Cameron Darrow's Blog, page 16

Uncooperative

I'm in the second draft of HCH and for the first time, I'm in the middle of a book that is uncooperative. I blasted through the first draft, and figured out a lot of what needs fixing and expanding and whatnot, but it's not coming together right. The story I have in my head is not what is sitting in Scrivener right now. The MC is being uncooperative at the moment, and she doesn't want to be who I imagined her to be when I started. She keeps pulling in one direction, when I pictured her going in another. Can a character sabotage her own book?

I'm the writer, I'm in control. You'd think. But ask anyone who's written fiction, and you'll see it's not always that simple. Stories and characters have minds of their own at a certain point, and don't always go where you want or need them to. Herding cats, steering a supertanker, etc. Sounds crazy, but it's true.

Part of the reason, at least for me, is the fact that novels take a while and you are stuck in your own head the whole time. If you're lucky enough to have an editor, it's different, but as an indie author, I am subject to my own whims and feelings over time, without the benefit of outside feedback along the way. I need my beta feedback for the story as a whole, which means I can't say anything beforehand and bias it one way or another.

Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, but the only way to know is when I get that feedback. But the book's not that far yet, so I have to just go with the flow for a moment, and see where it takes me. In the end, the goal is to take you there, too, so I thank you for your patience.

***

Sorry to be late with this post. Life, uh, happened. But hey, that means you get two this week!

More Midnight Thoughts

I woke up at four in the morning with an idea for how a character's hair works. That sounds weird (likely because it is), but it will make sense in the context of the story. I'd never thought about her hair beyond what it looked like, but this new midnight insight actually adds to her character in ways that I hadn't thought about, and helps along the solution to a problem I was having trouble cracking. One idea begets another and so on.

If you wait until the muse visits to do creative things, you aren't going to get very much accomplished. But when it does whisper in your ear, you'd better listen, and have something handy to write on.

Best Worst Draft

Just finished the first draft of my first standalone novel (still code named HCH; titles are hard) and it's the best I've felt about one since Remember, November. Not because the draft itself is good, but because I did it, and I'm happy with how the story has shaped up. I wrote this one differently, by just blasting through it without looking back or editing, just... word vomiting every day until there was a story. I outlined it, but there are already changes I'm making that I learned in the process of writing it.

The draft itself is barely readable as a story, though, with entire scenes that are literally just dialogue. They're placeholders for more stuff to come, obviously, but being able to blast through all of it and tell an entire story in only a few weeks felt good. I could get used to writing books that aren't 130,000 words long!

I needed to write this book. Something that wasn't in the Ashes series, a book that when it's done, is done, one that is much less taxing and not so emotionally fraught. It's not anywhere near publishable, but I know what I need to do to make it that way, and I'm looking forward to working on it every day. Hopefully it won't take too long to get it there, either.

It's romantic, it's fantasy, it's comedic, it's... a little weird, but not too bad, and moves at a breezy pace. It's a lovely little story with kissy bits and funny bits that will make it a nice contrast to the Ashes books and less daunting to get into. Those books are heavy, and deal with a lot of heavy themes, in addition to the fact that there is in the neighborhood of 400,000 words worth at the moment. This new book is not that.

I will have more to say about it when it's closer to done, but it's coming, and I'm very excited to share it with you.

Input is Important, Too

I think a lot of writers have gotten or seen criticism, directed at them specifically or not, about 'why aren't you writing?' in the context of having an opinion on something that, in others' minds, they shouldn't have time to enjoy because they should be chained to their computers all day.

The fact is you have to take in new things if you want to put out new things. You can't just build all of your books, your career on whatever influenced you up to the moment you published your first book. That's not how creativity works. Creativity is the swirling amalgam of your influences and experience filtered through your means of expression and talent, not some mana you pull out of the ether fully formed, independent of everything. It's not made in a vacuum. And it's ongoing; it never stops.

Why bring this up? Because I forgot.

A while ago, I had gotten to a point where I didn't want to see or read new things. I just wanted to swirl around in the things that made me write the way I do, in a hope of recapturing some perceived magic that had gone missing. It didn't work. It didn't fire my imagination at all, and the swirling I did was more of the toilet variety than fine wine.

Enter The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Since I started this show (two episodes left!), I feel way more creative and motivated than I have in some time. Yes, my writer brain has quibbles with parts of it. but the sheer creativity on display in every frame is astounding. The performances are brilliant, both from the voice actors and the puppeteers; the design work, the magic. It's wonderful, and I am demolishing my word count every day now because I took the time to feed my imagination. To give it what it was actually missing: inspiration. Fodder, grist, choose your metaphor as you will.

No, it's not a book, but sparks come from every direction. I have outlines already for books that were inspired by podcasts FFS, and another from a song. I'm not snooty about it, I'll take what I can get.

You can't run on fumes forever. At some point you have to fill the tank again, and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. It's part of the cycle.

But remember, you have to have good writing habits, too. It's both, not either, if you want to actually finish things. Finding the balance is hard, and using input as an excuse not to output is no good. Input so you can output, not instead of.

It's getting colder and the days shorter.* You have to stoke the fire if you want to stay warm, right?


*Southern Hemisphere readers, please return in six months for appropriate metaphor applicability. May also be interpreted to represent mortality, depending on your outlook for the day, regardless of location.

Herding Cats

Stories have a mind of their own. They don't always do what you want them to. They go off in their own directions. That sounds weird, since I'm the one writing it, how can that happen? I don't know half the time. Sometimes things slot into place perfectly and you step back and say 'Wow, how did I do that?' Other times, you step back and only then notice that the whole thing is the wrong shape and you say 'Wow, how did I do that?'

Writing is weird.

But I love it, and can't do anything else.

Series Sale!

To mark the 101st anniversary of the end of the First World War, I am making all three books in my historical fantasy series From the Ashes of Victory available for 99 cents each for the week starting November 11, until the 18th.

This sale is worldwide, so no matter which Amazon site you use, it will be the lowest price I could make it. So 99p, €.99, ¥99, etc.

From the Ashes of Victory follows the lives of a group of witches as they rebuild lives shattered by the Great War, with the help of magic, but more importantly, one another.

I sincerely hope you enjoy these books as much as I did writing them. If you do, I would really appreciate it if you would leave a review, it would really help me out.

If you're a new reader, welcome! If you know me already, please help spread the word. I appreciate you all!

Now back to work on Book IV!

Link to series page on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...

A Notebook By The Bed

Last week I talked about how an idea came to me in a dream. The only reason I remember it is because I wrote it down in the notebook I keep beside my bed. I didn't always have one, but after losing one too many ideas in the middle of the night, I started, and it has paid off more than once.

There are ideas in my bedside notebook that I, to this day, don't remember writing down. As illegible as they can be, there are critical ideas among them. Stuff you've read (hopefully), and things that have yet to be published, but key story points, character motivations, all kinds of different parts of stories that would have been lost if I hadn't written them down in the moment.

"Nah, I'll remember. I'll write it down in the morning."
No you won't. You'll remember you had an idea, might even remember what it pertained to, but you (I, let's be honest) will just spend all day frustrated that you had a really good idea, but don't any more.

So, add me to the list of authors who tell you to keep a notebook by your bed. Sometimes your subconscious has good ideas, too. At least give yourself a chance to put your insomnia to good use.

It Came To Me In A Dream

Literally.

In all of the books I've written, all the stories I've tried to break but haven't written yet, an idea came to me in a dream for the first time. And not a new idea for a story, or a character, but the solution to a story problem I already had. The context was... weird... but it was the answer I've been banging my head against the wall for weeks trying to figure out. That's crazy! Does that mean I'm a real writer? I'm dreaming about a missing piece of an outline now? The dream didn't even finish! I woke up (it was still dark) and spent the next hour writing things down so I wouldn't forget them. One solution spawned a dozen other ideas, and huge swaths of the story unlocked themselves.

I don't think I'm going to tell you what it was though, because when you read the story it will seem super obvious that that was the solution all along, and the curtain will have been pulled back on the wizard and all my powers will evaporate.

Voice Test

One of the ways I've found to see if a character's voice is strong is to take a scene and switch the POV. I've had to do this a couple of times, including recently in Book IV. Sometimes a scene doesn't work from the POV you started with, or there's some bit of insight you need to get across, or sometimes, seeing a character's reaction to something is more important than being in their head while they feel it. Seeing the effect a character's words have on the other, for example.

So far, when i've done this, I feel that I've passed the voice test. Meaning that switching the POV required more than just switching names and pronouns around; in almost every case the scene needed extensive rewrites to feel right. That's a good thing! It was reassuring and confidence-boosting to know that scenes and character voices aren't interchangeable and that they really are distinct from one another.

Being a novelist, it's sometimes difficult to get perspective on what you're doing until it's done (at the earliest, beta-reader level done), but POV switching is one way to test that what you're doing is working. I discovered it quite on accident, and it's probably in tons of writing books already, but if you're having doubts, and you have more than one POV to play with, it's one way to evaluate an aspect of your work while you're still in the solo stages.

A Follow-Up

Okay, so I can see how yesterday's post could be misinterpreted to mean something I didn't intend. Millie and Elise's relationship was not the source of my crisis. It was something else entirely, but I understand how one might connect the two, given the way I wrote it. I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

I guess this is why it's not a great idea to write stream-of-consciousness posts!