The One With Fonik
I got this video on my new 3rd generation iPod Touch =)
- Derick
Slow And Not So Steady
Trying to finish Project M.I.G.H.T. before I enter National Service is going to be quite a rush and most likely not possible without the quality of the Specimen Four and Five being affected.
I’m still not used to work life because whenever I get home, I’m just too tired to sit down and let the entire story, characters, and plot elements spread out in my head and then start to write. I can’t sustain that level of concentration and I just end up writing nonsense if I force myself to write.
The Chapter Outline is done but it’s doing little to help because of the problem I mentioned above.
The only time I really have to write now is during the weekends which really isn’t much so at the very most I can churn out three chapters per week, which is a drastic drop in productivity. I’ll have to get used to work life eventually of course but I doubt it’ll happen during this internship since I only have a month and a half left. Once I get used to it, my internship would probably be over and I’ll lose the adaptation.
So right now, writing during weekends seem to be the only solution to this problem. Specimen Three: Geralt will see a drop in word count again like how there was a drop from Specimen One to Specimen Two. I am aiming for a novella length (45,000 words+) as opposed to the length of an epic novel because the ideas that I have for a Romance/Science-fiction genre mix is really quite limited.
Once I’m done with Project M.I.G.H.T. and move on to Fantasy/Science-Fiction however… heh.
As of now, I’m going to try and write during the weekdays and hopefully can get perhaps five chapters out per week. Once I’m done with the first draft, the second draft should be less taxing depending on how well draft 1 turned out. But I’m really not going try and force myself too much during this internship period because honestly speaking, Specimen Three is not looking good at all right now.
Once internship is over, I’ll have roughly two months where I can fervently write every single day at 100%.
Specimen Three: Geralt has suffered a 3 months delay because of my internship so that’s going to push everything further, but I’ll try my best to catch up during that two months after my internship =)
- Derick
The One With LAA~ LAA~ LA LAAAA~!!!
Watch this…
Then watch this, but do keep in mind that the following video is very dirty so children, get your parents to watch it with you!
=)
- Derick
Linear Series
Remember that post about me wanting to do Project M.I.G.H.T. in a non-linear manner so that other readers can enter the series by reading any book that they like first?
Yeah, that idea has gone to hell.
I realised that it’s actually a lot more fun – non to mention easier – to write it in a linear manner so it’s to hell with this non-linear idea. If you want to read this series, you start with book one and you work your way up from there.
Now of course this does not mean that the non-linear idea was a bad idea. I’ll definitely want to experiment with it again and hopefully with success, but it’s just not going to work with Project M.I.G.H.T. without bringing down the quality of the series.
As for Specimen Three: Ixion, the chapter outline is going well and as I’ve mentioned before, this story is going to be a lot more fast-paced than the previous two stories. It’s going to be action after action, with some breaks in between for you to catch your breath, before I smack you across the face with another action-packed chapter. I don’t want to do just the same old “girl falls in love guy, guy falls in love with girl” routine, I want to add a deeper story to it and in Specimen Three, you’re going to learn a lot more about the series’ plot.
Specimen One: Mythias basically set the foundation of the series plot – you learn about Project M.I.G.H.T. and that someone is trying to create the fifth.
Specimen Two: Ixion tells you that the fifth has been created and that the fifth is being used to kill them one by one.
Specimen Three: Geralt is going to reveal A BLOODY LOT more on the surface and if you’re a sharp reader who can interpret and link different informations, you’re going to find one or two MAJOR plot keys that will give you a much better picture of what’s actually going on.
And of course, you’re all going to meet the fourth =)
- Derick
No Bloody Flow
I can’t get a flow going with Specimen Three when I only have the energy to write like once or twice every week. The whole story is a complete mess right now with no structure or flow or direction. Every character just pops up and you won’t feel attached to any of them while reading. Geralt is a freaking robot with no emotions. And the main character is the polar opposite of what I initially planned her to be like.
But the solution isn’t for me to wait until my internship is over (9 more weeks exactly) because when internship is over, I have other matters in the future like National Service and my day job.
The solution – I already have one, haha - is to get a chapter-by-chapter plan out before I begin on the first draft.
It’s basically what I did for Her Hero and His Love but what I didn’t like about that was that the story felt constrained. And more importantly, I find it a lot more fun to just have guidelines or checkpoints for different parts of the story, and allow the story to just grow and manifest itself from the start when I begin to write.
They’re two different styles of writing that authors have been debating over which one is better. And while I prefer to let a story grow on its own, I think it’s clear that that way of writing isn’t going to work out for me at this point of time when I’m in my internship.
Chapter-by-Chapter Plan, that’s what I’ll be working on now =)
- Derick
The One With Being Emo
These days in what little time I have after work, I’ve been blog-hopping all over the internet trying to find inspirations for new characters. The female lead in Specimen Three: Geralt was inspired by a blogger – not a famous one - and so were two other supporting characters. It’s a really fun way to get inspired and to find out how a person’s character is like through their writing is really quite an intriguing process.
Today’s search led me to two very interesting people.
First, we have a guy who practically has the ‘F’ word in every single bloody posts since the first. It’s like a compulsive disorder that he suffers from which causes him to HAVE to swear in every single one of his post. But when I look at the guy’s pictures, he doesn’t look that much of a vulgar person – even though he obviously is – and he actually came off to look like quite a nice guy.
Then we have the emo guy.
Emo guy is a friend of ‘F’ guy by the way and they both enjoy swearing – and being emo – though ‘F’ guy is much, much more passionate about it.
Emo guy is almost never happy and when he is, he’ll only be as such in the first half of his post before the second half takes a nose-dive. And I notice that ‘F’ guy as well as a lot of bloggers are like that as well. They like to post emo song lyrics - which completely waste my time considering that I’m actually doing research - and talk about the great topic of LIFE like they’re some eighty year old philosopher.
It’s all really quite entertaining, haha, because it really makes you wonder whether they’re really that sad in life. And at times I’m rather impressed as well because some of the things they say are really thought provoking… until I find out that they’re either actually lyrics from a song written by a professional, or quotes from an actual philosopher -.-
In other words they didn’t come up with those thought provoking questions or sentences.
Unfortunately, neither ‘F’ guy nor emo guy made it into Specimen Three because they’re friends of my friend so if I were to feature them in my story, their characters would be ridiculed beyond ridiculation – which isn’t a real word mind you.
So far only female bloggers have inspired me. They’re a lot more versatile with their writing and they like to take and post lots of pictures - helps with the description - and they have so much more interesting lives. Guys are almost always blogging about how the world and everyone’s mother hate them. The ones who do blog about interesting stuff don’t make it into my blog because they themselves aren’t interesting -_-”
I can’t exactly blame them for not being interesting enough though, considering that I was comparing them with Mythias, Ixion and Geralt. But at least they do inspire - to an extent - different characteristics which I use to create a whole new character. And that’s really good enough actually.
Alright, just one last statement before I end this post.
I tried some new things the past few days, sadly, however, all – bloody hell, really all - of them failed quite horribly *facepalm*
And that’s all.
- Derick
The One With Gee and Sorry, Sorry… Military-Style
If this was Singapore, National Service would be something that I’d look forward to.
Gee & Sorry Sorry by Korean Military
- Derick
Descriptions!
I noticed that Specimen Two: Ixion was still lacking in the descriptions department – a problem which Specimen One: Mythias suffered from. So this time, I’m going to add in a ton of descriptions for Specimen Three: Geralt. Odds are I’ll probably go over and the whole story will be too descriptive, but I think it’s the best way to force myself to describe more now before I slowly tone it down in Specimen Four: ???.
Progress is slow because I just begun my internship two weeks ago. It lasts for three whole months and I’m still adjusting so right now I’m really too tired to write much once I get home after work.
My aim is to finish Specimen Three and Specimen Four before the middle of next year which is when I will be required to enter National Service (army). I have no idea how that will be like but I’ll probably only have like the weekends to write once it begins. And it’ll continue that way for a few months.
The good thing is that during that period I’ll be able to do a lot of reading so that will definitely help make the final story a much more well-written work =)
- Derick
