portrait practice with SILO characters rahhhh (for each i tried to work from reference as much as i could and then switched to tracing so that they Looked Right.)

July

Rather late, I know - I started this post on the first of the month actually, but it took some time and I got sidetracked by a variety of things. At least I’m here now :P

To briefly summarize the previous month’s progress: as expected, draft 0 is not complete, but I’m not too concerned. I do want to note my writing experiences this past month, particularly one rather intense session: I immersed myself in my character in order to capture her feelings, and as a result I was actually on the verge of tears for a significant amount of time while writing that scene.

Looking forward though, my goal is still hopefully to finish draft 1 of “Ghost of a Fireflower” by the end of August. It’s unlikely that I’ll finish draft 0 by the end of July, but I’ll do my best. Unfortunately, I think that means being a little less social for some time perhaps, but if that’s what has to happen, so be it.

Either way though, I want to take a little break between “Ghost of a Fireflower” and before “Birth of a Dragon”. While this is partly to give myself some time to develop the third part, I also need to spend some time on other writing-related things to refresh my excitement about writing in general. I'll spend some time on portraits and landscapes (an idea I had where I take a particular picture and write a scene from it) and more flash fic (I still want to make a final edit of “Blue”). I'll also likely spend some time practicing editing on r/DestructiveReaders.

In addition to the usual update, I wanted to do something unique this time. I'm normally quite harsh with myself, but it's not healthy for my motivation. I actually have a lot of things to be proud of, and even if it's a little self-aggrandizing, I want to go through these things:

Worldbuilding

I am incredibly proud of the world I’ve built. Even though I kind of feel like I’ve lucked into creating this amazing world, that doesn’t change how I feel about it. Its otherworldly elements range from mundane to beautiful to exotically horrific, and together they create a very rich world that is distinct from our own. I think it feels rather refreshing as a result, and again, I’m really happy with this world that I’ve built.

One thing in particular that I want to note about the world is how well it ties together with the plot and the characters and even with itself. Because it all ties together so well, each new element feels appropriate when it is introduced. It provides a strong sense of cohesion to the whole book, and I really like how it’s coming along as a result.

Worldview

I think I have a take on relationships and gender that is both insightful and unique enough to be worth sharing. Kiri and Rose are born from my experiences, and their respective journeys reflect my views on love and relationships. Kiri further reflects my take on gender, in particular what femininity means to me and my acceptance of that as a part of who I am. I hope readers will be able to resonate with Kiri and Rose and be inspired by them in some manner, and I'm excited to write their journey.

Wordcrafting

I generally like my writing, especially the more descriptive passages, and I’m occasionally rather proud of certain phrases that use creative imagery or an interesting cadence for example. I think I would attribute this generally to the care and attention I dedicate to the words I use and the way I phrase them. When it comes to the cadence of my writing in particular, I might actually attribute that to my love for music and my experience with it.

Narrative structure

Due to the extensive time I’ve spent analyzing film, I’ve become pretty good with narrative structure. Admittedly, I started this project with much less sense of structure, and I had no outline for the book - parts 2 and 3 didn’t even exist, and while I knew how part 1 ended, I made up a lot of it as I went along. All of this is pretty evident in draft 1 of “A Dying Spark”. Since then though, I’ve improved significantly and developed the outline much more. I’ve developed a three-part structure, likely inspired subconsciously by A:TLA and its three books (since it is my favorite series, after all =P). Admittedly, I did explicitly analyze the pacing of the antagonists of A:TLA when creating my own. These antagonists helped shape the plot shifts that mark the separate parts, resulting in three distinct parts with different themes and character motivations. Still, these parts manage to come together in a single, cohesive arc. When it comes to individual parts, I want to call out "Ghost of a Fireflower". The outline features the parallel stories of Kiri and Rose, and their stories resonate with each other and interleave together in order to advance a shared plot thread and emotional arc. The two stories come to a head together in a twin conclusion, and I’m really excited to write this conclusion. As for “Birth of a Dragon”, I don’t have much of an outline for it yet. However, I am confident that I'll be able to structure it so that it is engaging on its own and it ties together all of the threads that came to be in the first two parts.

Editing

At some point, I decided I wanted to analyze what exactly I thought about the media I consumed. It was no longer sufficient that I just like something, and it was especially insufferable that I just dislike something: I had to be able to describe its flaws as meticulously as possible.

More and more analysis has helped me develop a detailed and accurate sense of what constitutes good and bad writing. This includes big picture aspects like narrative structure and character arcs as well as minutiae on the order of sentence structure and word choice. In a fortunate coincidence, this is what I (perhaps biasedly) consider to be the most important quality in editing: after all, it’s important to be able to describe the problem before attempting to fix it.

I think my dabbling in game design has also helped me develop this skill. Games can be very multifaceted art forms, perhaps even more so than novels and films. As with editing a novel, it is important to be able to describe the problems and isolate what aspects of the game are causing them; otherwise, a designer can end up making a number of changes that fail to address the actual problem. I developed these skills while working on various game design projects, and these skills have transferred over to my writing and made me rather good at editing.

Finally, I want to finish this post off quickly with a description of a few small areas I need improvement in:

Writing speed

I write too slowly. I know it’s because I want every word to be perfect, but I really need to find a way to push myself to move along and write at a quicker pace. I think I need to recognize that not everything needs to be perfect the first time around - after all, any given scene might be replaced in its entirety. As another example, I’ve spent so much time on this post, which has little purpose beyond its effect on my pride.

Brainstorming

I’m really bad at brainstorming (something I’ve also noticed with work and in my game design pursuit). When faced with a problem, I need to be better at coming up with varied ideas that explore different paths. My current problem-solving ‘strategy’ is just to kind of struggle with a problem until a solution comes along, and this just isn’t viable. I’m going to come across problems in the narrative, and I’ll need to be able to handle them quickly and sufficiently when they come up.

Pride

This might be ironic, given that I wrote this whole post because I felt I needed to be more proud of my work, but pride is actually my biggest flaw. In other aspects of life, I might even say the vast majority of my problems stem from my pride. As for writing, it’s likely why I write slowly, since I can’t bear writing something I’m not proud in. Perhaps more importantly is the issue of feedback - throughout my time working on this book, I will get feedback at various times. I’ll need to react in an objective manner and let go of my pride if I want to write the best book I can, and hopefully I’ll be able to do that.

Well, that’s finally all for now! Even if it is going slower than I’d like, I’m really proud of what I’ve created so far. I love Kiri and Rose, and I’m really excited to take them to the conclusion of “Ghost of a Fireflower” and start brainstorming what they do in “Birth of a Dragon”. Whew, it’s been quite a long post =P pce out til next time!