Here I go, up on the stage. Or something like that. Yes, that's right, it's time for my semi-annual come-back tour. *sigh* Honestly, I'm tired of going back and forth. Either writing is important enough to me to take the time and make the effort, or it's not. And it is. I really believe that it is. And, somehow, over the last couple years I've managed to learn a few things. I can feel it when I read, when I discuss books or movies with friends, and even more when I'm looking at my own work. I can see deficiencies that I couldn't see before, and I can see new ways to strengthen plot and character.

This is especially evident in the notes for my novel. If you read the last post here (done in May, yeesh), you'll see that I'd put myself in a bit of a spot. Well, working exceedingly sporadically, managed to hammer together at least the first segment of a plot. I've got my opening and the portion of the conflict that's going to take us into the meat of the book. I've got my main character, and the beginnings of a few more (though they need work, obviously). I've got some rudimentary world building, and I'm getting ready to really dive into fleshing that out. And I've got some glimmers of where the plot will go from here (I'm hoping the research and the worldbuilding will help to flesh the rest of that out as well). And with all this work and the thinking that I've been doing, I'm really seeing some strong differences. The plot is stronger. The conflicts are more dramatic. The character is deeper. And most importantly, I'm really feeling this one in a way I never have before.

So, to celebrate this new excitement and my new committment (and I swear I'm sticking to it this time), I've decided to put up the writing resolutions I've decided on for this year. I'm not going into a lot of specifics with it or anything, just some general guidelines of what I hope to accomplish, time, fates (and in some cases, budget) willing.

1. Finish the planning for my Roman fantasy novel and begin writing, hopefully finishing the first draft.


2. Edit, polish and/or rewrite my existing short stories and get them back into the submission cycle.


3. Re-design, edit, and polish both the atheist website and the vampire website and get them back on the web.


4. Be faithful about keeping up this LJ and other measures of my writing progress to help with accountability.

Okay, in a desperate attempt to get my life back on track, I've started working again.  I know I'd said that I'd started some notes before, but that idea never really went anywhere.  I know now that's because there wasn't enough to it.  I had another idea that grabbed my attention more, and the first one has somehow ended up entangled with it.  Together, I think they give me some pretty strong possibilities.

I'm going to try to write a novel.  I've tried before, some of you know, without actually finishing one.  But this time I feel like I've got a much better grip on the principles of plot and character and conflict and all that good stuff.  I've been devouring all kinds of writing books, embracing the stuff that means something to me and discarding the rest.  Out of it all I'm trying to fashion a method of novel writing that will really work for me, instead of slavishly devoting myself to somebody else's system.

Anyway, Sunday evening I got six pages of really solid work done.  Fleshed out some important characters in a really satisfying way, set up some of the societal situation in the world (it's fantasy), and got a pretty firm grip on the plot that's going to drive the first bit of the novel.  There's still a ton of work left to be done, but I'm feeling pretty good about what I've got so far.

For the first time, I feel comfortable with the work I've been doing on the book, and I feel like this might actually be the one I finish.  Whether or not it's going to be any good is another question, but at this point just finishing would feel like a real triumph.

I've been working on story notes for a dystopia piece. Something that occurs in that fictional space between the warnings of Good Night and Good Luck and V for Vendetta. In other words, what happens between when a fascist takeover is first threatened and when it has already become an established reality? I think it's an interesting topic, and I've taken the tack of approaching it from an Information Age vs. public apathy angle. It has potential, if I can ever get a good enough grip on it to start writing. Five or six pages of handwritten notes so far, but the concepts are starting to crystalize, so I might be making some progress.

I'm not working every day yet, and I haven't looked at any of the old stuff that needs work. But since this is the first writing of any sort I've done in a very long time, I think it's something of a triumph. So go me.