Derick W J Tan

It was fun while it lasted but I realised that I’m still in the midst of trying to find my own writing voice so writing it in first-person perspective might mess with that quite a bit.

I’m sticking with Specimen Three – not going to jump to four – and right now it’s going slow but steady. My end of 2009 deadline for  Specimen Three: Geralt is still very much possible because of the reduced length – I’ve told you guys about this right?

If I didn’t then… yeah, it’s going to be shorter =X

- Derick

Specimen Three is not looking good.

I skimmed through Specimen Two earlier today and I realised that it was actually pretty awesome.

Yeah, yeah, I’m an arrogant poopyhead, blah blah.

So yes, Specimen Two really was pretty awesome - compared to Specimen One - because there was actually a flow to the bloody story and I really did put in quite a number of twists. But when I look at Specimen Three, I don’t see that it being better or even as good as Specimen Two.

Allow me to blame my internship again.

Seriously, the story is there but it isn’t engaging enough and it still feels very segmented. To tell you the truth, I don’t feel motivated at all when it comes to certain chapters, which is a very, very bad thing for a writer.

Another thing to blame is actually the Chapter Outline which I did during my internship. The problem now is that I’m too stuck with the storyline that I’ve planned in the Outline and that storyline kinda sucks – compared to Specimen Two.

Right now I have two options in front of me:

1. Keep pushing.
I’ll just keep forcing myself to write and hopefully somewhere, somehow I’ll find a flow to it and the story will magically work out.

2. Specimen Four
What? I can’t jump to the fourth’s story because four doesn’t come after two? I’m the bloody author, I’ll do what I want.

Seriously though, I might have to work on Specimen Four instead because right now the only viable way I can see myself being able to make Specimen Three work is that I begin with a blank slate. And that means I need to give myself some time off from the story so that my mind can refresh itself. But time is something that I can’t afford to waste so why not work on Specimen Four instead?

Make sense right?

However I’m not going to make a decision just yet. I’ll try and see if I can still make Specimen Three work and depending on the results, I’ll come and visit these two choices again.

- Derick

I’m about halfway done with the first draft - haha, I told you it’ll go fast once my SIP is over - and I just realised something about the problem with me and descriptions.

There isn’t one.

In the past there were complaints about not knowing how the characters look like or what kind of environment they were in, and I tried to address it by describing and describing more but then I realised that by doing so, I was killing a very important element in reading fiction.

Imagination.

Yes, my characters weren’t described enough in terms of physical features - that I agree - but I think simple things like a restaurant, a park or a bar should be generic enough for your mind – your imagination – to create your own interpretation when I mention the place. All I should be doing is mention some key things about the place like perhaps the tone of the restaurant, the size of the park, or how lavish the bar is, as well as key elements in the setting that will be used.

So that settles it, description isn’t – well it shouldn’t be - a problem anymore.

To say that I’m being too lazy to describe isn’t quite right because I’ve been reading books by C.S. Lewis and Tom Clancy and those two guys don’t describe all that much. Of course there are authors like Christopher Paolini who describes his scenes so vividly that you can just close your eyes and actually see the place in your head. But truth be told, I wouldn’t be able to pull off that kind of description that Christopher Paolini seemed to have mastered, which actually isn’t quite necessary for Project M.I.G.H.T. since it’s all set in the real world.

Once I’m done with Project M.I.G.H.T. and I start to work on… - Oh I feel so tempted to release the title now, haha, but I really shouldn’t since it isn’t confirmed - my next story, I’ll really need to start to learn how to describe in a much more detailed manner.

Because as I’ve mentioned before and will confirm now, my next story after Project M.I.G.H.T. is going to be under the Fantasy genre =)

- Derick

I’m going to re-write Specimen 3: Geralt.

My intership really messed up this particular story and whatever I’ve written so far is way too fragmented for me to continue properly. It’s basically the same problem that I’ve encountered before which is the lack of a flow in the entire story, from dialogues to settings and events.

Now that my internship is finally over, I’ll be able to concentrate on churning out chapters every night as I’ve did before for the previous stories.

Normally I don’t give out ETAs for many reasons but uh, I’m aiming for a release by the end of the year. This could prove to be difficult because I do have my Final Year Project to attend to which is a full-scale short film production but considering the amount of preparation work I’ve done for Specimen 3… it’s not impossible.

I’m even considering linking my Final Year Project’s story to Specimen 3: Geralt =)

- Derick

My internship is over =)

- Derick