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Leaving the Station
Jan. 4th, 2023 08:42 am
I have a monthly tracker in my Bullet Journal of the six things I'd like to do every day: meditate, write, read a book, exercise, learn something, and...well, grooming. I'm ashamed to say that I don't pay attention to my grooming nearly as much as I should, so the small reminder to make sure I'm at least presentable every day has gotten my average up.
It's been very difficult to do all six in a day. Usually, I have to sacrifice exercise or reading to work, or I didn't quite hit my grooming goal, or...well, we know what a hard time I've had writing for the past few years. But hope springs eternal!
Yesterday I managed to get all six done in one day, and it didn't even feel like I barely got things in! After work I flowed right into reading, then writing as R got home and took a nap, then studying while he was writing. I'm trying to spend some time every day with the SQL course I've picked up from work; it's still very early days for that, but I'm learning the basics about relational databases and all that. Meditation is a habit that I'm seeing the benefits of right now, and it felt good to exercise -- though I know at some point I'll need to step that up. Reading something has been hard for me, but that's largely been because I haven't prioritized it. There is definitely time in the day to get my stories in.
I'm reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell right now. I'm in the 5th of 6 sections, and it looks like this is the part where the disparate plots come together to resolve. We've gotten a TON of exposition in this section, and I really like the worldbuilding on display here. Mitchell has created this great shadow-world running parallel to our own, populated with people who have distinct perspectives but also feel as trapped as all of us do in circumstances beyond their comprehension. It's impressive to see people with supernatural powers drawn as grounded as this.
It reminds me of a somewhat-abandoned project our writing group had tried to get off the ground; a shared universe of interconnected furry superhero stories. My idea featured an inner-city teacher who had been "randomly" attacked with a strange substance that gives him invulnerability and super-strength. Basically, Luke Cage as a bear. His sister was a police officer, while his husband is a personal trainer; the villain would have been a former student with a firm grip on the criminal underworld. The more I plotted it out, the more...trope-laden it got. The story felt melodramatic and a bit TOO paint-by-numbers, though I wanted to do something fairly standard starting out. The setting would be the thing that made it unique, transplanting superheroic themes into a fairly messy world without easy answers. The aim was to put Luke Cage in a season of The Wire to see how things turned out.
If I could write characters as well-balanced as Mitchell does with The Bone Clocks, it would certainly make the story a lot better. The characters in this story have a solid grasp of what they can do and strong motivations for why they're doing it, but they're also just people. I think the temptation with superhero stories is to highlight the awesomeness of superpowers, to hang the whole story on how these fantastic abilities make the protagonist the only person able to stop the threat. But what I like about the folks in Mitchell's story is the relatively low-key attitude they have towards their extraordinary world. Yes, they're able to do some amazing things. But they're also very hard to do, very dangerous to do, and it's far too easy to create collateral damage if they push their shadow war too far. I find it measured in a believable way.
Maybe it's time to dust off the story and give it another pass. It would make for a great Patreon serial at the very least, and I'd love to submit chapters to the writing group for review. Getting constructive feedback from very talented writers is the perfect way to face my fears of rejection in a safe setting, and this is an excellent project to learn the basics of storytelling, plotting, character arcs, themes, etc.
We'll see how it goes juggling The Writing Desk, The Jackalope Serial Company, and my Dungeons and Dragons game. I'm giving myself the space I need to find my way with this, and it might take a little while before I'm ready to handle multiple projects as consistently as I'd like.
It's been very difficult to do all six in a day. Usually, I have to sacrifice exercise or reading to work, or I didn't quite hit my grooming goal, or...well, we know what a hard time I've had writing for the past few years. But hope springs eternal!
Yesterday I managed to get all six done in one day, and it didn't even feel like I barely got things in! After work I flowed right into reading, then writing as R got home and took a nap, then studying while he was writing. I'm trying to spend some time every day with the SQL course I've picked up from work; it's still very early days for that, but I'm learning the basics about relational databases and all that. Meditation is a habit that I'm seeing the benefits of right now, and it felt good to exercise -- though I know at some point I'll need to step that up. Reading something has been hard for me, but that's largely been because I haven't prioritized it. There is definitely time in the day to get my stories in.
I'm reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell right now. I'm in the 5th of 6 sections, and it looks like this is the part where the disparate plots come together to resolve. We've gotten a TON of exposition in this section, and I really like the worldbuilding on display here. Mitchell has created this great shadow-world running parallel to our own, populated with people who have distinct perspectives but also feel as trapped as all of us do in circumstances beyond their comprehension. It's impressive to see people with supernatural powers drawn as grounded as this.
It reminds me of a somewhat-abandoned project our writing group had tried to get off the ground; a shared universe of interconnected furry superhero stories. My idea featured an inner-city teacher who had been "randomly" attacked with a strange substance that gives him invulnerability and super-strength. Basically, Luke Cage as a bear. His sister was a police officer, while his husband is a personal trainer; the villain would have been a former student with a firm grip on the criminal underworld. The more I plotted it out, the more...trope-laden it got. The story felt melodramatic and a bit TOO paint-by-numbers, though I wanted to do something fairly standard starting out. The setting would be the thing that made it unique, transplanting superheroic themes into a fairly messy world without easy answers. The aim was to put Luke Cage in a season of The Wire to see how things turned out.
If I could write characters as well-balanced as Mitchell does with The Bone Clocks, it would certainly make the story a lot better. The characters in this story have a solid grasp of what they can do and strong motivations for why they're doing it, but they're also just people. I think the temptation with superhero stories is to highlight the awesomeness of superpowers, to hang the whole story on how these fantastic abilities make the protagonist the only person able to stop the threat. But what I like about the folks in Mitchell's story is the relatively low-key attitude they have towards their extraordinary world. Yes, they're able to do some amazing things. But they're also very hard to do, very dangerous to do, and it's far too easy to create collateral damage if they push their shadow war too far. I find it measured in a believable way.
Maybe it's time to dust off the story and give it another pass. It would make for a great Patreon serial at the very least, and I'd love to submit chapters to the writing group for review. Getting constructive feedback from very talented writers is the perfect way to face my fears of rejection in a safe setting, and this is an excellent project to learn the basics of storytelling, plotting, character arcs, themes, etc.
We'll see how it goes juggling The Writing Desk, The Jackalope Serial Company, and my Dungeons and Dragons game. I'm giving myself the space I need to find my way with this, and it might take a little while before I'm ready to handle multiple projects as consistently as I'd like.
