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Serendipitous WritingPosted by dhoffman on March 4th, 2010

I wrote this, out of the blue, about a week ago.  It had nothing to do with what I was actively working on, but it popped in there and, like a squirrel saving up nuts, I gave myself a few hard-returns, typed it up, hit SAVE and got back to what I was doing:

“I think Joe’s hitting on Jeff’s wife.”

“Jeff’s wife?” Kara says.  “I thought he had a girlfriend.”

“Jeff has a girlfriend?”

“If he’s got a girlfriend, it’s only fair that Joe hits on his wife.”  Drew’s laughing as she says this.

“Not Jeff, Joe.”

“Joe has a girlfriend?”

“I don’t know, does he?”

“Well, what about Jeff?  Does he have a girlfriend?”

“No idea.  I guess anything’s possible.”

“So wait, hold on . . . when has Joe having a girlfriend ever stopped him from hitting on someone’s wife?”

And, last night, while trying to sort out just what I was going to do with Chapter Seven, that little bit of conversation (which I’d found a home for in the previous chapter) tapped me on the shoulder and said, “hey, what about this?”

It was a nice moment.

And now a bit of difficulty I was having with Chapter Seven suddenly works amazingly within the greater context of the story.

This is one of the things that always amazes me about writing.  Well, writing, reading . . . any sort of long-form storytelling.  In my own work I see how the process works and I marvel at it.  An idea I had two years ago?  A note I jotted down, half-awake, apropos of nothing?  Just what I needed.

When I read something or watch something and I see another writer doing that, I wonder how they did it.  Was it on purpose?  Was a moment in a book they wrote a decade ago purposely intended to fit into this new moment?  Did they see the old thing, feel that CLICK and turn it into the new thing?  It’s one of the most fascinating things, to me, about storytelling, and one of the great joys of my life, spotting things like that.

Playing Steam and Not Getting MurderedPosted by dhoffman on March 3rd, 2010

Last night was gaming night; I didn’t expect to fear for my life.

Okay, it’s a bit of an exaggeration.  The way gaming night works is this: a bunch of us get together at someone’s house and we play boardgames.  Simple enough, right?  The sessions are coordinated through an external web-site, which is great because it lets us meet new people but is also terrible because . . . it lets us meet new people.

Last night was a thin night.  Only three of us regulars showed up, plus one new guy.  Let’s just call him Frank.

When Frank walked into the room, my first thought was; “this guy’s going to murder us all.”  No idea why.  Just something in his demeanor, the way he introduced himself; the dried blood on his boots and under his fingernails.

I keed, I keed.

Side Note: I find it interesting that, in today’s society, if you get an I’m going to kill you vibe from someone, you’d be the bad guy if you screamed and ran for it.

Well, that wasn’t really an option.  So, we picked a game (the great Steam from Martin Wallace, one of my favorite game designers), set it up and played.

The thing was, Frank wasn’t really up for Steam. As I was unloading track tiles (Steam is a train-game, where the players work to build up networks and deliver goods for money and victory points), he told us all of another gaming session he’d gone to.  They’d tried to play Uno but he couldn’t work out the rules.

Oy.

Now, I’m sure I’m sounding a bit snotty here.  A year ago, I doubt I could have played something like Steam. Hell, I still play games where I feel lost and confused and get my arse roundly handed to me because the game just isn’t clicking.

But at least I try.

Frank wasn’t interested in trying.  Frank looked at the game board (a cross-section of the Northeastern United States, with a pinch of Canada tossed in for good measure), the pile of hex-tiles (representing different kinds of tracks) and the goods cubes (in different colors) as we put them out on the table and very clearly shut his brain off.

Goody.

Steam with four players takes place over eight rounds.  Over those eight rounds you do the following:

1. Select a special action.
2. Build 3 hexes of track.
3. Move 2 goods and/or improve your locomotive’s strength.
4. Collect income/victory points.

There’s some nuance to it, but that’s Steam in a nutshell.  Here’s what Frank saw as his actions for each step:

1. “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
2. “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
3. “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
4. “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.

Now, Frank did wind up getting some points during the course of the game — because I and the two other regulars had to play his game for him.  The only thing he did seem able to do was pick a special action card — though all he really seemed to be doing is picking one at random so he could fiddle with it in his hands that turn (which screwed other people over more than once as he randomly snagged something one of us wanted).

Now, I try to be nice when we’re gaming.  Sometimes someone will take a long time, or I’ll be in a rotten mood (Tuesday nights I come from work, and that sets me back about five steps from “good mood”), but I try — I really try — to reign in my inner douche.  Oh, I know it’s there, and I can feel it rising, like bile, but I do what I can.

And the thing is, as frustrating as it was playing with Frank, I felt like I was doing alright.  At first.  The problem is, when you have to tell someone, “no, you don’t get points yet” and move his counter down 20 points almost thirty times over the course of three hours . . . eventually it doesn’t matter how nicely you’re saying it.

You’re a douche.

In the end, Frank didn’t murder anyone.  Well, he didn’t murder us (who knows what he did after he left?).  The other regulars liked the game, which is great because it’s one of my favorites and I’ve been trying to get it on the table for months.  So, I think they’ll play again.  For my part, I got my arse completely handed to me — I spent the first 1/3 of the game sorting out everyone else and didn’t realize I’d managed to put myself almost into bankruptcy.  If it weren’t for a generous move by one of the other players — an intentionally generous move — I would have been eliminated (no income, no victory points — poof!)

As it was, I came in dead last, though I did feel like, once I started actually looking at the board, I did alright (it didn’t help that at least once, possibly twice, when I made deliveries-for-points, the guy adjusting the points track “accidentally” gave my points to Frank).  I improved my crappy network, made deliveries and had a small but positive income, as well as a reasonable pile of victory points at game’s end.

I was a little keyed up when I got home to write last night, but I did get my head together enough to get some work done; so that’s a nice thing, too.  And, now that some folks other than me know how to play Steam, I figure I’ll get to play it a bit more.  Which is sort of the whole point.

And hey, if Frank isn’t pulled over with a trunk full of heads, who knows?  Maybe his curiosity was piqued and he’ll go online and learn more about these types of games.  And next time — if I didn’t scare him off — he’ll actually pay attention and try to play the game on the table.

Hey, you never know, right?

Being Snowed In is Good for Writing (but bad for blogging)Posted by dhoffman on March 1st, 2010

I was a bad blogger but a good writer this weekend; I figure it works out alright for me in the end.

Let’s see.  I think I mentioned that we finally got what I would call legitimate snowfall over here.  The drifts were up to my hips and the front door would have been blocked if it opened out instead of in.

I was quite happy.  I love snow.

But, all things must pass and the snow is melting nicely.

I worked from home on Friday, then spent the afternoon Saturday on Chapter Six.  It’s been a vexing chapter, but I finally cracked it and that means last night I was able to start in on Chapter Seven.

It’s been a fun chapter so far.  I’m getting to write for a character that’s different from someone I’ve written for before.

Animals is about 4,000 pages heavier today than it was on Thursday.  I wouldn’t want to think about how many actual words I wrote, then got rid of, but 4,000 is a pretty good place to be.

This week is threatening to be quieter than last week, an Official Good Thing.  I may revisit Six for some minor tweaking, and I’d love to push through Seven and get to Eight; not entirely sure what Eight’s going to be — if it’s one type of chapter or another — and I’m excited to find out.

Past that, I should have another chunk from the First Draft which will survive somewhat intact.  And then we’ll be past the half-way mark and that’s also quite exciting.

Boom!Posted by dhoffman on February 25th, 2010

We’ve got a little snowstorm going on out here in the Northeast.  Most of our “snowstorms” this season have been anything but.  An inch here, two inches there.

This one seems like it might go the distance.

We haven’t lost power yet, but about a half-hour ago, as I was sitting here mulling over what I might write tonight, I heard a crackle and then a boom.  Shuffled over to the great room (where the outside light switches are) and Jessy says, “it’s just snow falling off the roof.”

Well, maybe not.

There is — or was — a big tree in our backyard.  In point of fact, it pretty much takes up, in the summer, the entire backyard.  This is not because our yard is small — it’s because this tree is massive.

Well, was, at any rate.

Now, I have no idea if this is going to work or not, as I’ve never tried doing this before, but let’s see if WordPress can actually embed a gallery in this post:

Huh.  That worked alright.  A new toy!

Alrighty . . . back to work.

The Doctor, Why Feeling Like a Fraud Means You’re Not, and Good Ideas at the GymPosted by dhoffman on February 23rd, 2010

First off, here’s a trailer for the new season of Doctor Who (with Matt Smith as the new Doctor):

And, if you’ll pardon me for a moment while I jump up and down in my seat and shriek like a little girl . . .

. . . okay, thanks.

Also, here’s a neat blog post, No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing.  I feel this summarizes, nicely, well, my approach to being a human being.  If you wanted a summary (and it’s really worth a read, it’s this: acknowledging that there are things you’re good at, and things you’re not good at is the key to success (and not causing others to die and such).

But you really should read it.

====================

Last night was for writing but it was more for organization than actual writing.  Oh, I wrote about a thousand words, and am rather pleased with the words I got, but the important stuff was before that.

I went to the gym, you see.  Going to the gym has a couple nice benefits:

(1) I exercised, so I feel good, and healthy, and may not die soon.

(2) my mind wandered and did some thinking without consulting me and I had a couple magnificent ideas, including (but not limited to) the answer, I think, to a question about the final third of Animals.

So, that’s a very good thing, I’d say.

Animals seems broken up into thirds, and those thirds themselves broken up again into thirds.  Sort of.  I wrote out the story as a sort of outline last night — something I never could have done before writing it — and was pleased to see that things actually made sense to me.  This may be one of those books where the second reading is vastly different from the first reading, once you know how everything fits together.  It’s also fun in that there’s an entire other book that will only appear in brief bits on the pages which affects this book.

It’s complicated, but honest, it makes sense.

Tonight is gaming, but given how late I’ve been getting started, I’m hopeful I’ll get some more writing done.  I know how to finish this chapter (Six) and how to start the next one (Seven).  I think I can get about half-way through that before I need to start scratching my head again — but maybe not.

There may or may not be a Chapter Eight, but from there I should be in territory I can transport over almost whole-cloth from the First Draft.  “Almost” being the most important word in that sentence.

Good stuff.  Working is always better than not working.

Ten Rules for Writing FictionPosted by dhoffman on February 22nd, 2010

Both because I want to save these, and because I want to share these, here are a pair of matching links, parts one and two of a story from The Guardian in the UK entitled, Ten Rules for Writing Fiction:

The Guardian Article — Part One

The Guardian Article — Part Two

I’d read, for example, the Elmore Leonard rules, which include the sage advice:

Using adverbs is a mortal sin.

And, I’d have to say I agree with him, most emphatically.

Rough Day to be a DogPosted by dhoffman on February 19th, 2010

So, I took this week off with the idea that I would (a) relax, and (b) get some time to write.

The relaxation thing didn’t really happen as I lost my voice on Friday night, then either got sick or just overwhelmed with mucous (aren’t you glad you asked) as my body tried to lubricate and soothe my ruined throat.  It was Tuesday before I could reasonably speak again, and Wednesday before I felt like a person.

So, of course, I had to go and tank Thursday.

To be fair, Thursday wasn’t bad for me, per se.  It was bad, however, for Jack the Dog.

Poor guy had a rash on his belly.  He was licking the rash so we took him to the vet to get a salve or something.  Maybe one of those doggie cones that gets satellite radio.  An off-hand comment from me, however, turned a routine visit into Jack the Dog’s Bad Day From Badsville.

Hey, his breath has been stinky lately.  Anything we can do about that?

I feel Jack the Dog would have preferred I keep my mouth shut.

Suddenly, Jack’s getting knocked out and having X-rays done.  Two teeth had to be pulled.  He’s doped to the gills, staggering around the house, with a look on his face that says, “I was having a nice day.  Why did you do this to me?”

Well, both teeth were cracked.  And infected.  Guess we could have left them in there but to my mind, the poor guy was probably suffering just having them in there.  So he’s a mess now but in a day or three, he’ll be facing life with a whole new outlook.

This is what I’m telling myself.

His appointment was at 10:30am.  He was supposed to be home for 2:00pm.  I figured, okay, I can do that and get some writing done afterward (yes, this is the part where I tell you how worrying about my dog distracted me from writing.  If you don’t want to hear it, skip to the part where I tell you I might have FINALLY cracked the start of Chapter Six and am cautiously optimistic about the direction I’m going in).

2:00pm turned swiftly into 5:30pm.  We brought him home and he was basically a fuzzy puddle.  I held him in my lap for a while, then we tried to feed him.  No dice.  Jessy held him on her lap for a while and we tried to feed him again, with some success this time.  What this all amounts to is we spent the later parts of the evening caring for our poor, sad, pain-addled, doped up puppy dog.

Around one in the morning, Jack the Dog had clearly parked himself on the couch.  We figured that was a good place to let him sleep, so he’s there now.  Out like a light, the poor little guy.  Jessy’s spending the night in there (the cat practically lives on that couch and while I can hang out in there, to sleep there the whole night would kick my allergies into overdrive — plus, I think she (Jessy) is digging that she was Jack the Dog’s choice of humans for his evening of recovery.

For my part, I spent a long time staring at the computer screen tonight.  I’ve written and re-written the same 5-10 pages probably fifteen or twenty times this week.  Wasn’t clicking.  Tonight I did my thing and tossed out the preconceived notions and started from scratch.  What I came up with — essentially jumping in a few hours later in the narrative than I’d been doing — feels pretty good.  Tone is working, I’ve already got a few jokes in, with a couple more jotted in the margins.  Might actually work.

So, I got some writing done, after all.  I’d hoped to be more productive this week but the truth is this: if I’d spent the entire week to only get a single sentence down, if that sentence was good, and right, it would have been worth it.

If Six is working, that means I can push forward.  I know what I want to be happening in these chapters, I just didn’t know the right way into doing that.  An open door, a cracked window, a jimmied skylight; it’s all about finding that right opening.

Still, no matter how good my words are for the night, it was one rotten day, I think to be Jack the Dog.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Good Feelings About a Lot of DeletingPosted by dhoffman on February 18th, 2010

I wouldn’t want to guess or — even worse — go and count to learn how much I wrote and threw out the last couple days.

I know I deleted a good 3,000 words from the start of Chapter Six, and that I really had to crunch to sort out just what it was I was trying to do with this chapter.

Still don’t have it completely figured out, but what I have now seems to be working.  Well, it was working until I started getting punchy and nodding off in my chair.

Hopefully I can keep my head together and I’ll polish off Chapter Six tomorrow . . . today . . . whatever.  I may have said this before, but I don’t consider “today” to be “tomorrow” until you go to sleep for the night.  And no, nodding off in your chair while working does not count as going to sleep for the night.

About a thousand words richer, and let’s not think about what it took to get there.  Good feeling, when you’re in the zone after fighting so hard to get there.  Good feeling, when you finally catch it and you’ve been watching it slip through your fingers again and again over a course of hours and not days.

Good feelings, really.

My Silent VacationPosted by dhoffman on February 15th, 2010

So, I didn’t take a vacation last year.

Didn’t take on in 2008, either.  Just never happened.  Jessy was switching jobs and I was involved in one monstrous project or another.  We were supposed to go away for a week in August but that wasn’t in the cards.

I figured I should take some time off before 2010 was far enough in that my 2009 vacation was completely up in smoke.

So, I’m taking this week of.

So, of course, I’m sick.

Now, I’m not “sick-sick”.  In point of fact, I feel *almost* completely fine.

I have a sore throat.  Even that’s not completely right — it’s more like laryngitis, or just being really hoarse and really sore from — I think — shouting at Jack the Dog for going after Missy’s cornmeal-based litter (also known as “Jack the Dog’s Cornmeal Buffet” — ick).

So, yeah.  Saturday was rough — we had a party to go to, and that’s a talking sort of thing.  Saturday night we had plans (more talking).  Sunday I kept as quiet as I could, but it was Valentine’s Day and we decided to spend the afternoon playing some games we’d never played before (i.e., talking).

Today, Jessy went in to work and I stayed home.  My office . . . it had sort of gotten away from me.  So I did some cleaning.  Well,  LOT of cleaning, including emptying my closet, throwing out no less than 2 bags of trash (mostly old cables — I think AC adapters reproduce when they’re alone in a bin) and a stacking up of paperwork that I was simply not tackling today.

My office looks much nicer now.  Also, Jessy was nice enough to pick up two boxes of Make Your Throat Feel Nice tea.  I have a big blue mug of it going right now on the desk.

It might seem like I’m complaining about feeling less than one-hundred percent for my big vacation at home (protip: I was doing the “staycation” thing before the phrase had even been coined) but honestly it’s kind of interesting.  In trying to let my throat heal, I think I’ve maybe said five words today — maybe not even that many.  It’s throwing the pets off, for one.  They keep walking up to me and looking right at me, like they’re expecting me to say something exciting.

My little self-imposed “vow of silence” won’t last the whole week.  It can’t.  I’ll have to get on the phone, for one thing, for work.  I have to go to the post office tomorrow or Wednesday, for another thing.  Jessy seems to think my whole mime act is somewhat amusing — thus far — but I don’t feel that’s going to last much longer.

Still, for right now it’s quiet, by which I mean I’m quiet.  And my throat’s feeling much better, which is the point of all this not talking anyway, so that’s a good thing, too.