the snowflake project

Just a short post to keep everyone up to date on what’s going on.

I have gotten better at writing every day. As I mentioned earlier, I have a stack of index cards that I carry around, and I’ve committed to plotting a minimum of 5 scenes scenes every day using them. Most days I do 10 scenes.

I have no idea how many scenes this novel will have in it, but I have 200 cards. So when I fill those up, I’ll transfer the whole mess into the Scrivener corkboard and see if I need any more.

Parallel to building a scene list for the novel, I’ve been building a character profile for an unrelated project. I’m going to write a series of short stories featuring this character. This will give me a little break from Kos and the gang if and when I need it, and will give you all something to read that’s actually finished.

I used to think I knew how to write a short story, but I’m not so sure anymore. I’m calling for suggestions from you – I’m looking for resources that will get my head in the short story game (free articles and/or tools are preferred). Specifically, I’m looking for tips on plotting a short story, and on keeping the unnecessary stuff out of the narrative.

So, apparently I’m going for lunch tomorrow with this dude I’ve only ever talked to in passing in the halls or kitchen.

He was talking about this really healthy place to eat and then all of a sudden he was like: “do you want to go?” so I said, “sure let me know” and he said “Do you want to go tomorrow? Do you want to BE A MAN and go tomorrow?” so I said “sure.”

So we’re going tomorrow. And I will finally be a man.

Speaking of being a man, I’ve taken to carrying a pen and a stack of index cards with me in my messenger bag (also known as a MAN PURSE, which is for MEN, just like lunch is). I use them to write down scenes for the novel. Yes I am still working away. Slowly slowly. But any progress at all is better than none.

This is how I feel. I’ve been working on my novel for a good long time. Over half a year. And I am just now at the point where I can say “I’ve almost started.”

Most of that is on me. I haven’t given the project the amount of time it deserves. But I can place at least SOME of the blame squarely on the Snowflake Method. It’s never taken me this long to get into the actual writing of a project – and I’ve put in many hours of work already.

However – my record for the span of time I’ve focused on one project has been blown out of the sky by this one. As I predicted, The Snowflake Method has kept me stuck to it. So, yeah, it might be taking a long time – but at least it’s getting done, and it will get finished. And if you know me personally, you know that’s a big freaking deal. I’m not great at finishing writing projects, especially when working alone.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tigana is a wide reaching novel that spans many groups of characters, some of whom never even manage to exist together on the page, despite their tenuous connections in the plot. Its intricacies are something to marvel at, its themes bold and layered like a really good dip. In the afterward, Guy Gavriel Kay himself claims the potency and number of the themes he wove into the story intimidated him – suffice it to say, he managed to pull them together quite well.

Magic is something I always pay a lot of attention to in a fantasy story, and Tigana’s magic is fascinating. Without giving too much away, the setting is a land of many nations, carved up between two invading tyrants, themselves both sorcerers. The wizards of the land must hide their ability or face death. It’s so much like Star Wars that I almost can’t believe it. Order 66 and all that.

This book plays with the once universal black and white dichotomy between good and evil in fantasy fiction. And although it doesn’t turn that concept on its head, certain the edges become blurry.

Definitely give this a read – or if you like audio books, listen to it as I did. Simon Vance is a talented reader.

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I am exhausted. Totally and completely exhausted. I wish I could say I’m tired because of all the long hours I’ve been putting into work on my novel – but that would be the worst kind of lie. In fact, what little time I’ve been able to put towards blogging and the novel (which now has a tentative title – more on that later) has been an archipelago of serene calm and escape from a churning sea of stress and responsibility.

Life sometimes hits us with a big glut of crap to deal with. This is usually an ongoing thing – a steady stream of stuff we have to do or worry about or manage. Interpersonal relationships are a big one, particularly for those of us with spouses or children.

Owning property is whole other weather system just itching to smash into the already brewing storm of life. Emma and I bought a townhouse condo type thingy in October, and we’ve been slowly renovating it and decorating it. Home Depot, God bless’em, are becoming an ill-desired part of my regular routine. Like, say, lancing a boil on my butt. It has to happen, the result is good (love hanging out on the rooftop patio we’re outfitting) but it’s extremely unpleasant.

These things are ongoing. There’s nothing I can do that will ever take away my responsibilities associated with being a husband or owning a home (unless I divorced my wife and became homeless). But then, on top of that we have these crises that pop up and make everything so much WORSE.

Right now my cat (one of them) is sick. He’s been to the vet’s 3 times, had at least 2 diagnoses, and now we’re waiting for blood work to come back so they can give him some drugs that won’t destroy his kidneys or liver. I don’t even want to think about how much the total cost has been so far. But it’s not the money that gets to me – it’s the worrying about a little person that I really care about. It’s scary and it sucks and it’s supremely tiring and I don’t want to do it anymore.

BUT, it’s making me understand emotions and behaviors that otherwise I’d have no context to process. And ultimately, though the cost is high, these things all make me a better writer.

If I was writing a book about a father and his sick child, I might talk to people who’ve had sick kids, or I might rent Lorenzo’s Oil. But none of those compares to experience the real feelings myself. (And I know a cat is not exactly a human child, but I love the little guy a lot.)

I’m a firm believer that even though bad things happen, SOME shred of good can be extracted from the wreckage if you have the will to try. Even if it’s just: now I know how to write about that.

A few weeks ago I was poking around some message boards on Goodreads (and if you’re not on Goodreads yet, you really should be – anyone who has any interest in this blog, as a writer or a reader of books, should be on Goodreads), when the subject came up: How much time to spend reading each week?

Thinking about it – I decided that I didn’t spend enough time reading (usually just an hour before dozing off at night, if I managed to keep my eyes open that long). That line of thinking led naturally to the thought that if I don’t spend enough time reading, I certainly don’t spend enough time writing. The first thing I did (and in 99% of cases this should be the first thing YOU do) is write down all the TV shows I follow. Even ones that aren’t currently airing, but I know are coming back for another season some time in the future. It was a much longer list than I’d expected.

Then I slashed a few of the shows I didn’t really care about from the list. Grey’s Anatomy didn’t make the cut. Neither did Mad Love, which started off funny, but is now maddeningly boring. Happy Endings is good though – check it out if you haven’t already. Long story short, I cut my projected TV consumption to about 3 hours/week if you average it out over the course of a year (based on number of shows, episode length, number of episodes in a season, etc.). I think that’s a reasonable amount of TV.

Then I wondered about how much time I spent doing other crap and how much of that crap was really useful. So I found Eternity Time Log, a very useful iOS app. The paid version is a little pricey, but worth it because there is no limit to the number of activities you can add. You can even nest activities within each other – for example TV and video games would be in an “entertainment” category. I don’t use that feature because I like to be able to see all the activities at once when I look at the pie chart that results from my reporting. That’s the only flaw – if you nest activities, you either see the chart of the categories and their stats, or see the contents of only one particular category.

I’ve been using the app for almost 3 weeks now, and it’s really helped me live more intentionally. For example, on Saturday, I woke up around 8:30, and instead of lounging in bed (for which no activity is set up in my app) I got up and started working on my snowflake. I don’t hum and haw about what to do anymore. I’m never bored because I know that time I spend being bored will royally screw up my pie chart.

So if you have trouble figuring out why it’s already 11pm and you feel like you just got home from work* – find a way to start logging your time effectively.

So everyone share their own experience (or lack of it) with time management – confess the nature of the deepest hole your time disappears to – or blow my solution out of the water with a way better one. Do all of this and more in the comments below.

*This does not apply to people whose shifts end at 10:30pm, don’t worry coffee-slingers.

Anybody out there writing a dystopian epic (or short story or screenplay)? I had a neat idea today that could be useful in rounding out your government controlled isolationist nightmare.

Encrypted mailing addresses. The idea came to me randomly, as ideas do, as a possible solution to people not wanting to give strangers on ebay (or craigslist, etc.) their residential address. Because, you know, ax-murderers.

So I thought – suppose everyone had an encrypted version of their address they could give, which the post office or courier service had the key to. Stuff would get delivered, and addresses could be kept secret. And fewer axes would be murdered. Win-win!

Then I thought – what if this became the norm, and the government controlled the post? And conventional addresses became things of the past. You could have a pen-pal who lived two pods over and never even know that’s who you were talking to.

Anyhoo – maybe that’ll get some of your brain-goo chugging away. Anybody else have any cool dystopian elements or ideas? Put them in the comments!

Yikes. 10 days since my last post. That’s a few too many. But in order to make up for my tardiness, I worked extra hard this weekend and finished the final two character charts.

Here’s Aryenne’s.

Here’s Torik’s.

So, now that I’m on the final step of the process (prior to actually WRITING the novel, that is), and because of the nature of the work from here out, I’m going to be changing the format of the snowflake project’s blog (what you’re reading right now, for those of you who are keeping track).

I’ll still be talking about the novel and my various wrestling matches with its content. I’ll still be posting content as I write it elsewhere on the site – I promised to write a novel online, and that’s still what I’m doing here. However I want to use this blog for more than just a platform to announce when I’ve written another 500 words. That would get super lame, extra fast.

So this is going to become a proper blog. I’ve got a few topics lined up that I hope will spark some discussion and help bring in a new cadre of readers. You’ve already seen some of this with book reviews (via Goodreads), and one political rant (I promise I’ll keep those to a minimum). Expect more like that – but probably with a bit of a narrower writing focus.

By no means whatsoever am I qualified to give writing advice – and you certainly shouldn’t treat this blog as a “how-to”. I’m just a guy trying to write a novel. I intend to share that with you, as well as other aspects of my life I hope might hold your interest.

So please, email me with questions or ideas for stuff I can talk about here. I’ll either talk about them, or I’ll throw up a post that says I don’t have a clue – and hope the comments section comes alive with useful information nuggets for all (I always order the 10-pack and ask for 2 sauces).

This post has nothing to do with my novel, and nothing to do with writing. Nor does it have anything to do with a book I’m reading or any media I’m consuming at all. This post has to do with fact that I’m Canadian, and that I’m deeply amused and somewhat outraged by the actions of the government my fellow Canadians have just voted into power for four more years.

I’m going to make my point in the form of a narrative, and it’s going to be very sarcastic. But here’s what you need to know up front (I’ve put in about as much research to some of these facts as Stephanie Meyer put into Twilight – others I know without a shadow of a doubt to be true, so do your own research, people):

• I’m Canadian (as previously stated)
• Phone service costs a lot in Canada
• Cell phone service (especially data usage) costs more in Canada than anywhere else
• Internet usage costs more in Canada than anywhere else in the world (or very nearly so)
• Canada is the only country in which Internet providers are allowed to practice Usage Based Billing (UBB), the practice of setting a cap on data transfer, and charging an arm and a leg for any overages
• An organization called OpenMedia successfully made the inaccessibility of Canada’s Internet a major issue in our most recent election (which took place on May 2, 2011)
• The Conservative Party was the only party who did not comment on the Internet issue – and they were elected to govern

And now:

Ye Grande Taile of Ye Pauper & Ye Census Forme

The Pauper traveled home one day after long hours toiling away in the bureaucratic forest, harvesting red tape. He saw a bright and shining sheaf of paper in his mailbox.

Now, the Pauper was a good citizen, always eager to do his civic duty, so he cried out a joyful greeting to the paper packet when he saw it marked “Census 2011″.

“Ho there, fair Census Forme! I’ve waited for you, firm and steady with sharpened pencils and inked quills ready!”

“Foolish peasant!” Jeered the Census Forme, it’s perforations glittering. “You’ve been abandoned by your good sense – what need have you of those arcane implements?” And with that, it opened itself, and the Pauper saw not the familiar tick-boxes and blank spaces framed by mundane questions he expected, but rather 15 unique digits were unveiled and a cryptic spell called You Are Ell!

“What’s this!?” The Pauper cried, forlorn. “Where is the forme?”

“In cyberspace,” the paper said, “catch up with the human race.”

“Alas, I would, I swear, my lord … but Internet I can’t afford!”

“A luddite, eh? I should have known,” said the page, “then call this number on your phone. A paper forme will then be sent and your pens and pencils earn their rent.”

“I have no phone,” the Pauper said, “it’s cost is gross – can’t I send for a forme by post?”

The Census Forme spit at the Pauper’s feet, it’s piss-yellow radiance turned hostile as it declared, “Complete the Census – It’s the LAW.”

The Pauper wept for in his brain repeated a ghostly, haunting refrain:

In Canada, this fair land, one must obey the law’s firm hand.
A CRIMINALE you are, in fact,
If your hard-earned coin does not the purse of TELECOMME make fat.

~fin~

Blindsight by Peter Watts

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In an attempt to show us what the word “alien” really means, Peter Watts successfully alienated his audience. (Or at least he alienated me.)

While I’m familiar with some of the ideas behind the post-human picture he paints, I had a very hard time relating to any of the characters or caring about any of them. On top of that, the aliens are so completely alien that I failed to fully comprehend even the little bit that we’re told about them.

To be fair, it’s likely that post-human society (if/when it emerges) will make us all more or less unrecognizable to ourselves – which is what Watts is trying to get across. And it’s also as likely as not that if there is extraterrestrial life, it’s so different from us on a fundamental level that we may not even recognize it as life at all. These things are all true – but I’m not sure they make for good fiction.

Kudos to Peter Watts for researching and writing a very interesting book. I fear that its audience will be limited by its lack of human content.

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