R.W. Krpoun's Blog, page 26

Truth is stranger than fiction

I was reading about Andrew Jackson, a great President albeit a man \who must be judged by the standards of his day.

The only POTUS to completely pay off the national debt, the first to have an assassination attempt (by blind luck, and he had to be physical restrained before he beat the would-be killer to death), and the first to have a treaty with a nation of Asia.

If you based a fictional character on him you would be condemned as having chosen a ‘Mary Sue’ type protagonist.

If you were expecting me to be going somewhere with this, you were mistaken.

 

 

I don’t normally like heavy metal

I’m more a 80s rock and modern country kind of guy. I mainly listen to music when I am driving, walking (for exercise), or writing, and for the latter I am always on the lookout for suitable music.

I have really been enjoying ‘The Last Stand’ by Sabaton, a Finnish heavy metal group. I’m exploring their other songs.

Music is a big part of my creative process; I listen to to it to build ideas and when pounding the keyboard. ‘The Last Stand’ is an excellent motivational song.

Update VIII

So I am working on editing my latest work (still have not finalized the title, but I’m down to two), and that is a tough process for generally when I finish the rough draft I look at it and think “This is the worst thing I’ve ever written”. Then I wait a little while and start the review and edit process, and I find that it isn’t as bad as I thought it was.

Anyway the new book should be out in April; I’ll post an opening excerpt in a couple weeks.

Meanwhile sales are stead and I’ve gotten three good reviews which really boost my spirits. I’ve written roughly 13,000 words divided between two existing projects, but one of which is definitely going to need more plot work before I get serious about it, I;m just laying the base of it. The other might take off; in any case I’ve got plenty of work going.

My goal of three books in 2018 is still standing form, although goals are tricky things.

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Writing as a serious undertaking

On a site the question was raised as to what leads to completed books, and this got me to thinking: what is serious writing?

My answer would be: the same as any other serious undertaking, be it a career, courtship, or training.  Writing, and more specifically plots, characters, and settings should be on your mind every day. You should do something to hone your craft or increase your arsenal of facts and ideas every single day.

Ideally you should write every day, but if that isn’t always possible, the drive for research and the search for inspiration should be present every single day. You never know what experience you have will be of value in future or even current projects.

I am not suggesting a single-minded obsession, but rather that writing be integrated into your life. You should set up a place to write as best as your circumstances allow, you should have a system of storing random ideas, facts, and inspirations, and in your free moments you should turn your thoughts to your projects.

Just as you would with a career, school, or a courtship. Make writing part of your life.

Things that stay with you

TV and the movies have police officers ready to put their career on the line over this case or that case, which is completely absurd. The average detective carries 20-30 cases at any time, so getting personally involved is not an issue.

But in real life you do get haunted by cases, or rather, the people who are the core of cases. They sneak into your life and follow you around, especially the stone whodunits.

One followed me into retirement, and I had just consulted on the case for a couple days. It was years old by the time I left. Most murders in America are criminal-on-criminal, a two for one sale as we call it, and while we work them as professionally as any other, they are just work. The victim’s occupational hazards caught up with him or her, tragic in a sort of big-picture sense but hardly something that will weigh upon you.

It is a strange feeling, knowing that the man you were looking for is walking around, maybe passing you in the mall. Or might be in prison for something else, or dead. An uncompleted equation. Unfinished business.

It’s a form of guilt, even though you left no stone unturned. You can do everything absolutely right and still come up empty. It doesn’t mean you’re dealing with some criminal mastermind (few are), it just generally means the killer was lucky.

The thing about luck is that it is fleeting; you throw enough man-hours, resources, and technology at it and you will generally wear it away. We can make a thousand mistakes and still find him; he makes one mistake and we have him.

Every retired officer who did the job right comes away with some ghosts trailing him. Unfinished business. Things that look over your shoulder at 0530 when you’re sitting at your computer.

Update VII

After surviving a bout of flu that lasted two weeks (naturally I didn’t go see a doctor-that’s for wimps) and feeling run-down from the experience, I finished Call to Arms on the 18th and then took a week off to recharge my creative batteries.

Book sales have been steady, and I picked up one review.

The re-write and editing process for Call looms, and a wide variety of projects call out for completion.

Update VI

Have the flu. Feel awful.

Sales good, no new reviews, Call is nearly finished.

More if I live.

Motivations

Motivation (or personal beliefs) is an important aspect of characters in any written work. There’s always those readers who will take up a ripping good yarn and immediately ask questions like ‘why is the hero doing X,Y, or Z’.

So motivation in a written work is important, just as it is in real life. But how to display a subject’s motivation? Part of it is in backstories, but I think actions are the best way to display the inner depths of a person’s feelings in action. Not big, decisive, flag-waving moments, but in the smaller actions. For example, in my recent novel Zerk, we see him in a quiet moment consulting his notes of things he wants to accomplish (missions, as he calls them). It is a simple list and one that (at least in my opinion) speaks of the bleakness of his past life and to a basic goodness in Zerk’s nature

Morals, they say, are what you do when no one is watching.

To me, motivation should be tied into a character’s every choice; it is a part of a person, often done without thinking.

A good example of personal belief in action: my wife kills spiders. She’s not afraid of them, she just kills them whenever she encounters them indoors or out. It isn’t something she feels a need to talk about, and she talks a great deal. So a couple years ago she hurt her back (eventually chiropractor visits cleared it up, but that is not relevant), and during that period she called me at work and asked if I could come get her and take her home as her back hurt too much to drive.

So I got her and we are driving home. I look over and she had removed one of her boots and is calmly using  it to kill a tiny spider on the dash of my truck.

That is motivation: she’s hurting too much to finish work or drive, but upon seeing a spider, however small, she killed it, pain not notwithstanding. Motivation is something that you do because it is part of you.

People make choices that echo through the rest of their lives, little choices and big ones. That is what makes people tick. New choices get made, of course, but getting to know someone means learning the core policies that make up who they really are.

The varied nature of blockage

Every writer gets writer’s block, but that is a label that covers a lot of things, ranging from a creative dry spell to the release of a new Fallout DLC. Listed below are my types of block and how I deal with them.

Creative loss: This is when my drive to write shuts off, usually for no reason. It’s gone. Nope, no interest at all. This is the time I do in-depth research, troll Wikipedia, prepper, and conspiracy forums looking for ideas. The drive will come back on its own; and in the meantime I’ll play Skyrim with a character restricted to daggers and bows.

Story arc death: This one stalled Zerk for two years, among other projects. I’m chugging along cranking out solid rough draft, and then BLAM: I realize the the plot I have won’t work. There I am with 30,000 words and absolutely no idea where to go with it. All I can do is shelve the project and wait for an idea to hit, which is tough because it has to be an idea that will build off the original foundation. To this end I watch movies, documentaries (especially those I don’t agree with or which cover topics I am not interested in; Zerk was solved while watching a Pivot doc about failing schools), and stuff on NatGeo. You never know when inspiration will hit. Watching or reading within the selected genre helps to get me in the right frame , too.

Scene stall: This is where I am chugging along, the background, characters, and overall plot are meshing within the tolerances of rough draft standards. I’m cooking along, the plot plan notes “H wins fight in bar, captures map” (H = hero, my shorthand. Because protagonist takes too long) and for some reason I cannot cannot come up with a bar fight (or ambush, argument, research scene, whatever). Maybe 400-500 words, I know what has to happen (in overview), but for some reason I just cannot get the scene going. When that happens I usually proofread and edit (the eternal bane of indie writers: fixing the typos) until I can figure out a way to make it work. Usually once I get a paragragh in I’m OK, but other that first paragraph is rough.

New Fallout, Borderlands, Skyrim, Seven days to Die, or Far Cry material: Just play it out. There’s no getting past it.

 

Update V

A long but well-worthwhile week. Interestingly enough, it involved my first selfie: I was contacted by an old friend with whom I had worked in a tough Sheriff’s Office back in the 80s and had been the best man at my wedding. He retired one month before I did (to the day) from his current position, and we exchanged photos. We agreed that while we are no longer the stud muffins we had once been, we had aged well.

The writers block came down with a resounding crash; I wrote 12,000 words during the week, nearly all in Call, as Game has lost the spark for the moment. Call is poised at 69k words, not yet novel length but close, and the plot is still holding together.

Sales are steady and I scored another review, so the week was good in that regard. I continue in my never-ending search for inspiration and ideas.

I am going to move my updates to a two-week format and try to actually post on my blog the way it is meant.