Words Are Emotions

Words Are Emotion

As I've started getting deeper and deeper into this book, I've started connecting with the characters a lot more, thinking up back stories for them and personal traits that they carry from situation to situation. Key points in the plot have now been laid out and I think I'm about ready to get stuck into the real meat and potatoes of the novel.

Before I started writing this section of the novel though, I wanted to step back and take a look at what I had already written, and what I read back left me in a state of shock, because I saw it from a completely different perspective. As I was reading certain aspects of the book, the plot and the characters within it started popping out at me, showing me the aspects of my life that are just littered all throughout the darned thing, and what scared me most is that I didn't even notice it as I was writing it.

I don't think by any stretch of the imagination that it harms the book, if anything I think it enhances it because of connection between the characters I'm writing about and myself. Even if some of the parts aren't a direct link to something I've felt in the last five, six or seven years I can see loose connections to it, and it surprised me because it just... Shone through.

Knowing that this is happening makes me feel good, to be honest because it must mean I'm getting into what I'm writing, and putting some passion behind what's being put onto the page. I hear so often "you can't take any meaning from words on a page, especially places like facebook and twitter, there's just no human emotion going into what's being said." For a long time I believed it, but maybe I've reached something that might change my mind, because for once I've looked at written words from a different perspective; instead of just words they're words written by someone who has feelings, and everyone feels differently, so everything that's written is emotional? I don't know. It was just something that came to mind and I figured I'd write an entry about it, as I haven't done one of these for a few days.

Book's coming along great, really enjoying it and I'm about to get properly stuck into it with one of the main chapters.

-Rue

Let It Linger

Let it Linger

Let it linger. Let what linger? It. Let it linger. The "it" can be whatever you want it to be I've discovered. The other night I was writing some of the book and came at a cross roads, I really didn't know how to get the words I wanted down onto the page. I knew they were there, but it was like the right ones for me were stuck behind a clogged mess of other ones, which weren't the right ones but put themselves up for suggestion regardless.

I discovered that my problem was that I had written too much that night, and had gone as far as I needed to go in that session; so I saved everything up and made backups, then shut down and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and the first thing that pops into my head? The solution to the problem I had the night before.

I believe it's a proven fact that your brain digests tricky situations when you sleep, so that when you wake you feel like you're thinking straighter, but in reality you've been working it off when you're at your most relaxed. An example of this takes me back to when I was a little lad playing Spyro on the Playstation. I used to spend hours over a little puzzle on a certain level, and get quite frustrated at myself for not being able to do it. I'd try it over and over again and not get my head around it. I'd go to sleep, wake up and when I next sat to it, you bet I had it done first try. The only logical explanation to me is that I was processing it over and over in me sleep to get that stuff right.

You know, I've since gone back to that game and suffered the same issue; I couldn't get my head around it at all, but when I'd gone away and processed it for a while and come back, all was well.

So how does this tie in to the story? I was letting an idea linger for a while, tossing it around, the pros and cons. I'd ask myself for ways in which I could improve pacing, or excel a character into a certain situation and be dead set on an idea; yet a little while later after it had lingered a completely different idea hit me that sounded so much more sensible.

So yes. Let it linger. Whatever it be. Let it linger.

-Rue

Writing Late A Night - My First Mistake?

Writing Late At Night - My First Mistake?

I think I realised something today that could potentially hold me back. I was reading through what I had written yesterday evening and noticed quickly that there were several more mistakes than there should have been. Not in the plot or anything like that, but the wording's a little off from time to time, which I found interesting. I guess it's just a case of being tired whilst I write, which leads me to write the same word twice, or my hands misunderstand what they're being told or something.

How does this get solved then? I think the best thing to do is to find some time to write a little during the day, or let myself stop writing a little earlier. The latter of the two I'm not too keen on doing because when I'm flowing I don't think it's a good idea to slow down and cut of the creative vibes.

Right now I live a life that's a little busier than I thought it would be when I was projecting my goals for the year back in January. The advent of Twitch and several trips away for YouTube seem to be keeping me on my toes, and there are a few other things that make me busy throughout the day. I think I could struggle a little to move a writing slot backwards.

Let's just say I do move my writing time back from about 10PM to around 2PM, what changes? It could very well be that I'm not as dialled into what I'm doing, hindering my writing ability; or it could hinder something else by making me reschedule something I'm suppose to be doing that's more important. I don't want to start letting other things slip for this.

I think what I should be doing is getting used to longer days. Days that sometimes start early and quite often finish late due to writing and doing whatever it is I'm doing.. I'm certainly enjoying the whole book thing, I've been getting into it heavier and heavier like I mentioned in the last post. 

We'll see where it goes, I'm flexible when it comes to things like this, I'll start trying things out to see what works.

I've written Chapter 2 now pretty much, have a few things I want to add to round it off nicely so that it leads well into Chapter 3; then of course I have the situation of errors. I'll go through and sort them out when I can. At this stage if I want to get it written, I'll write it.

-Rue 

I must be doing something right.

I must be doing something right.

I must be doing something right, as the last few days all that's been in my head is writing this book. On the bus to and home from college I kept throwing around character depth ideas, just visualizing them in certain situations and imagining how they might behave or how they'd react. I was coming up with back story to all three whilst listening to a relaxing piece of music, for around an hour straight one evening, as I sat myself down to start writing the second chapter of the novel.

How is it before I started this project I had very little REAL interest in writing, and was just doing it to see where it went, to within a week where it was almost all consuming? The characters I have I've started to really take pride in and think they have some good depth to them, and the antagonist of the story has started to be hated by even myself, which I find incredibly strange. I kept reading through what I had written so far, which comes to around 10,000 words, looking through it to see if I'd missed anything and found myself changing the words within ever so slightly, just to make it tick right in my head.

I'm getting ahead of myself as well, as I'm starting to come up with where the story will be in several chapters time; thinking what might happen who's going to do what, and when the pivotal parts of the story will happen and how it will effect which characters. This you could say is natural but I want the story to unfold inside my head as I'm writing it, so it feels completely natural to me instead of something I'm scripting out then acting on. I've already noticed that the story itself has changed several times since I started writing it. I had no idea where I wanted to send the character I was writing or who was entering when.

My point here is that I'm enjoying myself wayyyyy more than I thought I was going to whilst writing this out. A couple people were interested in what I was talking about one night in a skype call, so I sent them a section of what I had already got down. They seemed to be into it and are interested in where it's going next. They'd ask me "what's it going to be about?" and I simply had to respond with an "I don't really know" because that's the truth.

I must be doing something right because I'm having fun and doing this more than I thought I was going to be. Here's hoping I stick at it, get the book written and can get it published. That goal is a massive one because publishing is similar to YouTube, Twitch and anywhere else. It's difficult to get into. Very difficult.

Anyway, I'll swing by again when I have something to say.

-Rue

What and why?

What and Why?

If you've been keeping track of what this little project is about, and have read every article so far, you'll know that the other night I had actually set foot into the world of writing this book. Prologue. I spouted out the start of a story, decided I wasn't happy with how I wrote it, so change perspectives entirely, shortened it and introduced less characters. The book is started.

Before I get too deep though, I want to establish a couple of things that I feel that are essential to know before getting into a project before it's too far into the process. What am I going to do, and more importantly, why am I going to do it? It's a big topic this one and I'll try to make it somewhat brief because there's just too much thinking that can be done about it. I think this kind of understanding is important to have because if you don't know what you want, you lose track of where you are, and if you don't know why you're doing it you don't have a motivator. You won't far without motivation, and I feel like you'll only get motivation if you know what you want.

So. What do I want from this?

I want to actually do something with my life. When I'm getting old and all that, and the grand kids ask me to tell them a story, I'll have the ability to do that because I'm throwing myself at any opportunity I get, even if it doesn't work. I also want enjoyment from it. I feel like I ooze creative energy, whether it's in my videos, livestreams or in general conversation with those I care about, I'm always after the next new thing I can create or do. Writing is one of these outlets that has very few limits on what's possible, because everything's unique when it comes to creation. It's full of wonder because nobody's actually done exactly what you've done before. Unless you're making a call of duty game.

Why Am I doing this?

We kind of hit on this in the last paragraph. I'm doing it because I want to, and because I want enjoyment, but also because it's part of a college project. Technically it doesn't have to be because I just have to write a blog, I've gone the extra mile and written a blog about a book that's being written each night.

I guess another reason why I want to do this, is because it would be pretty cool to be able to say I've had a book published. That would be cool.

So yeah. Everything seems to be established.

Time to get to work. Chapter 1.

(You may notice soon that these either get shorter, or less frequent because I'm probably going to be getting into this heavily.)

-Rue

Prologue

So I wanted to set the scene for this idea I had been throwing around. I spent most of the other night writing out what I'd consider to be the start of a story, and I thought it was good. I had set up some strong sounding characters and had ideas as to where they could be taken throughout the book, even stretching it into a few books perhaps. Then it hit me. The very moment I thought to myself "this could be more than one book" I realised this story is probably too deep, too complicated and too long for me to write. Not that I don't think I could eventually do it, but I feel I'd be caught up in it trying to understand it myself and would never finish it.

I changed it up, deciding to strip it of all depth and keep it simple and tantalizing; introducing only one character instead of five and removed dialogue completely. Reading it back, it fits about half a page instead of four and probably works much better.

I'm satisfied with it. For now. No doubt it will change in no time at all and I'll make some adjustments; I have no reason to rush this project and don't intend on doing so. Any work I put into it is purely in spare time and out of passion.

-Rue

The First Paragraph

The First Paragraph

I started writing my first paragraph last night. Before I got stuck in thought about it. Quite deep thoughts as well. I asked myself what a reader would expect from the first sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter of a book and related that to the start of one of my videos. People need a reason to be interested and an excuse to stay otherwise they're gone before the going gets good.

With this in mind I found myself toying with each sentence, letting it linger in my head before tapping away. It got to a point where I think it was for my benefit more than anyone else's to be honest with you. I had fun with it. Different ways of describing the lay of the land, or a different approach at a character introduction. Whether to start with a memory, or a dream, or an action scene. What I found crazy is that I wasn't satisfied with any of it; I hungered more. My brain was rattling ahead of my fingers developing a character or how a plot could unfold, so fast that it left me in a muddle for that first section.

I'm not quite sure if this is a good or a bad thing. I wasn't at any point frustrated with what was happening, as I said I was enjoying myself, but I didn't get anything on paper. It was all just a repeat or a minor adjustment of the same situation. That must matter though, right? If I'm not somewhat enveloped in what I'm writing how can I expect anyone else to be?

So what did I achieve from the other night? Quite a lot actually. I did get past that first little section and I felt it was a rather good one. I think I've come up with a few strong characters that I can build on over time and write strongly about. There's definitely still a very long way to go however.

I've got the write word processor on my laptop now so I should be able to do some proper writing, instead of just a wordpad document.

I don't need to see the whole staircase in order to take the first step.

-Rue.