Athletes often talk of ‘hitting the wall’. Without the right training or glucose intake, an endurance runner will come to a point where they’re all but overwhelmed with fatigue. These folks love to run and train hard for a marathon, but in the midst of their enjoyment comes a point that drains them of energy and happiness and leaves them struggling to just take one more step.
Writers can hit a similar wall. It might not weigh down your limbs or cause sweat to pour down your brow, but it can stop your efforts dead. It can be a transition from one scene to the next, a break in a conversation or just a pause in the line of thought you’d been following. Whatever it is, the steam runs out of the engine and you grind to a halt. You stare at what you’ve written, proud that you’ve gotten this far but knowing there’s more to go, and wondering how in the hell you’re going to get to that fantastic ending you’ve been planning with the help of women who game and magic talking beardfaces.
There’s really only one way to proceed if you happen to hit that wall. It’s the same thing those long-distance runners do, when you get right down to it.
Keep. Going.
As much as someone might tell you that writing something else other than your primary focus doesn’t help you, if you’ve written yourself into a corner and need to write your way out, sometimes you can’t do that as immediately as you’d like. So go write a blog post. Try a new writing experiment. Bang out some slash fic. Jot down limericks. Just keep writing.
I hit a wall recently. I knew I had to keep going, to get to the other end of what I was working on. But it felt laborious, like every few words I had to stop and catch my breath. I re-read things I’ve written before. I tried to remind myself of why I do what I do, what makes me passionate about writing and why some of the works out there that are so successful piss me off. The point is, I didn’t stop writing. I might have paused in the writing of the project that ultimately might mean something, but I kept my fingers moving across the keyboard until going back into the trenches of the main work didn’t seem as daunting, and before I knew it I was humming along again.
I know that, as a mostly unpublished writer, a somewhat arrogant jackass and a legendary waster of time and money, my advice should be taken with at least a couple of pounds of salt. But there it is. That’s how I tore down the wall between me and the end of my project. Maybe it’ll work for you, too.
Today’s one of those days where I just have to admit: “Yeah, I got nothin’.”
I know there are some out there who believe that there’s no point in putting up a blog post if it’s not going to be about anything significant. I try to post every day, but I don’t operate under the impression that everything I say is going to carry deep meaning. Not every brick that drops out of the sphincter of my mind is going to be a golden one. Mostly I do it to maintain some sort of readership/following. So if you’re still here, thanks for putting up with me. I know I can be a pain.
The only thing of true significance concerning this rather dreary Monday is the fact that I’m going to be increasing my daily word goal in the Project to 1250. If I can get at least that many in per day, with that amount being 1% of my total projected word count, I can reasonably predict when I might finish, set a deadline and adjust my pace accordingly. Thankfully, I don’t think this general miasma under which I’m operating today will extend to how things will be this evening. I’ll change into comfortable clothes, pour myself a drink and try to get a bit further in the current scene. I want to make sure things gel properly.
Open forum time, folks. Those of you who are bloggers – what do you do when you feel you’ve nothing to blog about? Do you mine your site stats for search terms? Do you put down a stream of consciousness exercise? Do you just not bother?
I still need a title for the Project. That means I need to talk about The Project. In detail. Seriously, I’ll be talking about when things happen in the plot and possibly even how bits of the story will end. So if you want to avoid even minor spoilers for this EPIC MAGNUM OPUS in progress, or just find yourself unwilling to wade through the following wall o’ text, put your metaphorical fingers in your ears and close your eyes, dreaming about some variation of Trade Wars in your browser courtesy of Yours Truly.
All clear?
Cool.
Chuck over at Terribleminds discusses the ins and outs of titles over yonder. Rather than completely rehash what he wrote, I’m going to tell you to go read it, because that’s the kind of friend I am. And also because he’s brilliant. Not because I fear his beard. Although I kinda do. Seriously, I’m starting to think every manly beard on a friend is concealing another fist or an extra noise-tube full of explatives.
This little exercise is based on his section “Where do I ‘Find’ the title” and deals mostly with the second point he brings up. If any of the half-dozen of you that actually read this drivel want to chime in, it’ll bleed into the first and fourth points as well, like a wordy pool of blood under the corpse of the incredibly generic working title.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I’ll begin.
Let’s Talk About Theme, Baby
So this is a fantasy novel.
…
No, that’s the setting.* It’s the where and the how of crap happening. It can’t be the what or why. Theme is less about “what sort of bells & whistles will make people drop $15US on a book with my name on it” and more about “what the hell am I trying to SAY in the next hundred thousand words?” When people ask me what this thing is about, I don’t want to go right into a plot description, I want to actually answer their question. So let’s answer it right now.
This story’s about change. The magocracy** from which our hero hails is about to undergo a pretty big onCONTENT REDACTED The catch is, for hundreds of years the ruling class have suppressed facts about those other societies to better focus their subjects on the development of new and more powerful magical spells. Now, magic here is one of the things that makes this a fantasy novel. I could easily replace magic with mass acceleration technology or rubber band slingshot techniques or guns or taming tigers to serve as mounts in battle. Magic, here, takes the place of technology, and so serves the people in providing mass transit, protection, improvments on quality of life and weaponry.
The way magic is set up in Acradea (that’s the world’s name in case you didn’t know), at least for humans, is that from an early age a given person discovers what school of magic they have a knack for and get trained on that until they’re an adult. Not a lot of dual-classing in the floating Cities of Light, so to speak. Anyway, this means that not everyone can hurl bolts of lightning or turn lead into gold or make you think you’re a dancing pomegranate. However, one of the things that’ll come up over the course of this novel is that several Citizens have collaborated to create a device that allows pretty much anybody to defend themselves at range. The device conjures a small metallic ball at the back of a long metal tube, which is etched with several alchemical sigils called Gravity Wards. They’re what make the flying transit systems work and keep the Cities afloat and they’ve been miniaturized for this. Anyway, each Ward in sequence along the length of the tube makes the ball move, adding a little acceleration each time it passes into the circle of the next Ward. So, by the time the ball leaves the muzzle of the weapon it’s moving faster than the speed of sound.
The novel is less about any potential cool factor of these weapons and more about questions like these: How will these weapons chance the society of the Cities? What was the intention of those designing it, especially considering our hero was instrumental in their implementation? And what happens when an expansionist who controls not only the weapons’ deployment but also the flow of information to the people decides it’s time to get a little payback for the centuries-old incident that drove them into exile from the cradle of their civilization?
That’s the big overarching theme and, I guess, part of the plot as well. There’s also the fact that our hero is dumped in the world outside the Cities’ protective Wall into the big untamed forest/jungle area called the Wilds from the start of the story. So his personal plotline has a fish-out-of-water, coming-of-age theme to it. His brother has something of a quest for vengeance going on, and the girl in the power trio has some prejudices to overcome. Again, I think I’m getting some of my theme & plot elements mixed together, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this yarn.
I’m In The Mood For A Title
Mood ties in with theme pretty importantly as well. And the mood of this is… well, I know the words ‘standard fantasy setting’ have slipped into the common parlance, becoming an indicator of how prevalant escapism has become in modern society (thanks, Yahtzee), but this really is a standard fantasy setting only with more grimdark elements. What elves there are exist either in the Wilds just to avoid getting wiped out entirely (they didn’t begin life communing with the trees or anything) or down in the deepest parts of the world that are habitable. The dwarves live in a police state, ever watchful for signs of Corruption. The dragons are all but unheard of, the giants haven’t been seen in millenia and the humans to the north that exiled the people living in the Cities would rather not have anything to do with anybody south of the mountains.
So everybody’s a little surly towards one another, even moreso than the usual racial tension of the standard fantasy setting. Add to that the mood of the Cities, with a population that is generally happy but a ruling class that is pushing them towards open warfare but couching it in such a way that the people will want a war. It’s totally not a metaphor for modern expansionist thinking, really. It does contribute to the overall mood that this world is a pretty dark place, despite the sunshine and growing green things and sparkly magic and stuff.
Add to that the mostly-serpentine creatures in the Wilds that eat Citizens because magical marrow is tasty and addictive to them, a giant centipede-type thing down under the dwarven mines, necromancy, murder, and just a touch of eldrich abomination from beyond the stars, and I think you can suss out what sort of mood I’m going for.
He’s Gotta Be Strong and He’s Gotta Be Fast…
So this theme and mood are what will propel our hero, Asherian, along the plotlines. He’s an apprentice alchemist, pretty intelligent and willing to get along with people he doesn’t know but somewhat naive and a little too confident in his skills with magic. He was a contributing factor to the Cities’ new weaponry, the son of one of its ruling council members, and pretty much the personification of everything the other socities hate about magic-using humans, at least at first glance. So everybody’s going to be trying to kill him. Part of the drama will come from him just trying to survive, and part will come from the darkening of his otherwise sunny disposition.
The thing that made me want to write more about Ash is that he’s not your generic “Let’s go out and save the world!!1!!” sort of young fantasy hero. For the first third or so of this tale he’s just going to want to find a way home. As things go on and he learns more about what his dad and the other rulers are up to, his goal doesn’t change but his motivations do. It becomes less “I want to go home because it’s dangerous out here and I miss my mom & dad and that’s where all my stuff is” and more “I need to get home because this shit is fucked up and it needs to be fixed.” It’s not that he won’t care about the elves or dwarves or anything, it’s more that he thinks the Cities aren’t living up to what they could really be for the people around them and somebody needs to step up and demonstrate why the rather nasty folk on the ruling council are wrong about wanting to murder anybody who looks at them funny.
And The Title Is…
…Fuck. I still don’t have the foggiest of ideas.
“Cities of Light”? No, the story doesn’t really take place there. It’s sort of about them, but Ash starts out in the Wilds and doesn’t physically get back to the CitiesCONTENT REDACTED.
“Beyond the Wall”? Closer, but it feels so generic fantasy to me. I want this to be about more than just being a fantasy novel, dammit.
“Asherian, His Brother and A Snarky Brunette Travel Across A Continent To Stop The Council of Elders From Being Warmongering Douchebags”?
I think that’s a bit long for most book covers.
Also, ‘douchebags’ might not trend well.
I’m floundering, folks. Send help.
* If you think fantasy is a theme and not a setting, go over here and get that idea out of your brainpan. Seriously. Chuck will chase it out with bullets or flying jets of jism or rabid attack monkeys or something.
** Magocracy is a legitimate word. No, seriously. Gygax coined it first. And you’re not going to question Gygax, are you? ARE YOU?!?
It’s been a while since I’ve put together a PT post, and this seems about the right time. Why? Because after the last week I’ve had, wallowing in self-loathing and lamenting my state of affairs, I realized there was something I desperately needed.
A swift kick in the ass.
Going through transitions in life can be taxing. Changing job descriptions, if not entire careers; moving from one domicile to another; cutting back on utilities or luxuries; getting by on basic foodstuffs as much as possible just to stretch out one’s currency. Any of these things can take a toll on a person, and having to deal with more than one at once can be harsh. A lot of negative feelings can arise from such a predicament, but those feelings are not all that different from others that you can use.
As a matter of fact, here’s a rehash of what I discussed previously in terms of using negative emotions.
I know I’ve covered using your anger previously, but invoking a Star Wars reference never gets old. Still, if something is making you furious, with fists and teeth clenched regardless of how other people are telling you how to react (doesn’t the words “Oh, you’re over-reacting” make you want to punch someone in the face?) you need to expend that energy, and preferably without damage to property or invoking personal injury lawsuits. If you’re a writer, what do you do?
Write a fight scene.
Get into the headspace of a person involved in a barroom brawl. Hell, write about someone starting said brawl. Did someone say something to a significant other you didn’t like? Is someone chatting up a friend of yours without permission? Not enough booze in your drink? Write about how it makes you feel, how the fury wells up inside you and how the sensation of wheeling around and letting someone have it right in the face touches off the kind of chair-breaking bottle-throwing grand melee unseen since the days of John Wayne.
You’ll probably feel a bit better, and nobody will be suing you.
Let’s face it. We’re all afraid of something. It could be bugs, rejection, alienation of friends, cars, bacteria, being laughed at, loneliness… I could go on. The bottom line is, sooner or later your fear is going to grab hold of you. Grab hold of it right back and go dancing.
Try a ghost story.
Something goes bump in the night. You catch an unfamiliar or unexpected motion in the corner of your eyes. The lights go out, and the shadows seem to grow to fill the empty space. Do you start sweating? Does your hand start to shake? How fast is your heart pounding? What voices do you hear? What do you imagine is lurking there in the darkness? It could just be the cat. It might be your spouse in the next room unaware that you’ve hit the light switch. Or it could be a phantasmal fiend from beyond the grave. Write it out and see where your fear takes you.
More than likely, it’s not a place as frightening as you thought it might be.
Despair, anxiety, paranoia… they’re all cut from the same cloth. “Should I have said that?” quickly becomes “I shouldn’t have said that,” which leads to “I’m an idiot for having said that.” Sure, sometimes you make a legitimate mistake and need to clean the egg from your face. Other times, something with good intentions turns out getting tossed under a steamroller paving the road to Hell. Whatever the cause, you’re left with this cloying feeling of inner doubt and depression, and you need to do something about it, otherwise it’s going to consume you.
Time to write a walk through the rain.
Rain is an evocative weather condition. The sky’s the color of gunmetal, the sun or stars hidden from view, the rain cold and relentless on the weary traveler and the wind makes sure that every surface of the body is wet. Yet people walk through it, alone with their thoughts. “What if I’m wrong? What could I have done to keep this from happening? How much have I lost, and can any of it be rescued? And what the hell am I going to do now?” Write through the thought process. Describe the rain drops, the thunder, the looks of people cozy in their warm homes or places of business, the way others are ignorant of your inner conflict. Work with the emotions. Coax them out of the shadows and into your hands where you can change them from a disability to an advantage.
Those, to me, seem to be the big three negative emotions that can come out of daily life’s trials and tribulations. My point is no less sapient now than it was then, at least in my humble opinion: When you’re wrestling with a negative emotion, the temptation can be to put off writing while you deal with ‘important’ stuff even if there’s no way you can further your cause. You’ve made phone calls, written checks and begged for ways to avoid filing for bankruptcy or shopping the local dumpsters for usable cardboard boxes that’d make fine apartments for you and your family. What are you going to do in the meantime, wallow in your self-loathing? Play more games you’ve already beaten? Pick your nose? It’s better to try and do something useful. Even if nobody else is going to see it, even if it’s just to get something off of your chest, if you are a writer then you need to write. Stay in practice. Put words on paper. Write.
It can be tough and this is advice that more often than not I need to follow myself. But it bears repeating which is why I’ve essentially repeated myself here.
“I once knew a writer who tried that route (psychoanalysis). Cured him of writing all right. But did not cure him of the need to write. The last I saw of him he was crouching in a comer, trembling. That was his good phase. But the mere sight of a wordprocessor would throw him into a fit.” – Heinlein, ‘The Cat Who Walks Through Walls’
A dear friend of mine described the need to write as “a concrete block on [her] chest”. It took time away from chores and duties to write, but every day she didn’t write, another block was added until finally, under threat of her metaphorical rib cage collapsing, she threw the blocks off and wrote. I can’t think of a better metaphor for this.
We (that is, writers) ideally should write every day. A little or a lot, some writing should happen. And I’m not just talking about stuff like this blog post either. My wife has pointed out on multiple occasions, in the same tone of voice she uses to remind me to deal with the utilities, that writing a blog post actually takes time away from writing things that might actually end up paying me money. Not that the blog doesn’t make money, it just doesn’t make very much.
Speaking of which, have you clicked a blog’s ad today? It makes you and the blog feel good.
…That metaphor is going somewhere dirty.
Anyway, the point that I’m trying to make is that writers need to write. Just like programmers need to program, drivers need to drive and plumbers need to plumb. It isn’t just what we do, it’s who we are. It’d be easy to succumb to letting ourselves be defined by day jobs or pending bill payments or anything else the mundane world likes to throw at us. I’m not trying to say that writing is anything supernatural, though. Writing itself is pretty mundane. Writing anything more than a few hundred words can get just as tedious as any other task if you can’t quite get into your groove.
Getting into one’s groove, however, is something that bears discussing. Probably in another post.
