Imperfect Beginnings

Gearing Up...

2008-10-21T21:34:00.002-05:00

In the morning yesterday, I thought of this nice idea for this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I usually come up with story ideas based on "things hitting the fan" because that can bring on the climax of the plot.

I thought up a ship name: RedShift, and thought of the idea that it would be a civilian commerce ship. The story will be about how the crew is trying to maintain the ship and afford to stay in business as wars at the fringe of human colonized space begin to affect the economy. The crew of the RedShift will transport cargo and civilians and then discover that a batch of cargo isn't what is declared on the cargo manifest. But to really make the idea catch, I've decided that this revelation should not occur until the ship is being inspected by the Colonial Administration Armed Forces who are stopping random ships for inspection.

This is not a good place to get caught with illegal cargo, even though the commander could show the official manifest and get the crew out of trouble, the load might get confiscated and create a breach of the contract for shipping the cargo. There's still details to be worked out and things to revise and change, but that will happen in the crucible of NaNoWriMo next month, and not right now.

Hey, it might just take off...

2008-05-15T00:43:00.003-05:00

Last year, I tried to set up a database in MS Access to create random strings of letters. As a science fiction writer who dabbles occasionally with fantasy stories, I like the idea of having a quick way to get a language up and running. Last year when I tried this, I got a few nice words like "aucokian" and "zokoturu" to come out of the database. But it was randomly creating other things like "naoifdliuleiugbn" and "ahoksbduigfdliuh" and that just wasn't acceptable.

It took me a while to get up the nerve to gut the old database and redesign it. Mind you, I was doing this at about 3 in the morning a couple of days ago. I figured out how to implement rules, add weight to letters, and find the readable parts in almost any string of gobbledygook (how is that spelled anyway?).

Surprisingly, it showed a bit of promise with fairly little frustration. Meanwhile, the databases I use at work are getting very cranky. I must not be giving them the attention they feel they deserve.

I may have to post more on this later. If it works out, I could be well on my way to having a much more "official" looking language. My favorite part about the latest installment of database-building hobby is that I can see this one catching on. Once I set up the automation, I may have to share it.

Tag, You're It!

2008-02-20T23:37:00.002-05:00

I've hit the moment I knew was coming. There is a place in my novel draft where I stop narrating from the point of view of the Commander of the ship. His point of view is still included, but I also start narrating from the view points of several other characters.

My draft has two possibilities:

1.) Short and sweet: cut out the extra characters and include their dialogue "over the radio" with no extra descriptions.
2.) Lengthy and detailed: turn the rest of the draft into a narrative with multiple points of view.

In the meantime, I know that I need to continue writing my synopsis so I can try to submit the draft. Every time the point of view changes, I'm using bold text to remind myself of the shift. But if my draft does make it to an editor's desk, the change in perspective might get the book rejected.

I deliberately "forgot" this problem so I could finish the draft. Now, I have a feeling I will be required to think of a solution.

And I still think writing science fiction is fun.

Is there anybody out there with another idea?

The Final Stretch

2007-11-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

Here it comes. I'm currently running about 40,113 words. I'm actually slightly ahead of quota today, but I'll fall under quota today if I don't write. I'm going to get settled into the writing in just a few moments.

During the holiday, I spent time with my brother and we played Lord of the Rings: the Third Age on the PlayStation 2. I got to enjoy spending time with family, plenty of turkey loaded with good taste and tryptophan. I got loaded with comfort food, Amish friendship bread, sugary cookies, home cooking, and good times.

My brother and I also broke through a tough boss battle with the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings game. We were at the level in Osgiliath, fighting to defend the bridge. It took us five tries before we had our tactics down right and got to beat the boss: Gothmog the Orc General. His minions attacked us and nearly wiped us out.

So, now it's time to hit that novel and put some mileage on it.

Rounding The Turn

2007-11-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

I've gotten a nice lead on my quota leading into Thanksgiving. Unlike my last post, I got ahead of quota for real. I've been building it in units, about twice the normal quota per day. I'll be able to spend time with relatives, instead of with my novel. It's nice to have that word count "cushion" to fall back on. I'll be a little under quota at the end of the holiday, but not enough to ruin my project.

Gathering Momentum

2007-11-12T22:38:00.000-05:00

The story is still cranking away, complete with strange ideas injected as characters discuss the history of the far future, the last recorded years of several planets, and what the archaeologists just dug up.

Ancient data storage devices may one day be used as an archaeological source, in much the same way that shards of pottery, arrowheads, bits of preserved clothing, and mummies do in the present. Imagine a future society digging through the ruins of America, what would they did up?

Maybe a stack of "floppy diskettes," or better "records." The archival properties of plastic or vinyl may not be the same as clay or stone, however. I wonder if any data about our culture would be able to survive centuries or millennia required to become an archaeological find. Will the Earth as we know it even survive that long?

My word count has topped 18,250. I'm actually over quota (despite that nasty loss the Buckeyes suffered against the Fighting Illini), so I could decide not to write for a day and still meet my deadline. I'm quite proud of that. Usually my creative juices start to run down as winter approaches, so I'm quite happy that I'm still producing this far into November.

Confounded Flaming Pants!

2007-11-12T16:09:00.000-05:00

As in "liar, liar, pants on fire!"

...I got my spreadsheet to calculate my quotas for me. But I found out something was wrong somewhere in the middle of my writing: I'm behind by about 4,000 words! It got stuck on the 9th and wasn't adding how many days I had been writing since the 9th.

So I've managed to put in twice the normal number of words, but I'm still fighting to keep ahead of my quota. It'll take a bit longer to figure up the problem, but I'll get back on top.

Kicking It Up!

2007-11-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month) has initiated, so I have been plugging away at 1600+ word quotas each day and faring pretty well. I practiced back in June and July, but this is for real.

I hope to keep ahead of quota and finish, since I succeeded back in the summer. The goal is to produce a 50,000 word work of fiction. This can be classified as a "novel" but the main point is to hit the quota mark in thirty days. It was fun to do this back in the summer, and I am beginning to have fun with the story I'm writing right now.

It's science fiction, and there's a whole community at NaNoWriMo.org devoted to science fiction. I've read some of the forums and posted a few of my thoughts there. All in all, it's been a major distraction from more important things, but I could see how the forums could be interesting and useful. The part where I call it a distraction is mainly the amount of replies a post can get even after I feel like it should've ended.

There are some forum posts that look very interesting that I won't read, just because there's more than twenty or thirty replies posted on just that one thread. To me, that's information overload.

Anyway, I'll try to post semi-regularly this month, under the NaNoWriMo label so people can see.

What's my current word count? 7200 even. Wow.

Just One Day...

2007-07-04T19:43:00.001-05:00

I heard of National Novel Writer's Month a year or two ago, but I didn't have the guts to try writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This year, a friend and I tried to practice in April. Her practice in April succeeded, but my practice story broke down in April. As I described it to another friend, my story didn't break down in April because of "writer's block," it broke down because of "writer's asteroid."

But I have overcome writer's block this past month by launching a practice story on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007. I also set up a spreadsheet on my computer and set up calculations to tally up all my word counts and tell me how much progress I had made. My deadline to finish a 50,000 word novel was this Wednesday, July 4th, 2007.

I spent last week consistently behind the recommended quota of 1,670 words per day. Then on Thursday night last week, I overcame a 4,000 word deficit and stopped in the wee hours of the morning over quota.

This week, I consistently remained above quota. Last night I finished the story with more than 50,000 words. Today, though I applied a few finishing touches, I remained above quota the whole time. I have reached my goal.

Blasting Off

2007-05-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

Anybody remember the old Texas Instruments 82 (TI-82) Graphics Calculator? Back when I used one in High School, I had a friend who developed a calculator program involving the buying and selling of drugs in randomly generated cities. The program, "prgmDRUGLORD" included a subroutine where the drug dealer encountered the police and had to fight them off.

I borrowed the program back in 1996 because I saw potential. I renamed the program "prgmSPACER" and like a true science fiction afficionado, I changed the story. Instead of illegal drugs, I changed the products to science fiction-related items: a fictional alloy called "Plasteel," a mundane cargo "Food," and the essential fusion power source "Deuterium."

The program underwent several changes. I changed the police that the player fights to "Space Pirates," and changed the randomly generated cities to randomly generated planets. So the program underwent a makeover.

In late 1996, I rewrote the source for the program, converting it from a derivative work into an original work, including original solutions to problems posed by the idiosyncrasies of programming on a calculator, and tried to add extra subroutines. As the player earned money (called "trade notes"), he or she could "promote" from the rank of Intern, to Commander, to Captain. At the rank of Captain, the player gained access to weapon upgrades--powerful plasma torpedos, and enhanced laser turrets.

The pirates also grew more ferocious, boarding your ship, ramming you toward planets, smashing you between asteroids, blasting you with pulsed neutrino emissions that could even send you reeling back in time (and cause you to lose a level of rank!)

I even went as far as introducing different subroutines for saving the game, and I even wrote a sequel. In the sequel, the player is forced to deal with a group of five ultra high powered pirate ships.

And for the past few years, I have had no need for "prgmSPACER" or my old TI-82. So now, in my spare time, I've begun an ambitious new project--converting SPACER into a database. Microsoft Access will never be the same.

Possible Starting Places...

2007-05-02T19:44:00.000-05:00

If I generate any fiction about hurricane relief, I just saw an article about a book that might give me ideas.

Firestorm.

I'll have to brainstorm some more ideas if this is to take off. Maybe I'll see where it leads.

World Building

2007-04-30T22:44:00.000-05:00

I have strayed from the beaten path of my typical science fiction stories. I have two ideas competing for space in my brain right now.

One idea comes from recent experiences. I've thought of writing short realistic fiction pieces, or possibly a longer piece focusing on hurricane relief efforts, or volunteers, or hurricane victims and survivors. Not that I wish to capitalize on an experiece that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies, but there are ideas bouncing around inside my head, and I wonder if any of them would develop if I gave it a chance.

The other idea comes from the past. I thought of a few characters and science fiction ideas and sketched out an idea in early September, 2001. I called it "Allied Space Rescue," a sort of relief organization for planetary disasters that might strike other colonized worlds. Shortly after I hatched the idea, the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks happened. I was also taking courses at college at that time, so I got busy enough that ASR got shoved to a back burner.

The question I have is this: where can I get the information I need to make a realistic story seem real enough to readers, or to make a science fiction disaster sound like a real event?

Spl@t!

2007-03-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

I was just thinking about how I added a chapter in the beginning of my manuscript because it seemed odd to jump straight from one thing to another. As I thought of it, I wondered "what if that doesn't belong there at all." Not just belonging in that position, but whether the additional chapter belongs in the manuscript at all.

And a thought came to me about something that I will call "splat." Here is my definition of "splat."

Splat: (noun) 1. A thing that is "thrown" into a story the way a lump of mashed potatoes hits the wall in a food fight. A haphazard addition that only marks that a thing was added and not necessarily that any improvement was made. 2. Any thing that is haphazardly added to another thing in such a way that suggests slipshod, inefficient work or similar lack of quality.

The idea applies not just to stories, but also to computer programs, movies, etc. I think the thing that made me want to log on and write down this thought is another important thought: "Splat" is avoidable.

Manuscript!

2007-02-26T08:29:00.000-05:00

First conceived in 1993, a science fiction story I was writing began to gather momentum as I sketched out a basic plotline in January 1994. By February 1994, I was writing the story and inserting elements from previous years' ideas. It was the second semester of my Freshman year of high school, and the urge to be creative was also bringing my grades up.

The story lost momentum in June 1994, though, and writing stopped. And then the manuscript became less of a priority. I devoted my life to Christ that summer. As classes began in the fall, I began to produce "idea books," my 9 inch by 4 inch college-ruled notebooks. Each idea book covered a semester of time and contained sketches, story segments, character breakdowns, and other notes. By the end of my Sophomore year of high school, I had 2 idea books completely filled.

Throughout my Junior year of high school, I continued to use my idea books and filled another pair of them with story components. I worked with a fellow classmate to generate a "crossover" story which included both his characters and mine. Still, the urge to finish the original story demanded attention. I purchased an 8 inch by 11 inch notebook and began writing again. This time, it was an affort to collate my original 1994 draft with segments of story from the idea books. But by the summer after my Junior year of high school, that stopped also.

I graduated high school in 1997. I had six idea books from my years in high school. By the end of summer, I had typed about five chapters of the story and was working on Chapter 6. Thinking somewhat critically of idea books, I decided to determine if they were a crutch that inhibited my writing, or whether they were a useful tool. By the end of Freshman year at Ohio State, I realized that idea books were a worthwhile tool--I kept on developing ideas whether I wrote them down or not.

By August 2001, I had 6 idea books from my years in college. I also had a finished manuscript in my folders on disk and on the hard drive. But the holes in the plot, in the characters, and the rest of the information suggested that it needed a revision. By the middle of March 2002, the idea behind the story received a major overhaul. Characters, concepts, even the appearance of key places were considered "open grounds" for revision. The world of the story grew and changed.

By August 2002, I was writing story segments during my lunch break, transmitting them home by e-mail messages. By February 2003, I was producing idea book story segments worthy of inclusion in the new story, and I had an idea for the story's conclusion. By July 2003, on the pages of my next idea books, I had nailed down key plot events in story segments. 2004 saw continuation of the story in typed form, and 2005 saw the finish of a major event. After a computer crash, my electronic copy of the story was off-limits for six months in the first half of 2006. I persisted, having prepared by taking notes and keeping a backup copy. I hand wrote chapters beginning in March, and by May, I had my final handwritten page. The story itself was over, but the "manuscript" was in two places.

To remedy this, in the summer of 2006, I began typing the preliminary chapters to tie down the loose ends of the manuscript's beginning. By December 2006, I was beginning to revise the manuscript for continuity. By January of 2007, I had revised my way to the very end of all my electronic manuscript. This February, I pulled out my handwritten final chapters. This past week, I pulled some late-nighters doing typing to get the story done.

I finished the manuscript early on Saturday morning.

And now, the fun's just begun. Something has to be done with a completed manuscript, so the road to publication begins now.

D@tabasics Part 2

2007-02-12T08:33:00.000-05:00

I decided I'd have a go at creating another database in Microsoft Access. I wanted to practice setting up relationships and see what would happen. I've also had an idea about how a relief organization might track who is assigned to doing what task, how far along is it, and other questions.

This has led down a rabbit hole with a variety of expansions to the original concept. First of all, where is our organization? Where are we housing volunteers? Where do those volunteers come from?

These questions had to be answered first, and for the first time, I realized that it might help if I wrote down a few notes. It looked something like this:

One vs. Many:
1.) One building has many zones,
one zone has many rooms,
one room has many volunteers.

2.) One organization has many buildings.

3.) One volunteer team has many volunteers.

4.) One building has many staff members...

And so I went on, building tables as I went. Not all of the tables are fully constructed, but there are still some questions that I want answered first.

These relationships helped me construct a series of tables that I felt comfortable with. I then went to the "relationships" display and constructed the joins as I felt they should appear between tables. I do not typically construct relationships because the database workarounds that I use at work have never needed them before. This is interesting practice. There might be more to this appearing in later posts.

Seeing Both Sides

2007-02-01T02:05:00.000-05:00

After examining the revision work from the early chapters, then moving on to later chapters, I've caught up with an interesting situation. The earliest chapters are written in "limited-omniscient" narration. That means I focus on only one character most of the time. His or her thoughts and experiences are made accessible to the reader, but only those thoughts and experiences.

Somewhere in the middle, the limit is dropped for "omniscient" narration. The story skips between characters and exposes their thoughts.

Toward the end, the limit is enforced again for "limited-omniscient" narration. The story returns to the original "main character" and only focuses his or her thoughts and experiences.

This may jolt the reader to encounter something like this, but I am going to flag that problem as "handle later" in the interest of producing a manuscript. I will "post-revise" after the whole thing is typed, backed-up, and printed. The easier solution to this mess might be to open up to omniscient narration throughout, or to slowly expand which characters the reader is allowed to fully access.

Once I see the pattern in the chapters, and how much work is involved (and how much the story loses by losing the other perspectives) I will decide how to handle this recent development.

I'll get to see where this leads also.

Revision Theme

2007-01-19T19:37:00.000-05:00

I'm all the way through to the equivalent of Chapter 14 on my novel now, and still feeling a heady rush of excitement as I go. I've noticed how the earliest chapters in the story seem to need more revision than the later ones. I think that's because the later ones were written less than a year ago, while some of the earlier ones were written back in 2002. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

Anyway, as I revise, I keep playing the same music CD: Burlap to Cashmere's 1998 album, Anybody Out There?. There's just something about the music that I like to have playing in the background as I revise.

I've thought of changing gears, switching CDs or something, but the same one keeps winding up in the player. It's all good though, because I'm on Chapter 14, after all.

Oh Well!

2006-12-18T19:22:00.000-05:00

I'll just have to come up with something better to submit: My Publication Attempt came back rejected. It isn't the first time that this has happened, and it certainly won't be the last time, unless I get really lucky or find lightning in a bottle.

I had fun writing the story, and I may have fun trying to send it to other publishers, too.

As I said before, we will see where this leads.

The View from Ajnovaal Prime

2006-12-16T18:34:00.000-05:00

I have a science fiction novel that is in the final revision process right now, whose main character suffers from mental and emotional scars from an experience in his past. As a Cadet, he and some fellow Cadets crash on a planet called Ajnovaal Prime, a barren and icy terrestrial planet. He and his classmates in the Academy have to survive the cold long enough to reach an abandoned research post, where they find out that their crash was no accident--their ship was shot down. A few years pass between that experience and the beginning of my novel.

At one point several months ago (before I'd been to Louisiana), I doubted whether the current version of the character should have everyday events remind him of memories of his experience on Ajnovaal Prime, or if he should not. I didn't want his flashbacks to be "overkill" and annoy the reader, but I also wanted to illustrate the fact that a person who has had a traumatic experiences would and could be reminded of them by present-day events in his or her life.

This could be "Post Traumatic Stress" or just the fact that a reminder is a reminder, no matter whether it comes before or after counseling or therapy.

Having been to Louisiana to muck houses, today I realized that I am more confident now about writing the character to have these reminders of his past. I have also experienced similar reminders in the day-to-day events in my life. While I hope that I don't need counseling or therapy, there are times when I see things that remind me of mucking houses, or things that remind me of seeing all the damage.

Fortunately, I remember so many "good" experiences from my two trips. I met a lot of people with open hearts and a willingness to serve. I saw how a total wreck of a house could be transformed into an empty shell. This empty shell is not just as a hollow skeleton of its former self, but also an orderly template ready to take the parts that make it whole. I smile at a lot of the memories, and I may cry at a few of them as well.

But on the whole, I now believe that the view from Ajnovaal Prime is necessary to the novel, to show that the main character does have the ability to cope with the ghosts of his past.

Publication Attempt

2006-12-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

I have sent in a story to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine just to see if I could get it published. I know that writers often get rejected, and even the greatest authors have been rejected.

But nobody faults them for trying, do they? So, I figured, since the last time I even tried was four or more years ago (a different story in a different magazine or book), I ought to try again.

It was interesting to note that when I visited the post office with my manuscript, I had that feeling of "butterflies in my stomach." According to the Writers' Guidelines, I've got about 8 weeks to wait before I know whether the manuscript was accepted.

We will see where this leads.

D@tabasics...

2006-11-30T00:22:00.000-05:00

I wound up having to build a database at work to handle some of the tasks involved with my job. There was another database that we use (it's quite useful, once you get the hang of it), but it didn't do a few things that I needed.

So, back in 2004, I figured out that the copy of Microsoft Office XP that was on my computer at work actually included Microsoft Access 2002, a database builder. At that point in time, I did not realize I was on a crash course to learning the basics of database design.

Go visit the Saint Bernard Parish Website please... Don't worry, I'll wait. No, seriously, go visit their web site and look for links on the Updated Demolition Lists... Here's a direct link to the demolition lists.

I'm looking for a way to get those lists into Microsoft Access 2002 (during a 30 minute lunch break, mind you) and to run a query on the lists to eliminate matches. Why? Because I want to see what's left of them when we cross-reference all of the addresses.

If we clear away all of the matching data from any version of the lists at SBPG.net, we will have a list of places on each list which have not been dealt with on any other list. For example, a house that's on this list of complaint calls of houses that have not been gutted and that's also on this list of demolished houses means that the house has been complained about enough to have it demolished by the Parish.

But I quit trying to mine the data sometime after 4:30 a.m. a few days ago, because there's this thing called "work" where I go to make money, and I need this thing called "sleep" to make sure I can survive the thing called "work."

Any data miners out there who'd like to give this stuff a whack? If you know a software app that will import the data for me and keep it in proper tabular format, please post a comment.

Thanks!

Imp3rfect Beg!nnings

2006-10-06T07:42:00.000-05:00

This blog is part of the Inverted Life "family" of blogs. Unfortunately, it's more like the the "black sheep" in the family. Since I haven't figured out what will happen here, I haven't posted much here. Maybe I'll get around to something.

First on the list might be to make this blog look like the rest of the blogs in the family.

Second on the list might be to make a connection between the rest of Inverted Life and this blog.

Third on the list might be to figure out what purpose this blog will serve. Any ideas?