The lyf so short

Fanfic writer titles meme, seen all over my flist.

( Under the cut to spare the disinterested )

It's back to school tomorrow. I had two weeks of fall break (much needed, I must shamefully confess) and they went by in the blink of an eye.

Well, not really. The first week was hot (!) and sunny and I got some necessary gardening done (not enough, but still). The second week was cool, wet and autumnal, which was a pity as far as the gardening is concerned, but also very necessary - especially the wet part. Due to the extremely dry spring and summer and - so far - autumn, most bodies of water have lost a lot of, well, water. Even the local reservoirs are down to 29% of their proper level, which is lower even than the lowest recorded level from back in the late 70s. Back then, the spire of the church of the village at the bottom of the reservoir was visible again, but by now, it apparently has broken down. The Rhine is so empty by now that gas is becoming (even) more expensive because it can no longer be transported by ship, and it's more expensive to use road tankers.

This year was so untypical that the figs on my little fig tree actually ripened (normally, I pick them hard small and green in October, and then boil them in syrup to make them edible). But at what price? :P

THEN, of course, I meant to write lots of LJ entries to catch up with Life, the Universe and Everything - the kids, stuff we did as a family, the house, and - most especially - the job. But early in the month I got hit by... what's the opposite of Writer's Block? Writer's Bug? Whatever it's called, I got it bad. And because I was afraid that it would abandon me again, I spent most of my spare time writing. It was like NaNoWriMo come early! I've produced 6 (!) new chapters for The Embalmer's Apprentice. I hope I'll finally be able to kill off the old king in the next (unwritten) chapter or the one after that, and then things get really exciting. *rubs hands* But of course, I should know better than to make predictions! I still remember the times when I thought it was going to be a short little 5-or so-chapter one-shot for Akallabêth in August 2009. *hollow laughter* Now it's at 24 (published) chapters and 174,654 words. When do stories ever behave as planned?
I won't be able to participate in the actual NaNoWriMo in November, so I'm glad I got at least this much done.

I'll write about my teaching experience and the rest of real life some other time. Probably. Back to school tomorrow, anyway. My students were very difficult in the last week before the holidays, and I hope that they could blow off some steam so we can all behave like civilised human beings in the class room again. Fingers crossed.

... my NaNo rebellion, that is. Because I'm done.

Well, not in the traditional NaNo way of writing a story of 50,000 words. But in the way I'd planned to use this NaNoWriMo. To recap, the plan was to produce the illustrations for two children's picture books I had in my mind. Each piece of lineart would count as 1000 words (because one picture is worth a thousand words). The words of the storyboard for both books also counted towards the final score. But, after 45 illustrations (and about 1500 words of storyboard)... the stories were told. At which point I was personally ready to consider myself a winner, but the number is still 50,000, not "about 46500".

So I went and wrote the next chapter of Golden Days, which clocked in at 4000 words. Problem solved. NaNo won. Just not, as I said, in the traditional way. So you may consider me a cheat. (I don't.)

It's been an intriguing experience. I've taken part in Nano often enough to have several three-quarter novels on my harddrive (some of them longer than 50K words, some of them shorter), and then there's my usual fanficcing where I have also produced shocking amounts of literature, so I'm quite familiar to the process of creative writing. But this year was completely different. Since the birth of my sons, writing has taken a bit of a back seat, so NaNo used to be a welcome excuse to prioritise it for a month's time. This year, it was a welcome excuse to take up a pencil again. Having to produce art on a daily basis after months (practically years) of abstinence was strange and fun. Having to follow a storyline was even more strange. Aside from my attempt to produce a webcomic a few years ago, I've never done anything like that.
It went astonishingly well.

I used to draw relatively often, and I always had the problem that the picture I was visualising didn't match the result, making me more or less unhappy with my art. I expected that the inner critic would be a huge problem this month, and was surprised that it actually wasn't. It's not that I've suddenly become a great artist, or become less critical. But it appears that under the premise of "telling a story through pictures" and "telling a story for children", my focus is different. (This shouldn't be surprising, but it's a new experience to draw stuff that I doesn't make me want to weep at my shortcomings!) Does the picture tell the part of the story it's meant to tell? That's good enough.

With these lowered expectations - and also with the expectation that I'd find translating the story into lineart really hard - I'm actually really proud of a few of my pictures. Well, I'm proud of all of them in that I managed to illustrate two whole stories (however short). But some are very basic. Others are more elaborate. Among those, I have a some that I really love.
I deliberately took some shortcuts, especially when it came to backgrounds. I think it works. I know it's fashionable to put a lot of stuff in children's books' illustrations. I didn't do that. I wanted to tell the story, period. At the moment, it seems to be popular to mix Wimmelbilder with linear storytelling. I'm not sold on that. I didn't want to do that. So I mostly didn't bother with background or just used washes. I like the result. It seems to be a style that works well for me.

In "normal" drawing (that is, in fanart), I find it hard to depict people satisfyingly, especially if I have to convey motion. I thought this would be an issue here, but it really wasn't. Motion, dynamics, even gestures came surprisingly easy for this project. Initially, I thought it was because I simply wasn't too bothered about realism. TATER TROLL ANATOMY IS DIFFERENT. But my tater trolls turned out surprisingly human in their movements. And my pictures, which could have been static for all I cared, turned out surprisingly dynamic. So it's not just that I had different expectations than usual; it's also that I accidentally succeeded at things that I normally find hard.

Why? No clue. Perhaps because even though I haven't drawn in ages, I've kept observing how other artists solved the problems that stumped me, so my subconscious had a bag of solutions ready. Or perhaps because I didn't put myself under so much pressure this time. Or something else entirely. Whatever it was, it worked! Will I be able to apply any of this to future attempts at drawing - fanart or otherwise? No clue, either. It's nice to think so, though.

What I hope I will take away from this is that I still can draw - that it doesn't actually take as long to produce lineart. (And 20 pictures are already coloured, too!). I don't think I'll manage to draw daily anytime soon (even after Christmas). I was a little burned out in the end - the last five pictures were a chore - but then I really enjoyed writing again. The trick's in the mixture, I guess. At any rate, I can't neglect the dishes, the floors and the approaching holidays forever. But I'll definitely attempt to produce a little art or a little creative writing per week. (Unless it's good gardening weather, of course! ;))

Because - and that's the most important part, I guess - I felt like I had found a missing part of myself again. That is, I hadn't missed anything, per se, or pined for creative work. But it made me happy on a deep and personal level to produce stories again. And it'd be nice to tap into that source of happiness more often. Maybe I'll manage to illustrate some of my fanfic. Maybe I'll even tackle the graphic novel adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that I'm dreaming of?

I'm also happy on a less deep and personal level - on a base money-making level, so to say. I actually think I'm good at producing children's picture books. I have enough faith in these little things that I'm already thinking about researching tax regulations for freelancing illustrators and everything! (And you know how much I hate thinking about practical regulations!) Once I'm done colouring all the lineart and putting it together with the text - work I'll do during the "Now What" months if I don't manage to do it at once, I hope I'll find a publishing company that likes these books as much as I do. Cross your fingers?
(I first typed "Cross your gingers". Now that's a mental image...)

[My test audience reacted favourably, anyway! Whenever I sat down with my drawing pad and pencil, Felix got all excited. "Are you painting tater trolls again?" "Is this another picture of Mister Milchstraße? What is he doing this time?" Eeeee!]

[B2MeM - Back to Middle-earth Month - is a Tolkien fandom event sort of thing every March. If you couldn't care less about my fannish exploits, feel free to skip this entry.]

I know that some people on my f-list had a hard time with this year's B2MeM challenge and felt that it was a bust. I'm not writing this post to laugh in your face, but in order to put my positive experience out there, too - after all, it's so depressing if nobody who had a succesful month talks about it.

So here goes: For me, it's been a triumph. (I'm sorry, but there it is.) I wrote - well, finished - 15 fics, including some I began for last year's Bingo bash and never expected to finish, sewed one dress (well, I'm still working on the embroidery, but never mind) and painted one picture. On the written stuff - mostly ficlets and short stories, but hey, 15 different pieces, woo hoo! - I got over 50 reviews, which is normally what I get in, like, two years? And they were not just left by kind friends, but also by strangers! Including people who don't commonly read Silm stuff!
So yeah. Triumph.
The best thing is that this year, I really got into a relaxed but efficient writing mode. Last year was sheer madness, and I started stuff left and right without aiming to (ever!) finish any of it; this year was a lot more laid-back and altogether healthier. With the result that once April came around, I was still ready to write (rather than, as is normal, just being glad that it was over for the time being), and indeed produced three more fics that I hadn't expected (Well, one of 'em is unfinished and will probably remain so for a while... Anyway!). I even got to a point where I wrote stuff and found it fit for publishing with only minimal editing! (Well, I'll probably re-read it in a couple of weeks and think AAARGH NO THIS IS TERRIBLE HOW COULD YOU PUT THAT ON THE INTERNET, but... oh well.)

Now I hope this mood lasts; I have, after all, various WiPs that beg for attention (one of which is soon going to be translated into Russian, apparently? I'M SO EXCITED!). And then there's the original (... for a given value of 'original') NaNo, the latter half of which I have to rewrite, and it's only half the story anyway.
So, there's still a lot to do, and (hopefully!!!) less computer time as the gardening season finally begins.
But for the time being? I'm feeling accomplished, actually proud of a couple of these stories (SHUT UP, INHERITANCE IS PERFECTION), appreciated, relaxed and productive.

Which is nice, for a change.
In conclusion: Triumph.

50,032 words.
So, I have finished NaNo.

That is, of course I haven't finished my novel. I have written 45 pages on How It Starts, which are mostly okay except for one really crappy episode, and then there's this huge middle part missing, and then there are 30 pages of Ultimate Plot-Twisting And What Happens Afterwards, which are total and utter crap.

The decent thing to do, and the thing to do if this is to be anything more than a little NaNo exercise guilty displeasure, would be deleting those 30 pages, and re-writing them in a less trite, boring and uneffective way.
The thing is, NOW I actually have an idea how that might work. Unfortunately, I did not have that idea 30 pages/10 days ago. I even suspect that I first had to find out that the original idea wasn't actually good before I could have the better (?) idea.

What I actually will do, of course, is
1) claim that NaNo victory. It's 50,032 bloody words long, and NaNo famously isn't about getting it right.
2) do nothing about this for a while. I'll just let it sit and steep, so to say. Well, I'll take some notes about the better (?) idea to do those 30 pages, so I don't forget it. But otherwise, hands off.
3) when I'm no longer tempted to throw up at the mere thought of this thing, I'll have another look. I'll see if the first 45 pages Except For That One Episode still look ok, and cut out the Bad Episode. I'll see if I know how to fill the middle by then. And then I'll see if the 30 offending pages are still offending. If so, I can delete and rewrite and see if the other idea actually is better or if I've just found another way how this novel isn't going to work, yay.
4)...
5)...
6) PROFIT?
Or not - whatever.

For now, I'm just glad this is over. And even though 30 pages of it are trite, boring, irrelevant and leading nowhere, at least I got them written first.

I feel like I finished a bloody marathon. No, honestly, this is physically exhausting. Oof. NEVER AGAIN. (quoth she, before signing up for NaNoWriMo 2013.)

March is almost upon us.
Because a lot of really important stuff is happening in March [3019 TA] in The Lord of the Rings, the Anglophone Tolkien fandom traditionally celebrates "Back to Middle-earth Month" in March. Because this is the year of The Hobbit, this year it's a Hobbit event.
Well, sort of. In reality, it's just based on the name of Bingo Baggins, who just might have invented Bingo (we all know that Bandobras Took invented Golf, after all ;)). So we're playing fandom Bingo.

So there are 75 numbers, 31 of which will be called.
As I went slightly overboard and claimed 16 cards, I actually have at least one prompt for every number, so whichever will be called, I'll have something to write every. single. day.
Oof.
I should be all panicky.
In order to be prepared a little better, I made a spreadsheet* on which I listed all prompts to a number, and sorted them according to which might go together, and noted down any story ideas that I got just from reading those prompts (the instant plotbunnies, so to say). There are several combinations that hit it off at once, which is great, and several which I think can be incorporated with my current WiPs, which is likewise great. Some, I think, can be combined with some effort. Of course, there are also prompts that give me no idea at all. Or inspiration may strike suddenly - who knows!

At any rate, I'm pretty excited.

Part of the excitement is that I've only recently started to write (creatively) again. I've already observed that for about half a year after the birth, I suddenly lacked an interest in books and reading -- anything but magazines (especially on parenting) and parenting guidebooks didn't motivate me at all. I think I managed to read two "real" (that is, fictional, with a story in it) books between August and December of 2011.
Likewise, I didn't have any inspiration to write. I signed up for the Season Of Writing Dangerously, and then didn't do more than start new chapters on three of my WiPs. I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and then stopped after 5000 words. I wrote a lot of reviews (in terms of "this is me we're talking about") for the MEFAs, so that's something, I guess. But the creative juices? All drained out of me, sucked away with the milk or something. Normally, I puzzle on WiPs or my mental comfort fanfic/film/whatever you wanna call it when I'm bored or lying in bed waiting for sleep to come. Even that didn't happen in those months. When lying in bed, I fell asleep right away anyway; when I was bored, the mind was pulling a blank.

By January, things finally began to shift. My body began to return to mostly normal (for instance, I got my period again, not that any of you wanted to know that), and so did the creativity-craving parts of my mind. I decided that I didn't need parenting guides anymore because every so often they just contradict each other anyway, and by now I'd surely read anything worth knowing somewhere. I read books with stories in them again.
And, after waking up one morning with the brilliant idea that the solution to the beginning of the third part of TTS, which I hadn't managed to continue for literally years, was simply to write it from someone else's point of view (yes, I know, that's about the oldest trick in the book. All you other writers are welcome to laugh at me) - and suddenly where there had been several aborted attempts at writing a new chapter, there were two finished chapters. After that, I actively stopped myself because much of what I was about to write will do nicely as responses to certain B2MeM prompts. Hum, hom...

I suppose it'll mess with my usual way of writing. Normally, when I work on a story, I write it chronologically (though I may add some stuff in the editing process, of course - but on the whole, I write from beginning to end). I don't write one scene here, one scene there, and then try to link them later. I don't write the ending first and then make my way backwards. I may make notes or an outline if I have an idea for something that lies ahead of where I am, but I don't turn those into proper prose until the rest of the story caught up.
However, many of the scenes that I have in mind for my WiPs that are perfect for some prompts happen at places I just haven't reached yet. So I'll write them now, and hope that some day they'll fit with the rest of the story once I've reached the right point. We'll see if that works out! (I may even share them, under a spoiler cut.)

So, in short, I'm really looking forward to this challenge, and hoping that I'll be able to participate and write a lot! Yes, even though it'll never make me money. [Well, probably. I'm still secretly (or now, no longer so secretly) toying with the idea of de-Númenorising TEA, just because I LIKE that one and genuinely believe it's good writing. Not that I don't do that for (some parts of) TTS - but it's impossible to de-Maedhros-ise that, and Maedhros, alas, very obviously belongs to Fingon Tolkien. Anyway, did I tell you how I recently re-read TEA? No, I didn't. So I recently re-read TEA, and when I'd finished reading Chapter 8, I hit the "NEXT" button, and then there was no NEXT chapter, and I was sad. And then I laughed at myself, because it was my own fault there's no Chapter 9, BECAUSE I'M THE AUTHOR DAMNIT. That's how much I believe in that story!) XD]
But I digress!

Anyway. Things are moving. March. Tomorrow.
(Maybe I'll be able to work with my bees again without beeing - whoops, typo, but I'm leaving it in because it's so punnily a propos - terrfied of them? WE WILL SEE.
SPRING IS COMING.)

- - -
*Yes, I'm taking it THAT seriously, why are you surprised?

Zum Thema: Schreiben! (Wahrscheinlich kommt später noch was Längeres, aber das dann Englisch und mit viel Zitiererei, jetzt geht's aber erst mal um eine Frage, die ich habe.)

(Naja, eigentlich mehrere Fragen.)

Einleitung:

Als "ihr" Schreiben gelernt habt - also nicht im Sinne von "So sieht ein i aus und so sieht ein o aus und jetzt schreibt ihr drei Reihen davon in euer Schreiblernheft", sondern im Sinne von "Mein schönstes Ferienerlebnis" - was wurde euch da zum Thema direkte Rede beigebracht? Um genauer zu sein, wie solltet ihr direkte Rede außerhalb der Rede kennzeichnen?

"Mir" - ich nehme an, den anderen meiner Generation zumindest in NRW genauso, ich wüsste gern, ob das deutschlandweit genauso aussah - wurde damals(TM) beigebracht, das Verb, das die direkte Rede einleitet (oder abschließt), möglich viel zu variieren. Dazu mussten wir sogar Übungen machen ("Schreibe fünf Sätze in wörtlicher Rede mit jeweils anderen Sprechverben", "Formuliere die folgenden Sätze um" und so weiter).

Also nicht:
Fine sagte: "Lass uns heute Nachmittag ins Kino gehen!"
"Au ja! Ich möchte gerne einen Abenteuerfilm sehen." sagte Toni.
"Mich würde aber ein Märchenfilm mehr interessieren." sagte Fine.
Toni sagte: "Nein, das ist langweilig!"
"Wir könnten auch ins Freibad gehen," sagte Ali. "Das Wetter ist so schön."

Sondern eher so etwas wie:
Fine schlug vor: "Lass uns heute Nachmittag ins Kino gehen!"
"Au ja! Ich möchte gerne einen Abenteuerfilm sehen." stimmte Toni zu.
"Mich würde aber ein Märchenfilm mehr interessieren." protestierte Fine.
Toni rief: "Nein, das ist langweilig!"
"Wir könnten auch ins Freibad gehen," sprach Ali. "Das Wetter ist so schön."

Bei letzterem sträuben sich mir heute die Nackenhaare (nicht nur wegen des "Jungs mögen Abenteuer, Mädchen mögen Märchen"-Klischees), aber das wurde uns in der zweiten, dritten und vierten Klasse wiederholt so antrainiert.

Wenn ich heute kreativ schreibe, tu ich das meistens auf Englisch (Bonus: Wusstet ihr, dass Ælfric of Eynsham seinerzeit "on Englisce gewrîtan", also "auf Englisch geschrieben" hat? Ich fand das sehr niedlich.). So ziemlich alle Tips für Schreiber, die in der englischen Literaturwelt herumschwirren, und davon gibt es viele, sagen klipp und klar: Variiere das Sprechverb nicht. Nimm "say" und sonst gar nichts.

Diese Regel halte ich persönlich für ebenso unsinnig wie die Hardcore-Variationsregel, die man uns in der Grundschule nahegelegt hat - wenn jemand fragt, dann soll er gefälligst fragen und nicht "sagen mit Fragezeichen"; wenn jemand ruft, schreit, stöhnt, zischt oder flüstert, dann darf man das auch schreiben. Muss. Denn in der Aussage selber lässt sich nicht erkennen, wie die Worte ausgesprochen werden (es sei denn, man nervt die Leser mit phonetischen Umschreibungen, was noch viel furchtbarer ist als variierte Sprechverben) und man darf ja auch nicht "sagte laut, sagte leise, sagte dringlich" schreiben, denn Adverbien sind ja sowieso und überhaupt des Teufels.

Aber vermutlich ist die Regel auch nur unpräzise formuliert und gilt eigentlich nur für Sprechakte, die eben tatsächlich einfach nur "gesagt" werden und nicht gefragt, gerufen oder geflüstert.

Egal! Was ich jedenfalls fragen wollte:

1. Habt ihr damals in der Schule auch gelernt, möglichst in einem Text (oder allermindestens in einem Absatz/ einer Konversation) möglichst viele unterschiedliche Verben für "sagen" zu benutzen und möglichst ein Verb allerhöchstens zweimal und dann mit großem Abstand zu verwenden?

2. Wie haltet ihr das heute (wenn ihr denn heute immer noch ab und an kreativ schreibt)?

3. Weiß jemand, wie das heute im Lehrplan aussieht? Müssen Grundschüler immer noch variieren wie blöde und sogar das unsägliche "sprach" (das fand ich schon damals furchtbar und habe es immer nur für die quasi ranghöchste Person verwendet, zu der das Förmliche, Würdevolle, das ich mit "sprach" verbunden habe, noch am ehesten passt, von wegen Die Mutter sprach: "..."; "...," sprach der Lehrer, Der König sprach: "...") zwingend einbauen? Oder ist man auch da mittlerweile bei einer "natürlicheren" Form angelangt (sofern denn niedergeschriebene wörtliche Rede überhaupt natürlich sein kann, aber das ist wieder ein anderes Thema)? Ich weiß, dass die Lehramtler auf meiner Flist alle Sek II machen, aber vielleicht wird das ja sogar da nochmal thematisiert.

Ok, doch länger geworden als geplant. Vielleicht kann ja trotzdem jemand was dazu sagen. Schreiben. Ihr wisst, was ich meine.

47,785 / 50,000 (95.6%)

Do you know what that means?
That means that I will finish the NaNo part of the story by tomorrow, or Wednesday at the latest.

In terms of the entire story, that doesn't mean much. From what I can see, I may finish 11 of the 36 plot points I jotted down beforehand while the month lasts. Leaves 25 unfinished. 25! If 11 of those plotpoints mean 50000 words, that means another 100000 words at least!

On the plus side, I managed to write two (so far) smutty scenes, and while they're kind of uncomfortable and probably not very exciting for the reader, they are a) justifiable and b) free of embarrassing euphemisms. The protagonist actually has a functioning bladder, too. He goes through hell, and things are going to get worse before they get better, but, well, it goes.

AND I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.

Even in the nasty bit before the end. In the 36 plot points I had jotted down, there was a big hole between "all is really bad OMG" and "the revolution wins and all seems well - until I come up with a sequel" that I did not know how to bridge. I am still far from reaching that point, but if I ever reach it, I WILL NOW KNOW HOW TO BRIDGE IT. Because I have found plot point 35b, so to say, which brings the whole thing full circle. And actually ties in with something I had played with when I started the story, and which then did not work and got discarded. Oh no, not discarded - just shelved for a more appropriate moment.
That means that whatever happens - however much I manage to write beyond the 50000 this month - I HAVE A COMPLETELY PLOTTED STORY THERE. I apologise for the overuse of capitals, but it cannot be helped. I HAVE A COMPLETELY PLOTTED more or less ORIGINAL STORY. Of, all things considered, 200,000 words when it's done. That's 280 pages in Word (single-spaced, Times New Roman 12pt).
That actually is a novel.
*flails*

Never had that happen to me before.

It will need a hell of a lot of editing, because this is NaNo, the month of circumlocution and sloppy wording. But it's a full story. A full original story. Of which I know the beginning, middle, end, and everything in between. And it's not as bad as it could be. I mean, Eragon and Twilight got published: After that, Impossible is nothing.

(Admittedly Eragon and Twilight don't have canonically gay sex or blatantly pansexual Elves in them. But still.)