11.29.07
Back In The Saddle
So. The first thing of interest, really, is that I took some time last night to go back into “hardcore writer” mode, and managed to pull a 2,000 word night. This was in addition to managing to get the outline written for this final stretch of the story. From where I am now, to the end, I have 23 and a half distinct plot point/scenes left to write. Contrast this to the fact that the outline I started out with, at the beginning, had only 40 plot points. I’ve lamented that my characters derailed the plot early on, but looking through the old outline, I’m at around #22 or #27, depending on how you look at it. Both of the events listed on those points are occurring ‘right now’, but the circumstances changed as my characters changed. In fact, the final climax– the big conflict of the original outline– was completely obviated and made into a handful of subplots. Instead, my main character is now going to provide the huge twist and big, ultimate final conflict. I don’t want to spoil it, but you likely won’t see it coming if you’re reading it.
I read a little bit about how the best thing to do is simply to write every day, so that the story doesn’t have the chance to “get away” from you. That’s actually the truth. Monday and Tuesday were the hardest on me, because after four days away from the story, I had lost motivation almost completely. It was a struggle to get back in the mindset that prompted some of my favorite digressions from my plot, but, well… I had a minor encounter on Tuesday evening that helped jar me back into that philosophical bent. The details are very, very personal, but I can say I wasn’t in any danger. It was just a small little conversation with a friend that basically turned my head inside out and left me in tears. In a good way. The tears were, if anything, the most wonderful thing she could have given me that night, and I thank her for them. She knows who she is.
It’s funny, though, to think that that kind of an experience– profound sadness breaking into unbridled joy, to love unbounded– is exactly what I needed to get back into this story. It’s dark. I’ll be the first to admit that the turn I took in this tale is almost completely uncharacteristic of me. For a guy who started off this writing trip by writing humorous fan fiction, this bears almost no resemblance at all to any of that kind of stuff. I mean it. If you’re expecting gags and jokes galore, this ain’t it. That was Incon. I’m still working on getting that into publishable shape– it probably needs a total rewrite. But Blueberries is dark. Dark, but I hope it shows through a little bit of that optimism that I just can’t shake. It’s basically me running with the idea that there’s joy– true, innocent joy– to be found even in the moments of darkest despair. And that sometimes, the good guys win. Maybe.
It’s very character-driven. I’m noticing that the characters are moving the story along more than my (seemingly) forced progression of events. Two characters fell in love, despite my not wanting them to or envisioning that they could; this actually wound up driving the plot more than the events that are happening around them. I’d love to see how they handle the relationship after the story ends… but that’s later. Maybe. I honestly don’t even know where a sequel could go from the end here– I don’t have a plot in mind past this. I only pray that if I want to continue, I don’t wind up pulling a Wachowski and having the second book be awesome only to fall flat on the third.
Anyway. I’m also on a little bit of an anime reclamation binge, collecting a couple of series boxes for later consumption once I’ve got the draft in the can. We’re honestly maybe a week or two away from that point– barring a huge rush of productivity– so don’t expect me to be able to comment on that too publicly just yet. The big series so far are Ai Yori Aoshi and Fullmetal Alchemist. I realize I’m late to the party on both of these, but in my defense I’m a cheap bastard and I waited until the lower-priced boxes came out. I’ve also got my eye on the Evangelion Platinum metal box set; apparently that claims “full extras”, so I’ll have to see if it’s as advertised. Perhaps if it is, I’ll look into the Nadia box as well. Incidentally: The Reclamation List stands at 53% reclaimed or set to “will not reclaim” (62/117; 39 reclaimed, 24 disapproved). Most of what’s left are older PS1 games and the better movies. Then, of course, there are the Holy Grails that I lost… but those, I think, are going to take a long time to reclaim.
The Rock Band Replacement saga continues! Last night I finally got the tracking number situation straightened out, and discovered the most magical, wonderful thing about how the UPS tracking system works. Here it is: it doesn’t. The tracking number that was issued to me on Monday had a 50/50 shot of being the wrong one, and as it turned out, the fact that it was the right one was irrelevant because the system doesn’t do live updates until up to 24 hours after the package was picked up from its origin. And, as experience has told me, the live tracking isn’t all that hot anyway. I am quite upset. I’m likely going to lose my writing time on Friday night to drive out to the hub to pick up the drums. Which freaking defeats the purpose of delivering it to my house.
Oh, one little tidbit. I finally got around to uninstalling Final Fantasy XI from my 360. Freed up 6 gigs for song lists and possibly Indigo Prophecy. I’m looking forward to the erroneously-named Xbox Live Fall Update to Live just so it will clear off a few zero-point games from my gamercard. Overall, I don’t think I’m going to miss Vana’diel too much. Not even the new expansion could draw me in again. I was so completely apathetic to it. It’s sad, yes, but it was inevitable. Ah well.
So, that’s about it. There’s likely to be more writing news as things progress… I’m hoping that I can at least break 80K before the end of the month. We’ll see. Catch you cats tomorrow morning.