly. The larger a work is, the trickier it gets to make sure everything remains consistent. For a shorter work, you can skip a lot of tiny details and focus on nailing the big scenes. It's a fun change of pace.

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell said...

Sometimes the disparate scenes let you know where they belong, or what transitional scenes they need. I know, my characters talk to me, and now my scenes do. Call me crazy, but this mosaic approach has worked for me.

Absolutely, go with Damian. It sounds like you're listening to your muse, and that is vital. Dark characters are fun, and cathartic.

Matt said...

Yeah, I like the idea of a "mosaic" approach. That is exactly the image in my mind of how this is going to work. And like you said, I suspect things will fall into place.

Dark for me is still probably pretty light. lol.

Earlene Bertelsen said...

I like your stance Matt!

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