i’m making it sound worse than it is, but there are tigers and … well, tigers.

tiger’s are scary, right?

anyway, derek is in town this week, so we may do something we haven’t done yet, and review our stories in person.  i fully appreciate the ability to video chat with his oldest son about trains and pens while i’m attempting to get my baby to stay asleep for just a few more minutes so we can finish going over some edits, doing it in person should make it easier.  either that, or there will be some major earthquake or fire and we will still not have as much time as we want to go over things.

i’m going to finish going through derek’s story tonight (between outbursts directed at nhl officials),  one thing i will say about his story now, is that i LOVE the opening.  well, i guess the preface (if a short story can have one).  it seems he took a book out of orson scott cards book (literally) and started his story with one of the ‘Hundred Decrees.’  i’ve always enjoyed when an author not only writes his story, but goes above and beyond and delves into the world of the story.

writing semi-biblical text is a terrific way to do that.

our story topic for the month of june is also set, but we will write more about that next week.  let me just say that it’s going to be a very, very interesting month.

However, after reading it through, I felt like it was one of the worst-written. It was written almost exclusively amidst noise and distraction. There wasn’t any time (except for my final bout of grammatical revisions) where I was sitting in a quiet room working. I think it showed. Though my hope is that there will be enough time to truly go through (with Aaron and Ash’s critiques) and really brush up the actual writing. I don’t want this ending up as a mediocre story because I ran out of time to make the grammar up to par. Who knows, this could be one I revisit later.

I still giggle at my description of Scarlet Letter meets Nightmare Before Christmas meets Ninja Warrior. And it’s still pretty accurate.

Aaron appears to be having some delays with his, and he won’t get it to me for another few days. That limits both of our revision time, particularly since I’ll be quite busy this weekend, travelling back home and spending time with my family. Maybe Tuesday night will be a very busy one.

So when I finally got around to doing that (it was probably two hours of math and diagramming), I sat down to write. It was nearly 11. I was pooped. I think I wrote 1000 words (including notes that I was going to use later on). And the real kicker? I don’t like the way it’s written. It’s modeled after January’s story, where it starts in the present, goes to the past, and catches you back up. Well, I did that once, and don’t want to do it again. So I think I’m going to use some expository paragraphs to explain what’s happened, and take it in the present. It shouldn’t alter it too much, but I will certainly have to rewrite.

I leave tomorrow for a work trip, so I’m hoping to work on the laptop on my flights. The battery life notoriously sucks on this laptop (about 1.5 hours), so I’m going to try to do much of it at airports. Then, this weekend, I really have NO free time, so I won’t be looking at it again until Sunday or Monday.

Usually I’m great with deadlines, but this month just caught up to me. I had way too much going on. But hopefully with Ash’s schedule calming down, next month I’ll be able to write more early on. Fingers crossed.

In both my personal and professional life I have been asked for “feedback” on numerous different things.  Some things I know about, some I don’t.  Some people want the truth, some want reassurance.  If I don’t know what they want I try to give them the truth.  There are also degrees of truth as you all know.

In the case of Aaron & Derek’s Short Story Project (SSP) they didn’t tell me they wanted the truth but I knew they did.  What I didn’t know was what level of feedback they wanted.  After reading a few blog posts and some direct emails, I saw they wanted all I had to say and would filter out the chaff of an untrained editor.

When I first heard about the SSP I was in the middle of moving both to Colorado and Greenland.  Not a lot of time on my hands to help then but I was excited to hear that some talented friends of mine were pushing themselves to flex their creative muscles and try to improve their writing chops.  After settling in in the great white north (above Canada), I had missed two months before I requested to start receiving their stories.

I was impressed with what I’d read.  Some better, some reeeeeeally close to awesome, some…meh but better than I could do.  Who am I to judge.

Then they asked me to judge.  Not exactly me but all their readers, not exactly judge but they wanted some inputs.  With the downtime available to me here, I decided to look deeper and give my opinions.

I am not a writer.  I hated nothing more in school than to write papers.  I do like to read.  I did not realize this until after high school but I’m glad I did.  I’ve read countless books (mostly Sci-Fi) and I don’t know if I picked the correct authors but the flow of their stories always kept me in the story.  Nothing jarred me to the point where my mind took a step back and said, “Whoa, that makes no sense” or “I am completely confused by what the author is trying to say here.”

That doesn’t mean to say I saw that with Aaron or Derek’s stories but that’s what I decided to look for when I was critiquing them.  Anything that took me out of the story.  So I gave them my findings.  I found some small errors, like he instead of the.  I found some things that made me scratch my head but I knew what they were trying to say so I’d let them know my opinions.  The military has ingrained in me not to just point out problems, but to offer a possible solution.  Anyone can say something sucks but it doesn’t help unless you can fix it.

Then, for various life reasons, they started posting how they were short on time and didn’t think they would have the product they wanted by the end of the month.  Having babies, bah!

I commended them, and still commend them, for pushing themselves to meet their deadline each month.  But I didn’t understand the goal for the stories.  If it was just a way to spark their minds and produce something, anything, each month, then I think they are doing quite fantastic.  If they are trying to produce quality finished product work in 29-31 days, well they don’t need me to tell them they fell short sometimes.  But they still wanted my opinions and I gave them.

I asked the question.  I wanted to know what they were striving for.  Twelve months and 12 stories or constant writing with ‘proud to put my name under it even though it took six weeks’?  The answer I got was, ‘I’ll get back to you.’

I want them to do what feels right for them.  I’m glad they are writing again and I feel privileged that they let me read and provide a little feedback.  I would like to see them stick it out for the year of 12-of-12 if they can.  I wish them luck.

so that’s scott’s take.  as a response to him, all i can say is that this was meant as a way to jumpstart me back into writing again.  i wasn’t expecting my stories to be masterpieces, but something that at least was enjoyable.  in the long run, i am going to go back and try to fix up the older stories and see what happens with them.  derek and i tossed the idea of self-publishing a collection of the stories when it was all said and done, but that would be about 1700 pages long at the rate we’re going.  i guess we shall just see what happens at the end of the year.

So shortly after posting my last entry about various ways I could take this story, I did something odd. I thought about the one topic that hadn’t jumped out at me (the village adopting a controversial holiday) and a thought popped into my head. It was this weird sort of Nightmare Before Christmas meets The Scarlet Letter meets Ninja Warrior kind of thing. Y’know, that type of story.

I’ve been thinking alot about religion lately – it’s hard not to do in today’s American political climate (in fact, it’s sad that those are even tied together). I’ve wanted to write a long essay about religion on my other blog, but haven’t gotten around to it. So I thought maybe I’d write a story about a fanatically religious town that treats women who are no longer virgins as dirt. But the sorta revere virgins. So they establish this holiday that allows women to become virgins again (in the eyes of the community, at least, if not medically) by ascending a rickety structure that is 7 stories high, with each step being narrower and wider than the last. It is set up like a spiral, so at the top is a nub of a step they must step on. Each step, they must answer a question, and each landing (where the staircase turns 90 degrees), they must perform some task. I haven’t figured them out yet, but I wanted to make it grueling.

As for the controversy, I think I have to have someone from the outside (media? someone who has lost a wife/girlfriend/sister to this practice in the past?) come and try to put a stop to it. So the holiday must be in its 3rd year or so.

Now here’s the problem with this story (isn’t there always one?) – is it serious or a comedy? The premise is pretty absurd, but then again most religion is absurd. It’s a pretty serious topic, people have died doing the holiday, and that makes it serious. But I REALLY want to use the name “Cornelius Head”, and it just doesn’t work in a serious story.

I think once I figure that out, I’ll get to writing. Well, that and once everyone in our family is healthy. That’s still a ways off. Then we go away for an anniversary trip. Then I go east. I think I’ll be writing the bulk of thing on the airplane to NY. We’ll see.

enough about me, on to my story (derek stop reading here) -

so derek and i have a policy of not reading each other’s blog posts until later in the month just so we don’t end up stealing ideas.  well, not so much stealing ideas, but letting each other’s ideas influence our story.  since i’m already set in my story, i went ahead and read his.  then i laughed.  our stories are sort of coming at this topic from the exact same angle.

derek is using the number 7 in its semi-symbolic ’7 circles of hell’ sort of thing with there being 7 tests.  i also went a very similar route.  since the number 7 does appear all over the place in various religious and other numerologies, i am going the route of the 7 chakras.

i’m relating each of them to a (not so much traditional) color (some of them didn’t fit my idea so i changed them – it’s my story, go scratch) of the rainbow.  each one of the flights of stairs will be a different color or chakra and my character has to make his way through various things.

my sub-topic is the quest to find something or someone.  a guy wakes up with his wife missing (although i may swap the genders in my finished story, i haven’t decided yet) and sees a note with an address.  once he gets there he has to make his way up the 7 floors to get her back.

also, there’s a dog fighting aliens and former american presidents travelling through time.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve got cookin’ for this month (Aaron, look away). 7 is a symbolic #. You see it everywhere. So I think I want to make the flights of stairs more metaphorical than literal. Like a 7 circles of hell thing. I’m envisioning them being tests of some sort, though what type of tests or who would be taking or monitoring these tests I have no idea. I simply liked the idea of no one having ever ascended even 2, and someone was on like 4 or 5. It’s a very rough idea that I haven’t fleshed out.

And part of the reason why I’m stuck with a vague idea is that I am not sure what the 2nd storyline I want to use is. The spaceship one is easiest. Literally, the 7 flights of stairs could be the entire interior of the ship, thus making it quite “interesting”, but also kinda “cheap”. Similarly, the quest to acquire something is also something of a cheap thing, because by definition the person ascending the steps is on a quest. The other three are more interesting:

• a town votes in a new holiday that causes controversy
• a zombie apocalypse with a happy ending
• a story about a guy who writes short stories about a girl who writes short stories about love

Of course, interesting doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll pick them. I may end up taking a cheap way out, particularly if I keep with the symbolic stairs thing. I dunno. I may pick an evening in the next day or two and just start writing, see where it takes me. Maybe that’ll help.

Incidentally, I immediately thought of how a zombie apocalypse can have a happy ending. It involves zombies realizing that once they’ve feasted on every living soul, it’s basically a food shortage. So, to prevent famine, they decide as a race (a species?) to let the last few human survivors live and repopulate. Of course, then you run into some serious inbreeding questions, as well as… is it really a happy ending if they’re just going to wait for more fresh brains and then attack again? Either way, I’m not sure I’m going to use this idea for a story because I don’t know how to fit 7 flights of stairs into it.

Anyway, I couldn’t find a clipart of a happy zombie, so you get this instead.

this was the first month that i went through a non self initiated trashing of my story and starting it pretty much from scratch.  once i figured out how i was going to go about transforming my april work from garbage into an actual story, i started jotting down a bunch of notes about things i wanted to do (i was at work and wouldn’t have a chance to sit at my computer for a bit).  i shot derek a few texts with my new idea, he seemed to think it would work, and i continued with my outlining.  when i finally had time to sit down and write, i ended up taking a printed out copy of my first draft with some of derek’s notes and set to work.

i went line by line re-writing a vast majority of the story while keeping the basic structure the same.  i added some more depth to the characters (and a backstory for the main character).  i did end up transferring a few sections of story from one version to the other, but in the process i reworded them to have it flow slightly better. when i re-read my first draft (which i only did after derek already tore it apart) it really was a struggle to get through.  this new version, at least to me and my wife, felt like it moved along at a pace closer to my march story.

i like my march story a lot, so i’m good with how it turned out.

NOW ON TO MAY!

derek and i have come up with a topic based off of a conversation that happened on his brother’s facebook page.  pretty much people kept winning a trip down 7 flights of stairs, obviously.  when we put out the request for subject ideas, another of his brothers suggested that we use that as our topic.  so here is the may topic -

a story that focuses somehow around 7 flights of stairs.

as an added bonus, since we liked a lot of the other ideas, we’ve decided to compile a list of 5 other topics, and each of us will use one topic from the list as well.  here are the other topics we will be choosing from (derek and i don’t know what the other one will be using, it may end up being the same one, it may not) -

• a drifting spacecraft is home to something very interesting
• a quest to acquire something or someone
• a town votes in a new holiday that causes controversy
• a zombie apocalypse with a happy ending
• a story about a guy who writes short stories about a girl who writes short stories about love

so there you have it, the month of may.  i guess derek will let you all (who am i kidding, he’ll let scott know) when the may stories are coming out.

However, in looking back at my four months so far, I think I’ve written one very good story (January), one decent story (February), and one mediocre story (March). I’m still having a bit of trouble seeing what I think of April’s. I like it, but I’d be more curious to see what others think of it. This may be one of those rare times when I really never develop a full opinion about one of my pieces.

So why am I doing this project? It was Aaron’s baby and I definitely elbowed my way into the project (originally, he had wanted me to simply help him out in reading his stories and editing/offering advice, but I thought “Hell, I want to write more than I do!”) So first and foremost this project was about keeping me writing. I have always enjoyed it, but since moving west, writing has fallen way down the totem pole of my free time allocation. So that was #1. #2 – I historically have written best with deadlines and/or with certain restrictions put on my stories. One of the aforementioned favorite plays was called Deadline because it was written within ridiculous parameters. I haven’t read it in a while (I wrote it probably 10 years ago), but I remember being quite proud of it.

Nowhere did I anticipate publishing any of these. Aaron had (probably still has) it as a goal for him, but I have a dozen other things I’ve already written that are more polished. HOWEVER, I’m seeing that it is doing some good. I’m coming up with pretty good ideas here, and some of them (either in their current state or having been dissected) could very well find themselves reused in some form. Either as a stand-alone longer story, or ideas might get reused if I ever start that next novel. And that new novel… who knows, maybe THAT I’ll try to publish.

I’m sending these out because I want feedback as a writer, and as an idea-man. Plus, nearly everything I do creatively is for me first, but I of course want people to like it. I’ve only ever sold 100 of my CDs or so (order them here!) because the project was originally just for me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t like hearing that people enjoy this track or that track. So yeah, I’d love all the reviews to be glowing, but I won’t really develop as a writer that way. And that’s the purpose of this.

Will I go back after the year is done and touch some of these stories up? Will I/we continue this into 2013? I have no idea. Alls I know is that I’m enjoying doing it right now.

i knew going in to this conversation that my story needed a lot of work.  i had an idea that i fell in love with, but towards the end of the story i lost my way pretty seriously.  it started where i wanted it to, it had some plot points i wanted to fit in to the middle and the ending was what i had in mind.  the problem was how i got to all of the places the story went.  it lacked focus.

as i emailed derek my story i told him exactly that.  i figured with a little bit of nudging i could turn this in to something i wouldn’t mind sending out to everyone.  i was correct in my assumption.

after i got his notes and some ideas, i spent the rest of the night and this morning brainstorming.  i know exactly how i can fix my story.  so now to get to work on a major overhaul in the next two to three days so i can finish this one up this month.

good times.