Chapter Outline Done
Actually it’s been done for quite a few days already but I’ve been too busy with my school submissions to post an update.
Brain-storming has been rather difficult too with this headache irritating me for the past two days. I haven’t been able to get any decent ideas out yet, but I’ve noted down several alterations to the plot that will improve the story. And I realize that I have yet to find a message for this story.
In Specimen One, the message was that bad memories are just what they are – bad memories. We can choose to either let them hinder our lives or just forget them.
I think it was meaningful because many times I’ve seen friends who let bad memories get in their way of doing things, which really wasn’t productive and helpful at all. So hopefully I can come up with something meaningful for Specimen Two as well.
Another thing I need to share here is that I’m going to try and start writing short-stories. Personally I’ve tried writing shorts but they always turn out horrible. I always end up doing too much character development or the plot gets too complicated. Both of which makes the story too long. And that was why I stopped writing shorts but I’ve seen that almost all published authors have written shorts before – good ones – so I think it’s quite necessary that I start learning how to write one.
Alright, this headache is really pissing me off and I can barely think clearly enough to write anything longer or coherent.
That’s all for this post.
- Derick
The One With So Nyuh Shi Dae
Revealing this might very well be the end of me.
So Nyuh Shi Dae or SNSD for short, is the idol group consisting of 9 girls whose passion and dedication for their work, has helped inspire me to set my foot on this path to become a novelist. Mind you, a lot of people inspired me and gave me the courage to want to become a novelist, but not all of them do it so elegantly and adorably. They are also responsible for many scenes throughout the Project M.I.G.H.T. series, because I drew inspiration from their songs, performances and the TV shows that they appear on.
I am not going to post a picture of them because my paranoia is telling me that I’ll automatically be labeled as a shallow person or a pervert/loser – likely both, and then I’ll lose all my readers. Instead, you’ll find below one of the songs from their latest album, along with the lyrics and translation. Listen to it, and chances are you’ll understand why I find them worthy enough to be a fan for.
They’re not just a bunch of pretty faces.
From now until the release of Specimen Two - I’ll post an update once the Chapter Outline is done - I will try to post more of their songs and subsequently once I’ve convinced you guys that they’re not just a bunch of pretty faces, I might start posting some videos and pictures. This way, you might not feel so foreign when reading Specimen Two, should I do a bad job of erasing that line between hardcore fan-fiction and hardcore novel.
And now here’s the song, just click on the link since wordpress won’t let me embed the code.
Dear Mom.
By So Nyuh Shi Dae
Korean Lyrics
오늘은 왠지 힘들고 지쳐
베개를 끌어안은 채 혼자 방안에 남아
전화길 만지작거리는 나의 마음이
웬지 오늘따라 외로운거죠
갑자기 울린 전화에 놀라
밥 먹었는지 걱정하는 엄마 목소리가
귀찮게 들렸던 그 말이 오늘은 다른걸
잊고 있었던 약속들이 떠올라요
마음이 예쁜 사람이 될게요
남을 먼저 생각하는 사람 될게요
엄마의 사랑의 바램들을 지켜갈게요
나와 꿈을 함께 나누던 내 머릴 빗겨주던 엄마가 생각나
때론 잘못된 선택들로 아파했지만 아무 말 없이 뒤에서 지켜봐 주셨죠
서툴고 어린 아이지만 이젠 알 것 같아요 엄마의 조용한 기도의 의미를
마음이 예쁜 사람이 될게요
남을 먼저 생각하는 사람 될게요
엄마의 사랑의 바램들을 지켜갈게요
나와 꿈을 함께 나누던 내 머리를 빗겨주던 엄마가 생각나
어떡하죠 아직 작은 내 맘이
엄마의 손을 놓으면 혼자 잘할 수 있을지
아직 부족한 것 같아 난 두려운 걸요
지혜로운 엄마의 딸 될게요 나에게 용기를 줘요
어딜가도 자랑스런 딸이 될게요
엄마의 사랑의 바램들을 지켜갈게요
한없이 보여준 사랑만큼 따스한 맘을 가질게요
수줍어 자주 표현 못했죠
엄마 정말로 사랑해요
Translation
For some reason, today feels so difficult and exhausting
I hold my pillow closer as I sit alone in my room
I fidget with my phone as my heart
For some reason feels empty today
The suddenly ringing phone surprises me
I hear your voice, asking me if I ate today
Although at times, they annoyed me, today those words feel different
And all the forgotten promises I’ve made come flooding back to me
I will become a warm hearted person
I will become a person that puts others first
I will fulfill the wishes of your love
The person who I share my dreams with
The one who used to comb my hair, I think of my mom
Although at times, I hurt you because of my wrong decisions
You quietly watched over me from afar
Although I’m still a young and clumsy child
I think I understand now
The meaning of your silent prayers
I will become a warm hearted person
I will become a person that puts others first
I will fulfill the wishes of your love
The person who I share my dreams with
The one who used to comb my hair, I think of my mom
What should I do? My heart is still so small
If I let go of your hand, I’m not sure if I can make it without you
I don’t think I’m ready yet
And I’m scared
I will become a wise daughter
Give me courage
No matter where I go, I will be a daughter you can be proud of
I will fulfill the wishes of your love
With all the love that you have shown me
I will have a warm heart
I was too shy to express this to you clearly
Mom, I truly love you
Romanization
[Seohyun]
Oneureun waenji himdeurgoh jicheo
Begaereul ggeureoahneun chae honja banganeh namah
[Jessica]
Junhwagil manjijaggeorineun naui maeumi
Wenji oneulddara wero oongeojyo
[Sunny]
Gabjaki oorrin junhwae norra
Babmeoneossneunji geonjeonghaneun umma moksorika
[Taeyeon]
Gwichanhge deurryeossdeon geumari oneurngeun dareungeol
Ijgo isseossdeon yagsogdeuri ddeoohrrayo
[All]
Maeumi yebbeun saramee dwegeyo
Nameul manjeo saenggaghaneun saram dwegeyo
[Tiffany]
Ummaui sarangui baramdeureul jigyeogalgeyo
[Yoona]
Nawa ggoomeul hamggeh namudeon
[Yoona, Jessica]
Nae meoril bisgeojoodeon ummaga saenggagna
[Yuri]
Ddaeron jalmosdwen seontaegdeurro Apahaessjiman amu mal eobshi dwiehseo jigyeobwa jooseossjyo
[Tiffany]
Seoturgoh eorin aijiman ijen algeosgatayo ummaui joyonghan gidoui uimireul
[All]
Maeumi yebbeun saramee dwegeyo
Nameul manjeo saenggaghaneun saram dwegeyo
[Taeyeon]
Ummaui sarangui baramdeureul jigyeogalgeyo
[Hyoyeon]
Nawa ggoomeul hamggeh namudeon
[Hyoyeon, Sunny]
Nae meoril bisjeojoodeon ummaga saenggagna
[Jessica]
Eoddeoghajyo ajik jageun nae mamee
[Seohyun]
Ummaye soneul noheumyeon honja jarhal soo isseumjee
[Taeyeon]
Ajik boojoghan geos gata nan dooryeooongeolyo
[All]
Jihye rooon ummaye ddal dwegeyo
[Taeyeon]
Naehgeh yonggireul jwoyo
[All]
Eon nilgadoh jarang seureon ddaree dwegeyo
[Jessica]
Ummaui sarangui baramdeureul jigyeogalgeyo
[Sooyoung]
Haneobshi boyeojoon sarangmankeum
[Taeyeon]
ddaseuhan mameul gagilgeyo
[Tiffany]
Soojoonbeo jajo pyo hyeon moshaessjyo
[Seohyun]
Umma jeongmalroh saranghaeyo
CREDITS
Lyrics: The Lighthouse
Translations: jstn, boxclub, bug, cathode, ak6c @soshified.com/forums
Romanizations: orangesmarties@soshfied.com/forums
I’ll try to explain why, in another post, why I felt that revealing SNSD as my idols would be the end of me.
- Derick
Navigation and Publicity
I’m like halfway through a school assignment right now – I have to write a screenplay – and having written a number of stories, I know I need to relax if I’m tired when I’m doing something that involves more on creativity than academics. So here I am, writing an update about some, more-administrative issues of the Project M.I.G.H.T series.
Navigation
I noticed that it’s quite difficult to for new readers to navigate to Specimen One’s story if they begin from my blog itself (www.derickwjtan.wordpress.com). Other readers who come from perhaps another forum or friendster, can easily access Specimen One’s index page because I’ll always a provide a link in my bulletin or thread. So over this weekend I’m going to create a new page that directly links to Specimen One’s index, along with some other relevant information.
Right now, the problem is that you have to navigate through the numerous categories I have, and search for the Index post which if you were to try can be quite confusing, especially to someone new. So yeah, I’ll basically make this process into a simple “Click here and tada!” matter, so that it’ll be easier for new readers to get to Specimen One.
edit: Alright, I’ve created a new Page that contains the series’s blurb as well as links to the Index of each story in the series. Oh and I’ve updated the Blurb as well, to make it sound more natural and add a few extra lines to deepen the plot a little and make it more interesting.
Publicity
I’m still stubborn about not posting a banner on Ice-Angel’s blog, so right now I’m looking at various other methods of spreading Specimen One. Right now I visit the Books section of Stomp’s forum (http://talkback.stomp.com.sg/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=21) from time to time, and I have a link to Specimen One in my signature but it’s not really helping much, so I’m going to try exploring the entire forum.
If you’ve added me on Friendster then you should know I post up a new bulletin every now and then, or actually I post whenever I see that my bulletin is not on the front page anymore.
Banners are probably not going to happen anytime soon. The artist I mentioned wasn’t particularly interested in the story. She did ask for me to get her a summary though, but summaries are the bane of my existence, so I’ll try to work things out but I doubt anything much will happen any time soon.
But I have made plans for Specimen Two which should help with spreading Specimen One and in turn the whole series. This was what I wrote in other post regarding the matter:
“Firstly, I’m going to be blunt here, I need more readers to get more feedbacks. The forum that I intend to post Specimen Two in (alongside my blog) has a fan-fiction section that receives thousands of views per day. A new story can easily gather up to a 100 views in a single day and 15,000+ over a few months if the story is good. And that makes it a very effective means of sharing my story with as many people as possible.”
So Specimen Two is going to be a risk-taker – a calculated one. Should I fail with Specimen Two (meaning the story sucks) then I would have failed to entertain as well as get more viewers for the Project M.I.G.H.T series. But should I happen to be successful and the members at the forum I’m posting in respond well to my story, I would have achieved three different things:
1. Spread the series to more readers and hopefully receive more feedback in return.
2. Entertained more people with my writing.
3. Shared my idols with you guys, which in other words helped my idols in garnering more fans.
Chances are most of you already know about the idols I’m referring to, but right now I’m not ready to share who they are yet – along with details of the forum. I’m still worried that I might be making a huge mistake turning Specimen Two into a fan-fiction, even though it’s fun and can potentially benefit the series in a lot of ways. So right now I’m just going to focus on Draft Two of Specimen Two and depending on how well the Fixed Plot (That’s what I’m going to call it) turns out to be, I’ll decide again whether I’m going to go through with it.
And that’s all for this post.
- Derick
The One With 13 Thought-Provoking Points
A good friend of mine sent me this in the morning and I felt that some of the points really made me think so I wanted to share it with you guys.
- – - – -
Read Each One Carefully and Think About It a Second or Two
1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.
2. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won’t make you cry.
3. Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.
4. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
5. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can’t have them.
6. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.
7. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
8. Don’t waste your time on a man/woman, who isn’t willing to waste their time on you.
9. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
10. Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.
11. There’s always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.
12. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.
13. Don’t try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.
REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.
True friends: How many people actually have 8 true friends?
Hardly anyone I know ! But some of us have all right friends and good friends!!!
- – - – -
Personally I love No. 7 because it describes exactly how I used to feel for someone before I got all skeptical about love. (lol, and I’m writing romance! Great combination, idiot!)
What about you guys? Which is your favourite?
- Derick
Draft One Completed
I just completed the first draft of Specimen Two with 45,557 words and 30 chapters including Prologue and Epilogue.
But because draft one is just me penning out the rough outline that I have of the story, that amount of words is most likely lesser than what the final total will be. Right now I don’t even dare to think back about the storyline because it is so badly written.
Character development – Sucks completely, because there are too many characters.
Sequel – Sucks as a sequel because I revealed too much. It’d felt more like the second last story.
Writing Voice – Experimenting. This I’m actually a little happy about because I tried out a new style of writing which I feel very natural with, so it might very well be the one!
Pacing – Sucks, because it’s like a cliff now. The plot builds itself up until the climax and right after that, I end the freaking story.
Plot – Sucks, refer to the above.
Fan-fiction – Meh. I need to read more fan-fictions (Good ones) and watch more videos to better portray my idols.
Standalone – Sucks. I did a bad job explaining Project M.I.G.H.T, the TFA and Gordon.
Basically draft one sucked.
But amongst all of the stories that I’ve wrote, well, this draft one sucked as much as all of the others. It’s quite normal =)
Draft two is where I will see drastic changes – mainly improvements. I’ll begin brainstorming after the Lunar New Year holidays and get a chapter outline out. From there I should be able to see the problems more clearly and thus be able to address them all in the second draft. But there’s one thing that I would like to address now.
Side-Stories
I realized that as I was writing, there were a lot of scenes that I omitted because they didn’t contribute to the overall plot, which made them unnecessary and hence not included. These scenes are actually more of just ‘for fun’ really, so I thought of including Side-Stories to Specimen Two. It’s basically just something there because it was fun for me to write it out, and I guess the whole point of fan-fiction is to read what you would like your idols to do – like read about them going shopping, playing in the amusement park or having a party.
So yeah, I’ll seriously consider writing side-stories for the fun of it. But Specimen Two itself will come first so don’t worry about any unnecessary delays.
That’s all!
- Derick
40,000 words
(I’m feeling a little under the weather right now so this post might seem a little bit messy)
I’ve just hit 40,000 words with the latest chapter and I estimate myself to be less than 5 chapters away from the end. As you all know, my stories have a lot of chapters but every chapter is pretty short and concise, which makes it easier for to you stop at the end of a chapter and continue another time.
Next thing I want to announce is that (I don’t think I’ve told you guys this yet) Specimen Two will also be a fan-fiction. Before you start freaking out, the only fan-fiction part is that there’s a number of characters in the story who actually inspired by real life celebrities, with the same names and characteristics. And that’s all. You won’t find cute emoticons like T.T or =) or >.< in Specimen Two. I’m still keeping to the standard format so don’t freak out.
Now, I want to explain why I’m doing this.
Firstly, I’m going to be blunt here, I need more readers to get more feedbacks. The forum that I intend to post Specimen Two in (alongside my blog) has a fan-fiction section that receives thousands of views per day. A new story can easily gather up to a 100 views in a single day and 15,000+ over a few months if the story is good. And that makes it a very effective means of sharing my story with as many people as possible.
Secondly, I write because it’s fun, and writing a fan-fiction is surprisingly quite fun. That’s why I’m writing one. Because it’s fun.
Lastly, I want to help promote my idol and share all the enjoyment that I’m receiving from them with you guys. Lame but true.
You don’t have to worry about any puns or inside jokes that you’d only understand if you’re a fan of the idols. I’m dedicating an entire draft to make sure that everything is explained without interfering with the quality of my writing or the story. Even if there are, you probably won’t notice it unless your a fan. Note that I say ‘won’t notice’ and not ‘don’t understand’.
Specimen Two will be reviewed by a non-fan before I post it online. So don’t worry, alright?
Alright, then that’s all for this post.
- Derick
The One Where I’m Gifted?
Well, according to this free IQ test’s score guide, it seems that I’m gifted O.o
Free-IQTest.net – IQ Test
Haha, it’s probably not accurate at all but I needed to refresh my mind from a whole afternoon of writing so I just did it for fun.
- Derick
Novella
When I first wrote HHHL I didn’t want it to be an epic-length novel like Lord of the Rings, I tried to kept it as short as possible with the intention of it being a novella. However I never try to restrict myself too much when it came to word length. This isn’t secondary school anymore so I don’t want some stupid word limit to compromise the story I want to tell.
Specimen One: Mythias, became a novel because it was 65,000+ words long and I wanted it to establish the series.
Speaking about series, pardon me as I deviate a little here. The original plan was 5 individual stories + 1 final story = 6 stories series, and this plan eventually changed to 4 individual stories + 1 final story = 5 stories series. The beauty about this ‘individual’ story plan was that you could start with any story and if you didn’t enjoyed it, or you’re not interested in the more science-fiction series plot, you could just be satisfied with the romance plot that ends with each story.
If you’ve finished reading Specimen One, you should realize that that plan has been given a knee to the groin and it’s kinda limping real awkwardly now. Basically what the series is like now is somewhat comparative to the Chronicles of Narnia series. There are different order in which you can read the series – rather, you can read the series in any order you like – but there’s one specific order which the author feels is the best order for reading the series.
My order is pretty simple. Start with Specimen One, end with Specimen Four, then go on to the final story.
Now back to word length. I’m going to try and keep the word length to roughly 40,000+ again like HHHL. I’ll make sure that there isn’t any compromise to the quality of the story, and the great thing about novellas is that you get all the excitement and adventure of a novel, in a much shorter length – that’s if I can write it well, of course. And so you can expect Specimen Two (And the subsequent stories) to be roughly (I’m really guessing here) 10 chapters shorter than Specimen One.
The reason why I want it to be short is because, like I’ve said many times before, the Project M.I.G.H.T series is for me to learn how to write better. And the ultimate goal of the series is for me to find my writing voice. With a shorter length, it means that I spend less time developing the story and thus can focus more on the quality of writing itself. Also, a shorter length means less chance for me to make my all so infamous grammatical errors.
Then you may ask, “What happens if I don’t find my writing voice at the end of Project M.I.G.H.T?” Well, first of all, thanks for the vote of confidence. Should I not be able to find my writing voice at the end of this series, then it’ll of course be quite disappointing, but I’m almost a 100% sure that everything else I learnt from writing the series would justify me having written the series – if that makes any sense… And using everything I’ve learnt from Project M.I.G.H.T, I’ll just begin working on another story or another series and let the whole process continue again. If you’re afraid that I’ve run out of inspirations for new stories, you’re worrying for nothing.
I have roughly 9 or 10 ideas kept in storage awaiting development =)
And that doesn’t even include the short-stories!
- Derick
The One About Sonofabitch
Should one ever be asked the question, “What is a sonofabitch?”, one can direct the questioner to the follow image for an answer.
The Second’s Story
I just ended the Prologue of Specimen Two: Ixion, so I guess I can now say that Specimen Two is officially underway. I actually have more or less the entire outline of Specimen Two, but they’re just rough planning and I have yet to actually get them penned out. The way I’m going to handle the Project M.I.G.H.T series is that I’ll only work on the next story when I get enough feedback – or when I felt that I’ve learnt enough from the latest released story, which in this case is Specimen One.
And I have, actually, almost.
Michelle, one of my readers, have pointed out that I should try reading guide books on writing. Well, I did read two books on writing which are Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. They are two fantastic books that I recommend to anyone who wishes to write well. I’ve learnt a lot from those two books which is almost sufficient for me to justify beginning work on Specimen Two, but still not enough yet.
This morning I received two more feedbacks from my readers (I need to start addressing my readers as ‘you guys’. SERIOUSLY.) which I’ll reply via e-mail asap. There are more feedbacks sent to me through e-mail, which is cool, but I’d prefer it if you guys could post on the Feedbacks and Comments page. This way it’s sort of like a credential for me, haha, to have people write testimonial or the sort for other potential readers to read and judge if this story is worth their time.
Anyway, with this amount of new knowledge that I have, I decided to begin working on the first draft of Specimen Two, to get the whole outline of the story penned out first. And hopefully by the end of it, I would have received more feedbacks from you guys (AH HAH!) and I can begin working on the second draft, which should almost be a re-write now if I follow closely to the new work-style that I’m going to try out.
Oh and before I end off, notice that the title of this post isn’t like “(1) Specimen Two: Ixion”, like how it was “(24) Her Hero and His Love: The Rewrite” with Specimen One?
Yeah, it was stupid labeling titles like that since then you can’t tell what the post is about.
And no one bothered to tell me >.>
- Derick
