Tag: Writing

Seahorse

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Work is finally turning around, my friends. I mean real work. Work-work. It’s one of three times a year that constitutes crunch time in the truest meaning of the term. Normally, it’s a black hole sucking abyss that is all consuming. A mad dash where I work as hard and as fast as I can for a week and a half and pray I make it out alive.

This time around is a little different, though. I was driving into work feeling pretty pleased with myself. I ran 7.5 miles this morning and I was working on some prewriting in my head when I remembered what I was actually driving myself too. The black hole does not allow time for things like writing on the side or you know, lunch. I went from super psyched to super pissed in about one second. But then I remembered that I could finally start training. It’s taken two months, but they’ve finally replaced my old position at work with somebody else. All this work that has to be done for this looming deadline? Yeah, that’s her worry now, not mine. OK. OK. She doesn’t know how to do any of it yet … So I get into work, ready to give up all of my free time and start working with her. We’re at it maybe 45 minutes when she says she has a handle on things and I should go do something else and check in later so she can practice. Fine by me.

Black hole averted.

I got back to my office and for the first time in a long time had nothing to do. Looks like I was getting in some writing after all.

I got to expand on a scene I started over the weekend. After placing both my protagonists in mortal peril, the next bullet point on my outline has them recovering with a side of exposition. I realized, though, that if I did it that way, it felt too much like an info dump. Instead, I spent a thousand words just on having one of them wake up and take a shower. It sounds dumb, but I think that after everything they’d been through – the reader included – that all parties involved needed time to breathe. We could build to the exposition later, but for right now, we all needed a hot shower to calm the eff down.

When people talk about the writing process, the concept of pacing will sometimes get brought up. It falls right in there with scenes and sequels, but it’s often a judgement call. You can plot it and plan for it, but sometimes it just makes sense. The funny thing is that I first started to grasp the need for pacing when I started writing comic books.

For years, that was all I wanted to do. I’d do anything to break into the comics industry. I remember showing my first full length script to a friend and a professional in the biz and after padding my ego, the first thing he said was that it needed at least one splash page. I thought those were just for the artists to show off or something, but he explained that no, it allows the story to breathe. Yes, they’re usually big, dramatic moments, but it’s really just a place to slow everything down for a minute and let the reader take it all in. They’re like a visual pause.

I’ve taken that advice to heart. It’s a little different to have a splash page in a novel. At this point, they usually fall under the wow category instead of the reflection one, but it was thinking about stories visually that helped me wrap my burgeoning writing brain around the concept of pacing in general. You can’t always be rush-rush-rush, hell, even Sonic stopped and had a chili dog every once in a while.

Over the weekend, my wife and I sat through an all day intensive baby basics course at the hospital. We got to meet some personnel and see what the rooms look like for the big day in a couple of months. It helped alleviate a lot of worry and put some more excitement in the hype tank. It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to them before, but now I’m really excited about it! We also sorted through some baby clothes people had loaned us.

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We have a lot. And that’s just for the boy.

And when we were at the hospital, there was one part of the class that had all of these physical activity stations. Most of which were places to practice hand and hip massages for when she’s in labor and has nothing to do but sit and wait through the pain. She got to relax for a change and I pushed and pulled on stuff I didn’t know could go those directions but I guess they helped reduce pressure somewhere. Go figure.

Oh and I got to try one of these on. She said she was getting tired so I told her I’d carry the babies for a while.

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A Chapter on Chapters

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Something that has troubled me as a writer for years now is the chapter. Well, more importantly the length of the chapter.

I’ve done a lot of sleuthing and reading about chapter construction, scene-sequel, story structure, the whole nine yards and even googled the question “how long is a chapter” to see what other people think. It’s not necessarily that I feel like I need to hit this magical target number. But for a while, I’d be going through my outline, writing along and get to what I consider to be a good scene break/intended chapter ending and when I got back and check the word count of the section, it only came out to a few thousand words.

To give you a little bit of backstory, I used to try and pad my chapter lengths if I felt they were too short by adding more description or extending dialogue. The reason I’m even writing about this is because I just ended a chapter today that would be the second short chapter in a row. It capped out at the 3k mark.

The concept of chapter length has been on my mind lately because the sequence I just finished writing was originally intended to be one chapter seen through the eyes of the primary protagonist. It wasn’t until I sat down to start it did I realize that it would carry a whole lot more weight if I did it through the eyes of the secondary protagonist. She was the outsider to this world and had recently lost someone so there was more emotional baggage to play with. This all sounded great until I remembered that the whole point of the sequence was to have them encounter this supernatural entity, she needs to be knocked unconscious and he needs to drive the creature off to set up stuff for the future.

Ending the chapter with her going unconscious was a little Deux ex Machina for me. It would have the nice cliff hanger ending, but then she’d wake up and the other dude would have miraculously saved her. Option two would be to have her go out and then the next chapter would be showing how he saved her. The only problem with that route is it would make her chapter longer and make his even shorter. I ended up finding a happy medium where her chapter is the rest-let’s-collect-ourselves sequel from the previous scene. It ends with dread and the creature’s arrival and then the following chapter is the new action scene of the guy dealing with it.

So what does all of this have to do with chapter length? Most of the reading I’ve done on the subject says something like, “Don’t worry about length. A chapter will be as long as it needs to be.” Well, what the hell does that mean?

I’ve done a lot of self exploration and I’ve come to a few conclusions over the years. Many of these only actually solidified today. A lot of it is probably the concept of scene-sequel finally clicking in my head. Chapter endings sound great on paper but when it comes to the writing aspect, it’s not even what you’re writing, it’s why.

This isn’t a comic book or even a movie. You can’t just cut away to a snapshot of something foreboding or action packed that’s happening out there. You can show events, but they’re just that, events. There’s a beginning, middle and end to every chapter. The beginnings and endings of the scene can be played with for pacing, but just write about the event you need to write about.

If you’re too focused on getting from point A to point B then your problem isn’t your chapter length, it’s your prose. You’re not fleshing out the scene. You’re not making it real. You’re writing events because the plot told you to do so but there’s no emotion. There’s no story. At the end of the day, it’s how well you tell your story that’ll be what makes or breaks your book.

I’m using “you” to make this something of a helpful post, but you can pretty much replace each one these with I. I was focusing more on making sure I hit all the right beats then I was on the function of the stuff in general. I’ll have to go back and play with some of the earlier chapters now, but I’m pretty sure I know what to do to fix a lot of pacing issues I already know are there.

I’m not so worried about chapter length anymore and I know this book is going to be stronger because of it.

It’s the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

On By Dan MelnickIn Day Job, Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I got some pretty solid writing in today. I’m happy with the results. It almost didn’t happen too. Well, I had the time for once … but I was driving and brainstorming my prewriting stuff like I usually do and it was just pouring out of me. My muse or whatever was riding shotgun grinning the whole time as some great stuff came bubbling out  while I was talking to myself. I typically use my phone for quick notes, the voice to text equivalent of a jot down but this was the real deal. I showed up to the test in my underwear. Looking to my muse, helpless, all I got in return was “It sucks to suck.” Thanks. Now you show up.

I raced to work and by work, more accurately, I mean a computer. I knew exactly where I wanted to start and then … it was pulling teeth. I had seen the promise land, but the doors were shut. Knowing that I’d done better off the cuff … in my car, made everything I wrote feel stilted and junky. Well, the hell with that. If the promised land slammed it’s doors shut, I’d rip ’em the hell open!

I soldiered on, gradually finding my pace and rhythm and then another funny thing happened. Whole sections just popped in there. Like Ray Stanz, they just popped in there. It must have been what every writing instructor ever has ever said about “developing your voice.” Normally, I write how I write and don’t try and alter it in any way. I mean, I want it to sound good and be creative and whatnot, but the words that came pouring out of me belonged to some other guy this morning. And I gotta say, I like that guy. I hope he comes back. I’ll be waiting around in the trees for him. Plenty of bananas to spare.

So today went great. Monday and Wednesday, though, they were a wash. Too much job-work got in the way and after 10 hour days of something else, my brain wasn’t exactly up for any more thinking. Before the muse played its little trick on me – I’m going with it. I know the muses were female in myth, but who am I to judge where my inspiration comes from. – I was thinking about two days gone when I could have been writing and it got me thinking about where the expression “That’s a wash” comes from. What’s being washed? I’m sure I could Google it and find out in a manner of seconds because we live in the 21st century, but where’s the fun in that? I’ve always been fascinated why we say and do the things we do. Like how in every post-apocalyptic setting there’s something they do because Reasons but really it’s just a misconstrued holdover from a previous era. I live for that shit!

Thinking about the wash expression and why we say it reminded me of my dad and his own idiosyncrasies. For as long as I can remember, he’s always used the expression, “six one half does the other.” Just like that. I intuited that it meant two choices being the same thing. I remember asking repeatedly what it means anyway in the hope that he’d explain it better, but he pretty much just reiterated what I already knew. Only years later – and I’m talking maybe high school or even college – did I come across the expression “six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

Suddenly it all made sense. He knew what he was talking about. He was just lazy. Don’t even get me started on his usage of “Murphy’s law.” So here’s an expression that had meaning to him and he wasn’t even saying it correctly. Didn’t matter though. Signifier and signs my friends.

And just as quickly as all of this came to mind on my drive in, I began thinking about my writing for the day and my muse appeared. I shoved all of the intellectual stuff aside to make headroom for the creative stuff. I may not have the most robust vocabulary or even be a good speller – spoiler alert: I suck at spelling – but I do love language. The entire concept is simply fascinating.

There’s Still A Little Bit of Wick Left …

On By Dan MelnickIn Day Job, PersonalLeave a comment

My eyes feel like they’re about to melt into a goopy mess and dribble out of their sockets as I type this. I spent most of the day going over spreadsheets and data and verifying said data and inputting new data and putting a lot of X’s in a lot of boxes. That’s not typically something I do, so I’m definitely feeling some Excel Fatigue (is that a thing?) right now.

Speaking of fatigue, it ended up working out yesterday that I had two long overdue doctor’s appointment back to back. Somehow, fate was on my side for once and I was able to schedule the optometrist and the dentist on the same afternoon. It had been 2(?) years since my last eye exam and at least a year since my last dental check up. I was convinced that after so much time, this recent brow-furrowing and eye strain was just as much a precursor to something wicked this way comes as those shadow spots between my molars they are supposedly “watching.”

So imagine my surprise when the optometrist tells me my eyes basically haven’t changed. I could use a new pair of glasses though, as my current ones look pretty “beat up.” The dentist, who was sure to deliver a hammer blow of bad news, told me that nothing’s changed. Keep on flossing, brushing and rinsing and they’ll x-ray everything next time. If they’re not worried, I’m not worried. Good to know that my aches and pains are self inflicted war wounds of my hectic life rather than something more sinister. I am not, in fact, falling apart. Although after their dilation yesterday and LED retinal flaring today, I think my eyes are ready for little rest.

Oh man, that makes me want to watch Daredevil. Guys, the episode ended with him getting caught by the cops. The cops!

I also found out that there’s a light at the end of my work tunnel as, supposedly, a replacement for my old position is to be hired by next week. I’ll believe it when I see it, but just the thought of it … well, I thought it would be squeal-inducing, but I think I may just break down and sob tears of relief. If I do, I’ll get a picture …

But all of this has somehow made me motivated to really tear into my current novel. I’m maybe 20-25% in and there’s a lot left to cover, but I’m ready to kick it up a notch. This double-job business has put me back long enough. Too long. It might have been worth it if they’d been paying me double salaries, but alas. So I’m ready to devote as much of myself to my own endeavors as I can. Lately that hasn’t been a lot, but I’m so frustrated with work-work that the idea of coming home to continue my own work actually sounds appealing. I’ve been jotting some snippets and the start of threads down so I can hit the keys running as soon as I have a quiet minute to myself. This novel HAS to be finished before August. After then I won’t have a quiet minute for a long, long, loooooooong time.

Or so I’m told.

One-Two Punch

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I mentioned on Wednesday about hoping to see the critters come climbing out of the trees – I don’t know if they are in fact monkeys. Maybe ethereal monkeys? We can work this out later – and boy did I need them yesterday. So my writing routine was interrupted per usual. At this point, is it really a routine anymore if I barely follow the same schedule two days in a row? Put that on the agenda for next meeting too while you’re at it … Anyway, I had just finished one project and was looking down the barrel of another one coming my way later that afternoon. I had about 45 minutes to myself. It was going to happen then or it wasn’t going to happen at all. I didn’t have the luxury of inspiration or warmup or any kind of prewriting. I jumped in with the sharks.

I have to say, I think it went pretty well. Cranked out about 700 words. It’s true that once the critters start showing themselves, they like to hang around if you keep coming back to them. I hit a bullet point on my outline and advanced the scene in a satisfactory way. I’m pleased with the results. In times past I most likely would have just dicked around those 45 minutes and chalked yesterday up as a wash, figuring I’d make it up to myself by writing again on Friday. Just like I don’t like working out too late in the day, I really don’t like writing the more the day drags on. I get distracted and tired and it’s like pulling teeth to put words down. But yesterday I wouldn’t give myself the luxury of an out. You can’t always have the opportunity to write when you want to. Sometimes the job needs to be done whether you like it or not.

The other highlight of yesterday is that I hooked up our Apple TV. With the babies coming, we keep talking about cancelling cable to save whatever money we can. It’s a pretty scary concept as cable has become quite the safety blanket in our lives. However, last night I finally experienced the majesty of Apple TV. Yes, we’ve streamed Netflix and Hulu and all sorts of things from a laptop to the TV, but never has it been so seamless! It was probably because there wasn’t a bunch of other programs vying for RAM space, but man, it was like watching whatever show we wanted at the touch of a button. It was hard to stop consuming media.

I finally got around to watching the first episode of the Daredevil series and I’m already in love with it. The chemistry between Matt and Foggy is perfect, the show’s choices are smart and edgy, and it’s even shot and framed in a particular cinematic experience that just oozes style. It makes me miss my old Daredevil trades. (They were a casualty when I moved and had to pare down my comic book collection.) This show scratches so many itches for me, I don’t think I could have made a better version if they’d given me complete creative control and an unlimited budget. Granted, I’m only an episode in, but having read comic books since I was 12 years old, this fills a void in my life that so many mainstream books no longer seem to hit. I’ll write a post about this soon as comics have been – and still are, I guess – such a large part of my life growing up. But for now, I want to end on a good note.

Consistent writing? Check.

New source of TV? Check

Work done for the week (for the most part)? Check

I think its time for more Daredevil, don’t you?

I Come Offering Bananas

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

It’s been no secret that I’ve had a lot of factors vying for my attention recently. My wife’s too. I actually just texted her “hello” as I realized I hadn’t heard from her in hours – we lightly keep in tough throughout the day – and she responded that she’s “Having a baby shower, actually.” At work. Well, that beats my day …

Actually, I’m pretty pleased with how life is going today. That’s because I’m finally getting back into a groove with my latest novel. Nothing is more annoying than a writer talking about how s/he can’t write. This isn’t that, it’s more validation that the Jane Goodall method is a thing. I’ve mentioned it in a previous post and it’s fast becoming how I view writing.

It’s weird because throughout the day, I’m typically thinking about the part I just wrote, what the scene needs in the immediate future and where the scene will eventually end up, among other things book related that come to mind. It’s not uncommon for a snippet of dialogue or a line of description to just pop into my head involving something much, much later. I jot those down and incorporate them into my outline. Anyway, I bring this up, because lately, this thinking-prewriting method just isn’t cutting it. I’m squeezing the mental fruit, but I’m not getting any juice. It’s not writer’s block, it’s more like I don’t really know what’s happening and then I sit down and I’m a discovery writer all of a sudden. The good news is that the more I’m doing it, the more the scene is starting to form in my head again so I can return to form. It’s a strange wall of sorts for me because I’m really not much of a discovery writer. I can admit that now. High School Dan, though, he was ONLY a discovery writer. He not only laughed at outlines, he openly lashed out against them. Now? I can’t get anything done without an outline. And this novel in particular has the strongest outline I’ve ever made. I have story structure beats built right into it this time so hopefully that’ll cut a little bit off of the editing process.

I’ve also switched up the music I’ve been listening too. Well, the music has evolved is probably a better descriptor. I don’t necessarily write to a specific “soundtrack,” but since a lot of my writing is done at work or in a public place, I need to listen to music to cut out the surrounding noise. I can’t concentrate otherwise. Because of that, I also can’t listen to anything that has vocals. That’s just as distracting as someone talking into my ear. Sometimes more so.

My first two novels were written to a movie soundtrack station on Pandora – stopping of course every time anything from Jurassic Park came on – and by my third book I had discovered music on YouTube and listened to just about anything that had the word “Epic” in the title. I think I’ve cleaned most of those channels out by now and I was writing sort of a party scene at night for this fourth book and needed some ambient beats to get me in the mood. I started listening to some kind of ambient/trance stuff and it just stuck. Who knows? Maybe this has become the “soundtrack” to this one, but now when I start writing it’s not that I can’t work without these psychedelic jams, it’s that I’m bored of the previous material and for whatever reason this is doing it for me. Hey, whatever works right?

I’m starting to see the critters coming out of the trees again and boy have I missed them. I’m pretty psyched to see what they show me next.

The Perfect Cherry Blossom

On By Dan MelnickIn Food, PersonalLeave a comment

Night number two on my own proved to be as soul-restorative as the first. I started off with some obligatory Hearthstone of course. I knocked out the third wing of Black Rock Mountain pretty easily (saving Heroic mode for something to do later) and finished up the second half of my sole daily quest. My mecha paladin deck self-explanatorily titled Gears of Justice is becoming one of my favorite decks to play. It was fun. The adventure definitely helped add some whimsy – I love reading the new boss’ hero powers for the first time (I stay away from spoilers), but after my arena marathon the other night, I was kind of Hearthstoned out.

Dinner was sushi from the grocery store.

That’s something I thought I’d never utter before, but our Kroger here is enormous. Gargantuan. So big, it could serve as disaster relief for the community in case of emergency. It recently underwent some impressive modifications which added a whole host of food options for dining, not just shopping. We also have a large Asian population in Bloomington. I don’t mean that to sound weird in any way. This is a college town with a direct line to China through our music program. Put it this way, not only is there sushi in the grocery store, there’s a sushi bar in the grocery store. It has a conveyer belt and everything!

Since the wife can’t eat sushi being pregnant and all, I picked up a couple of rolls and something called squid salad. I just had to try it and let me tell you, squid salad is delicious. That’s a second thing I thought I’d never say. I couldn’t find a matching recipe online, but it was strips of calamari, red peppers, ginger, seaweed and mushrooms in a spicy sauce.

Whether it was the sushi or a chicken and egg scenario, but I ended up drinking some scotch and watching The Last Samurai while I fiddled with some Magic cards. That’s another movie I really like. It’s a little – OK a lot – heavy on the romanticism side when it comes to foreign culture, but the scenery is gorgeous. Even half paying attention as I restructured my werewolf deck, I picked up on things I hadn’t noticed over my dozen viewings before. Maybe I did, but I don’t think I really got it, you know? I’m talking about Captain Algren’s desire to become samurai. In an epic steeped in romantic nostalgia like this, of course it sounds awesome to be samurai, but I guess I never truly understood (or had to reremember) just how much Algren hated himself for what he’d done to the Native Americans. He transposes his thoughts and feelings of one indigenous culture fighting modernity onto another in a similar situation.

The rest of you are probably like, “Duh!” But something about it really struck me this time. It’s probably because of my own writing, but I look for meaning and motivation behind actions more than ever before. Also, what happens to Billy Connolly’s character? It’s possible the guy bit it during the initial battle and I just missed it. I was wrangling my werewolf deck under control. It’s still not where I need it to be, but it’s heading in the right direction. The werewolf transformation mechanic is such a cool idea, but its really hard to pull off and be competitive in a timely fashion.

So collectible cards and movies … yep, sounds like my kind of night.

Maintenance for my site is slow going. I’ve been trying to flesh out little bits here and there to add more content.

Side note: I hate it when writers use “here and there.” I mean I get it. It’s a haphazard smattering of something, but you can just say that. I understand the intention, but it always comes off as lazy writing to me. Similarly, I hate “24/7”. Why can’t you just say, “all the time”? “24/7” is five syllables and “all the time” is three. Even though the first is an abbreviation, it’s literally longer to say than summarizing it, but I digress …

I’ve done a little work on the Comics section and uploaded the first 10 issues of my old webcomic NOD: The Animated Series. Once I took the old site down, those issues only lived on my home computer, but I wanted to put them somewhere where they could actually be seen! It’s too many to simply dump on the page so while I’m exploring options of a scrolling or viewing widget, hopefully you can whet your appetite on the first 10.

Birthing Pains

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Welcome to my first official blog post!

I’ve been toying with the idea of running my “official” writer’s site for a while now and letting a few ideas roll around before I actually landed on anything. With three novels under my belt – arguably, I think that only one of them is any good – and being a quarter of the way through number four, I decided it was finally time (maybe past time) to pull this proverbial trigger. And on my actual birthday no less!

Part of what had been tripping me up for so long is that I couldn’t land on a single idea for a blog. I don’t feel confident giving other people writing advice on a continual basis as I’m just as likely to abuse the comma (used to use it like a Band-Aid) than anyone else. I also over think my tweets and have never been good at Facebook posts, so the thought of a published journal of my day to day life didn’t sound compelling to me either. So that left some of my other interests: Comic books, book books and video games. I like all of them, but I’m rarely an authority anymore as most of my time has been spent getting our lives ready for the birth of our first children: Twins! Wait, that’s ANOTHER thing I could write about! See where I’m going with this?

So instead of focusing on just one thing, you’re going to get it all. One day it might be a plot issue I’m tackling, the next it’ll be about a half marathon I ran. Oh, and I’m putting new tile in my kitchen floor in a couple weeks. You’ll definitely be hearing about that one. Whether you’re here with me at the beginning – which might only be my mom and my wife. Hi guys! – or if you’re reading from the future, consider this a manifesto of sorts.

For years I’d always – still do, actually – wanted to be a comic book writer. I spent a long time wrangling other people into drawing my dreams. It finally hit me that I didn’t always need another person to translate the images in my head. I love telling stories and I love crafting them. Why can’t I do both? Thus, I wrote my first novel, A Binder’s Oath. Needless to say it’s sitting safely in a digital trunk right now. I’ll probably pick its corpse like a carrion bird for a few good ideas later, but I’m not thrilled with it enough to fix it into a real boy. Working full time at Indiana University only leaves me with so much extra time to write, so time management is incredibly important. And once those babies are born you better believe that it’s going to become even more so. Anyway, I say all of this to illustrate a point. I’m so happy I wrote that book because it taught me so much about the novel writing process, but more than anything it showed me that I’m a novelist at heart. Even if nothing I write ever gets published, I’m not going to stop. I’ll crank these suckers out. My pace is about one a year right now. I hear that’s not too shabby.

At this point, you might be thinking, “What does this have to do with a blog?” That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked.

Stories. I come from a family of born story tellers and I’ve been fascinated with the concept of stories for as long as I can remember. I’m becoming more confident thinking of myself as a writer, but I’m definitely new to the writing community. I’ve done a lot of lurking and not so much posting and I don’t meet with a writer’s group. Although, I would definitely like to. Anyone in Indiana? So I have some tips and advice, sure, but more than that, I have stories that I want to share. I think they’re interesting, hopefully you will too.