A Sense of Accomplishment.

Tonight, I actually finished a short story.

Yes, you read that right, I actually finished a story.

Now, it is a short story, about 5000 words or so, and it still needs a healthy dose of editing, but I wrote it.

Beginning to end.

That's not something I've often done unless it was for school.

I've started scores, probably at least a couple hundred stories, but only finished a handful of them. So far my personal challenges of getting these finished and polished so I can submit them to places seems to be going well.

The funny thing is, I've been cranking away at this story thinking I needed it done for next week.

In fact, I had until late November for this one. (Ok, honestly I have forever, but for submitting like I want, late November.)

The one I have until October 31 is still in horrific shape and needs serious editing and its not even finished yet.

Ah well. A challenge for this week then!

Oh, if you're interested in the story, I hinted at it on my google plus. It involves elves, Santa, whiskey, and guns. It'll get posted here eventually if it isn't accepted for publication.

Funny how...

Actually writing helps you improve your writing!

Amazing ain't it?

Over the past two weeks I've started two stories and reworked a third so that it is pretty much a new work.

Now, I still need to buckle down and finish them, but I've started, I've written, I've been working on them.

I have deadlines on when I want them to be done. (Well, in a couple cases, NEED them done.) And man, is it fun!

My earlier post on slowing down was answered in a very good way by a poster on AbsoluteWrite. I do too much "telling" not enough "describing."

I "tell" what happened "Jack ran across the bridge."

I need to work on "describing" what happened, "Jack sprinted across the rubble strewn bridge, heart pounding and muscles burning from the effort."

Something like that.

Anyway, I love writing. I don't know if I am or ever will be any good at it, but that doesn't mean I can't have a blast!

Motivation

Well, thanks to a wonderful internet forum friend Justcrash, I've gotten involved in AbsoluteWrite.com. Its really gotten me excited about writing again and actually progressing in what I'm writing.

Usually, I'll write a few pages of a story and let it linger and never return. (It used to be I'd write a few score pages, but my output, or input, or put put, has lessened over the years.)

Now though, I have deadlines. DEADLINES!!!

Ok, they're still sort of self-imposed because they are submission deadlines for anthologies. Now, I don't actually expect to get anything published anytime soon, I really really really need to polish my chops.

But, if trying to get stuff thrown down and edited up in time for submission, well that's practice, right?

We'll see I suppose.

Enter Oonluhu

The figure squatted, perched on a granite boulder, facing the rising sun as it had almost daily for seven decades. Wearing nothing but tawny breeches of elk leather, the large eyes closed, slight crows feet crinkling the corner of a sun-browned face his arms extended palms upward. His skin, deeply tanned the color of old leather, was taut against the ropey muscles of his arms.
So slowly a casual observer may miss the movement, Oonluhu began to rise. One large foot pulled to his waist, his lean body rose on a single leg. The muscles refused to quiver as he reached his full height, bare foot balancing him on stone worn smooth by this daily ritual.
Lowering himself back to a crouch, Oonluhu repeated the process with his other leg. Strength and control most could only dream about.
After working his legs, he stood, arms raised over his head, stretching to his toes, his lean form leaning forward until his palms were flat on the warming granite.
Bent double, Oonluhu took his weight on his hands and pulled his legs overhead. Scissoring his legs back and forth, in and out, he stood on both hands, then his left, then his right.
The sun was over the peaks, light streaming on his bare skin. He welcomed the warmth. Chasing away the last vestiges of the chill night air.
Still standing on his hands, Oonluhu completed his morning ritual by pressing body up and down fifteen times. The final time he launched himself high enough to land on his feet on the dirt three feet below.
The sun was well in the sky after the two hours of ritual exercise. A soft, cool breeze wafted from the western peaks bringing the scent of aspen. Oonluhu ducked his head as he stepped into his small cabin.
The small wooden and stone structure was a mere ten feet by ten feet square. Along the back wall a cot made of pine saplings and willow switches stood, leather pouches sewn underneath to hold hot stones during the winter months. A table, nothing more than a small boulder with a flat top Oonluhu wrestled into place before building the structure sat on the left hand wall. A stone hearth, with a rough rock and mud chimney stood next to the table. The right side held an oak staff, a leather jerkin hanging on the wall, and a gray wool blanket, neatly folded, sitting on stool.

Slowing Down

I'm starting to realize something. Ok, I've known if for awhile, but still, it truly became apparent to me as I was doing some writing not long ago.

Ideas were coming to me faster than I could type, so what did I do? I started trying to throw down the ideas, general plot ideas, ideas for character action, etc. and skipping the interesting details. The little descriptors, adjectives and adverbs that add color to a story.

I was ending up with a nice plot outline, but a crappy story.

I need to stop doing that.

Plot is easy to write for me. Now, I don't write convoluted tales or anything, but its pretty easy for me to write plot.

Writing description, bringing my plot to life, that's the tough part. And being tough, the part that tends to be skipped.

During my recent vacation I read "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. It was amazing! Wilde's use of language was brilliant! His descriptions, while often overwrought by modern standards, were beautiful. They brought to life the world of his characters, but seldom ever interrupted the plot. (Some authors can write amazing descriptions, but they tend to lose the plot in them. I haven't noticed this as often.)

I also read a book "Doomsday Morning" by C.L. Moore. She was a genius at description. Little asides, ventures into the mind of her characters, that really filled out the story and took what could have been a rather pedestrian SF story and turned it into a true work of art.

I'm not sure there is anything wrong with just slapping down the general outlines of the plot, as long as I come back and bring it to life. Make it seem real instead of the basic plan of a D&D encounter.

My world

The world I've written much of my half finished fantasy in since I was 8 or so, is named Bastagon. I don't really know why, it was a name that came to me then and have used it ever since. I refuse to Google it and find out its already taken.

Bastagon is your prototypical fantasy world. However, since I never really finish anything I start, its a very murky, unfinished world. I've probably drawn over a hundred maps (in the last 23 years) of parts of Bastagon, but never really attempted to fit them together.

When I was younger this was excusable. Now, its pretty much just lazy. Oh well, I'll get to it about the time I actually finish writing something. I'll use that as canon and build from there.

Brilliant! (Guinness please?)

Bastagon is populated with elves and humans and dwarves and orcs. All the good fantasy staples. However, over the past year (as I read through David Drake's Lord of the Isles) I've been kicking around the idea of planes/dimensions/other worlds, tied to Bastagon.

Humans aren't the focus for me all that much anymore. They have been taking secondary and tertiary roles.

A far cry from when I was 11 and wrote about 160 pages (by hand) of "The Pilots of Bastagon" which essentially was about me and a bunch of friends from school who were pilots in WWII flying Corsairs and get transported to Bastagon. Its pretty awesomely awful little kid stuff.

Anyway, I needed to make a first post here. And I have now.

I suppose I'll end with some pointless comparison about how my views of Bastagon has changed as my views of the world have changed. They have, but I'm not sure correlation equals causation.