HUZZAH
My folks’ house in the UK has now been sold. It’s complete: exchanged and paid for. We can has moneys.
I can’t say how much of a relief this is. I’ve been supporting my folks on savings and my salary for the past few months, which has made things very hand-to-mouth. The past month has been barely scraping through (my savings all gone), and it was past the time when what I was bringing in just wasn’t going to cover it. It’s been stressful to say the least, and we all danced about a bit when we had the confirmation that it was all, finally, at last, done.
Now, all my debts in the UK are paid off. I don’t have to worry about sending money back there any more. And I can buy things again. Oh, shopping, I have missed you.
We went out for a celebratory dinner last night. I can’t drink because of the wicked antibiotics I’m on, so I drove and let the parents get tipsy. They deserve it. It’s so nice to see them unwind properly.
Today, we’re off for a bit of shopping (I’m hoping that I can stay upright long enough to make the most of it). I am going to look into getting a mini notebook for writing purposes, and possibly something else nice and shiny. We shall seeeee. After that, popcorn and Watchmen are on the cards. I might not be well enough to shop properly, but I can cope with sitting in a dark room watching a movie well enough. 😉
This weekend hasn’t been the most writey, but damn we all needed it. Today’s AB post is all ready and scheduled up, and tomorrow’s will be written when I get the chance. Maybe later tonight.
It’s all good.
Mixed messages
Had some good and some bad news today.
They had to cut six people out of the R&D department at work, including one from the documentation team (my team). One of my good friends has been made redundant – he’s gone now. There was no warning, no preparation, just a ‘sorry, please pack up your desk’.
I feel awful for him; I know how that feels. It also means that we’re an experienced hand short coming up to crunch time, and we’re all going to be wondering if there will be more cuts. Everyone’s going to have their heads down, trying not to be the next one on the list. Pressure on from every direction, and I couldn’t have picked a worse time to fall seriously ill.
I had a check-up with the doc today, and the pneumonia is definitely retreating. My lungs are a lot clearer, and I’m coughing less and breathing easier. I’m still really shaky if I’m on my feet for too long, though, so I’ve been signed off for another week.
However, I had a chat with the boss today. I’m well enough to do the work, but the commute to and from the city will knock me over. Also, I have used up all my sick time and am currently losing vacation time to avoid taking unpaid sick leave. So next week I’m going to work from home, try to catch up on what I’ve missed and the stuff I need to get done. They’re happy for me to do it, my system here is all set up to VPN in to the office, and it seems like a good solution all round.
Also, the final pieces for our house sale in the UK are going through today, which means we should have our money issues sorted out really soon. I can’t tell you what a weight off that is. I have to make a list of the stuff that I’ve been putting off until I had money again. It’s getting very long and I haven’t even written it down yet.
I am managing to keep up with the Apocalypse Blog posts, which is pleasing. I was afraid that all this sickness was going to put a real spanner in it, but my week’s buffer got me past the worst of it. I even have a couple of days in hand at the moment (and will hopefully extend that over the weekend).
The posts are going up very quickly after being written, and though I’m trying to edit before posting, they’re no doubt a bit rough around the edges. The post about Alice kinda went sideways on me – she just wouldn’t do what I wanted her to! But that’s okay, it means I have more material to work in later. Don’t you hate it when your characters rebel on you?
Things in the blog are still going to (my overall) plan, and I’m starting to get to the material that I know some of my lovely readers have been waiting for. It’s sneaking in, so keep an eye out for the hints! (They’re going to get a lot more obvious.) The Rumours section is the start of a new twist in the repercussions of the end of Faith’s world.
Also, my kitten snuck out yesterday, stayed out the whole night, and got into a (very loud) fight. Today, she has spent all her time sleeping. …oh dear, she’s turning into a teenager.
Tackling Writer’s Block
Some writers deny that writer’s block exists. Some writers never experience that awful blankness when searching for the next word to put down, the next idea to make this piece the wonderful shape that we had in our heads when we sat down.
Other writers will tell you that they have struggled with it many times. They will tell stories of when they hit a wall in the middle of what was otherwise an easy flow of words and plot. It affects every writer differently, but it is still a common occurrence for those of us who regularly try to weave ideas and images into words in a page.
What is writer’s block?
It’s that awful feeling you get when you sit down before your scribing equipment of choice and nothing wants to flow. You know plenty of words, but none that will fit, or work, or come out. Fingers hover over keys, becoming more familiar with the feel of the touch-typing markers on the keyboard rather than actually typing anything. Or the pen waggles back and forth without coming into contact with the page and making meaningful patterns.
No matter what you do, that next word just won’t come. It might be the first word – it might be the terror of the blank page, staring belligerently back at you. Or it could be a wall that has suddenly arisen in the middle of a piece, and you can’t find the next step no matter how much you grope for it.
How do you beat it?
There are several ways that you can tackle writer’s block. Not all of these will work for you – it is a case of experimenting until you find what works for you. Here are some of the methods of getting past the blockage for you to try:
Just Write
One thing you can do is just write anyway. It doesn’t matter if it’s awful, it doesn’t matter if doesn’t make sense. Just get some words down and push on through that blockage. This is the brute force approach; often, the less you think about it, the better. Setting yourself a word count goal can help with this.
This is the method that NaNoWriMo is based on. Don’t let yourself get hung up on details or on plot, just write through anyway. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you find yourself caught up in the flow again, and you can always come back and fix it later.
Skip Past the Wall
Can’t write a particular scene? Not sure how to open a piece? Skip it. Write a different scene, start in a different place, and go from there. You can always come back and fill in the gap later, when things are flowing better. Don’t let yourself get hung up on one particular spot, and don’t let the wall stop you from writing the rest of the story.
Similarly, you can work on a different part of the project such as doing research or fleshing out character backgrounds. This can also be a good way to loosen up the words to put down next.
Walk Away
Sometimes, the best thing you can do is stop trying. If you spend too much time fighting with the wall, it’s easy to lose perspective and get too caught up in the fight to be able to write anything. So walk away from it. Not permanently – this is not a suggestion to give up on your piece as a lost cause. This is about taking a break from it, mentally and physically.
Play a game, watch a movie. Go out and have dinner with some friends. Bake like there’s no tomorrow. Buy yourself something shiny, read a book. Do something completely unrelated and try not to think about the writing project that is giving you so much trouble. Don’t return to the project until you know what you’re going to write next.
This is often when solutions sneak out of the woodwork and surprise you. When you’re in the grip of something that doesn’t bear any relation to what you’re working on, an idea will pop into your head and all of a sudden you can’t wait to get home and put it into practice. This sounds unlikely, but it can work!
Write Something Else
Similar to skipping past the wall and walking away, take a break from your writing project by writing something else. This keeps your pen in practice and allows your brain to disengage from that battle for a while.
I find that writing exercises are great for generating creative juices and getting things flowing again. It’s also good to do exercises that work different writing muscles (yes, you do have them).
Alternatively, you can try switching to a different project for a while. Maybe you’ve got something that needs to be edited, or a new project still in the planning stage that you can work on. Or even something else idling in the background that needs to be written. Do some of that, and come back to your main project refreshed!
Get Someone Else Involved
I find that bouncing ideas around with my friends is a great idea to regain enthusiasm for a project. I have a great circle of writing friends who love nothing better than this kind of thing, and I often come away with fresh ideas that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. I usually can’t wait to get home and start writing!
If you can find one in your area, join a writing group (I should probably do a post about what to look for in a writing group). If you can’t find one, start one! (Not for the faint-hearted, but I have started three and love it.) Alternatively, there are good online writing communities with lots of people ready and willing to help out and offer advice.
Those are the tools that I’ve used or had recommended to me by various authors. The most important thing is not to give up – you can get past writer’s block. You just need to find the method that works for you!
Remember, you’re not alone in your struggle with writer’s block, and you can get past it. I hope that these tips are helpful. If you have any other tactics for tackling writer’s block, let me know!
Good luck, and happy writing.
Good news
There hasn’t been a lot of this lately! So I thought I’d post some of the better news from the past few days.
The new battery for my laptop has arrived! I’ve been cycling it to calibrate it properly, and it has been so nice to see the readout track the charge right down to 0% (it hasn’t been able to get below 50% for months!). Just one more cycle to complete, and then I should be set.
There is an end in sight for our current financial situation at home. I won’t bore you with the details, but the end of a lot of stress and waiting might be coming soon. I have my fingers crossed.
The antibiotics are kicking in. I had an awful weekend, all told, but the medicine is starting to work. I’m breathing a bit easier, and I can lie down without coughing every five minutes now. Which means I can sleep. Oh, such luxury. This morning I woke up early and thought I’d settle down for another half an hour… and then woke up three hours later. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sleep in such stretches.
Visited the doctor today and he said I’d turned the corner. It isn’t going to be a quick recovery, but at least I’m on the upslope now. Slow and steady, huh? Got another chest x-ray on Friday to see how the old lungs are doing, and then we go from there. It isn’t looking too likely that I’ll be back at work next week, but hopefully I won’t be off too much longer.
I’m feeling more alert. I think the sleep is helping. I’d like to get down to some writing soon (it itches, it does!), and as I posted up the last of my pre-written Apocalypse Blog posts today, I’d better get cracking! I have so much in my head to cover. And god knows being couch-bound is getting really boring now (I’ve watched almost every DVD I own, with the specials).
I got a card through the post today. My workmates had put it together from a Cheezburger picture and sent it with a bar of chocolate for me. How adorable is that? Bless ’em. I have the best team ever.
So! Pushing on. Getting there slowly.
Coughing Fun
My breathing has been getting worse, enough that I barely dare to sleep. I can hear it crackling in my mouth, and the air isn’t shaped right when I exhale.
It got bad enough that I went to the hospital last night. I’m no lung expert, and wasn’t going to take chances (not to mention that the whole idea of sleeping and getting too short of breath was scaring the shit out of me), so I went to get help. We wound up sitting in emergency for over an hour and a half, and the doctor said I wasn’t sick enough to admit. He was very nice, just didn’t think I was bad enough to warrant being in hospital.
I need to wait for the antibiotics to kick in, he said. Right! Okay. Should take another day or so. It’s not being a fun day. I’m exhausted, because I got about two hours of sleep, and every time I sit any way but bolt upright, I have a coughing fit.
Bleah. Hopefully I’ll be able to lie down enough to sleep tonight. If I can get half a brain, I need to sort out today’s AB post too. Right. Must get onto that.
Pneumonia = Interruption of Service
I went to the doctor this morning, because my fever is still high and my chest is bad. He sent me straight off to get an x-ray, and within an hour and a half, told me that I had pneumonia.
What the hell. I don’t know what to think right now. He put me on a couple of antibiotics and told me to come back on Monday. If I get worse, I have to go straight to hospital. Holy shit.
Wasn’t what I was expecting. As my dad says, ‘Trust me to get pneumonia in a subtropical climate.’ It’s more scary than I had thought it would be.
The doc said I won’t get better for a couple of days at least. So here I am, keeping on keeping on. Hoping I don’t have any hospital time in my future.
Needless to say, going to be a bit of a bump in AB service. I have another couple of days’ worth of posts I can get up, and after that it depends how I’m going. I’ll be back, my faithful readers.
Talk to you all soon.
Thunk
Sometime during the night, a truck snuck into my room and ran me over. That’s what it feels like. The doc tells me that I have a fever and a viral chest infection. Joy!
So I took today off work, and tomorrow isn’t looking likely either. I’m on painkillers and liquids and cough medicine, and generally trying not to wish that I could just curl up and die.
I managed to get together enough brainpower to write out an AB post tonight, though I won’t make any promises as to the quality of it. If I can do one a day, that should keep me up to date enough. It’s really hard to focus at the moment, though. I just hope that next week’s posts don’t completely suck as a result.
The really awkward thing is that it’s my novelling group’s meeting tomorrow night, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to get to that. It’s only our second meeting, and while I don’t really need to ‘run’ things as much as I do with the other group, it does require some guidance so we don’t just talk about other stuff all night.
I plan to be around on Yahoo and MSN so that I can contribute, if people there have laptops on and will talk to me. Otherwise, I’ll just miss it this month, which is okay. It happens. Honestly, I’m relishing the chance for a break. I can put my feet up for a bit and not feel guilty about the million things I’m not doing.
I have been thinking for a while that I’ve taken too much on this year. Which I suspected when I laid out my plans for 2009, but you gotta aim high, y’know? I think I’m going to give Script Frenzy a miss this time around – I’d love to do it, but I really don’t think that I’ll have the time or inclination. It’s only a month away and I’m pushed just keeping up with AB.
Oh well. I’m doing all right with the stuff I have going at the moment. I’ve ordered a new battery for the laptop, so hopefully that issue will be solved soon. Now all I need to do is kick this chest infection, and I’ll be good. Yes. Or at least just as frazzled as I was yesterday. 😉
Be well, everyone. Be weller than me! I’m going to collapse and try to get some sleep now.
Naming: Part 2: What’s in a Name?
One of the first things I do with a new writing group is an exercise on names, and it’s a topic that I often find myself commenting on when doing reviews and feedback on pieces. It seems to be one of the most overlooked areas of characterisation and writing, especially for new writers.
Exercise: write 100 words about your own name. You can write about your first, last or given name, whichever you prefer. Write about any of the following:
- What your name means to you
- Where you got it from and why it was chosen for you
- If you’ve ever changed it
- How you feel about it
- Family history or tradition
- Anything else it brings to mind.
For me, names are very important. A character doesn’t begin to truly take shape in my head until I can attach the right name to it. Some writers use placeholders while they search for the right name; I prefer to find the right name as early as possible, because it helps to mould the character as I write.
But beyond what our character’s name means to us as the writer, what does it mean to our readers? In our transmission of ideas, this is an important consideration. What might a reader take from the names we give our characters? How can we put a simple moniker to best use?
Here is some of the information I have collected on the subject. Some of this might be obvious, but these things are easily missed in the fire of writing. Not all of these elements need to (or in some cases should be) used, but these are some of the tools at your disposal.
Title
First of all, let’s look at what a character’s title can tell us, before we even get to the character’s name. This is the easiest and most obvious part.
- It tells us if a woman is married (Mrs), or refuses to give her marital status (Ms). Hints about age, status and personality are given there.
- It suggests the character’s level of education and profession (Dr, Professor, Father, Detective, Captain, etc).
- For men, ‘Mr’ is generic but does suggest that he is at least an adult.
- Archaic titles (Master, Madam, etc) suggest the time and society the character is living in, as well as relative social status.
- Official or noble titles (Lord, Lady, Duke, Ambassador, etc) also indicate social status, familial prestige and possible personal wealth.
Full name
So what does a character’s name tell us? Try these for starters:
- Social class/background. The names given to children vary according to class, and often according to the fashion at the time within those classes. For example, the notorious names given to the children of celebrities.
- Age / generation. First names go in and out of fashion, and the generation of a person can often be pinned down because of that. Some names are always popular (Matthew and David are good examples of that), but names that seem ‘archaic’ or ‘oldfashioned’ are usually just out of the limelight for the moment.
- Family history/heritage. The family’s geographical origins can be indicated (for example, an American with an Italian surname would indicate that the character’s family emigrated to the US from Italy). This can have an effect on the background and culture of the character. Other heritage aspects can also be brought into play, assuming that the reader knows about the heritage you’re referring to.
- Culture/race. Similar to the above point, the character’s name can indicate the culture and origin of the character and his or her family.
- Meaning. Most names have a meaning attached. Readers are not always going to pick up on meanings (such as ‘Helen’ meaning ‘beauty’), but some are more obvious than others (such as the Apocalypse Blog’s Faith).
If you are building your own world/society, you can build more into the naming scheme if you choose. These guidelines are based on real-world rules (for simplicity and brevity!).
Given name
Wait, how is this different to their full name? The ‘given name’ is the name by which a person prefers to be called. It is not always the character’s first name – it may not be the character’s ‘official’ name at all. This is one of the more useful methods of characterising, as how a person prefers to be called says a lot about them.
Your options:
- First name. Simple, straightforward, familiar and informal.
- Title and surname. Formal and distancing. Often indicates a position of power and respect – using this form of a name is an act of giving respect to a person. Period pieces often use title and first name for a similar effect, though that is a more familiar form. Profession-based titles also place the character in a professional role (Dr., Father, etc) rather than a friendly or interpersonal one.
- Surname only. Not as familiar as using a first name, not as formal as using it with a title in front. Can be used for the same effect as a nickname.
- Nickname. Informal and familiar. Can also be used to distance themselves from the ‘real’ name.
- Shortened version of the first name. Familiar, relaxed, and informal.
- Codename. Completely hides the ‘true’ identity of the person. This is more purposeful than a mere nickname.
- Middle name. Very similar to using the first name, but there should be a reason why it is used instead of the first name.
So how do I choose what name to use? Here are some considerations for you:
- Do you want to give the character a particular role or purpose?
- How does the character feel about his or her own name? This is one of the most important ways you can characterise through the use of names.
- Was the character given an awkward, embarrassing or overly complicated name?
- How casual is the character? How comfortable is the character with others being familiar with him or her?
- The background of a character can often influence how he or she prefers to be called. Any bad experiences that might affect this? Good ones? Bullying at school?
- Does the character have a very common first name? Was an alternative required for ease of identification? (Six Charlottes in one class, for example).
- Has the character changed his or her name? Officially? If so, why?
- Does the character have a name that he or she hates being called by? An embarrassing nickname? Named after a repulsive or reviled grandparent?
- Does the character have a name that only a few people use – like a nickname only used within the family?
This choice can vary between characters and depending on relationships, so it’s not always as simple as choosing one and running with it.
Used name
Wait, what? This is the other side of the coin from the given name. On the one hand, there is the way that a character would like to be referred to. On the other hand is the name used by other characters. These do not always coincide!
The name that a character uses to refer to another person is an efficient shorthand for indicating the relationship between those characters. Formality, familiarity, intimacy and friendliness are all factors that play into this.
Be careful with this, though! Don’t overuse it, or you may end up with a character being called by a different name by every person they know. That has pitfalls of its own, not least of which is confusion. Identity and confusion are covered in Naming: Part 1.
So there you are! Now you have a plethora of tools for naming and characterising the cast of your work. Now get back to writing!
Naming: Part 1: Identity
Names matter. They shape our perceptions of a person. They give us a lot of information, most of it unconscious. They also identify characters and make it easier to keep track of who is doing what, where and why. Names do a lot of legwork in our creative work, and so I believe that some attention should be paid to them.
Be kind to readers
Your readers don’t know your characters. The primary purpose of naming is identification and it is important to keep this in mind. Your readers are there to read your story, and the monikers given to characters are markers to help them keep everything straight. You can use the tools laid out in Naming: Part 2 to make the names of your characters do a lot of work, but don’t let them lead you astray.
- Don’t give a character too many names. If every person that a character encounters calls them by a different name, your reader is going to be very confused about how many people are being talked about. Keep it simple.
- Don’t refer to a character by more than one or two different names in a single scene. This quickly becomes confusing and makes it difficult to follow who is doing what, where and to whom. This is especially important in very busy scenes, with a lot of action or characters involved. You already have a lot of work to do to help your reader keep up, so don’t make it more work than you have to!
- Don’t assume that your reader is taking notes. No-one should have to take notes in order to keep up with your story. If it’s possible that your reader might have forgotten that your character changed his or her name three chapters ago, throw in a little reminder of who you’re talking about.
- Don’t make characters’ name too similar. Understand that readers skim certain words when they read, and how that impacts on your job as a writer guiding them through your story (see below).
Tom and Tim and Tam and who now?
Similar names quickly grow confusing for readers because of the way that the eye skims words when reading. Readers don’t want to have to re-read sections three times just to get straight who is doing what – this is a good way to turn a reader off a story.
Here are the things to watch out for when deciding on names:
- If the first and last letter are the same, what comes between is immaterial. The eye skims over the middle part, particularly vowels. This is most applicable when the names are the same length, as they make the same ‘shape’ on the page. You can get away with this if the lengths are markedly different, but it is worth checking.
- Rhyming names. These are easily confused, especially if they are interacting a lot.
- Same first phoneme. The eye can skim from the first phoneme, effectively missing the latter part of the name. Again, this is particularly the case when the names are of similar lengths.
- Same initials. Similar to the above point, Jack Martin is easily confused with John Michael.
- Different versions of the same name. Tom and Thomas may easily be confused with each other. Abbreviations that are markedly different from the full name may avoid this problem (Elizabeth and Betty, for example).
- Sex is not a barrier. It is possible to get male and female characters muddled up! Don’t think that giving the characters different genders will prevent any of the above from applying. If your response is ‘but a girl wouldn’t do that,’ then your reader is likely to say, ‘that’s why I had to read it twice!’ (The same applies for out-of-character actions.)
These are not hard-and-fast rules, but they are guidelines for what you should keep an eye out for. They apply most strongly when the character names in question are in the same scene, being talked about, or are closely linked. However, the guidelines do still apply even if the characters never meet in the course of the story.
This effect can be counteracted by strong characterisation and careful use of pointers in the text to make things as clear as possible. It is by no means impossible to have Tim and Tom in the same piece, but you should be aware of the confusion that this might cause.
So now you know the pitfalls to avoid, and how to make it easier for your readers to keep track of your characters and the action in your story. But a name can do a lot of work for you – see Naming: Part 2.
Handwriting
This week has been better. It has been up and down but, on the whole, better. It feels so good to be able to say that.
It got off to a bad start – the CFS has really been pulling me down lately (as I’ve complained about a lot), and last week was a mess. But the energy levels shifted about mid-week, and the braindead turned into brain-active, which is always nice. The body is still sluggish, but at least the mind appears to be mostly working. I got a lot more achieved at work and have been able to attack some other stuff that I’ve been meaning to do. Go me!
I managed to get the next instalment of Writing Tips done this week, too, but managed to forget to email them to myself. I’m going to need to VPN in to work to get them (not that I was writing them at work or anything – lunch hour writing! It was!). I will hopefully get that posted tonight or tomorrow.
The AB Cast page has been updated and expanded, including past cast members and proper links to character-centric posts. I haven’t finished tagging up all the existing posts yet (there are a lot of them!), so that job isn’t complete, but the framework is all there. Big fat tick.
I’m getting a lot of ideas for the Apocalypse Blog, which is always good. Thanks to my current technical issues (stupid laptop battery making it impossible to write on the train), I haven’t been able to get them all written the way I wanted. By the time I get home, I’m way too tired to be able to concentrate on writing properly, so my commute is really the best time for me to get stuff done during the week.
I gave up trying to use the laptop halfway through this week and switched over to paper-and-pen writing. It has been a rude reminder of why I don’t like to write that way. My brain is always six steps ahead of my hand, I keep thinking of stuff I want to add in or have missed, my handwriting is a mess, and the writing itself comes out sounding so different to the way I usually write.
I’m going to have to heavily rework the posts I’ve done on paper to keep it sounding like Faith. I’ve managed to get today and tomorrow’s posts all edited and up, and I should get a couple more sorted out today. I wound up writing stuff a bit out of order this week, because one post went sideways and needs to be split up into two very separate ones, and there were events in the middle that I had missed out, and… yeah. This week hasn’t been my most organised and together.
I’m going to persevere with the handwriting, though. I have to do a lot of work on what I end up with, but the basic material is still there. It’s giving me a base to work off, which is much better than a blank page. It’s better than last weekend, when I wound up having to write a lot of the stuff from scratch and post it all in one go. The time spent concentrating on AB gives me more time to think things over and work ideas through. I even spent one train journey just writing down notes of the plotpoints and conversations I wanted to cover because so many things kept coming to mind. Those notes should help me get the next week’s posts in the right order and progression.
For the time being, I think I’m going to have to restrict myself to one post a day. I know I keep saying that I’m aiming for that, but I’m going to be strict about it now. It’s turning into so much work to get everything done that I’m struggling to keep up. Yes, I am going to bite the bullet and order a new battery for the laptop – normal service will return once I can write ‘properly’ again. Which means me and the laptop on the train with ears plugged into an iShuffle.
It has been an interesting experiment, this handwriting endeavour. It’s making me much more aware of how I write and when. Anyway! Back to editing AB posts. Mustn’t get too distracted by my own musings. More later!