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Monday, January 5th
Jan. 5th, 2015 11:00 amThe Daily Report
Hello, internet!
Today is the first proper workday after the holidays, the first proper workday of 2015. You all know I'm a big fan of taking stock at milestones in time and space like "first of the month", but somewhere along the line I read that there was a superstition about not starting anything on the first of the year. I've adopted this into my own yearly rituals for the simple reason that making a a huge snap decision about something that's going to shape your whole year in a single day is a good way to get in over your head, over-commit, or whatever.
So here we are on the first Monday of 2015, and I've made a few decisions. I'm going to be talking about them in my status posts throughout the week.
The first decision, the big decision, is to actually go ahead with something I had first decided back in early December that 2015 will be the year that I write a fantasy novel, a traditional swords-and-sorcery novel like the sorts of ones I read growing up. I know there's a consensus that those kinds of stories are just a flock of banal cliches, but the thing is, there hasn't been a great amount of diversity in the voices telling stories about those kinds of action adventures or the people whose adventures are told.
I've kicked around different versions of this idea, some of which are more pointedly subversive than others. Back in November I came to what I think is a really solid idea for a total subversion of the usual "fantasy quest" narrative that I do hope one day to write, but right now, I think I just want to widen access to the straightforward escapism of heroic fantasy. I will do my best to be conscious of avoiding the worst excesses of the genre, like colonialism and coded racism, but I just want to write the novel I thought would be really cool to write when I was 13, using the knowledge and skills I have on the edge of 35.
This is a big project and one I'm going to be taking a more structured approach to than normal. I have 12 months, minus a few days. So I'm going to lay out a plan that looks like this:
First week of January, I'm going to be coming up with the very loose plot, as in: this is what kicks off the story, this is the almighty macguffin, this is the antagonist, et cetera. The following weeks of January, I'm going to be coming up with the heroes. The reason for this order of operations is that the traditional heroic fantasy, the heroes are in a reactive mode: there is a threat, they come together and respond to it.
In February, I will be sketching out the story in very loose terms, basically by writing a summary in paragraph form of each chapter. I've discovered that while I don't like traditional outlines, I can write very quickly by starting with a summary and expanding it.
In the remaining months of the year, I will aim to write 10% of the novel per month.
Obviously this means my goal is to have the book written by the end of 2015, not finished in the sense of polished and published.
I know from experience that I work much better when I have the immediate satisfaction of sharing my work, so I will be using my Patreon feed and cloud sharing to allow my sponsors to follow along with my progress, read my drafts, see my notes, et cetera.
The State of the Me
Doing okay. More or less completely bounced back from the holidays, apart from some lingering sleep schedule drift.
Plans For Today
Going to be doing some very broad strokes stuff for populating the fantasy novel with characters.
Also figuring out where I am with the newsletter subscription list. There were some new sponsors/subscribers over the holidays, when I wasn't in a position to do anything with that information.
Finally, I'll be using the afternoon to get my ducks in a row for the rest of the week, writing Tales of MU. I'll be posting stories on Wednesday and Friday, then resuming the "every other week day" schedule. The Wednesday/Friday starting point means I'll have two full days of fully back in the saddle for each chapter this week.
Hello, internet!
Today is the first proper workday after the holidays, the first proper workday of 2015. You all know I'm a big fan of taking stock at milestones in time and space like "first of the month", but somewhere along the line I read that there was a superstition about not starting anything on the first of the year. I've adopted this into my own yearly rituals for the simple reason that making a a huge snap decision about something that's going to shape your whole year in a single day is a good way to get in over your head, over-commit, or whatever.
So here we are on the first Monday of 2015, and I've made a few decisions. I'm going to be talking about them in my status posts throughout the week.
The first decision, the big decision, is to actually go ahead with something I had first decided back in early December that 2015 will be the year that I write a fantasy novel, a traditional swords-and-sorcery novel like the sorts of ones I read growing up. I know there's a consensus that those kinds of stories are just a flock of banal cliches, but the thing is, there hasn't been a great amount of diversity in the voices telling stories about those kinds of action adventures or the people whose adventures are told.
I've kicked around different versions of this idea, some of which are more pointedly subversive than others. Back in November I came to what I think is a really solid idea for a total subversion of the usual "fantasy quest" narrative that I do hope one day to write, but right now, I think I just want to widen access to the straightforward escapism of heroic fantasy. I will do my best to be conscious of avoiding the worst excesses of the genre, like colonialism and coded racism, but I just want to write the novel I thought would be really cool to write when I was 13, using the knowledge and skills I have on the edge of 35.
This is a big project and one I'm going to be taking a more structured approach to than normal. I have 12 months, minus a few days. So I'm going to lay out a plan that looks like this:
First week of January, I'm going to be coming up with the very loose plot, as in: this is what kicks off the story, this is the almighty macguffin, this is the antagonist, et cetera. The following weeks of January, I'm going to be coming up with the heroes. The reason for this order of operations is that the traditional heroic fantasy, the heroes are in a reactive mode: there is a threat, they come together and respond to it.
In February, I will be sketching out the story in very loose terms, basically by writing a summary in paragraph form of each chapter. I've discovered that while I don't like traditional outlines, I can write very quickly by starting with a summary and expanding it.
In the remaining months of the year, I will aim to write 10% of the novel per month.
Obviously this means my goal is to have the book written by the end of 2015, not finished in the sense of polished and published.
I know from experience that I work much better when I have the immediate satisfaction of sharing my work, so I will be using my Patreon feed and cloud sharing to allow my sponsors to follow along with my progress, read my drafts, see my notes, et cetera.
The State of the Me
Doing okay. More or less completely bounced back from the holidays, apart from some lingering sleep schedule drift.
Plans For Today
Going to be doing some very broad strokes stuff for populating the fantasy novel with characters.
Also figuring out where I am with the newsletter subscription list. There were some new sponsors/subscribers over the holidays, when I wasn't in a position to do anything with that information.
Finally, I'll be using the afternoon to get my ducks in a row for the rest of the week, writing Tales of MU. I'll be posting stories on Wednesday and Friday, then resuming the "every other week day" schedule. The Wednesday/Friday starting point means I'll have two full days of fully back in the saddle for each chapter this week.