ieva melgalve » Virgin

rapid days

ieva — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:19:34 +0000

The past few days have been rather intense–I’ve been meeting people, writing things (mostly non-fiction, for freelance gigs and whatnot), some editing etc.. The contrast between this and the last weeks, no, actually months of doing much less that I could is surprising; I don’t even know whether in a good or a bad way. There are still things I have to catch up to (most notably, that darned comic I am stuck with, and Virgin that I still want to finish even though it’s so scary).
Also, I have decided that I’ll go to Finncon this year, making arrangements and stuff. This will be my first con abroad, so notably scary.

Other than that, I’ve been reading a lot, and partying a lot, and, of course, being my usual haphazard, half-witted self. Sometimes I really wonder how I manage to get by day by day when life around me seems so chaotic, and I’m struggling to keep up at least some sort of appearances. But then again, I think that’s how it is for most people.

writing by chance

ieva — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:41:40 +0000

This morning, I looked at my Virgin file. Due to untimely shutdown, my last scene and most of the next-of-the-last scene were gone. I looked at the single sentence hanging, and thought, yes, this is the whole scene, 12 words. That’s it. There’s everything I need for this scene.
Then, during the day, I received two e-mails from people whom I usually try to forget (the way Bee forgets), and I wrote to both of them, ending the letters with thanks for contacting me / thanks for not forgetting me. And I meant it.
Then, as I was eating dinner, a video for REM “Everybody hurts” came up, and instantly, I recognized that feeling, I recognized that eerie, detached sorrow.

I knew what Virgin is about.
It’s not about a society with unreasonable (or all-too-reasonable) rules, it isn’t about silently destroying you because you’re different.
It’s about love, and about marriage, and the day-to-day struggle of life as it is.

The funny thing is that my husband knew it long before as I did. He looked at an early plot draft, and he said, now where did you get that idea? I grinned and said, that’s just a twist, I don’t know what it means.
Right then, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge what my novel was about.
I am not sure I am ready for that now.

writegoal=1/2 word

ieva — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:48:33 +0000

I just came home from a loooong night out. I hadn’t done any writing, nothing useful at all (blame Michael Crichton). So under three beers and something-dunno-what, I’m staggering to the car, and my husband says, how much can you do? Can you do ten words? Ten-and-a-half? Can you do half of a word?
And I said, yes, of course I can do half a word.
I ended up with 268 words that moved the conflict forward.

I know my husband meant to be a tease, and a nasty guy pushing me when I’m clearly not up for anything, but…thanks.

the week of writing in the snow

ieva — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:36:39 +0000

Last week was one of the busiest, most stressful weeks ever. I still managed to get my writing done and accumulated 3K words for Virgin, as well as got some editing done (acceptable amount).
Last week was also when we launched a social project in Latvia, one that proclamates 2010 as The Reading Year. At some point it became profoundly important for me personally.
Other than that, I seem to be running out of words badly. I somehow manage to use them up in writing and at some point, there’s little left. I console myself thinking that at least they went to the right places.

And we’re still snowed in. This is the deepest, most beautiful winter I remember; and each morning, the frozen-and snowed over Daugava river greets me with its whiteness that approaches nothingness. Waking up and seeing whitescapes all over is so freeing, so true. So good after all the nightmares I have of late.

Are you writing too? How did it go?

the reward of persistence

ieva — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:06:19 +0000

Today, for the first time in a long long while, I got the kicks out of writing. Finally (after 7K words), I led my protagonist to really really hate me. Well, not me, but the people and the culture I created.
She is, it seems, very resistant to pressure. She can take it, for a long long while, not telling anything, not complaining, just accepting things that are happening to her even if she knows that they are wrong and somehow flawed. Then, for quite a while, she tries to keep her eyes squeezed shut in hopes that if she doesn’t see the problem it will just go away.

This is when she finally broke, when she said, that no, this is not right, this is not how it should work, and to hell with all the people who are saying that this is how it goes.

Yes, it’s just a small village resisting the change, resisting an opportunity of growth and the risks that go along with that. But for her, this village is the whole world–even the people from the next village are alien to her, they’re “others”. And still she broke, and she burst out, and she said no to everything she’d learned as true and right, and good.
We don’t get this sort of conflict in modern world–I can safely piss off all the people in my country and still I’ll find somebody to talk to, somebody who doesn’t give a damn about what those Latvians think of me. But in a world without Internet, without literacy even, this is not possible. Your neighbour, your mother’s sister, your village elders–they’re the whole world. You don’t get another chance of communication, normally.

Except that I think she will.

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.

progress&challenge

ieva — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:12:16 +0000

Since writing The Virgin hasn’t been easy (considering that I’m editing on the side etc., probably that’s understandable), so I needed a little nasty whip to urge me on. Hence the nice little “250 word challenge” widget from Inkygirl.
For the record – I’ve written 400+ words yesterday and 500+ words today (edit: Whoa, I just checked my spreadsheet and figured it’s 900+! In 45 minutes!). This far, I like what I’ve done but I have to brace myself for days when I write something that I know is a drivel just to move things forward.

I can do this though.

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.

beginning boggle AGAIN

ieva — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:24:49 +0000

Now, cool. I’ve had a fine first scene, and today I struggled to get the second on page, but, while writing is still enjoyable, the forcing myself to write part is a horror. I suspect it’s because of two things: I’ve gotten darn lazy, and I’m still editing Vega (so for every scene write, I have those 93 scenes of Vega that will need to be redone, and thus it’s very hard to allow myself to write crap).
Also, my planning is running thin. Here’s the problem though: as I realized, I cannot conceivably plan characters before writing them, so it seems that I should write them (at least a bit) first, and make the plan right after that, before I swamp myself with loose, open-ended characters.

That, or take my Tarot cards out again. They’ve never failed me before regarding short-term setups, and they won’t do that now, I trust.

Dream-jerk reaction

ieva — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:36:40 +0000

Whenever I’m actively writing I am having those wild dreams that boggle my mind as much as actual writing does. So after having one of those horrible, guild-ridden dreams tonight, I woke up with a “I’m writing today” thought I didn’t even question. (Not that I really wanted to question it.)

So I did my 500+ words on a tram, with the right protagonist, with the right trouble in the first scene, and enough inner discomfort to keep writing. Actually, come to think of it, I need to know that the protagonist is the right amount of wrong. And the antagonist, whether it’s a person or, as in this case, a culture, has to be the right amount of right. After all, *I* am the worst antagonist the protagonist can imagine, since I am the one who’s giving her all of her trouble. Moreover, I can easily make her life easier, give her everything she needs and let her have it forever. So, well, I need to dislike her enough to be that mean to her. Me being a mean person, this means she needs just one crappy trait or two, and a couple of stupid illusions/assumptions.

Also, on a side note, on a frantic research session, I discovered that love can be, and is, quite different from the definition I have developed for my private use. The fact that I needed a wikipedia article to tell me this doesn’t sound good. But oh well. Luckily, wikipedia exists.