Mowing the Lawn and I Can’t Blame COVID

By terranceacrow | News

It’s Not COVID…

In mid March, 2020, I learned that the leadership team at my place of primary employment was smart: They instructed those of us who could work remotely do so. Since then, I’ve worked from home five days a week. I credit their decision with keeping my family health. There’s no down side to that!

You’d think that I’d be able to get more novel writing done. In fact, I was hopeful at first. But unfortunately, no. I’m actually working more hours than I was when I drove into the office. When you factor in what used to be commute time, I’m actually working 20-25% more hours. So, I actually have less time to write.

I can’t blame COVID for that. I think I feel obliged to give some extra effort since the company made decisions that help keep its staff healthy. I know I’m not ready to pack myself back into a fully populated office building. There’s no vaccine for COVID-19 yet. It’s not something I want to tempt.

I have to be honest, though. I’m worried. As documented in an earlier post, I’ve been working on A Ghast in the Machine’s beats since May 17, 2019. My initial offering is going to be the permafree Divinity Ascending, probably used as a lead magnet, and the initial trilogy, anchored by A Ghast in the Machine. It’s been 13 months, and I only have 25 chapters or so outlined. My beats may or may not map directly to chapters, and I have 27 beats created (only 2 new ones since my previous post in February). Do I really have a realistic path to finishing that anytime soon? Or am I going to have to wait until I retire?

I may only have created two new beats, but I’ve been able to deepen the ones I’d already written. One of the characters from the United Nations in particular has benefited from this.

It’s not that I don’t have time to write at all. I’m writing an anime review 6 days a week on Crow’s World of Anime. In fact, during the Spring 2020 season so far, I’ve spent about 154 hours writing posts. So the time’s available. But when the series air, and my publication dates, are dictating when I need to write. I thought I’d adjusted the Spring season to make enough room. It’s close. Sometimes, I have time Tuesdays and Thursdays to work on the novel. But, it’s not consistent. After analyzing my writing time distributions, I think if I free my weekends, I might make more progress.

Tracking time helps me see what time I’m really investing, so it gave me the assurance that if I arrange the week right, I should be able to make more progress. I’d like to note that Lynn Sheridan has done similar work on his site, The Otaku Author. He talked through a recent set of decisions he made about his career in his post “Course Correction! (Sunday Sevens).” It’s not like I can’t make this decision on my own; it’s just reassuring to know that my thought process is not completely out in left field.

So, we’ll see if fine-tuning my schedule can reinvigorate the novels.

Mowing the Yard Builds Good Characters

Even in this environment, I’m still thinking about the book and its characters. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I realized that Melchizedek “Dek” Conrad, the main character, was just kinda there. While mowing the yard the other day, a rough sketch of his journey came to me. It still needs some fine-tuning, but I’m feeling better about what he’s trying to do.

The path also puts him on an apparent collision course with the TransStell board of directors, which is also good, because I was thinking of ways to get them more involved.

In what seems like a recurring theme for this series, the Ghast is also playing an unexpected role. I had several intense scenes occur to me. They were isolated fragments. I’m not sure they’ll make it into the final drafts. But they give me an idea of where the characters want to go, which is just a conceited way of saying I think I’m figuring things out.

I mean, characters aren’t sentient. We all know that. Right?

Writing these posts keep me accountable to myself and to you, my potential future readers. I’m still trying to push forward. Spurred on by my world view that says facts matter, I’m trying to base my decisions on actual data. So, let’s see where this goes! The new anime season starts in a couple of weeks, so in another month or so, I hope to have another update for you.

Do you have struggles like this as you try to write? What helped you move forward? I’d love to hear in the comments!

China Took a Back Seat

By terranceacrow | News

Writing begets writing. Today’s Obvious Day at www.TerranceACrow.com! But sometimes I have to take comfort in obviousness, especially if it moves the novel forward.

In my previous post, I talked about my plans to build out fictional China, because it’s going to be important soon. But realized that my protagonist, Melchizedek “Dek” Conrad, was seriously cross with me. He was like, “I’m your main character. I’m supposed to drive the plot. But where’s my hook? Where’s my drive? Where’re my flaws? I’m just standing around!”

It didn’t help that I recently read Dave D’Alessio’s post “The Protagonist is a _____ But _____” on his site Confessions of an Overage Otaku. Mr. D’Alessio often posts useful writing insights. In this case, it got Dek all worked up.

So, the bad-ish news is that no, contrary to what I thought in early January, China was not “next.” To keep Dek from staging a full-blown rebellion and involving the other characters (I’m sure I was days away from Matsushita Sachi joining in, and I just don’ t have the energy to fight her, too!), I began building out Dek’s setup, and with him, some more of TransStell’s organizational chart. I started with 17 beats. I’m up to 25. That’s in about a month.

Behold! This is what progress looks like! Okay, it’s slow progress, but some of us prefer illusion to despair…

That’s more than I’d done most of last year, so it looks like cutting back on my anime review time and focusing more on the novel is starting to pay off!

As I wrote the beats, I found callbacks to the prequel. In fact, a lot of Dek’s motivation comes from the later scenes in Divinity Ascending. So that’s progress, too!

So, let’s see how much I can get done in February. I’m not going to look very far ahead; I’m going to focus on this line in this beat; then the next line; then the next.

Let’s hope I can keep Dek happy! Maybe he’ll stop complaining. Or maybe I don’t want him to…

Only One Way to Finish a Novel…

By terranceacrow | News

Tonight, for the first time since the Fall 2019 anime season started, I spent an evening working on A Ghast in the Machine.

In the beats for the 17 chapters I’ve written so far, I had introduced the main characters from Terran Consolidated Products, TransStell, and the United Nations. There are two groups remaining, and I tackled one of them tonight.

I need to built out the European Union, specifically the contingent from Germany, led by Hans Alder. I’d already defined him, and tonight I filled out his staff with Helisent Ockert, his ministerial assistant; Stefan Linde, another assistant; and Jack Booth, his British public relations manager.

I also scouted a couple of locations, like some sites in Brussels, Belgium and another in Beijing, China. By “scouted” I mean looked up in Google Earth Pro. But it’s still amazing to me, having grown up with paper maps, how much detail I can get about practically any developed location on the face of this planet — at the cost of a few mouse clicks.

As proof that I made progress, may I offer this screen cap of the new UN characters and a new chapter? Yeah, it’s one chapter, but guess how far I’ll get if I don’t start with one?

This season, I’m throttling back to a single full review of an older series on Crow’s World of Anime. The rest will be Best in Show reviews, which means I pick a single favorite moment per episode. That should free up about 8 hours or so a week for novel writing — maybe more, since I only have to take notes on an episode if I’m writing a full review.

When I sat down tonight, all of the usual doubts were there. I told myself I had no idea where the plot was going. I had no idea what motivated the characters. I had no ideas how I was going to manifest my themes in a way that was natural to the plot.

Then I started writing.

I had no idea the British Empire wanted to use the discovery of interstellar fissures to reassert themselves. But that’s what motivates Jack Booth. I had no idea that Helisent Ockert hated Hans Alder passionately, yet supports him — for reasons she’ll make clear later.

I could go on, but the point is simply this.

Only by writing can I write.

Yeah, it’s stunningly obvious. But it’s as hard as it is obvious. It hard to trust that the imagination knows what it’s doing. Was Jack Booth always there, just waiting for me to catch up? Did my imagination create him at runtime, just as I needed something to happen with Hans Alder?

Does it matter?

Two and half hours after I sat down, the EU portion of A Ghast in the Machine was in place and is growing. Either my imagination was generating stuff on the fly, or I was tapping into some kind of subconscious engine that’s been incubating these characters and situations all this time. Either way, as I type — as I write — stuff happens. Isn’t that what counts?

China’s next…

Do you find it easy to write your beats? Do you even write beats, or do you do the pants thing (i.e, just make up the plot as you go)? Let me know in the comments!

Lesson Learned: Focus is Good

By terranceacrow | News

When we last chatted on this site, I was trying a new technique to outline my novels before writing the beats. I’d successfully written the beats for Divinity Ascending, but I felt like there had to be a faster way. In my previous post, I talked about trying out OmniOutliner and tried it out.

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that OmniOutliner is a fantastic outlining tool. The bad news is that making an outline wasn’t what was holding me up.

Please allow me to take a moment and confirm some advice we’ve all heard before: If you want to finish writing a novel, you have to write the novel. Putting a little different spin on that, I’d also say that if you want to finish a novel’s beats, you have the write the novel’s beats.

I got caught up trying to make an outline explicitly following  Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering. I still think it’s a fantastic resource, and I’m still using it as a guide, but I found that if I try to use it as the skeleton of an outline, I couldn’t make progress.

So now I’m taking a different tack. I’m trying to think through the political, corporate, religious, and other world-building elements. Since I’m often away from my desk when I have time to work on that stuff, I’m using Notes on my iPhone, laptop, or (when I manage to get home) my iMac.

Another factor is that since early this year, I’ve experimented with increasing the number of posts on my anime site, Crow’s World of Anime. In the Spring 2019 anime season, I went from about 3 posts a week to 5. In the Summer 2019 season, I went to 8. I learned two important lessons:

1. I could publish content daily (two on Sunday, including a collaboration with Irina from I Drink and Watch Anime), which means I had time to write.
2. Writing 8 posts a week meant I had little time for, you know, novel writing.

In essence, I was trading the excitement and pride in producing content whose daily readership is steadily increasing for progress on the novels.

Starting with the next anime season, I’m going to reduce my output to 2 main reviews, a collaboration review (if my collaborator has not grown weary of collaborating with me!), and one or two abbreviated reviews, which I call Best in Show. That’ll free up some time for novel preparation and writing.

If that’s not enough time, I might cut back to one main review, a collaboration review, and 2 or 3 Best in Show reviews. The latter are much faster to write, though my readers seem to prefer the longer form reviews.

If it means I can force myself to focus more attention on novel writing, it’ll be more than worth it.

Apologies for any typographic errors — I had a few minutes before turning in, and I wanted to give you a quick update. Please feel free to share any thoughts about Apple’s Notes or integrating it with Scrivener (especially beyond just copy/pasting!).

Thanks for stopping by!

The Need for Speed

By terranceacrow | News , Novel Pre-Production

I’ve been working on the beats for A Ghast in the Machine since at least May 2018. My last update in October boasted that I’d finished the beats for about 12 chapters. Guess how many I have now?

Sixteen.

That’s about two a month.

Clearly, I need to make some changes! I started thinking about why I was able to finish Divinity Ascending’s beats in a shorter span of time, and I think I figured out why. It’s a much more simple plot. I didn’t have to juggle as many plot or character interactions, so I was able to keep track of things with a minimum of administrative overhead.

Ghast seemed much more difficult to even start the beats, much less push them forward. I was taking a lot of time to reacquaint myself with the lay of the land between sessions, Using Scrivener’s cork board view and using different tags to color the Point of View (POV) characters helped, but there was still that burden of having to re-immerse myself every time. Some nights, I get less than a half an hour quiet time, and it’s easy to spend that much just getting ready!

Scrivener’s cork board is awesome, but I was missing something. Some key to getting more quickly back into the book’s universe.

I began to wonder if I needed a higher-level outline for Ghast. Something that would be more abstract than the beats, but at the same time, be more accessible — and accessible more quickly. 

I did a bit of research and found posts like this one from the Scrivener forum. Scrivener can do outlines, but in the way felt natural to me. Plus, I love Scrivener for what it can do for the rest of the process, from character sketches to world building to beats to actually writing the novel. I didn’t want to interfere with any of those areas of functionality.

I thought it was time to look at a product that specialized in one thing: outlines. I needed something where I could sketch the main plot milestones that I learned from Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering. 

As we all know, Google’s our friend when it comes to something like this. I used it to narrow down the list, but you know what? I wasn’t comfortable choosing something that’s going to be integral to my writing based on reviews alone. I had to be able to evaluate the product first.

I’ve used products from the Omni Group for years. I used OmniGraffle to create sketches of some of the interiors for the Indiana, one of the ships that’s going to play a big role in Ghast. Before that, I used OmniPlan to create moderately complex project plans. In both cases, I had good experiences not only with the products, but with the products’ tech support. It felt natural to try OmniOutliner for my current quest. 

Since I have a Mac, I was able to use the App Store to download a trial version that would let me emulate the two versions: Essentials and Pro. I set the emulation to Pro and tried to re-express the beats I’d done as a plot-centric outline. 

OmniOutliner looks like it’ll give me the higher level view that I think I need. I hope. 

I learned two things from the exercise. First, OmniOutliner’s highlighting and other formatting tools will help me keep organized and oriented. I think it’ll give me a way to quickly engage with the material by showing me the plot context of each major development. I can map one major plot point/development to a family of beats.

Second, it showed me something I wasn’t looking for, but should have been: Because I didn’t have this view of the plot, my beats were drifting away from the plot structure I think I need. That means one of two things: I’ll need to spend a lot of time re-writing the beats to realign them, or I’ll miss that need entirely and end up writing the book based on plot-skewed beats. 

That would mean one of two things: reduced readers because the plot would not be as satisfying, or a much bigger investment in time for rewrites. I would prefer to avoid either of those scenarios, thank you very much!

Now, I just hope that OmniOutliner will have the impact I hope it does! One of the benefits to me maintaining this blog is that I can see exactly how long things are taking, so I hope to have the answer soon!

Have you used a special-purpose outliner? If you have, I’d love to hear about your experiences! 

The Universe Expands! Well, This Corner of It, Anyway…

By terranceacrow | News

A Ghast in the Machine Takes Shape!

By terranceacrow | News

A Ghast in the Machine continues to take shape! It’s been May since I last posted about it, and I haven’t made anywhere near the progress I wanted, but I’m still fighting the good fight!

Well, at least I haven’t given up…

That’s something!

Here’s what Scrivener looks like right now:

Now, before you accuse me of sloth, take a look at the Characters folder. You’ll see some work’s done there! Plus, you can’t see the Planetary Systems folder, or the folder called Ships…

Like Divinity Ascending before it, the background is expanding by leaps and bounds. It’s not reflected yet in the beats, but I have the elevator speech done, so that’s guiding my development. At this stage, I have two things I’d love to share with you.

First, I just learned that one of new characters, Yessica Romero, is from Cusco, Peru. I had no idea! I love discovering stuff like this about my characters. Whether this is just me trying to make the creative process sound more portentous or not, it’s still fun to see the characters develop at this stage of my novel writing process. In case you’re interested, Yessica is the President of the UN’s General Assembly. Whereas Divinity Ascending focused on what had once been the United States, A Ghast in the Machine takes place all over the globe and beyond the Sol System. In fact, this is the book that beings to move in the direction I’d originally envisioned for the series — that of a Space Opera.

Second, I just had lunch with one of my friends, Bruce Westbrook. Since Divinity Ascending takes place mostly on Earth, I can’t really call it Space Opera, can I? That was really bugging me, because I’d intended for it to be the first book in the series. Bruce, an avid science fiction reader, reasonably suggested that I make Divinity Ascending a prequel and release it after the initial two or three books to satisfy the curiosity of readers who might like the characters and situations.

And suddenly, everything made sense!

A Ghast in the Machine will likely (according to my current plans, which, as you well know if you’ve been reading this blog, change from time to time) be the first book that I try to publish. Instead of a trilogy, I think I’ve come to understand that the characters and situations are pushing me towards a long-running series. I’ll probably try to publish two or three books, then release Divinity Ascending. Or maybe I’ll save it as a gift to entice folks to join my e-mail list.

In any event, I had to write the beats for Divinity Ascending before I could understand how to start A Ghast in the Machine. So the work, far from being wasted, was foundational.

Now, if I could just figure out how to wring more time out of a day…

As it stands now, I’m having a blast fleshing out the world and writing the beats. I really hope to have something concrete to share with you soon! Until then, have you ever read fanfic? You might know that I watch a lot of anime (it’s good for the creative juices!). One of the series (Sekirei Pure Engagement) inspired me to write a short story, and you can read it here.

At least it’s evidence I can write fiction! Note that I’m not making any claims to its quality…

Thanks for reading!

The Beats for Novel 2 (Trilogy 1) Are Underway!

By terranceacrow | News

I’ve been able to give real life the slip for a few days, so I’ve been able to get started on the beats for the second novel (of the first trilogy)!

Remember when I announced that I’d finished the beats for Divinity Ascending? At that time, I wasn’t sure what the next novel would be called. The two main characters of Divinity Ascending, Melchizedek “Dek” Conrad and Matsushita Sachi, had staged a coup, and they forced me to reconsider my plans for the first trilogy. After intense negotiations (you have to keep both eyes on Sachi, I can tell you!), we’ve decided on the title of the book 2:

A Ghast in the Machine

Before, I mentioned that the Ghast wasn’t even supposed to be in the first book. Well, not content with a larger role in Divinity Ascending, she demanded to be featured in title for the second book. And to be honest, I still don’t know her motives. I’m not kidding — this character’s going places I didn’t intend!

The screen shot above is from what I’m evolving as my default Scrivener template for a book. It’s only a little different from the standard Scrivener fiction/novel template, but I like to add things like the “In a Nutshell” section with the elevator speech. I was surprised how much that helped me focus the direction of Divinity Ascending. Want a taste of the first few lines of the elevator speech from A Ghast in the Shell?

What if you try to get away from the corporations, but they get there ahead of you?

Starts in Spring, 2166.

At the end of Divinity Ascending, Mel and Sachi had struck a deal with TCP to fend off the destruction of TransStell. But TransStell was no less damaged, and TCP no less strong. They’d only bought themselves some time — if they could use it.

Now, if I can elude Real Life’s attention for awhile, maybe I can crank out these beats!

Does Finishing a Novel’s Beats Qualify for a Celebration?

By terranceacrow | Novel Pre-Production

Remember back in January when I said I hoped to have the beats for Divinity Ascending finished soon?

Guess what?

As of 6:30PM on Sunday, March 11, 2018, the beats for Divinity Ascending are done!

Does finishing the beats/outline quality for a celebration? I don’t know for sure, so maybe I’ll only have a Bud Light instead of a higher quality brew…

73 chapters. From Columbiana, visible from the wreckage of what used to be Columbus, Ohio to the gilded vaults of Manhattan. From the ruins of Old Cleveland to the launch ports near the coast in Opelousas, Louisiana. From the TransStell manufacturing facilities in the L2 Earth/Moon orbit to the bases constructed in the Newton crater on the moon. The beats for Divinity Ascending are done!

I mentioned earlier that I want to finish the beats for the first three or four novels before actually writing them. I’ve been studying Sterling & Stone, whose Fiction Unboxed is well worth the price, as well as Nick Stephenson’s Your First 10,000 readers, which seems to be  a great resource for setting up your own marketing infrastructure that is independent of, but takes advantage of, the e-publishers like Amazon. The consensus seems to be that you need three or four books in the chute to begin building your audience, and I guess that makes sense. So, that’s my plan.

Problem is, Mel and the Ghast weren’t content with dramatically changing the plot of Divinity Ascending. I thought I had the initial trilogy planned. But Mel, the Ghast, and others (don’t even get me started on Matsushita Sachi and her family) have decided that no, Olympia Dreaming isn’t the next book. In fact, it’s not even in the first trilogy!

In all honesty, I’m hugely relieved that the characters are interacting with me like this. The stories are about them, and if I’m serious about viewing my writing as an act of sub-creation (albeit in a derivative sense), then I’m going to need their help.

Now that I have a system down, I hope I can crank out the beats for the next two books (whatever they’re called!) in less time. According to my instance of Jira,* I spent 48 hours and 31 minutes of effort hours to write the first beats. That seems excessive to me. I’ll see if I can do the next book even faster, with more coherency!

I hope you’re excited to see forward motion! I’ll try to have some interesting material for you as we get closer to launch.

Hope to have more good news soon!

* Yeah, I use Jira, a software development tool, to track progress on my books. Old habits die hard!

Characters in Rebellion!

By terranceacrow | Novel Pre-Production

My characters are assuming control of the first novel.

This is actually a good thing. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. This is what happened: As I was pushing to finish the last 20% of the beats, the Ghast and Mel Conrad conspired to dramatically change the direction of the plot.

First, not content with a bit part, the Ghast (who wasn’t even supposed to be in this novel!), demanded a bigger role. For reasons unknown, Mel supported her! Now her role is about 60% larger than I expected.

Second, in a related development, the title is changing to “Divinity Ascending.” I hope you’ll see why soon.

What high maintenance characters!

Seriously, I do think this is a good thing. It means I’m getting to know the characters better. It means they’re speaking to me and they’re trying to help me be a less stupid writer.

I almost feel sorry for them. Their struggle in that regard will be mighty!

In any event, I hope to have the beats done for Divinity Ascending soon. Then, I’ll write the beats for the next two novels before harmonizing all three. If my plans go well, within a few months I’ll start writing in earnest.

I hope to have more news soon!