Dealing with sociopathy

While working on my new version of Double Edged Sword (I really need a new title for that) I realized that one of my main characters is a sociopath.

I've always known he was unrepentantly "evil", but as I've written him, and researched, I've discovered it's a bit more than that. He's not so much evil as... practical. He does what he must, and doesn't fret over guilt or self-flagellation.

In short: A sociopath.

This provides interesting opportunities. I recently came upon the blog for a diagnosed sociopath who often talks about love, and sociopathy. She says that while it's commonly thought that sociopaths can't love, in fact, they can. The intensity she describes is what I think is going on with my MMC; he is consumed by it. To the point of obsession.

So I'm going to continue to research this line of reasoning, and see where it leads me. It's certainly  already providing interesting insights. And a more nuanced character who isn't so blunt-force trauma.

I'm really enjoying my rewrite; it's slow going, but I'm letting myself take my time and think. The result is already feeling more polished. I swear, reading back over the original, there were so many colloquialisms and such that it was painful.

I may even hit my camp word count goal for the first time!

So what to work on now

Now that I have (gratefully) taken my post-NaNo break, I'm ready to start writing again; however, this is the first time in many a year I desire to write with a purpose. You see, I posted a list the Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary things forum, and on this list involves two primary goals:

Completing my 2009 novel, and completing my 2008 novel. I'd like to complete the 2008 novel for CreateSpace's free proof offer for NaNo winners. I've missed this offer (or the similar one from Lulu) every year, and dangit, I want this book in my hands, even if not published yet, for sheer vanity's sake.

Now, I'm struggling with the desire to finish my2007 novel, Heaven's Bounty. It's such a GOOD story, and now I've finally figured out where I want to go with it, after letting it sit for a year or two.

This is why I'm not a published author yet. It has nothing to do with the quality of my work; I'm convinced that my prose is as good or better than anything you'll see in Barnes and Noble. It's the fact that I don't finish novels, and therefore am unable to submit them for consideration.

So that's my goal for the coming year: to complete a minimum of one manuscript, and polish it well enough for submission to agents.

Not a publisher, mind you; Like Editorial Ass, I believe firmly in the power of agents to help authors in more ways than just finding a good editor.

But to do this, I have to not only finish a novel, but polish it well enough to put through my critique group, and then polish is MORE into perfection.

But now my dilemma is I have multiple novels that I want to work on. I'm going to finish them all, but in what order?

What I have:

1) My first love, my original. The Story that Had to be Written. I'm currently working on handwriting the second draft, which I'll then transcribe into the computer. This is the one I'd like to have for the CreateSpace offer.

2) The sequel to the previous one; I know, I know. In all fairness, I HAVE finished the first one, when I was 15 or 16... I know how the first one ends.

3) This year's. This one is the one about the widow who ends up as a Queen, and then has to take her husband's assassinated soul, memory, and skills and avenge his death and take back his kingdom. It's FUN, but it's lying fallow again, victim of 50k disease. Mortos Rex.

4) 2007's novel, Heaven's Bounty. It's a sci-fi piece about a winged bounty hunter who is captured, wing-clipped, and raped (dark stuff) and set free by her friends, then seeks to find the source of her deceased captor's freakish shapeshifting powers, powers her love also seems to possess. This one is so much fun, and the voices for all those characters have started up in my head.

5) Of course, Double Edged Sword, though a good chunk of it has gone missing. That's a hard one to write though, and when I get back to it, it's going to be like pulling teeth. Good story, just delicate work.

I dunno. I'm going to work on them all... but which first? My bones tell me I need to finish this year's novel FIRST. It's what's most recent in my mind, and dammit, it would be nice to finish a NaNo novel the same year I started it.

But Heaven is calling...

Feeling like writing

Yesterday I did some editing on DES, so I'm going to continue the trend today... maybe even work a little more on the story itself. I seem to have misplaced a large portion of the novel (it's probably on my other laptop, the untrustworthy dinosaur) so I may continue it without reading beyond what I have so far.

I'm really liking Liquid Story Binder, and I'm about to go hunting for some pictures of my characters. Maybe Whelan, or my friend Lindsay's stock photo gallery. I'll have to poke around.

Another roadblock on the road to authorship

And it's called Final Fantasy XII. Ouch. I promise, I'll get back to writing soon! Heck, I have to finish my NaNo, because the deadline on the Lulu free copy thing is in January sometime. I haven't given up on my blog, dear readers, and now that the Christmas madness is done, and my repetitive stress injury has healed, I'm planning on getting back on track January 1. Maybe 2, depending on the hangover.

My New Year's resolution: to complete a novel and get it submitted. I'm not sure which one it will be; I think that Double Edged Sword may need a lot more work before it's ready for the polishing stage (a LOT more work) while the previous project I worked on is starting to tickle me. It is completed, but needs some serious reworking. The majority of it was written in NaNo 2002, and later finished. It's a story that I've liked for a while, and may be a little cliche in places (has the dreaded Obvious Romance that I hate so much), but the characters are very vivid, and it's a little less difficult a deal than DES is. It also has a shitty working title, Shadowhawk's Fire, which will be changed.

The more I think about it, the more I think I want to work with that. I just need to dig up the old disks. They do say that you should set a work aside for a while before editing it. Is four years enough? I need to label all of these posts before

Take that, Sean. ;)

A short hiatus

I've been laboring under a short hiatus, but I don't want you guys to think I've abandoned my blog now that I've finished NaNo officially! Actually, I have about two weeks left in my school quarter, and I'm badly behind in one of my classes, so I'm going to work very hard on getting caught up there, and once I do, I return to writing in earnest. I have been writing here or there, and thinking about my plot, so my novel hasn't fallen by the wayside.

I'm thinking my original group dynamic (the priest and the convict alone) just plain isn't working. There's just not enough to go on about between the two of them throughout. I think it would work a lot better with a third character there from the start, perhaps another male, sent by the church to guard the priest. He would be the voice of reason, and give an extra layer to the Caedas's task of corruption, and make it all the more poignant when the priest falls. HEck, I could even make him madly in love with Salissa, and her naturally ignore him or not notice. That way, it gives my future ficcers some "ships" to work with, and a little more conflict to drive the story along!

I don't know. I'll finish the novel as-is and work on those changes in the re-write.

I will be joining a critique group in March (we're giving ourselves a few months to polish our novels) that is run by one of my wrimos, and which I am blissfully NOT in charge of.

I am also thinking of doing another NaNo perhaps in January or February. We'll see.

Bogged down in real life

I've managed to get a couple thousand over the 50k mark, but I've noticed another barrier. Like the week two barrier, the 50k barrier is hard to push past. You've done it, you're at 50k, and your brain keeps asking, "Why the hell are you still going, exactly?"

Add that to the insanity of getting my house ready for my daughter's first birthday party yesterday, and it hasn't been a good week for writing.

I have some classwork that I neglected over the last week or so in my mad rush to hit 50k, so I'm going to catch up on that (having a completed manuscript is worthless if I fail my classes!) and then spend the next week writing again. Have no fear, my faithful readers (I think I'm up to four now!) I shall continue slogging on. I'm just taking a break to let my wrist heal, and my brain recover from the brain dump.

Not with a bang, but a whimper

Okay, not really. How about a hoot, a holler, and a yell?

The book itself isn't done (not by a longshot) but I'm officially at 50k... which means I can slow my butt DOWN and take it easy. :)

That beats my current record by two days.

I still like my old story better, but I'm still happy with this one.

Home stretch

Just a little under 4k to go. I had a great writing session yesterday, although I forgot to enter my count before midnight, so it's all going under today's. Ah well, it'll look really good. :)

I just did a quick test run on my word count, here's the current numbers:

RoughDraft: 46416 (.rtf)
Word: 46438 (.doc)
NaNoWriMo Robots: 46420 (.txt)

I do most of my writing on my laptop in Roughdraft using separate files for each chapter, then open it up in Word to combine into one document under the .doc format. Then, I saved as text to upload using the test verifier at NaNoWriMo. I think they changed the word counters since last year, since it used to give a higher count than Word does.

At any rate, I don't have far to go. According to the official count, I need 3580.

I think I can do that today. :)

Storywise, I'm only about halfway through, so we've still got a LONG way to go there. I'll probabyl be writing all month, even though I'll probably hit the 50k mark tonight. I probably would have finished sooner, but I decided to give my poor wrists a break, and only wrote a couple thousand the last couple of days.

And unless misoccurs can whip out 20k in the next few hours... I'm gonna beat her socks off. :)

Not my best day

Since I'm suffering from an unpleasant case of RSI, I haven't been able to get much writing done today. I've churned out about 600 words, but considering my previous rate, that's just plain pitiful. My NaNoWriMo progress report isn't helping, either, since it's tell me I should be done by the end of the day. Paul really needs to check his equations for that thing, because they are really, really off. Based on my current pace, it's telling me I should write over 10k today.

I'm good, but even on my best day this month I haven't broken 8k. I don't know where it's getting those numbers.

Anyway, I'm taking it easy, and just typing a little. I need to get back to it, but I'm going to try and hit the minimum 1,667 for the day (if I don't, I won't be upset) just to keep on track. I am, however, going to attempt to finish by this weekend. I may not be able to, depending on how long my schoolwork takes, but I'm going to try. If I do, that will set a new record. My current record for finishing NaNo is 14 days, and that was the first year. I will then continue until the entire first draft is finished.

Hang in there, my fellow wrimos. Week two is always the hardest. Keep chugging along, and it'll get better in week three, I promise.

Repetitive Stress Injury

I'm paying for my speed and high word count.

Last night, when I went to bed, my wrist and hand were killing me. At first, I thought it was my old nemesis, arthritis, poking me because of the downturn in temperature, but the pain was different, and seemed to be radiating up along the tendon.

Dammit.

I smell carpal tunnel.

I spent something close to six or seven hours at the keyboard yesterday, so I'm honestly not surprised.

The good news is, I'm in the home stretch. 38500, just 15k to go. The story sagged a bit, but I finally got over the hump, added a new character to the dynamic duo's group (an old wizard who can't cast spells anymore), and pushed them a few steps closer to the artifact. I got to introduce a cool new mount, getting rid of their horse in favor of this neat little cat thing that's native to Dirge. I did discover that in spite of my plans to make Caedas short and Salissa tall, they've apparently switched, because now Caedas likes to tower. Dammit. I was trying to avoid that. Oh well, characters really don't listen sometimes. I'm going to let them do what they want.

My goal for this month is to actually finish the first draft, not just hit 50k. I want an editable work for December, something to start flogging into a publishable state. And if I finish early, then I'm going to keep writing. Not sure on what, but I want to write the full 30 days.

Is it really only day 7?

I've spent most of today immersed in my novel... which is sad, considering that I only managed a little over 5000 words. I can definitely feel the drag. I'm still loving the story, but I'm starting to lose my focus. I feel like I'm just plugging in these random challenges that are really serving no purpose but to boost word count. When things feel like that, it's time to take a break. My original goal for the day was 10k, but my brain just isn't letting me. I think it's time for me to rest. Considering my grand total is 32,120, it should be okay.

After all, it is the seventh day! You're supposed to rest. Even GOD needed a rest day after seven full days of hard work, right?

I knew that writing Caedas was going to be hard. He's turning out to be a little more mushy than I had originally planned, and a little more of a badass, but I think that's okay. He's still not going to go good. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how exactly he's going to push the Priest to her limits. Right now, all he's managed to do is insult her inability to think for herself. It's a start, but I'm not sure where to go from there.

How exactly does one go about tearing down a righteous person?

It's something I need to mull over. I do have schoolwork that needs doing before the weekend comes.

I can't sit on my laurels too long, though, because my nemesis is only 10k behind me, and all she needs is a good solid day or two, and she'll catch up if I'm not careful.

I think part of my problem is my husband's extended time at home this week. He's not bothering me, but something about having others around always kinda stifles me. I need alone-ness. I think I may wander off to a coffee shop to write tomorrow afternoon. I think that will get the juices flowing.

Over 20k!

I've topped the 20k mark. Wow, it has come quickly! I've been trying to keep up the huge amount of words momentum, but today the lack of sleep I've had for the last few days (un-NaNo related) kinda caught up with me, so I took a long nap today.

I got a few hundred words out of a new kitten who has joined us. He was rescued from a local BBQ restaurant (not for food! He just snuck into the pit ;) ) by a friend of mine, who sent him over to us. I'm trying to get in touch with a local rescue organization, because I can't manage another cat right now.

However, he has officially made a cameo appearance in my novel! He was licking himself clean after a bath, and went straight for a patch of sunlight in the living room, so I decided to include it in the form of a chlidhood memory from my main character.

I'm actually pushing things along pretty quickly, because they have so far to go, and the only conflict they've had is the back and forth arguing. I want them to start encountering some REAL obstacles, and soon-like. Once the cross the barrier into Dirge, things will start getting interesting. I'm probably going to time warp it a bit, or at least fast forward, to get them there much quicker.

Momentum slowing

I'm up to 14k now. My target is still 20k for the night, but things are slowing substantially, so I'm not sure if I'll make it by midnight. Possibly by the time I go to bed, which would put the word count total over on tomorrow's count.

I'm at a slow part in the book (the annoying ass traveling scenes) that I need to get through to get to the good stuff. I've been trying to keep things strictly in the priest's perspective, but I'm thinking I might do some from the convict's perspective just to spice things up. I've been developing her pretty well, now I think he needs some time in the limelight.

She just left him alone with some beer in a tavern while she went up to their (she doesn't know she's sharing it, just yet) room to sleep. I'm toying with the idea of having an old acquaintance step up, cause a fight, that sort of thing. He's been entirely too civil and intelligent so far. He needs to do something dumb. Maybe leave a body lying around somewhere out of the way.

Off to a great start

I've broken the 10k mark (10218), and I don't hate my story! I haven't even had the first drop of coffee yet, either.

Getting up for frequent breaks seems to really help. I get up, I do some laundry, I fiddle with my MP3 player, I sit down, and write some more.

I do need to work on some school work, before that falls behind. My goal for the day is 12k, then I'll take a break.

God, I hope I can keep up this momentum. I'm sure I'll flag a little after week one, but I want a damn good start before I do.

First day: off to a good start

I'm going at a steady clip. I wrote about 1200 words or so at midnight last night. I didn't want to stay up all night, and NAthan had crashed on me, so I stopped there, figuring that was pretty good.

So, this morning, I woke up to find missoccurs had gotten ahead of me by around 4k. :) I took it as a personal challenge, and over the course of the day (getting some laundry done, sweeping, and frequent breaks) I wrote like a fiend. Nathan made me stop, because I was going cross-eyed.

The good news, I'm four days ahead of schedule with a grand total of 7400 words. The story is already going well, and the main character is developing nicely. It's verbose as hell, and lots of info dumping is going on, but hell with it. Info dumping = word count. :)

So, here's to hoping I do as well tomorrow! I haven't even gotten to the exciting stuff yet, so this is a good sign.

It is about to begin

At midnight tonight, the frantic noveling fury begins. How do I feel about it, after sitting on this idea for nearly three weeks? (Or is it two? I'm too lazy to count.) Confident. Calm. Normally, I'm an absolute bouncing, hyperactive nutjob. This year, though, I've got almost zen-like confidence. It's not a matter if, it's when. I've been challenged by my wrimos, I've challenged myself. Failure is not an option; I've entered a word count challenge with an expatriate wrimo of mine from a couple of years ago who now lives in Japan. I'm determined to beat her. I'm confident I will.

If the image here isn't loading, the NaNo servers are probably overloaded. They usually are on October 31st and November 1st. In fact, they usually crash completely.

For the curious, I've included an active participant icon on the right side of the page, with a link to my progress report. See how well I do. :) I'm generally a writing machine, when I put my mind to it, so feel free to cheer on my progress... or mock the lack of it, if my boasts prove to be in vain.

I've given the idea time to simmer and gel, I've done just the right about of pre-planning. I've worked out a few kinks, but I've also given it enough room to expand on, so that I'm not being too strict with myself. I love my idea, I love my characters... in short, I'm ready for this.

If you're lucky, I might post a small excerpt or two for you to read. In the mean time, good luck to all who are participating in the competition this year, and may the words flow freely!

Now, in the mean time, I must wash dishes and make coffee... my head is telling me that I haven't had nearly enough caffeine today.

Inspiration

There's a point in every writer's career when they get struck like a bolt of lightning, when their muse doesn't whisper... she shrieks, and she isn't going to leave you be until you hear her.

It might be a seed of an idea suddenly sprouts... but it's an oak tree on steroids, not the beanstalk you were expecting. It could be something you've been playing with for a while that suddenly explodes into a massive storyline, or a plot hole you couldn't plug, that suddenly resolves itself.

Whatever the result, it's undeniably overpowering. I've been hit with it numerous times, and today was one of them. I've been toying with ideas for a while now, and finally got one last night... but it wasn't more than a bare sketch, a brief outline that gave me some compelling characters to work with.

Well, now the thing has become a behemoth of mental gymnastics. Well, for the characters, at least. There's a plot twist or two that will be fun for the reader, methinks. And these characters are going to be truly, truly fun.

This year's NaNo is going to write itself, I swear. Gah. Now I have to wait for November 1st...

Ah well. I have a bunch of worldbuilding to do between now and then. Heck, I have to design a whole religion! The only thing I know about it is that it has a central Church (where the main character starts out) and that it is headed by a Pope-like figure, and that there is no distinction made between male and female priests (no priestesses).

OHOHOHOH!

Plot bunny!

I just got an idea about the story. I know that I've been wanting to work on an apocalyptic story, but lately, those sorts of tales are so overdone... so I've decided that the MC and her evil guy will start out looking for the artifact that will save the world, but find out in fact that it has nothing to do with any such thing, and that in fact it is for the advancement of the clergy officials in the church. So she enlists the reluctant aid of the evil guy, by promising something cool, to thwart the clergy's plans.

And I have a title:

Double Edged Sword. Will describe both the obvious, the evil guy, and the less obvious, the not-so-good guys. All entries related to the book will be labeled "des" for easy search later. :)

Plot bunny? Just maybe!

I've finally got something resembling an idea. It's inspired somewhat by Pitch Black, the movie with Vin Diesel. Firmly not a fanfic, though!

Here's the general synopsis:

An innocent, naive priest/cleric type has been given a vision... she must go into the dangerous no-man's land to retrieve some object of great power and divine significance. It's a dangerous place, full of convicts, rogue mages, dangerous creatures, and all manner of indescribable beasts and challenges. The only problem is that there's only one person who's ever been known to enter that place and return alive. And he's a convict. A very nasty one, at that. He was exiled to the no-man's land (to be named) for an unspeakable crime, but managed to find his way back.

Now, that vision demands that she take him, and only him, into that place if she has any hope of survival, much less success. She will find allies in that place, but if he does not enter and return with her, then she will not recover the artifact, and will probably die. The vision's pretty specific.

The clergy officials verify her dream, as it agrees with visions that have been reported by seers and other clergy. So she must go to the deepest dungeons to retrieve this convict, somehow convince him not to kill her as soon as they leave the safety of the church. I'm thinking geas, of the sort that binds him to her. If she dies, he dies, sort of thing. The promise of a full pardon and release from the geas is his reward for returning safely with her.

They leave on their journey, and much adventure follows.

Whatcha think?