The small stuff Saturday, May 30, 2009

Sometimes I find it rather difficult to defeat that beast known as procrastination.

I did get some work on Damen done tonight. Some meaning very little, now that I think about it.  Once again, I fell into a favorite trap of doing far too much research on very, very simple ideas.

Tonight was no different. I researched (for only about ten minutes total, but principles here) whether or not high school kids got a syllabus for their classes. It’s not like I’m that far from high school, but then again…yeah, it’s been almost seven years since I’d graduated from high school, and even then, I’d only had two AP classes my last year. I haven’t done “high school kid” work since I was probably 15 (ironically Damen’s age). Needless to say, I simply could not remember if there had been a syllabus in my last high school English class.

It’s not entirely necessary that I learn this small detail because I doubt I’ll use it for anything more than saying, ‘Britiana picked up her syllabus.’ or ‘Damen knew the book hadn’t been on the syllabus…’ and such. It’s such a small detail, but like I found myself doing in Flight, I love doing the research on something so small. For some reason, making sure the details are right just gives me that elevated sense of self satisfaction and drives me to write even more.

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Writing self-hate Friday, May 29, 2009

I already like the title of this post because it has so many levels. For example, is it “writing about self-hate” or is it “hate for my own writing?” And, it works so well because I’ve got both going on right now.

I’ve just finished a little of Damen right before the whole “interlude” with Jessie and I think I hate just about every word I’ve written, but I think I’ll have to keep in all of it because there’s just no real way to suggest his reasonings for befriending Corey without this new stuff. I just hate all the “tellingness” of all of it, but there’s not really a way to “show” this piece because I’m using this “tell” to help “show” the deeper meanings I’m trying to convey. Or at least attempting to convey.

I hadn’t really intended to include all this stuff about reading in LA, and I know a lot of that will have to be amended once I get to the full-heavy notes of Damen, but all in all, it felt good to just let the words flow see to what I ended up with in the end.

The biggest problem I see in the scene is that I’ve got a little self-loathing going on as far as Damen’s concerned and that bothers me because I don’t really see him as hating or pitying himself. Really, it’s all him missing his father and regretting the fact that he hadn’t cried. I haven’t yet decided whether he’ll cry for Brit or not, which honestly troubles me because that could be a really emotional turning point for him. At times, it seems like he would cry for her given all that’s happened and the fact that it’ll be another book-loving “best friend” type that’s leaving him so suddenly, but then again, having him cry would kind of lessen the impact of the “nothing left to say” thing I’m gunning for in the end. Crying feels like a way of saying something, but I don’t really want him saying anything.

It’s like each time I try to write him, it becomes more and more evident that he’s really going to be toughest character I’ll have ever to write. I know I’m leaps and bounds ahead of where I was about this time last year with him because previously I didn’t really know him and I knew I didn’t know him which made writing him infinitely difficult.

Now, however, it’s more of finding a way to think exactly how he would think without putting all of myself in him. I’m finding it’s rather hard to think like a fifteen-year-old boy without actually having been one, but I’ve written serial killers and lesbians before, so this will definitely work for me. I guess it’s just going to take a little more time to fully know and understand him.

The writer’s log Thursday, May 28, 2009

In revving up DorienneSmith.com into Version 3.0, I’ve finally decided what I am going to do with this blog. “I am kaitco” is going to be my writer’s log, that is, a daily descriptor of my writing and other creative activities.

I had intended to do this with my LiveJournal, but that has turned into a more casual non-political and more secularized version of my Dorienne’s Log and I would like a little more “freedom” to feel like I’m starting fresh with something. Also, unlike with my LiveJournal and Log, this is not going to have any specific goal or direction. Simply put, when I write something (poetry, fanfiction, progress in a novel) I’ll blog about it to have a record of my creative process. The same will go for all things creative, so some days I’ll have uber-long posts while there may be days where I’ll not have much more to say other than Sim X had a baby whom I’ve named Y because I’ll have spent all my time simming instead of doing “productive” things.

I’ll be using a lot of code names for my novel projects, many of which I’ll never take the time to explain seeing as how this is mainly for my own purposes, but I suppose anyone reading for any length of time could get the gist of what I’m saying. I’ll probably also refer to many coding and art projects in the same light. In fact, I may be referring to characters and scenes that may only be fully understood by myself for years to come, but again, this is really a Dorienne project, so anyone reading will just have to take this as-is.

Eventually, I’ll merge this blog with a specified subdomain on DorienneSmith.com, but life here on wordpress.com will suffice at present. Again, I’ve no real goals with this other than to see how this progresses and if I’ll end up something meaningful on which I can look back and see how I’ve “made it” to whatever point.

All that said…let’s begin:

I’m wicked late with my fifth-year “celebration” for DorienneSmith.com. It’s taken me close to three days to figure out how to create a scrolling background in Flash and have some stuff floating on top of it, but I’ve finally worked many of the kinks out of my header and may even have an update for the site by the end of the month.

I’ve not actually written anything in Damen for close to a week. I think it’s because my darn sleep schedule has been so erratic lately, but I’ve at least e-mailed my most recent copy of it to my gmail, so I’m at least marching in the right direction. The goal for tomorrow is to really dig into the scene where Jessie “confronts” him. I’ve hit a brick wall with it for some reason, much like I had with Damen and Anthony taking a drive to the hood. I like to think the wall is something more than simply procrastination, but I’m suspecting that’s all it is.

I’ve been thinking/dreaming about Luka a lot lately. It may be because I’m feeling rather powerless right now and the story is not too much more than a glorified version of a world takeover Dorienne-style, but Luka and Elia keep popping in my mind far more often than they had in recent months. I’m still trying to stay focused though. If I let a diversion like Luka step in between Damen and I at this point, 9/26 will be here before I blink twice and then I’ll really be in trouble.

Anywhoo…I probably won’t get too much of Damen and Jessie’s scene done tomorrow since I’m still in coding overdrive, but if I can just sketch out a little bit more of them, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.