A.M. Jenkins's Blog, page 21

I have character arcs on the brain lately, because I've b...

I have character arcs on the brain lately, because I've been thinking about them for other people. At the same time I've been rereading MWT's Attolia series (in anticipation of the new book this spring). And I'm like, whoa. I'm not sure The Thief even has a character arc for the MC--at least, not a strong one. It has one for the reader, that's for sure. The Queen of Attolia certainly does, for both MCs. But The King of Attolia...I'm just over halfway through my reread and am thinking this is ...

Feels like I may be gearing up for a nice bit of work on ...

Feels like I may be gearing up for a nice bit of work on the former GN. I've got some notes I made during discussion with a fellow writer, and now have some ideas about stringing out the main problem area so it doesn't lie there like a big forbidding blob. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to try to tackle it, but am thinking I'll read through the ms making notes rather than just diving in and typing new stuff.* First, however, I need to get a clear idea in my head of what any changes need to ...

note to self re. point between loss and suitors

Emphasis at beginning is on family. Drive home the point that this is gone, that even with a house full of people, activity, noise, and things to do, it's still empty, lonely. The heart of it is gone--a hive, but hollow.

Will be out of town for two weeks, so no blogging till I ...

Will be out of town for two weeks, so no blogging till I get back.

It's gotten pretty obvious to me that I'm not going to be...

It's gotten pretty obvious to me that I'm not going to be doing any writing of my own for at least two-three weeks. I might be able to do some thinking about my writing, but we'll see.

I am bitterly disappointed by the fact that IFC has stopped having Samurai Saturday. I asked them about it, and they replied:

"In 2010, our inventory does not have an adequate amount of Samurai films to sustain a consistent weekly airing."

I can't express how much this sucks. Samurai Saturday was like a good libra...

No writing of my own. No thinking about any writing of my...

No writing of my own. No thinking about any writing of my own, either. Too many other things going on.

Was thinking about the Dioscuri hunting down Theseus. Thi...

Was thinking about the Dioscuri hunting down Theseus. This is one place I lose traction in my WIP; I'm not sure what spin to put on it. Yesterday I decided to dig into the subject and really get a grip on the multiple versions of what happened. I was trying to feel out what seemed most reasonable, and (just like when I try to feel out anything to do with Mycenaean thrones and inheritance) it got really confusing.*

Then today I was thinking through yesterday's stuff and realized that although I...

I did not realize that Road to Perdition was based on Lon...

I did not realize that Road to Perdition was based on Lone Wolf and Cub. But of course it is. D'oh! on me. I guess I need to reread Road to Perdition now, and think about how it took the main story arc of a 28-book series and condensed that down to one novel.

I was thinking about Daigoro, the "cub" who's been raised as a stoical assassin and who has seen every kind of bloodshed, murder, violence, and sex that human beings can perform, even though he's just four years old at the end of the seri...

Worked on writing-related stuff, then sat down to swordfi...

Worked on writing-related stuff, then sat down to swordfighting WIP. I'm basically just spewing out backstory and going into detail whenever I feel like it, and it's all floating explanation and description with no scenes grounded enough to be truly set. It's almost freewriting. The funny thing is, I'll bet I could go on for a long time just getting all the backstory put down on paper, especially since I'm probably going to go ahead and write out the backstory for at least three characters, a...

No writing--or not much, anyway. When I've done any, it's...

No writing--or not much, anyway. When I've done any, it's been thingees for the swordfighting ms. My present approach seems to be writing down anything I feel like writing, no matter who it's about or when it takes place. If this continues, at some point I'll have about ten million words worth of cr*p to weed through and pull together. At the moment I don't really care, though. I'm just writing whatever feels fun or good. It's like a stress reliever.