C. Dennis Moore's Blog, page 6
July 16, 2012
Blue Moon
Today was almost productive.
In between first drafts, I've been going back and revising, rewriting, editing old stories I was either never happy with or couldn't sell and trying to make them better. The next story on that list is my werewolf story, "Blue Moon Story". First off, I've always hated that title. Second, there's a scene in the middle of the story that I've always known was a bullshit scene and only there for word count and to keep the story from suffering premature act3lation, if you will. But it's still a bullshit scene. So it needs to go. That was going to be my first order of business today. But then I started looking through the story file with all the old old drafts in there, stuff I wrote 11, 12 years ago that never made it into the final draft, and I found the original prologue to the story I wrote way back when. This prologue is the backstory that sets up the presentday events of the story. But looking at it again . . . I think this could turn out to be the story, without all the present day nonsense.
Of course, this would mean an entire rewrite of the whole story from the beginning. And that's the problem. I really don't think I was to completely rewrite the story from word one.
So I'm mulling it over all morning, trying to come up with enough detail to make it an actual story--as it is, it's just about a page of story that leads into the actual story, and if I can't build a full story from that, with all the elements I'm looking for in this story, then it won't work anyway--or trying to figure out if I just want to keep the version I have and give it a heavy heavy edit, including removing and replacing the PoS scene.
I haven't made up my mind yet, I'm still turning it over. We'll see.
In between first drafts, I've been going back and revising, rewriting, editing old stories I was either never happy with or couldn't sell and trying to make them better. The next story on that list is my werewolf story, "Blue Moon Story". First off, I've always hated that title. Second, there's a scene in the middle of the story that I've always known was a bullshit scene and only there for word count and to keep the story from suffering premature act3lation, if you will. But it's still a bullshit scene. So it needs to go. That was going to be my first order of business today. But then I started looking through the story file with all the old old drafts in there, stuff I wrote 11, 12 years ago that never made it into the final draft, and I found the original prologue to the story I wrote way back when. This prologue is the backstory that sets up the presentday events of the story. But looking at it again . . . I think this could turn out to be the story, without all the present day nonsense.
Of course, this would mean an entire rewrite of the whole story from the beginning. And that's the problem. I really don't think I was to completely rewrite the story from word one.
So I'm mulling it over all morning, trying to come up with enough detail to make it an actual story--as it is, it's just about a page of story that leads into the actual story, and if I can't build a full story from that, with all the elements I'm looking for in this story, then it won't work anyway--or trying to figure out if I just want to keep the version I have and give it a heavy heavy edit, including removing and replacing the PoS scene.
I haven't made up my mind yet, I'm still turning it over. We'll see.
Some of My Books
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Ray bradbury
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Clive Barker
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Gary A. Braunbeck
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The Dark Tower
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Tim Lebbon
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Edward Lee
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Koji Suzuki
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C. Dennis Moore
Ray bradbury
[image error]
Clive Barker
[image error]
Gary A. Braunbeck
[image error]
The Dark Tower
[image error]
Tim Lebbon
[image error]
Edward Lee
[image error]
Koji Suzuki
[image error]
C. Dennis Moore
July 13, 2012
+940
So the new story turned out not to be as long as I'd begun to think it would. In fact, I finished the first draft this morning--one week ahead of schedule. I wrote 1483 words last night after work before my daughter's tae kwon do class, then another 940 this morning, and brought it to a close.
Now, this is a first first draft, every bit a rough cut, maybe even a dress rehearsal for the heavily edited and re-blocked final draft to come. I know the entire third act of the story needs a serious re-work, but for now I can see basically what I'm working with and go from there.
Plus, I don't want to do any serious editing to any of these 6 stories until they're all written in first draft because I want them to read separately, but together as well, so I'm holding off calling any of them done until I have a better picture. Also, there could very well be something in the next story that will better inform the end of this one and make the rewrite a lot easier.
For now, I like this world, I like the characters and the situation.
The next two first draft stories are not connected to this story, so it will be a nice break for me from the work of this longer story and, since I'm at the halfway mark on this longer story, I think this will be a good place to put it aside and let my subconscious work it over while I focus on something else.
Now, while I do that, I need all of you to go to my Amazon and/or Smashwords pages and buy some ebooks.
Now, this is a first first draft, every bit a rough cut, maybe even a dress rehearsal for the heavily edited and re-blocked final draft to come. I know the entire third act of the story needs a serious re-work, but for now I can see basically what I'm working with and go from there.
Plus, I don't want to do any serious editing to any of these 6 stories until they're all written in first draft because I want them to read separately, but together as well, so I'm holding off calling any of them done until I have a better picture. Also, there could very well be something in the next story that will better inform the end of this one and make the rewrite a lot easier.
For now, I like this world, I like the characters and the situation.
The next two first draft stories are not connected to this story, so it will be a nice break for me from the work of this longer story and, since I'm at the halfway mark on this longer story, I think this will be a good place to put it aside and let my subconscious work it over while I focus on something else.
Now, while I do that, I need all of you to go to my Amazon and/or Smashwords pages and buy some ebooks.
July 12, 2012
+1101
While I'm pretty good at judging how long a story will be, roughly, once I get it started, every just so often I get it wrong and a story decides to be longer than I'd expected. That's the case with the current story. I added 1101 words this morning and didn't get near as far in it as I'd thought I would. That does happen, though. In my story "Renovation" it took about 1000 words more than I thought it would just to get the characters out of the house. Sometimes it's for the good of the story. In fact, in most cases I find this to be true; the story is telling itself at this point, unfolding at its own pace, and to do anything else to try to reign it in will get you--and by you I mean me--off the course of the story's track and then you just have to delete a big chunk and try to get back to where you jumped the track in the first place. It's not always easy. It doesn't always work.
So it's best, in these instances, to just ride it out and let the story unfold how it wants. I had a moment this morning when I wondered where the hell it was going and how am I ever going to get to the ending I envisioned, and then something happened in the story and it clicked into place once again, more firmly this time, and I realized I wasn't just grasping at straws this morning, the story was taking over. That's always a nice feeling. Well, usually.
I'm still going to finish the first draft by next Friday, the 20th, it's just not going to be WAY before the deadline like I was thinking.
So it's best, in these instances, to just ride it out and let the story unfold how it wants. I had a moment this morning when I wondered where the hell it was going and how am I ever going to get to the ending I envisioned, and then something happened in the story and it clicked into place once again, more firmly this time, and I realized I wasn't just grasping at straws this morning, the story was taking over. That's always a nice feeling. Well, usually.
I'm still going to finish the first draft by next Friday, the 20th, it's just not going to be WAY before the deadline like I was thinking.
July 11, 2012
+1187
(Some backstory, since this is being copied from my regular website where I've been blogging regularly since January 2010: I've been working on a series of short stories, all of which contain a similar theme. So instead of trying to come up with six individual plots that, in the end, all seemed strangely similar, I decided to cut to the chase and just write them as a series of stories that, in the end, will be able to be collected into a larger whole. I've got the first two stories written in first draft and started work on the third story yesterday morning, completing 1030 words. Now we pick up with this morning's post):
Despite oversleeping an entire hour this morning, I still managed to add another 1187 words to the new story. That surprised me because already being an hour late getting to the computer, I figured I'd end up squandering away the morning just staring at it. I didn't feel the story this morning, and when I opened the file, the words just weren't there. But I rubbed my eyes, took another drink of my coffee, read the last few paragraphs from yesterday, and got started.
And once I got started, I didn't want to stop. I felt like, if I didn't have to work today, I could have sat there and finished it. It would have taken another couple of hours, but I felt the story was there, ready to come out. That is thanks to yesterday.
In my day job, I'm an inventory control clerk, and I spend a good chunk of my day counting inventory. However, in today's computerized age, "counting" simply means scanning a pallet tag with a bar code on it, and if what shows up on my scanner matches what's actually in front of me, I push another button, then move on to the next one. Obviously it's real mentally demanding work. So I use that time to run through whatever story I'm working on at the time. And yesterday, while "counting" 208,516 lbs of inventory, I reconciled the end of this story with how it fits into the rest of the series and what the end of this one means for the beginning of the next one, and for how the rest of them will play out.
I'm really getting close to having this whole thing mapped out, and that will help greatly in making them all easier to write when I get to them. My July 20th deadline is going to be no problem. At least . . . I hope.
Despite oversleeping an entire hour this morning, I still managed to add another 1187 words to the new story. That surprised me because already being an hour late getting to the computer, I figured I'd end up squandering away the morning just staring at it. I didn't feel the story this morning, and when I opened the file, the words just weren't there. But I rubbed my eyes, took another drink of my coffee, read the last few paragraphs from yesterday, and got started.
And once I got started, I didn't want to stop. I felt like, if I didn't have to work today, I could have sat there and finished it. It would have taken another couple of hours, but I felt the story was there, ready to come out. That is thanks to yesterday.
In my day job, I'm an inventory control clerk, and I spend a good chunk of my day counting inventory. However, in today's computerized age, "counting" simply means scanning a pallet tag with a bar code on it, and if what shows up on my scanner matches what's actually in front of me, I push another button, then move on to the next one. Obviously it's real mentally demanding work. So I use that time to run through whatever story I'm working on at the time. And yesterday, while "counting" 208,516 lbs of inventory, I reconciled the end of this story with how it fits into the rest of the series and what the end of this one means for the beginning of the next one, and for how the rest of them will play out.
I'm really getting close to having this whole thing mapped out, and that will help greatly in making them all easier to write when I get to them. My July 20th deadline is going to be no problem. At least . . . I hope.
