ieva melgalve » Vega

work vs. working environment

ieva — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:43:22 +0000

Last week, I was miserably behind my scene edits for Vega. Partly it was because I decided to recharge my batteries (by playing computer games) on weekend, partly because it is almost impossible to work on edits the way I want to in my usual tram commute time. That means two things.
First, I will edit Vega “my way”, which won’t necessarily be the best, but at least that will be better than doing next to nothing. I’ll still use HTRYN course as a guide and help, just the work process will be different. If I fail, well, then at least I’ll know that my way doesn’t work. For now, I am going to concentrate on scene read-through and edits on the level of conflict and logical flow of events, as well as proper character story archs (which is the biggest problem anyway, since it seems that I had written Vega with no logic at all involved). Then, I’ll concentrate on details and stuff. The main objective is to find a way to do it all on my netbook, with possibly a notepad and some index cards involved. It will look more like a complete rewrite than an edit, but a rewrite is really what I need at this point. I’m feeling rather enthusiastic about it all.
Second, right now my top priority is that commisioned story that I have to write. I am still not happy about it, but this morning, I got it started, and I sort of like the main characters and the main problems they will be facing. Still, this will be one of the hardest writing jobs I’ve ever done, and a major test for my career as a pro writer (yeah, I know… but come on, everybody has to have something to motivate themselves to go to day job in Monday mornings, and my motivation is “right now, I will work hard and learn, and if I’m really really good, I will be a pro writer at some point and won’t have to do all that crap”… which is, by the way, wrong on several levels, but my Monday-morning-mind usually isn’t alert enough to point that out).

imagine, editing

ieva — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:59:08 +0000

Last night, I don’t know why, editing finally opened up my imagination.
Just like in childhood (well… let’s admit it, just like from the childhood till today), when watching TV series or reading adventure books, I always imagined myself as one of the characters, always slightly disappointed that the world didn’t go exactly as I wanted it to go…
Right now, I’m doing the same thing with Vega, only I’m now allowed to tweak the rules if I wish. And that’s liberating and fun, and a bit distracting (I couldn’t go to sleep because I was too immersed in the basics of jewelry-magic, which, as it suddenly occured to me, should exist in Vega’s world, even if in a half-forgotten state).

Also, this state of heightened imagination is awesome. I missed it a lot during December.

a new year and all that stuff

ieva — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 10:14:49 +0000

I scheduled myself a “down-time” for December (which was a good thing because last year, I tried to dedicate myself to all kinds of writing/editing/whatnot, and burned myself out). Now, it’s January, and I’m back to do stuff.
This will be a boring year, mainly consisting of editing and just a bit of new writing done (and that only because there’s NaNoWriMo).
So, to list all my (as I said, very boring) resolutions.
1) Edit Vega. I have restarted working on that, and it seems that finally I understand what I was supposed to do in HTRYN. This is a complex plan which includes write-in in English, type-in in Latvian (which sounds slightly less crazy than it is… theoretically, I do have the skill to do that) and then getting back to English somehow.
2) Write a short story that I’ve promised to write, in Latvian. I’m feeling apprehensive about this, mainly because this requires me to change my thinking from writing-as-a-hobby to writing-as-a-job. However, I have a decent idea, and this seems like a good opportunity to change my thinking. (Temp title “Contused”.)
3) Write NaNoWriMo.
4) Participate in local writing group for beginning writers (I will be leading the crit sessions, with occasional advice on practical aspects of the writing–the heavy theoretical part will be covered by a guy who actually knows theory).

The editing is definitely the biggest project; big enough for me to dread it if I look at it as a whole. However, the separate bits of the project might just be doable. So that is what I’ll be doing, going step by step and looking out of snags.
The most important thing about editing, for me, is to realize that editing is not a punishment for bad writing. Editing is a brand new thing to do on the basis of the existing project. Of course, it is sort of horrible to look at my own writing and realize that 1) it is very rubbishy 2) I was actually very happy with it as I wrote it, but well. I guess that at least one thing will happen during editing: I will figure out the main shortcomings of my writing and probably work on fixing them.

Vega; a revelation

ieva — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:48:56 +0000

This morning, I woke up remembering something I’d thought of while half-asleep (but when? For the past few days, I’ve been sleeping in odd times and places): Vega needs a different, more horrible ending, more to the point: a profoundly different ending, so much so that it has to be rewritten for all the characters to earn it. (I’m not saying “deserve”, but “earn”: to touch deeper, to revolt, to create questions instead of shrugs). I have just a vague idea of what this ending would be and how would they arrive to that, but my guess is that the answer is already hidden within the story, it needs to be excavated carefully.

And instead of light fantasy (“lots of stuff happen but everything ends well because people are decent beings”) it should be dark fantasy, possibly even horror (“given the nature of people, the only miracle I know of is that we are able to get by without eating each others’ brains for breakfast”). Probably adding more POVs, more sex (wouldn’t be that hard, considering there was no sex in the original version), more death, more betrayal and sorrow.
The dream has ended, babes, and the fun will now commence.

baby steps

ieva — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:17:21 +0000

Things I’ve done:
- worked quite a bit on Vega revision (although the real value of this is still unknown; ie I have very little idea whether I will be able to put that thing in shape and how long it will take),
- worked a bit on Newil planning,
- worked a bit on Flowers.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going away to Tricon 2010, and I have very little idea whether I’ll have Internet access there, so posts may be scarce. I have very little idea on when I’ll be able to pack and where I’ll sleep and I have a zillion other concerns and uncertainties, but I’m trying to see it as an Adventure.

working in vacation

ieva — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:53:42 +0000

Today is the first day of my vacation. Curiously enough, I’ve managed to keep myself fairly busy with stuff, writing, editing and kids.
Anyhow, the bottom line is… well, there are two bottom lines:
1. I seem to be quite unable to Do Nothing, Really Nothing except when I’m totally burned out.
2. I seem to be able to work on my writing ~5 hours a day, if I get an uninterrupted time. Impossible with the kids though.

My plan for tomorrow is to switch writing and editing around, thus getting more time for editing (I can write in a mess and mayhem at home, but not edit). This means carrying the horrendous bundle of Vega to a cafe, but whatever.

Also, I started a brand new project, did 800+ words on top of lots of worldbuilding and am fairly excited about the thing. So yay. Widget comes when I make sure this one’s a keeper.

January recap

ieva — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:41:35 +0000

On January I had one false start on Virgin. I got the protagonist wrong–she was one of those whiny creatures thinking that all the society had wronged her; and even though she was right, I hated her. So I stopped to regroup and figured out the right start in the last quarter in January. The 4K I have now seem to indicate that it’s more or less fine now (although I really should do some character sketches and planning!). Also, I’m doing fine with 250 word challenge. 250 words seem to be an amount I can easily write under almost any circumstances, so good for weekends too.

Editing is jumpy, some days I work like crazy, some days I’m not approaching my index cards at all. That’s something I intend to improve over February, or else the edits will take forever.

Plans for next month: I’m hoping to write (or edit to a good second draft) a short story, get Virgin to 10K and keep on editing. Since I will have a lot to do at work, no big plans yet, just not to lose whatever momentum I have now.

slow and steady

ieva — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:46:54 +0000

Today, I did some work on Vega edits (figured out the plot and two subplots out of six). That was rather inspiring, especially since I am reading Sherlock Holmes lately–it seems that mystery line will grow rather strong. I hope I can pull it off since I know next to nothing about mystery writing.
When I got tired of old plots, I put some work on Virgin–not actual writing, but character casting. This time, I did it with Tarot cards, using the awesome (although very advanced) Tarot of the Secret Forest deck. I am thinking of putting together a blog post about Tarot reading as it goes with plotting, my rather haphazard experience. That will take some time though, especially considering how lazy I am and how busy work has been lately–I have zero time to doodle with non-work projects at my office time.

New Year’s Plan

ieva — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:21:39 +0000

Everybody must have some resolution, right? Well, mine isn’t really a resolution, it’s a not-too-ambitious plan of what I could accomplish without driving myself nuts (either with burn-out or lazy-crap-writer syndrome that kicks in whenever I don’t write much).

1. Edit Vega to the final, query-able version. (That’ll be the hardest, but I believe that with How To Revise Your Novel course I’ll be able to do that. And I’ll start working on that very soon, very likely tomorrow.)
2. Edit at least 12 stories to the final, submittable versions. That’s roughly one story a month, and totally doable if I apply myself to that.
3. Write a new novel (the one code-named Virgin perhaps?). I think I’ll start writing right now because basically, I don’t get the real “feel” or the scope of the novel yet. Sounds upside-down? Well, no. I reckon that the most painless and reliable way to get the “feel” of the novel is to write a chapter or two. That feel will determine whether it’s primarily an action-based stuff with weird magic or is it a psychological piece, or a cozy dealing-with-sexuality story, or a horror that would make me stay awake at nights. Or, if the first chapters feel wrong, well, then I’ll know it’s wrong and try the opposite approach. It’s not the scientific way but it’s a way to make sure I enjoy writing something I will very likely *not* enjoy writing.
(By the way: why writing if I have so much to edit? I think it’s necessary for me to write. I re-started writing because I’m hooked on that; if my editing will mess with my writing, I’ll drop them both as I actually did two weeks ago. So I’ll do both, in a sorta accomplishment-reward vicious circle.)

What I believe I’ll also do: write a handful of new stories and, most likely, participate in NaNoWriMo again (with a subsequent burn-out in December again), but I’m not putting it in my plan because I don’t want to allow myself to fail at my first two resolutions and excuse it with “oh, but I did the stories and the NaNo”.

That’s it. May you (whoever is reading this) have plans so cool that making them come true feels great and, well, not easy, but tremendously rewarding.
All else is luck and gifts from above, and I believe that these things will come to you on their own accord and in their own time, when they’re most needed.

the sunday madness

ieva — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:34:37 +0000

If I am to meet my self-imposed goal I have to read and mark up 173 pages of Vega today to finish the thing and get on to the next stages of editing. So, can I do it? I could, if I were Stephen King (I spent my allocated editing time reading Misery, with subsequent nightmares of getting my limbs chopped off for slacking). Given that I’m me and there are some parts in the book when I feel tempted to put it down (gotta mark these parts!), it’ll take more time. Or more determination.

The good news is that there are good parts in the book. And I’m feeling more alive than I used to a couple of days ago.

Feeling alive is a good, good thing.