Outpouring

I just got done writing today’s Apocalypse Blog post. Phew.

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster this week. This section of the blogfic is complicated, and work is proving to be highly stressful right now. I’m trying to manage a lot of stuff that I really don’t know enough about and I’m muddling my way through as best I can. I’m not sleeping well (mostly because of the stress). We have one more week left before the big deadline at work, which is both AHHH and something to look forward to. I just have to keep reminding myself that there’s only so much that I can do; the rest will have to sort itself out.

On the plus side, my dire money situation has sorted itself out now that I’ve been paid. I really don’t like running that close to the bone. All I need now is for nothing to break (stupid PC) and I’ll be good. That’s one less thing for me to worry about. Also, my cold is easing off now, so I’m feeling much better than I was a week ago.

AB’s Haven is both a boon and a headache. On one hand, I’ve had this section in mind for so long that I have a lot of material to play with. A lot of threads, and a lot of ideas from various sources (you might spot a movie influence or two in there). So when I snatch time to write a post, I’m not short of stuff to write about. I always have somewhere to go with it – hell, half the time I’m not sure which one of about six threads I should write about next.

Which is the headache part. Trying to unfold Haven’s story and secrets is more difficult than I had imagined. I’m trying not to do it all at once, but give each facet of it suitable screen-time (that’s been my intention throughout AB). I’m also trying not to make it predictable or too black-and-white. I like my reality dirty and grey. I like that there are no easy choices.

I haven’t really talked much about my plotting before. Truth is, not much of AB is heavily plotted. I have notecards on a pinboard that I tick off every now and then – most of them have been up there since December (including Haven’s, which says ‘Faith encounters the army’). Some scenes or episodes I have worked out in my head months in advance, sometimes days.

Most of it gets made up on the spot – I pick a starting point and see which way Faith runs that day. I usually have something that I want her to run towards (or through). It’s the best fun for me. I love to see how characters react to different situations and I like to let them choose their own paths. If I want them to change direction, I throw in a roadblock or two (I hate a character acting out-of-character for the sake of the plot).

Sometimes it gets difficult to balance all the threads. I get paranoid about missing something, forgetting some important detail, or leaving a subplot hanging on for too long. Haven, in particular, has meant a lot of skipping around between stories, partly because the cast is physically separated. The nature of the place means that it’s not always easy to get those pieces to connect, through Faith or otherwise.

Still, it’s getting there. I’m constantly adjusting my mental plans – over the past few days, several posts have gone sideways from what I started out doing. I’m constantly moulding it into the shape that I want, adding corners, smoothing out edges. I have to think on my feet a lot, but that’s okay – I’m still loving the story, still engaged with it.

That’s part of what surprises me most about writing AB. After all this time – all year – I’m still in love with it, and can’t wait to find out what happens tomorrow. I thought I’d be fed up with it by now. A couple of weeks ago, when I started to get sick and there was a lot of life-stuff kicking up, I was desperate for a break. I wanted one less thing to worry about for a few days. I’m so glad I didn’t do it.

I cried while I was writing today’s post. Twice. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s a particularly emotional post, and I still get all caught up in Faith’s struggles when I write (I’m glad I didn’t write that one on the train!). I hope that at least some of that emotion made it into the words and will reach out to my readers. That is, after all, part of the point of doing this.

I’m looking forward to writing tomorrow’s post. I’m not entirely sure how it’ll go yet but it’ll be fun to find out. AB is hard work, but it’s so worth it.

Here’s to another three months of heart-wrenching fun to come.

The End is Nigh

Yesterday, a huge dust storm swept up the eastern coast of Australia. It hit Sydney in the early morning, and by lunchtime had blanketed us in Brisbane too. It was mostly gone by the time dark fell, but today, it’s still working its way northwards.

Dust storms are apparently quite common in the Outback, where they’re much closer to the desert. I had never personally seen one before (and they’re saying that this was the worst one in 70 years). It was an eerie experience.

First of all, it turned the sky orange. This led to a lot of mentions of the apocalypse, and a great deal of amusement from me (the sky in the Apocalypse Blog was turned orange when the world ended). I hadn’t really comprehended how damn creepy it is. The dust storm was different to the situation in AB – yesterday it was an orange fog (that got orange dust on everything), whereas in AB, the clouds are persistent and stained. So the quality of the light would be different.

The sun was also very strange. It came through blue-white, like a great undead eye. So creepy.

I’ve seen lots of awesome pictures of the dust storm, though mostly on Facebook which is a pain in the ass to link to (so I haven’t bothered). It’s definitely atmospheric. Will there be that kind of storm in AB? Quite possibly. I take my inspirations from all kinds of sources, both real and fictional.

In other notes: Haven is hard work. I have about twenty balls in the air there right now and it’s tricky to keep them all balanced. On the plus side, I am getting over my cold and back to normal business. Work is also crazybusy and stressful as we approach our critical deadline (and I’m now in charge of getting us there).

The zombie invasion of Brisbane is scheduled for late October – sadly, I think I will be too busy to take part, but it does sound like a laugh. All we need now is a touch of acid rain, and I can start calling myself a prophet.

ETA: A lovely friend pointed me at a news site, which has some awesome pictures of red-tinted Brisbane. Go look!

Milestone: Post 300 achieved!

Last night, the Apocalypse Blog’s 300th post went up. How awesome is that?

Wow. 300. I can hardly believe it. 300 posts and 220,000 words – it’s mind-boggling when I stop and think about it.

Sometimes, I go back and read over the first few posts. It’s amazing how different they sound (and not just because the world hadn’t ended yet). Faith has changed a lot, and I think my writing probably has developed along the way too. In a little introspective moment, I even had Faith do the same thing – looking back in order to move forward, walking in the same mental circles but ending up in a different place. It was interesting to do, and fun.

I love that AB is still fun. I’m exhausted and it’s really difficult to get my head into the right space at the moment. As I whined about earlier, I have a lot of balls in the air and I’m afraid that AB is starting to suffer because of it.

Sometimes I sit down and have to stare at the previous post for a while before I can begin to figure out where today’s is going. They’re still going up almost as soon as they’re finished, which I’ve said before is more raw than I like them to be. I make a point of reading them through at least once before I put them up, but still.

But I still haven’t missed a day. Even with all this shit going on, I’m getting it done. I am insanely proud  of that.

I’d love to take a break. I’d love to not have to worry about it for just a few days. But AB goes up every day – it has for nearly nine months now (!!!), and I’m going to see it through for another three and a half, almost four. I’ve fought against things that want to restrict what I do all my life – arthritis and chronic fatigue, to name the biggest – and I’ll keep going. I’m going to hit 400 posts before I’m done, and probably add another 100,000 words to the tally.

Wish me luck! Hopefully, I’ll pull out of this difficult spate soon and get onto a more even keel. In the meantime, though, I’m going to wait for the painkillers to take the edge off this headache and then go write today’s post. I’m nowhere near done yet.

See you all at the next milestone!

Flagging

So much for updating this more often! Bah.

Things are crazy right now, and I’m struggling to handle it all.

Work is running up against a deadline and the pressure is on there to get everything done in time. That’s not going to let up until the end of the month at least. Coupled with the work I have to get through, I have to pick up the team leader stuff as I go too.

My desktop fell down and refused to get up again, so I had to go get a new one. That’s left me having to deal with Vista (argh) and incredibly poor this month. I can’t do half the stuff I was hoping to.

NaNoWriMo stuff is picking up again. I’ve been tossing ideas around for it for a while with some friends, and it looks like its going to be a busy November for us MLs. Currently trying to line up what we need to do before it all kicks off.

I’m trying to put together a new project, and that is proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Communal writing projects are never easy, and between that and my natural habit of wanting things like this to work, I’ve wound up in charge. On the one hand, it’s good fun – I’m getting some fantastic ideas for it, and the enthusiasm of the group is great. On the other hand, nine people is a lot to coordinate and there are headaches involved with that that are currently dragging me down.

Then I have my writing groups to organise (2), the writing festival next weekend to sort out meetups for, an author’s talk next month to get everything in order for, and an upcoming family reunion.

Then there’s the Apocalypse Blog. I’m struggling with that. With everything else on my plate, the Chronic Fatigue is biting hard. So many things to think about and not lose track of, so much running around in my head. It’s hard to sleep or rest.

It all leaves me with little energy to devote to my beloved blogfic. I’m keeping up and posting every day, but I feel like it’s getting strained. I can’t tell how the posts are coming out half the time. I’m fairly sure that it’s suffering, though, and that frustrates me to no end.

On top of that, the story has just hit one of the big markers and I have to get my head around how to handle it. It’s not always easy after a day full of everything I’ve just listed. My usual commute writing time is short and sometimes non-existent if I can’t get a seat.

So, yeah. I’m flagging. Running on empty right now. I’m gonna have to start making some hard choices if it carries on like this for too long – best to put one ball down before I start dropping several. Problem is, I don’t want to put down any of them.

Before anyone panics, AB is not one I will put down by choice. I’m committed to it, and it’s the only part of everything I’m doing right now that’s just for me. (And my readers, of course.)

Bah. Anyway. I should go get myself together for Father’s Day. Time to go hang out with the folks. Post atcha later.

Apocalypse Blog cover!

As part of my quest to find new readers and get out there in the world of online fiction, I came across a lovely fella who put together a book cover for the Apocalypse Blog. Without even being asked! How cool is that?

I have now sorted out uploading and linking it, and here it is:

Apocalypse Blog cover

So, when it’s all finished off, perhaps I’ll roll it up into an e-book and have a ready-made cover for it.  Just another four and a half months to go, right?

It’s the little things that make me happy. Love it. So, many many MANY thanks to Moejoe for his hard work and kind sharing of his skillz. Check out more of his work!

ETA: Ah-ha, the lovely Moejoe also has a blog. Go lookit!

Killing characters

Those of you who read the Apocalypse Blog (and are up-to-date with it, I know there’s a lot to get through if you’re new) will have noticed that mortality has been a feature recently. So much so, I decided to call a recent post ‘Attrition’. It wasn’t my original intention to put two major characters’ deaths so close together, and that presented me with some tough choices. Killing off main characters isn’t something I do lightly.

I have firm views about killing off major characters. For me, violence and death should follow similar rules to sex in fiction:

• Avoid gratuitous occurrences.
• Detail should only be included if it is important or there is some reason for it.
• It should have some effect on the story or characters.
• Give it the attention it deserves.

The second and third points are all really related to the first one – avoid gratuitousness at all costs. The third point is the most helpful in deciding whether the death of the character is gratuitous or not. Does it progress the plot? Does it affect character development? If the answer is ‘no’, then why are you really doing it?

If you’re going to put it in, make it mean something. And I don’t just mean ‘let’s upset the readers’ – that’s not a good reason for doing something on its own (and your readers will hate you for it). Much like throwing a random sex scene in because you think the readers might like some sticky hotness, randomly killing off main characters is cheap and ultimately annoying.

The last point on the list is one that often doesn’t get enough consideration. Too often, major characters are killed off-screen, or off-handedly, and the audience is only given a fleeting mention of it. I’ve heard that the last Harry Potter book is rife with this sort of thing (it’s one of the major complaints I hear about the series). If your readers – or viewers, as this applies as much to TV shows or movies as it does to written fiction – have spent the time getting involved with your characters, then do them the courtesy of acknowledging that. Don’t leave them feeling flat and discarded – do the character and your audience justice. When you take away someone they are attached to, make it a feature, not a footnote.

On the other hand, lingering over a character’s death too long can also be annoying (and often slides into melodrama, which leaves me eye-rolling and flipping pages). Trinity’s (second) death in the Matrix movies is a good example of this – you know it goes on too long when you’re wishing that a main character would hurry up and expire already, so we can get on with things. We don’t necessarily need to see every last gasping breath. Make it a feature, acknowledge that something important has just happened, and move on with the story.

It’s not an easy balance to strike, and opinions about that appropriate spot in the middle will undoubtedly vary. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to find it.

More coming soon about the latest events in the Apocalypse Blog. Hopefully that’s some food for thought in the meantime!

Consider me kicked

I have just read a wonderful post about why writers should blog (or blog more, in my case). Lots of good points there!

It’s something that I know I need to work on more. I still have a list of Writing Tips posts that I need to write and put up. And there’s lots of other writing-related shenanigans that I could put in here, too.

As I mentioned in my last post, part of why I started this blog was to chronicle my adventures in writing the Apocalypse Blog. AB started out as an experiment for me, a challenge, and an exploration of lots of different facets of writing. It has grown to take over parts of my life, in ways that I can’t bring myself to mind. It’s fun, it has readers, and I can’t believe it’s still going after nine months.

Last week, it tripped over the 200,000 word mark. See, this is the kind of stuff that I should be putting in here! Also, holy crap. I haven’t ever written that much on one story before.

Also, a very kind person over on a new forum I tripped over last week has done me a cover for AB. As if it was a real book. How awesome is that? I’ll sort out posting it and stuff soon, to share it with you all. In the meantime, you can find it on the AB thread there (I think it’s on the last page).

So. Right. I’m going to make an effort to post more on here. There’s more I want to say about Dillon’s death, and other related musings. Keep an eye out, there will be more here soon!

Nailbiting

How does so much time pass between posts on this blog? I have no idea where it all goes. But anyway, here we are again – yet another step in my attempts to chronicle the writing of the blogfic. It is still an interesting journey for me – and hopefully for my readers, too.

I have come to a difficult part of the Apocalypse Blog again, and that makes me nervous. Just like with Ben’s death, this is a section that I have had planned for a very long time. Unlike Ben’s death, I have been wavering badly about how to do it, and whether to do it at all.

There’s a large part of me that wanted to chicken out. I’m afraid to do something irrevocable to a character I’m very fond of, or something that my readers will hate me for. At the same time, I don’t want to wuss out of doing what I think will be good for the story. What I hope will be good for the story. So I’m trying to do the brave thing and see if this will work.

I just finished writing today’s post. It was more upsetting than I had anticipated – for me, I mean. It was hard for me to write – and edit – never mind poor Faith. I posted it before I could change my mind (the posts are still going up far more raw than I like, but hopefully that’s a good thing in this case). I don’t think the next few are going to be much easier!

To make myself feel better, I have updated the Testimonials page on AB with some new feedback I got through. I do love my emails!

This particular reader pointed out that the Seekers are perhaps a little too good at fighting – I’ll have to keep an eye on that. I’m going for realism, and I have tried not to do the whole ‘everyone knows how to throw a punch’ movie thing. Combat is a tricky beastie to handle. Something to work on!

Right. I need to go decompress before I try to sleep. Perhaps I’ll start making proper notes about this communal blogfic thing that I’m tossing around with some friends. Hmm.

Miles to go, better get on with it.

Never easy

Why is it that whenever there’s a tough, gnarly bit of the Apocalypse Blog to write, I hit a wall of work, exhaustion and general argh?

The last week and a half has been hard. Work exploded on me (due to various issues that I won’t go into here, and have mostly been resolved now) and demanded a lot of attention. And stress. Let’s not forget the stress. Because that lovely stuff makes my CFS play up, which means I have less energy, which often winds up with a downward spiral.

I was zombied by last weekend, but managed to get through it and back onto my feet. And all the while, I was trying to handle the revelations going on in AB, keep up the tension there, build up towards killing off a main character, and try not to suck in the process. What I really wanted was a distraction-free fortnight in which to properly plan and balance the whole thing, but what I ended up with was time snatched on too-short train journeys and wedged in between cooking dinner and peeling the cat off the rug.

I really wish I had been able to devote more time to it all. I hope I did it justice. Right now, I’m just so glad that it’s over that I have no perspective. I rewrote yesterday’s post about the actual shooting about three or four times – luckily, I had built up little bit of a buffer (thanks to the short-short kind of post that Faith does when she’s all shocked and ahhhh), so I had a couple of days to try to get it right. Fingers crossed, huh?

It’s one of the hardest scenes I’ve had to write for this, I think. Trying not to make Ben out to be a complete bastard, trying to make it a difficult choice for Faith (partly through the first point), trying not to make her look stupid or weak, trying to make it all make sense… yeah. Tricky tricky.

Still, it has been interesting. Now they’re all back on the road and I have a few new characters to work into the mix. I did hit a realisation the other day that was going to make things difficult for me – the fact that Faith is still grieving and moping about killing someone. Nothing like a misery-guts to suck the fun out of something, and while ‘chirpy’ isn’t a description you can apply to AB, I do prefer it to be at least enjoyable to read.

So! I’m going to try something different today. The new chapter is not called ‘Redefinition’ for nothing. The train was packed this morning so I got nothing done, and I have to run out tonight, but I will shoehorn some time in for posting somewhere.

But don’t worry. Faith will be back on her (mental) feet and in control again soon. Promise!

Rollercoaster

Things have been a bit manic for me lately, with the moving house and getting settled and attempting to not forget anything. It’s all gone well, though, and I’m loving the new place.

I’m starting to get settled into the new routine, too. Shorter commute, slightly different working hours, keeping the house straight, fussing the kitten. So much to keep up with, but I’m getting there. Fitting my writing in isn’t easy – I’m lucky if I can get half a post done on the train each way, and I’m often finishing up when I get home and before I post. This doesn’t lend itself to having nicely-edited/proofed posts. I’m making it work at the moment, though.

I have just got to a pivotal part of the story of the blogfic, and that’s helping me stay focussed. The current chapter is called Truth, and (finally! I hear you all say) answers some questions that have been lingering for a while.

It’s both easier and harder than I had anticipated. On the one hand, I know what’s going to happen (far more than in most other chapters), because it was all planned months ago. I have a handful of little notecards, all exploding at once. On the other hand, I keep wanting to second-guess my plans and ideas, can’t decide if they’re good enough or going to work, and get really nervous about what everyone’s going to think of them. And then I think ‘screw it’ and write the damn things anyway.

The other hard part is that I have a lot of material to cover/convey in this chapter, and I don’t want to skim any of it. It’s all important in its own way and I want to make sure that I give it all the screen-time (if you know what I mean) that it deserves. I don’t want to get to the end of the section and realise that something important (for plot or character) was done in a throwaway line and eclipsed by everything else.

So, it’s a bit of a balancing act. I just made it difficult by throwing a huge distraction in Faith’s way (which will be explained in today’s post!), so I’m not sure how the rest is going to roll out. It’s all more complicated than it looks at the moment. I prefer to let the action and reaction write itself out naturally, so I’m not planning it, just letting to move on towards where I want it to go in its own way.

So many changes in this chapter. No spoilers here, but I will promise that several recent events will make more sense by the time I’m done. The Seekers are undergoing some redefinition, though I’m not sure exactly how radical that will be yet.

Okay, little spoiler: one of the long-standing cast members will be gone by the end of this chapter. That’s all I’m giving you on that!

This is probably the hardest section I’ve had to write on the blog, thinking back. I have a lot of threads to pull together and I’m paranoid about missing something. I have no idea if I can pull all of this off, but it’s fun trying! Fun for me, anyway; my characters are having a harder time.

But that’s all good, right? 🙂