I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence. After attending the Writers Digest conference this past weekend and thinking about the amount of time, money, and effort that I'm going to be spending on my first story, I have to give some serious thought to whether Ivan is worth it.
I'm going to say, for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, November), that yes, Ivan is worth the effort. I might get a lot wrong and he might never see the light of day, but I think it's still worth it to at least put Ivan at the center of my 50,000 word goal for November and sort out what I need to work on more carefully as I polish him up in 2013.
Here are a couple of things that need to be worked out:
1. The historical Ivan is not a terribly sympathetic character. But it's going to be one slog of a novel if I can't find a chink in his armor of awfulness that makes somebody like something about him (that somebody being me).
2. I've got to find some humor somewhere, because a) I don't want to get too hung up on myself and b) Ivan is so awful that if I can't find a way to lighten the whole thing up it's going to read too much like a Russian novel -- and I hate Russian novels.
3. Supporting cast. This is actually only an obstacle to my starting writing before November 1st, because I've got to take the time to figure out who the supporting cast is and write them all out, figure out more of a plot arc than what I've got, etc. I need to decide if I'm going to use The Plot Whisperer Workbook or 30 Days to your Novel or The Nighttime Novelist to frame my to-do list, but clearly I'm going to need some outside help on planning the thing if I'm going to write 50,000 words in a 30 day month that includes Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Incubation
From The Daily Writer. This is a long term assignment about revision. Not where I need to be.
I have 16 pages/4200 words of Ivan written at this time. Every time I put him down I have a hard time taking him back up again. I have to write EVERY SINGLE MORNING in order ot have more productive days. My consistency rate is not where I want it to be at the moment.
But it's not just Ivan I'm struggling with; I am having a hard time buckling down to everything today. I'm frustrated at how much work I have to do and how far behind I am in all the pockets of my life, but I'm having a difficult time focusing on making those things right. I know what to do next on Ivan -- it's part revision (moving that bit of the story out of the first draft into its proper place in the current draft) and then walk him down the street while he talks to Rasputin. I need to get them to reveal themselves to one another and to move them along 1917 London, which I don't know nearly well enough, until they get down to Nell and the East End. And somehow Rasputin has to make Ivan angry enough, and be unusable enough, to make Ivan OK with killing Rasputin. But before that happens I have to raise the stakes some... This is tricky. Sigh.
Well, the good news is how much I got done, and that figuring out the next bits is just a matter of buckling down. But I also have to deal with the IndieGoGo bit, Duncan's recipe book, my regular blog post, order my business cards (yikes!!) put together my work binder so I'm a little better organized, update the WOM financials... I wasn't kidding when I said I can be fit & thin OR I can be productive but probably not both. I actually had the alarm set for 6:00 this morning, and my clothes set out and everything, and then I was too soundly asleep to get up. Crazy dreams I've been having...
I have 16 pages/4200 words of Ivan written at this time. Every time I put him down I have a hard time taking him back up again. I have to write EVERY SINGLE MORNING in order ot have more productive days. My consistency rate is not where I want it to be at the moment.
But it's not just Ivan I'm struggling with; I am having a hard time buckling down to everything today. I'm frustrated at how much work I have to do and how far behind I am in all the pockets of my life, but I'm having a difficult time focusing on making those things right. I know what to do next on Ivan -- it's part revision (moving that bit of the story out of the first draft into its proper place in the current draft) and then walk him down the street while he talks to Rasputin. I need to get them to reveal themselves to one another and to move them along 1917 London, which I don't know nearly well enough, until they get down to Nell and the East End. And somehow Rasputin has to make Ivan angry enough, and be unusable enough, to make Ivan OK with killing Rasputin. But before that happens I have to raise the stakes some... This is tricky. Sigh.
Well, the good news is how much I got done, and that figuring out the next bits is just a matter of buckling down. But I also have to deal with the IndieGoGo bit, Duncan's recipe book, my regular blog post, order my business cards (yikes!!) put together my work binder so I'm a little better organized, update the WOM financials... I wasn't kidding when I said I can be fit & thin OR I can be productive but probably not both. I actually had the alarm set for 6:00 this morning, and my clothes set out and everything, and then I was too soundly asleep to get up. Crazy dreams I've been having...
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Masked Woman in a Wheelchair
The assignment from The Daily Writer is to write about all the different masks I wear in my different life roles, or to write a short story about a man who wears a mask as a woman to a Halloween party.
I don't want to do either of those assignments.
The problem I'm having today is how to reconcile the serial killer-czar Ivan the Terrible with the decrepit, non-functioning crazy guy in Darker Jewels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with the guy who has been a vampire for 330 years and trying to get his throne back (which would incidentally save Russia from the Bolsheviks but that's not really his concern).
So how do I do that? Who is this guy I've created?
Or am I worrying too much about details that no one will ever appreciate but me? I do not have a tribe that can answer that question for me. Need to get on that.
So... who is this crazy Ivan? How does he work in my story?
The Troyat biography made it pretty clear that he was a coward and a criminal, not a fighter. He liked the sound of his own voice (need to make my story reflect that much more clearly). He wasn't much of a fighter -- unlike Henry VIII who loved to joust and show his manliness. He was cool with causing pain from an early age, but not at all cool with feeling it. He was a self-serving religious fanatic. He was a hothead. He had no sense of proportion. He was intelligent but not wise. He was paranoid. He was short-sighted.
So in my story, Ivan has acted in character in fishing Rasputin out of the river and reviving him to use him as a tool. It is in character for him to think he can take the throne back and to have no concept of the people in Russia or the forces moving it at that time. It is in character for him to think he can bully Rasputin into doing whatever he wants just because he is czar. It is in character for him to have no concept that Rasputin might not believe that he was the czar, or to care about what he used to be.
Is it in character for him to join the Savile club? I think so -- I think he would have seen the English club, generally, as a sort of sanctuary for influential Englishmen. He would not have needed to take this course in life, but there are lots of instances where he beat a "strategic retreat." I think he would have a certain contempt for the club but he would have recognized its advantages, and 330 years of cobbling together survival tactics as a vampire would change his value system slightly. It beats living in a cave, and I think it would beat living in Liverpool as far as he is concerned, too.
Also in coming to London I think Ivan is sort of acting on that agreement he tried to get Elizabeth to come to (she did eventually offer a one-sided version of it that made him mad) so that's totally reasonable.
Ivan has never done a brave or difficult thing in all his days. Saving Rasputin is his greatest achievement, partly because it was hard and required some effort, partly because he did it entirely on his own; none of the rest of his efforts ever required that amount of organized thought. So it's all downhill for Ivan from there.
Which begs the question: In a power struggle between Ivan and Rasputin, who will win? My story as it stands requires that Ivan wins. But there is no reason to assume he would. It could easily be Rasputin.
Back to the drawing board.
I don't want to do either of those assignments.
The problem I'm having today is how to reconcile the serial killer-czar Ivan the Terrible with the decrepit, non-functioning crazy guy in Darker Jewels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with the guy who has been a vampire for 330 years and trying to get his throne back (which would incidentally save Russia from the Bolsheviks but that's not really his concern).
So how do I do that? Who is this guy I've created?
Or am I worrying too much about details that no one will ever appreciate but me? I do not have a tribe that can answer that question for me. Need to get on that.
So... who is this crazy Ivan? How does he work in my story?
The Troyat biography made it pretty clear that he was a coward and a criminal, not a fighter. He liked the sound of his own voice (need to make my story reflect that much more clearly). He wasn't much of a fighter -- unlike Henry VIII who loved to joust and show his manliness. He was cool with causing pain from an early age, but not at all cool with feeling it. He was a self-serving religious fanatic. He was a hothead. He had no sense of proportion. He was intelligent but not wise. He was paranoid. He was short-sighted.
So in my story, Ivan has acted in character in fishing Rasputin out of the river and reviving him to use him as a tool. It is in character for him to think he can take the throne back and to have no concept of the people in Russia or the forces moving it at that time. It is in character for him to think he can bully Rasputin into doing whatever he wants just because he is czar. It is in character for him to have no concept that Rasputin might not believe that he was the czar, or to care about what he used to be.
Is it in character for him to join the Savile club? I think so -- I think he would have seen the English club, generally, as a sort of sanctuary for influential Englishmen. He would not have needed to take this course in life, but there are lots of instances where he beat a "strategic retreat." I think he would have a certain contempt for the club but he would have recognized its advantages, and 330 years of cobbling together survival tactics as a vampire would change his value system slightly. It beats living in a cave, and I think it would beat living in Liverpool as far as he is concerned, too.
Also in coming to London I think Ivan is sort of acting on that agreement he tried to get Elizabeth to come to (she did eventually offer a one-sided version of it that made him mad) so that's totally reasonable.
Ivan has never done a brave or difficult thing in all his days. Saving Rasputin is his greatest achievement, partly because it was hard and required some effort, partly because he did it entirely on his own; none of the rest of his efforts ever required that amount of organized thought. So it's all downhill for Ivan from there.
Which begs the question: In a power struggle between Ivan and Rasputin, who will win? My story as it stands requires that Ivan wins. But there is no reason to assume he would. It could easily be Rasputin.
Back to the drawing board.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Treadmill Journal for September 25, 2012
Have 3300 words typed in. It's rougher than I realized; the whole time I was typing it in I was alternating between "Oh, that's pretty good" and "Oh, that's pretty rough."
So here's the plan for tomorrow: Fill it in the rest of the way, or as much as possible. I'm looking to triple it, roughly. The tricky thing will be figuring out how much explanation about Rasputin and Ivan to put in, and how much to just let them be themselves and hope it all fleshes out in the serial.
Also, need to play up Ivan's desire to return to Russia and Rasputin's skepticism about every single blasted thing Ivan has said (also how completely exasperated Ivan is with him).
There are LOTS of plot holes at the moment, those need to be healed up and I need to have the outline hanging right over my monitor while I work so I don't open up any new ones.
So: Aim for 1500 words tomorrow. All new ones. Rough is fine. But still try to keep the level high.
Also I need to spend a couple of hours on my blog tomorrow. Somehow. It will be a less active day, I guess.
And good night!!
So here's the plan for tomorrow: Fill it in the rest of the way, or as much as possible. I'm looking to triple it, roughly. The tricky thing will be figuring out how much explanation about Rasputin and Ivan to put in, and how much to just let them be themselves and hope it all fleshes out in the serial.
Also, need to play up Ivan's desire to return to Russia and Rasputin's skepticism about every single blasted thing Ivan has said (also how completely exasperated Ivan is with him).
There are LOTS of plot holes at the moment, those need to be healed up and I need to have the outline hanging right over my monitor while I work so I don't open up any new ones.
So: Aim for 1500 words tomorrow. All new ones. Rough is fine. But still try to keep the level high.
Also I need to spend a couple of hours on my blog tomorrow. Somehow. It will be a less active day, I guess.
And good night!!
Monday, September 24, 2012
On Evidence
From The Daily Writer:
This is the central plot problem in Rasputin Wakes Up. Rasputin can tell from sensing his own body that he is a vampire; but how can he come to believe that Ivan really is Ivan the Terrible, First Tsar of Russia? No inside information is going to be sufficient, because Rasputin has no means of verifying it. Manner can be put aside to arrogance or delusion; there was no artwork that Ivan can stand next to to prove his identity, and it wouldn't be precise enough if there were. Ivan can try to use his personal authority on Rasputin, but the first encounter with Rasputin after he wakes up proves that Rasputin is too powerful a personality himself, even though he was "only" a peasant, for that to have any influence with him. And in fact, Ivan does lack authority, because he is not the Tsar that Rasputin knew, his powers are no greater than Rasputin's (only his experience), and in any case he has yet to realize that his power when he really was Tsar derived from the office, rather than his personal qualities.
Ergo, he can not make a case that Rasputin will believe; he is going to have to forge new power, rather than stand on his prior standing. This is the realization that will lead to the conclusion.
Thank goodness for ten minute writing prompts!! My whole plot makes sense now...
Evidence plays a fundamental role in all writing. In nonfiction, of course, assertions must be backed by reliable data, testimony, analysis; they must weather counterarguments. Evidence also plays a role in fiction. If you're writing a political thriller, for example, and part of the drama is played out in the Pentagon, you will need to "prove" to your readers, by way of "inside" background information, that the setting is authentic.
The truth is universally honored; yet many are not aware of the extent to which a claim must be backed by evidence before it can be accepted as truth. Moreover, as Carl Sagan once pointed out, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." For example, if you're going to claim that you were visited by aliens, you had better come up with more than a photograph, which can be easily faked.
This is the central plot problem in Rasputin Wakes Up. Rasputin can tell from sensing his own body that he is a vampire; but how can he come to believe that Ivan really is Ivan the Terrible, First Tsar of Russia? No inside information is going to be sufficient, because Rasputin has no means of verifying it. Manner can be put aside to arrogance or delusion; there was no artwork that Ivan can stand next to to prove his identity, and it wouldn't be precise enough if there were. Ivan can try to use his personal authority on Rasputin, but the first encounter with Rasputin after he wakes up proves that Rasputin is too powerful a personality himself, even though he was "only" a peasant, for that to have any influence with him. And in fact, Ivan does lack authority, because he is not the Tsar that Rasputin knew, his powers are no greater than Rasputin's (only his experience), and in any case he has yet to realize that his power when he really was Tsar derived from the office, rather than his personal qualities.
Ergo, he can not make a case that Rasputin will believe; he is going to have to forge new power, rather than stand on his prior standing. This is the realization that will lead to the conclusion.
Thank goodness for ten minute writing prompts!! My whole plot makes sense now...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Rasputin Wakes Up - Beginning
Sodalitas Convivium implied that conviviality was a required element to club membership, but Ivan was not interested in being chummy. He brooded over Rasputin's body, fatigued from the effort of dragging him out of the icy water and transporting him from Moscow to London in one evening. It was a feat worthy of celebration, but the humans in the billiards room and and smoking room and dining room would have been horrified, aghast, speechless at any announcement of Ivan's accomplishment. Supposing, of course, that they could have even fathomed the beginnings of such an endeavor, which, it went without saying, they could not. And so Ivan brooded alone, in a straight-backed chair pulled up close to the side of the bed, watching for signs of success.
Success appeared unlikely. He could not see the extent of Rasputin's injuries, though the humans who had ambushed him claimed to have poisoned, shot, beaten, stabbed, and shot him again. All before they threw him into a frozen river.
Poison was unlikely to prevent the transformation that Ivan had undertaken; neither should the freezing water have mattered. The beating was probably not that severe if it had also been necessary to stab and shoot, so the stabbing and shots were the open questions. Had they damaged the heart beyond the repair a vampire transformation could provide?
The damage Rasputin had sustained would also determine how quickly the transformation could take place. Ivan had begun the process while still in hiding in Moscow, but there had been precious little of Rasputin's blood for him to drain, and the man being unconscious had made it difficult for Ivan to prompt the drawing of his own blood that would supplant the man's humanity. His previous offspring had transformed much more quickly than the three days that had elapsed since the river rescue; Ivan would not have attempted to move him from Moscow at all had not the citizens' innate suspicions of the supernatural, combined with the revolutionary hysteria being spread by the damned Bolsheviks, not made it too dangerous for Ivan and Rasputin to remain. Ivan took it as a hopeful sign that the transformation would occur that he had been able to dematerialize Rasputin as well as himself for the flight to London.
A discreet knock at the door disturbed Ivan. He glanced down at Rasputin, still unconscious, still bearing the dark marks of his last human day on his face. The rest of him was covered by the bedspread. Ivan roughly shoved his face away from the door and stood to open it.
"More fuel for your fire, sir?" asked the maid, cautiously. She was short, and carefully not looking in. Ivan acknowledged a grim appreciation for the English respect for appearances.
"I'm fine," he snapped.
"Yes, sir. Very good, sir," she said. He could smell her relief as she turned her mind to the next door.
Success appeared unlikely. He could not see the extent of Rasputin's injuries, though the humans who had ambushed him claimed to have poisoned, shot, beaten, stabbed, and shot him again. All before they threw him into a frozen river.
Poison was unlikely to prevent the transformation that Ivan had undertaken; neither should the freezing water have mattered. The beating was probably not that severe if it had also been necessary to stab and shoot, so the stabbing and shots were the open questions. Had they damaged the heart beyond the repair a vampire transformation could provide?
The damage Rasputin had sustained would also determine how quickly the transformation could take place. Ivan had begun the process while still in hiding in Moscow, but there had been precious little of Rasputin's blood for him to drain, and the man being unconscious had made it difficult for Ivan to prompt the drawing of his own blood that would supplant the man's humanity. His previous offspring had transformed much more quickly than the three days that had elapsed since the river rescue; Ivan would not have attempted to move him from Moscow at all had not the citizens' innate suspicions of the supernatural, combined with the revolutionary hysteria being spread by the damned Bolsheviks, not made it too dangerous for Ivan and Rasputin to remain. Ivan took it as a hopeful sign that the transformation would occur that he had been able to dematerialize Rasputin as well as himself for the flight to London.
A discreet knock at the door disturbed Ivan. He glanced down at Rasputin, still unconscious, still bearing the dark marks of his last human day on his face. The rest of him was covered by the bedspread. Ivan roughly shoved his face away from the door and stood to open it.
"More fuel for your fire, sir?" asked the maid, cautiously. She was short, and carefully not looking in. Ivan acknowledged a grim appreciation for the English respect for appearances.
"I'm fine," he snapped.
"Yes, sir. Very good, sir," she said. He could smell her relief as she turned her mind to the next door.
Monday, July 23, 2012
I don't...
From Take Ten for Writers
I don't eat beans.
I don't ride a bike.
I don't flirt with men.
I don't like to clean
I don't like messy spaces.
I don't like to pay other people to clean (because I feel like a slacker)
I don't know how to play chess very well.
I don't play Scrabble well because I get too hung up on the words and insufficiently concerned about the points.
I don't want to live in California anymore.
I don't like suspense and I'm iffy about surprises.
I don't have the ability to stay up past midnight anymore.
I don't remember what my favorite color was when I was nine.
I don't remember something, but I can't remember what it is.
I don't know if I like to write for ten minutes without stopping.
I don't like the way long nails make me have to change the way I type.
I don't like to handwrite when the writing is good and I don't like to type when the writing is tough.
I don't want to write a story without an outline because I fear the unknown.
I don't want to drive a minivan anymore. I don't want to pay for a new car either.
I don't like ANY PART of doing the laundry, except the part where I have clean clothes available to be worn.
I don't like sitting too low for my desk, but I do like that I just adjusted my chair to be more comfortable.
I don't know if I'm ready... sorry, lost my train of thought.
I don't know why I dream of an old crush declaring his undying love for me in different ways several times a year. Those dreams are so vivid.
I don't like blue very much. Unless it's turquoise.
I don't know why I'm so sleepy when I drink so much coffee.
I don't wear overalls.
I don't play an instrument anymore. I used to play oboe and clarinet a lot, but I actually never learned very much about music and once I got to a certain level of proficiency I lost interest in getting any better.
I don't know why I just had so much trouble spelling proficiency.
I don't own a winter coat anymore, but I do have several hats, gloves, and scarves. I don't own winter boots, either, just fashion boots, which barely count.
I don't ski. I don't want to ski. Skiing scares me and I did not especially enjoy skiing the one time I went.
I don't run, either, but that's basically laziness.
I don't know why this blog has 41 pageviews when I have never promoted it except the one time in how not to write a novel
I don't have a hero. I think I have people I admire but I don't have a hero in the way that I understand a hero. A hero is a person who you really admire and would like to emulate, a person who has special qualities that one can try to foster in oneself, a person who is superior in every meaningful way. I don't have a hero. I have ordinary friends and acquaintances I admire, but no one who overwhelms me with their greatness. Even Queen Elizabeth I is not really a hero to me, although she was great in many ways and I have tremendous respect and admiration for her. But I wouldn't want to be her.
And that concludes my ten minutes. Interesting exercise, this book might be worth keeping out.
I don't eat beans.
I don't ride a bike.
I don't flirt with men.
I don't like to clean
I don't like messy spaces.
I don't like to pay other people to clean (because I feel like a slacker)
I don't know how to play chess very well.
I don't play Scrabble well because I get too hung up on the words and insufficiently concerned about the points.
I don't want to live in California anymore.
I don't like suspense and I'm iffy about surprises.
I don't have the ability to stay up past midnight anymore.
I don't remember what my favorite color was when I was nine.
I don't remember something, but I can't remember what it is.
I don't know if I like to write for ten minutes without stopping.
I don't like the way long nails make me have to change the way I type.
I don't like to handwrite when the writing is good and I don't like to type when the writing is tough.
I don't want to write a story without an outline because I fear the unknown.
I don't want to drive a minivan anymore. I don't want to pay for a new car either.
I don't like ANY PART of doing the laundry, except the part where I have clean clothes available to be worn.
I don't like sitting too low for my desk, but I do like that I just adjusted my chair to be more comfortable.
I don't know if I'm ready... sorry, lost my train of thought.
I don't know why I dream of an old crush declaring his undying love for me in different ways several times a year. Those dreams are so vivid.
I don't like blue very much. Unless it's turquoise.
I don't know why I'm so sleepy when I drink so much coffee.
I don't wear overalls.
I don't play an instrument anymore. I used to play oboe and clarinet a lot, but I actually never learned very much about music and once I got to a certain level of proficiency I lost interest in getting any better.
I don't know why I just had so much trouble spelling proficiency.
I don't own a winter coat anymore, but I do have several hats, gloves, and scarves. I don't own winter boots, either, just fashion boots, which barely count.
I don't ski. I don't want to ski. Skiing scares me and I did not especially enjoy skiing the one time I went.
I don't run, either, but that's basically laziness.
I don't know why this blog has 41 pageviews when I have never promoted it except the one time in how not to write a novel
I don't have a hero. I think I have people I admire but I don't have a hero in the way that I understand a hero. A hero is a person who you really admire and would like to emulate, a person who has special qualities that one can try to foster in oneself, a person who is superior in every meaningful way. I don't have a hero. I have ordinary friends and acquaintances I admire, but no one who overwhelms me with their greatness. Even Queen Elizabeth I is not really a hero to me, although she was great in many ways and I have tremendous respect and admiration for her. But I wouldn't want to be her.
And that concludes my ten minutes. Interesting exercise, this book might be worth keeping out.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Don't Give the Elephant the Reins
Why is low-carb is harder the second time around, part II
Great post by Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power. Goes along with The Power of Habit -- it's basically a strategy for disrupting the routine portion of the habit loop.
Great post by Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power. Goes along with The Power of Habit -- it's basically a strategy for disrupting the routine portion of the habit loop.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Writerly Meditation
From The Daily Writer
Spend a few moments thinking about a specific facet of the story or essayyou're currently working on... Write down some of the thoughts that occur to you.
My greatest challenge in writing the Ivan/Rasputin story is in pulling together a really vivid sense of place. Diana Gabaldon did this for Outlander just by researching; her descriptions were INCREDIBLY vivid but she never went there till after all the profits from the novel made it possible for her to go. For the London of 1916, who would Ivan and Rasputin have encountered as they walked around; what smells would they have smelled? What was the traffic like? I know parts of Piccadilly are subject to lots of crashes and accidents, but how long is the street and what part of it is 107 Piccadilly (the location of the Savile Club in 1916) located on? What would the foot traffic have been like during different times of day?
And how much does the accuracy of all this detail matter?
Victoria Glendinning did a beautiful job of making the neighborhood and household at the opening of Electricity really really vivid, but she is British and had better access to this stuff than I have, on top of being a very good biographer.
And then there are the specifics of my story. What they do and who they encounter determines what happens to Rasputin and what happens, ultimately, to Ivan. I need to do a little better about pulling them together. I'm worried about it now.
Reading the biography of Daphne DuMaurier by Margaret Forster. It's good. But it strikes me that Daphne was incredibly business-like about her writing because she was motivated to make money to support her family. That's what I want to be like. Businesslike and determined to finish things that can get published. Selling my work. Of course I expect it to be good and I intend it to be good, but I don't know how to be experimental and I don't intend to try. With the challenges of doing these ordinary stories I think I have enough on my plate just trying to make people see what it's like to be somewhere else rather than trying to invent a literary form that I like just fine how it is.
So Ivan is going to leap out that window across that great intersection and he and Rasputin are going to take a walk. And on that walk Rasputin is going to tell Ivan about all the things he's been missing, and Ivan is going to tell him how little he understands his new world, and share maybe a little bit about his early years as a vampire (or think them, and then words will fail him; this information could have saved Rasputin but won't).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jean-paul-margnac/366276689/
https://maps.google.com/maps?num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=park+lane+hotel+london&fb=1&gl=us&hq=park+lane+hotel&hnear=0x47d8a00baf21de75:0x52963a5addd52a99,London,+UK&cid=0,0,15648347873338012588&ei=6V0GUMKOCOHI2gWyibjEBQ&ved=0CLcBEPwSMAA
Ah, better, better, better. OK, Tomorrow I think I can start writing again.
Good night!!
Spend a few moments thinking about a specific facet of the story or essayyou're currently working on... Write down some of the thoughts that occur to you.
My greatest challenge in writing the Ivan/Rasputin story is in pulling together a really vivid sense of place. Diana Gabaldon did this for Outlander just by researching; her descriptions were INCREDIBLY vivid but she never went there till after all the profits from the novel made it possible for her to go. For the London of 1916, who would Ivan and Rasputin have encountered as they walked around; what smells would they have smelled? What was the traffic like? I know parts of Piccadilly are subject to lots of crashes and accidents, but how long is the street and what part of it is 107 Piccadilly (the location of the Savile Club in 1916) located on? What would the foot traffic have been like during different times of day?
And how much does the accuracy of all this detail matter?
Victoria Glendinning did a beautiful job of making the neighborhood and household at the opening of Electricity really really vivid, but she is British and had better access to this stuff than I have, on top of being a very good biographer.
And then there are the specifics of my story. What they do and who they encounter determines what happens to Rasputin and what happens, ultimately, to Ivan. I need to do a little better about pulling them together. I'm worried about it now.
So Ivan is going to leap out that window across that great intersection and he and Rasputin are going to take a walk. And on that walk Rasputin is going to tell Ivan about all the things he's been missing, and Ivan is going to tell him how little he understands his new world, and share maybe a little bit about his early years as a vampire (or think them, and then words will fail him; this information could have saved Rasputin but won't).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jean-paul-margnac/366276689/
https://maps.google.com/maps?num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=park+lane+hotel+london&fb=1&gl=us&hq=park+lane+hotel&hnear=0x47d8a00baf21de75:0x52963a5addd52a99,London,+UK&cid=0,0,15648347873338012588&ei=6V0GUMKOCOHI2gWyibjEBQ&ved=0CLcBEPwSMAA
Ah, better, better, better. OK, Tomorrow I think I can start writing again.
Good night!!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Treadmill Journal July 15, 2012
1. Date and Time
2. How Long You Will Work
3. What you plan to work on
4. Figured out why I was panicking when I sat down to deal with Ivan; problem sort of solved, hurray
5. Tomorrow morning I will work while Q is at school and let CJ & D watch a little TV or something; I will work on Ivan & Rasputin and I will get at least 1500 words written.
Treadmill Journal Format
http://www.unm.edu/~gmartin/Essays/Treadmill%20Journal%20pdf.pdf
1. Date and Time
2. How Long You Will Work
3. What you plan to work on
4. How it went
5. When you work tomorrow and for how long.
1. Date and Time
2. How Long You Will Work
3. What you plan to work on
4. How it went
5. When you work tomorrow and for how long.
Write about what disturbs you
From Writing Down the Bones
Write about what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about.
Vampires have become something bloodless and glamorous. I just watched Being Human and was reminded that they aren't bloodless at all, and that they are very brutal. Somehow Elizabeth and Thoby need to have their brutal sides, too, and Nell (though I think I know how Nell will fall). It's fine for them to have retractable teeth and daytime existences and to be able to sip rather than kill, but they are still going to have to get intimately close to the people from whom they feed; they're still going to have to pierce the skin and hold them still and take without permission. In Elizabeth's case, the taking will also involve knowing intimately, since she will have the ability to discern what she is tasting and relate it to the character of the person from whom she is feeding. I haven't decided about Thoby yet.
What that basically means is that I'm going to have to get very good at writing very intimate physical encounters, and I'm going to have to give each one meaning. They're going to be sort of promiscuous, in that there's a new partner for Elizabeth each time she feeds, and yet each one will have to be differentiated. She'll be sensitive enough to discern the difference between each one, and to experiment with creating her system, as Nell has done, but she's also going to have to be brutal and demanding enough to push through whatever empathy she might have for these people and do what she's going to do. There will be no hesitating for her; she is going to feed on human blood without apology. What she'll be uncertain about is how that impacts her own character. Then the question of soul, etc., if she's working towards redemption some then there has to be a determination about whether that's a worthwhile pursuit. And am I a good enough writer to write these sorts of scenes seriously, so they come out well and not laughable, or meaningless and trite, or melodramatic?
Guess I can only wait and see.
And then Rasputin. What am I going to do with him? Of course Ivan is going to leap out the window, and somehow Rasputin will teach him to renounce what is left of his human life and quit treating that as such a big deal (so that's why I've been reluctant to finish that story -- I wasn't sure how I was going to do it)... So what is going to happen to Ivan? Of course he's going to have to feed off a woman, since he already denied he was going to do it. But which woman? How? And what does Rasputin do with Ivan once he gets him to fly through the window?
Duh, no wonder I sat down and didn't know what to write. I haven't planned this at all.
OK, so I'll take the Hero's Journey with Ivan and figure him out. Remembering to keep all the brutality and selfishness of the vampires of Being Human and of Vampire Tapestry while also retaining Ivan's unfulfilled human desires (like a ghost). He's power mad and paranoid; he sees chaos and fears it, and so he desires to bring it into order. He lost his mother to a poisoner and his wife he thinks he may have lost that way as well. He killed his son by accident as a result of an argument about his daughter-in-law; he married five other women and was worse to them than Henry VIII was to his wives. He's not above the odd torture, and he relishes dramatic gestures. And now, on top of all those problems he had as a human, he's a three hundred year old vampire with rather the appearance of the bobcat Julianna Cleaveland saw, that has never missed a meal in its life and thinks very highly of its territory. But he also is required to be discreet, because of the whole villagers with pitchforks problem (although really, if vampires are so all powerful, what do they fear from humans? we really could just be cows to them, as what's-his-name says in the Charnas book) -- no, not because of the pitchforks, but because he misses things he remembers about being human. Because he misses the thrill of a great horseback ride, the charge against an enemy, the thrill of unexpected victory. Because he misses feeling all the way to his fingertips and his toes, and he misses the thump of his heart, and there is a certain unacknowledged compassion that restrains him without his appreciating it.
All this Rasputin gets. To a certain extent, Rasputin was a kind of vampire in human life and the gift that Ivan has given him is basically just to liberate him from one set of rules and shackling him to a set rather more to his liking. He sees Ivan shackling himself to an imagined throne and thinks he has never seen anything more asinine ever. He... ah... he is newborn, so he doesn't understand the importance of there being Others out there, he thinks it's just him and Ivan. He sees the world as his playground and dining room (larder, John Mitchell called it in Being Human -- love British English), and he sees the women in it as all potentially his, because that was how he saw the world before. He has gifts of healing and foreknowledge that he doesn't appreciate (vampires do have souls, in my universe, but they have to figure things out for themselves and act in a state of uncertainty, just as humans do)
(man I hate how noisy this street and the house are, they make me so anxious)
and they have to risk, though how they risk is different; their gifts are greater and therefore the path is more difficult to find. Anyway, Rasputin can make use of these gifts but he does so irresponsibly and without appreciation for the source, and this eventually will lead to his downfall.
In terms of the Hero's Journey, Rasputin is both Mentor and also Antagonist.
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
1. Ordinary world: Is kind of skipped in my story, glossed over real quick and told to Rasputin by Ivan
2. Call to adventure: Ivan makes Rasputin
3. Refusal of the call: Ivan walks down the stairs and interrupts Rasputin, tries to bring him to heel
4. Meeting with the mentor: Rasputin turns the tables
5. Crossing the threshold: Ivan leaps from the window after Rasputin
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The saggy middle that I have to figure out
7. Approach: Ivan prepares for the major challenge in the new world -- by finding a woman from whom he's willing to feed
8. The Ordeal: Ivan feeds from people Rasputin chooses for him
9. The Reward: Ivan realizes there is no point in returning to his former ambitions as tsar; there is no one left to conquer, and no one who cares enough about him to want to poison him. All his former importance is gone. Moreover, he has experienced the sort of people who make Rasputin feel alive, and it makes him miss his humanity even more.
10. The Road Back: Ivan must invent a life as an ordinary vampire. But he finds he can't, there is no blueprint for that kind of life; he was a tsar from the time he was three years old, he has no concept of how one maps out a life when nothign particular is demanded of it.
11. The Resurrection: Having separated from Rasputin somehow, Ivan goes to make his first self-selected feed, but finds that he can't, his new-found understanding of what is appealing about humanity prevents him.
12. Return with the elixir: Ivan doesn't; he finds himself a starving zombie vampire who ultimately is exterminated by his own kind (possibly led by Rasputin).
Write about what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about.
Vampires have become something bloodless and glamorous. I just watched Being Human and was reminded that they aren't bloodless at all, and that they are very brutal. Somehow Elizabeth and Thoby need to have their brutal sides, too, and Nell (though I think I know how Nell will fall). It's fine for them to have retractable teeth and daytime existences and to be able to sip rather than kill, but they are still going to have to get intimately close to the people from whom they feed; they're still going to have to pierce the skin and hold them still and take without permission. In Elizabeth's case, the taking will also involve knowing intimately, since she will have the ability to discern what she is tasting and relate it to the character of the person from whom she is feeding. I haven't decided about Thoby yet.
What that basically means is that I'm going to have to get very good at writing very intimate physical encounters, and I'm going to have to give each one meaning. They're going to be sort of promiscuous, in that there's a new partner for Elizabeth each time she feeds, and yet each one will have to be differentiated. She'll be sensitive enough to discern the difference between each one, and to experiment with creating her system, as Nell has done, but she's also going to have to be brutal and demanding enough to push through whatever empathy she might have for these people and do what she's going to do. There will be no hesitating for her; she is going to feed on human blood without apology. What she'll be uncertain about is how that impacts her own character. Then the question of soul, etc., if she's working towards redemption some then there has to be a determination about whether that's a worthwhile pursuit. And am I a good enough writer to write these sorts of scenes seriously, so they come out well and not laughable, or meaningless and trite, or melodramatic?
Guess I can only wait and see.
And then Rasputin. What am I going to do with him? Of course Ivan is going to leap out the window, and somehow Rasputin will teach him to renounce what is left of his human life and quit treating that as such a big deal (so that's why I've been reluctant to finish that story -- I wasn't sure how I was going to do it)... So what is going to happen to Ivan? Of course he's going to have to feed off a woman, since he already denied he was going to do it. But which woman? How? And what does Rasputin do with Ivan once he gets him to fly through the window?
Duh, no wonder I sat down and didn't know what to write. I haven't planned this at all.
OK, so I'll take the Hero's Journey with Ivan and figure him out. Remembering to keep all the brutality and selfishness of the vampires of Being Human and of Vampire Tapestry while also retaining Ivan's unfulfilled human desires (like a ghost). He's power mad and paranoid; he sees chaos and fears it, and so he desires to bring it into order. He lost his mother to a poisoner and his wife he thinks he may have lost that way as well. He killed his son by accident as a result of an argument about his daughter-in-law; he married five other women and was worse to them than Henry VIII was to his wives. He's not above the odd torture, and he relishes dramatic gestures. And now, on top of all those problems he had as a human, he's a three hundred year old vampire with rather the appearance of the bobcat Julianna Cleaveland saw, that has never missed a meal in its life and thinks very highly of its territory. But he also is required to be discreet, because of the whole villagers with pitchforks problem (although really, if vampires are so all powerful, what do they fear from humans? we really could just be cows to them, as what's-his-name says in the Charnas book) -- no, not because of the pitchforks, but because he misses things he remembers about being human. Because he misses the thrill of a great horseback ride, the charge against an enemy, the thrill of unexpected victory. Because he misses feeling all the way to his fingertips and his toes, and he misses the thump of his heart, and there is a certain unacknowledged compassion that restrains him without his appreciating it.
All this Rasputin gets. To a certain extent, Rasputin was a kind of vampire in human life and the gift that Ivan has given him is basically just to liberate him from one set of rules and shackling him to a set rather more to his liking. He sees Ivan shackling himself to an imagined throne and thinks he has never seen anything more asinine ever. He... ah... he is newborn, so he doesn't understand the importance of there being Others out there, he thinks it's just him and Ivan. He sees the world as his playground and dining room (larder, John Mitchell called it in Being Human -- love British English), and he sees the women in it as all potentially his, because that was how he saw the world before. He has gifts of healing and foreknowledge that he doesn't appreciate (vampires do have souls, in my universe, but they have to figure things out for themselves and act in a state of uncertainty, just as humans do)
(man I hate how noisy this street and the house are, they make me so anxious)
and they have to risk, though how they risk is different; their gifts are greater and therefore the path is more difficult to find. Anyway, Rasputin can make use of these gifts but he does so irresponsibly and without appreciation for the source, and this eventually will lead to his downfall.
In terms of the Hero's Journey, Rasputin is both Mentor and also Antagonist.
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
1. Ordinary world: Is kind of skipped in my story, glossed over real quick and told to Rasputin by Ivan
2. Call to adventure: Ivan makes Rasputin
3. Refusal of the call: Ivan walks down the stairs and interrupts Rasputin, tries to bring him to heel
4. Meeting with the mentor: Rasputin turns the tables
5. Crossing the threshold: Ivan leaps from the window after Rasputin
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The saggy middle that I have to figure out
7. Approach: Ivan prepares for the major challenge in the new world -- by finding a woman from whom he's willing to feed
8. The Ordeal: Ivan feeds from people Rasputin chooses for him
9. The Reward: Ivan realizes there is no point in returning to his former ambitions as tsar; there is no one left to conquer, and no one who cares enough about him to want to poison him. All his former importance is gone. Moreover, he has experienced the sort of people who make Rasputin feel alive, and it makes him miss his humanity even more.
10. The Road Back: Ivan must invent a life as an ordinary vampire. But he finds he can't, there is no blueprint for that kind of life; he was a tsar from the time he was three years old, he has no concept of how one maps out a life when nothign particular is demanded of it.
11. The Resurrection: Having separated from Rasputin somehow, Ivan goes to make his first self-selected feed, but finds that he can't, his new-found understanding of what is appealing about humanity prevents him.
12. Return with the elixir: Ivan doesn't; he finds himself a starving zombie vampire who ultimately is exterminated by his own kind (possibly led by Rasputin).
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Inception
The original idea for my protagonist. Pleased at how much of it stands up:
How was I transformed? I do not remember. I remember before: the house, my
parents, the suitors, and Thoby.
And I remember after: hiding, and the slow realization that the shackles
and rules of the old life no longer applied. And Thoby. But
the in-between time I do not remember.
And Thoby will not tell.
You want to know what kind of
vampire I am, how I feel about how I feed. You are fascinated with how I choose my prey, with the
remorse I may or may not feel, so I will tell you. I feel no more nor less remorse than you do. Certainly I put more thought into my
meals than you, and I suspect that every meal I make (though, sadly, far fewer
than you) improves the quality of the earth, for you merely denude the earth of
resources sought or created for your own use, whereas I relieve the earth of a
consumer, and survive on a resource that renews and regenerates all on its own
without any husbandry from me.
But I should not lecture; it took
me a hundred years to come to this realization, with agony and soul-searching
(supposing I still have one), and too many moments of seeing the mirror that
Thoby always insists on holding before me. And before that, I had to stop using instinct and
self-interest and blank opportunity to satisfy my desires. And before that I had to be released
from a way of life that prevented me from considering – indeed, which censored
anyone who moved beyond our choreographed round of rise, dress, call, dress,
dine, tea, ball.
I had a few shocks along the way.
So no, I am not the chupacabra-like
creature feeding on animals and yearning for goodness that you might have
encountered elsewhere.
I am not tormented by self-loathing
into starvation, as one interviewee recounted, nor am I so drunk on my powers
that I flaunt them to all whose attention I can claim.
Nor am I a mindless killing machine
with no bounds or moral consideration, as the oldest stories of my kind
portray.
No, I am none of these. I am just a young girl of moderate
intelligence liberated from the society into which I was born, and existing in
a continuum far longer than a humans’s, with my senses heightened and my
sensibilities enlightened by my companion and former neighbor, the astounding
Thoby Stephen. Like all of you,
sometimes I do good, sometimes evil.
I make mistakes. I exist in
a society with its own rules and I don’t always know what to do with my own
dissent. I am just like you. Except that I drink human blood to
survive. And for that, I do not apologize.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Kick Off Goals
1. Daily Writing practice (fiction stuff)
2. Rewrite and finish "Rasputin Wakes Up"; self-publish that bad boy.
3. Work on Elizabeth daily.
2. Rewrite and finish "Rasputin Wakes Up"; self-publish that bad boy.
3. Work on Elizabeth daily.
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