Typosphere

Website of Science Fiction Writer Ron Collins

Archive for category Daily Writing

Preparing for Success

Mar 8

Posted by Ron Collins in Daily Writing, Novels | No Comments

Finished the read-through of my Book 2 draft. Still like it quite a bit, which doesn’t suck and all that.

The main reason I decided to to a power-read on it was to take a look at the outline. I envision this story to happen over as many as six or eight books now, none of which do I intend to be big old doorstops…and, yes, I know that’s not exactly marketing wisdom speaking, but what the heck. I’ll change my tune when the book contract hits. [grin] Anyway, I felt I needed to read through the draft because I’ve got a sketchy, episodic outline developed to act as a loose guideline for things, and I wanted to see how well the outline was standing up.

The verdict: Well, it needs a little adjustment. Not tons, but a little. In addition, I’m thinking the working title I was using for this book is probably better served to cover what might eventually be book 3. We shall see, though.

Anyway, the main thinking here is that I want to be prepared to respond if/when someone has interest in book 1. Hey, it never hurts to be prepared for success.

And now I am. Well, almost anyway. Just gotta make a few edits to the outline, and then I’ll be there.

Reading

Mar 6

Posted by Ron Collins in Daily Writing, Novels, Short Stories | No Comments

I admit to being a bit stalled on the new short story. I think this is a major flaw in the concept of growing stories organically, but what the heck.

So, rather than beat my head against the concrete, I’ve changed course and spent the morning reading the “shitty first draft” of the second book in my sword and sorcery series. It’s got lots of first-draftitis, meaning I can sense gaps and a few places where I rushed things. I see places I can explain a bit more, and maybe compress a couple supporting characters. But overall I am pretty pleased. It’s a story with a much broader scope than the first one, and the writing looks like it will support that. Even better, I think it will take less work than I had originally envisioned to get it where I want it.

All good. All good.

Morning Weirdness

Mar 3

Posted by Ron Collins in Daily Writing, Short Stories | No Comments

I had a weird thing happen yesterday morning as I was writing.  It was one of those little gems that pop themselves up every now and again, and that maybe wind up being nothing or maybe wind up being … well … not nothing.

In a recent post, I noted that my writing process had become different these days, meaning that I’m not doing anywhere near as much pre-plotting these days as I have in the past.  I’m starting more and more with a situation, then growing stories more organically from that point.  To that point, among several accomplishments I made this morning was that I managed to write a couple hundred words of a new story.

When I was done, I had this little internal dialog with it:

Ron:  Okay, that’s interesting.  Where are you going?

Story:  Nowhere.

Ron:  What’choo talkin’ ’bout Willis?

Story:  I said I’m not going anywhere, and don’t call me Willis.

Ron:  This is a problem, dude.

Story:  Yes, it is.  But, luckily, it’s not _my_ problem.

And so I stewed and thought about it.  Why wasn’t it going anywhere?  And then one of those little shivers struck me, you know, one of those “hey, that’s weird” zen-yoga things you get when you know something’s right but you just hadn’t seen it that way before.

I realized at that moment that I wasn’t looking at the beginning of a story at all.  Instead, what I was looking at was the end of it.

Interesting.

It immediately got me to asking lots and lots of fascinating questions about these characters and the situation–another fact that leads me to believe that I’m right in interpreting this as the back end of a story revealed to me.  So now I get to play the game differently the next couple days and figure out what events have conspired to wind up with the little bit that appeared this morning.

As I think Dale Carnegie once advised, I’m beginning with the end in mind.

It’s something new every day, eh?

About Ron

Ron Collins has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Nature, and several other magazines and anthologies. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize, and a CompuServe HOMer Award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and has worked developing avionics systems, electronics, and information technology.


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