Word Count (What I’m Writing); Updated every 2-3 Days (mostly)
- Revision Month (i.e., “2nd Draft” Central)
Trying to figure this month out as I was sick and exhausted yesterday, so I worked on the rough draft of a new project, “Project Captain.” At home, I have two 1st Drafts I’d like to work on, “Project Dog,” and “Project Paradise”, in addition to three 2nd Drafts I’d like to focus on “Whale Song”, “Project Sky,” and “The Independent.” I have to decide how I’m going to proceed as there’s no way that I’m going to be able to get through all of those in one month. - Whale Song Revision (Fantasy Short Story) (2nd Draft)
(Researched an article on Whaling, think that I have the two characters–a brother and a sister who are on the opposite sides of the issue. Still, no Writing so far). Need to find a place to work in revisions–I can draft new material just fine, but I don’t seem to have any time to work on “drafting” revisions.
Currently Reading (What I’m Reading); Updated Weekly (mostly)
- For Fun:
Transhuman edited by Mark L. Van Name and T. F. K. Weisskopf
Just started this anthology – it was given to me at a LibertyCon some years ago, but I’ve just now gotten around to reading it. I may not finish it/read all the stories, but so far, I’ve read the first story and liked it.
The Belgariad David Eddings
Last week was NOT a good week, so I needed some “comfort food” for reading and my go to book for “comfort food” is the Belgariad (followed closely by Diane Duane’s So You Want To Be a Wizard.) - For School:
Afrofuturism (by Ytasha Womack): This book describes the academic genre of Afrofuturism (essentially African American Science Fiction that deals with social issues in culture). I just finished Chapter 5 today and I’m at the beginning of Chapter 6 (this book has 10 chapters).
Wrote out a fairly extensive list of possible research topics to explore from chapter 5. Really intriguing book. - For Research/Personal Development:
Great Aircraft of WWII by Alfred Price and Mike Spick (for Project Skye)
Great Aircraft of WWII is a book that I’ve had in my collection for sometime–I’ve glanced at it periodically, but never read it cover-to-cover. Now, with Project Skye, I intend to do just that.
Librarians Lead the Way
So, on the first Saturday of the month, I stopped off at the Chattanooga Public Library to talk to some of the librarians who I once worked with for a few moments. I happened to talk with another librarian who also writes fiction and I was reminded about why I write and the importance of character in stories.
Swapping Stories
When I dropped off my Graphic Novel script, she happened to mention a story that she was working on that, while not genre (Fantasy/Sci-Fi), was still quite intriguing and would be something that I’m sure readers will enjoy when she writes it and gets it published. However, I was struck by her focus on characters and characterization. Even at the idea stage, she was really focused on how characters acted in the story, their motivations behind their actions, and the interactions between the characters. This blew my mind! And, I made sure that I told her so–her conceptions of characters and characterizations at the planning stage were light-years beyond what I seem to be able to do, so I learned from her and I’m really going to double down on characters and characterization from now on.
Developing Characters
One of the things that my librarian friend was really good at was drawing characteristics and traits from real life people and then applying them to her characters in a way that made sense for her story. She is really good at figuring out the motivations for what people do and the history involved in their lives and then applying that to highlighting what she needs to for the plot. For the rest of this year, this going to be something that I practice–looking at people in real-life and seeing if I can figure out a possible history for them and motivations of the traits that I see them exhibit. I used to be fairly good at that, but I don’t think I really applied them to characters. So, you’ll probably see lots of posts on characterization as I try to improve and get better at it.
Have a great day!
Sidney
- Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora Wolf
- Read Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
- Read Faerie Knight in the anthology Fae, Rhonda Parrish, Ed. or the Kindle Edition
- Read Ship of Shadows in the anthology Visions IV: Space Between Stars, Carrol Fix, Ed. or the Kindle Edition.
- Read WarLight in the anthology Visions VI: Galaxies, Carrol Fix, Ed. or the Kindle Edition.
- Read Dragonhawk in the magazine Tales of the Talisman, Vol. 8, Iss. 3, David Lee Summers, Ed. or the Kindle Edition.
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OtherWorlds: A Science Fiction & Fantasy Web Journal 