michaeljasper.net
"Another Wrecked Web Site"
DARE JOURNAL: WEEK FOUR
Total
Words:
14,500
Week Three
Week Five
Okay, what's a Dare? It's a challenge for writers to produce a lot of material in a relatively short period of time. Previous Dares have been one month or three months in length, with the same result: the first draft of a book.
Check out the other Dare writers:
Camille LaGuire, Derek James, Kelly Searsmith, Lyda Morehouse, Rebecca Maines, Sarah Stegall, and T.M. Spell.
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October 26, 2000
Today's Words:
0
I was going to skip today's entry altogether, but I did put that little note on the main page of my site that stated this News would be updated daily. If only I could get myself to write and be productive in the same way... Actually, I have been productive, just not in a word count kind of way. I spent most of last night putting together my first press kit. Part of me felt like I was just wasting my time (I haven't really done anything worthy of a full-out press kit!), but another part of me wanted to do it and see what would happen. I think it'll be useful. I'm sending it to all the area papers, and I'm going to drop it off at every bookstore in the area. It can't hurt. I haven't invested too much money in it - just the cost of paper, 20 folders and floppy diskes, printer ink, and time. I have some business cards with my website and contact info on it, and Bridge (the publishers of Writers of the Future) gave me lots of goodies like posters and covers and bookmarks to fill up the folder. For whatever reason, though, the busy work sort of annoyed me. "I'm a writer," I was thinking as I collated my 3-page press release and stapled it, "not a secretary!" But I think it'll pay off. Now ain't marketing a lovely thing? Gag.
I hope to get some more writing done tomorrow. I took it easy this morning, didn't write, and tried to finish the last of the press kit mess. I think my brain needs a break from the computer screen every now and then.
mjj
October 25, 2000
Today's Words:
400
Today's Quote:
As Jersey checked the wiring on the interface for the big Doppler engines that took up the three floors above them, he thought again about a career change. But where else, he thought with a grim smile, could I get health insurance and 401(k) along with a great case of Seasonal Affective Disorder all year long? Not to mention the nightmares. Jersey sighed and restarted the Doppler before returning to his workstation.
I've decided to make a new rule, at least for this week. On Wednesdays I get to sleep in, until 6 a.m. What a treat. I had the alarm set and was all ready to go at 5, but I just needed a recharge break. Went to bed early last night after doing an hour of editing while Elizabeth read for her class, and felt the old eyelids twitching from staring at a screen for too long. So I dozed and then got up and cranked out a couple paragraphs. My goal for the remainder of the month is to do a rough draft of the new chapters I'm adding to the old novella, adding to the plot and characterizations. I'm looking at four more chapters to draft before November. They may turn out to be quite short, but I'll be happy to have them in place (even if that's all they do, act as placeholders). I'd love to get at least 20,000 words for the month. That would bring me almost up to the pace I want to be at - 1,000 words a day. Another side-note. I notice most of the other Dare writers who have been keeping daily totals do so with the exact word count. I'm not going to do that. I prefer rounding up or rounding down. My math is good, but when I'm jumping from HTML coding to the actual pages, and keeping a running tally between four pages now (for each week so far of the Dare), I'm not gonna make things harder on myself by using exact numbers that require a calculator. Plus I like nice round numbers. In other news, I'm reading Tim Powers' Last Call again - I got 100 pages in before LA, then never got back to it. Just reread the prolog last night and am looking forward to reading more tonight. Later.
mjj
October 24, 2000
Today's Words:
500, plus another 500 later in the day
Today's Quote:
He shook his head and stepped away from the mad crowd rushing past, fleeing the fire. The air was thick and nearly unbreathable from the smoke. At last he ran his hand over the top of his head, expecting to come away with a handful of his already-thinning hair. But his scalp was already worn smooth, perfectly bald.
It was hard getting out of bed this morning. I have a sinking sensation that I'm getting a cold, probably from all the partying I've been doing lately (I'm joking, mostly - it's probably from the weather turning cold at night again, and just being run-down, as usual). So I'm sucking down the vitamin C and trying not to sniffle my brains into my sinuses.
As for writing, I'm getting closer to a good outline and a strong, well-developed cast of characters. Each of the seven (seven? what am I thinking?) main characters has at least three issues to overcome by novel's end. I figure that'll keep me nice and busy, trying to get all twenty-plus issues resolved. It shouldn't be boring! I've been trying to find time to read at night. I feel like that's been one of the things missing in my life since I got back from LA. I've just been going all the time, working on writing-related stuff, and it's not good. I feel off-balance. I'm looking to read some more Tim Powers and maybe that novella I found by James Morrow, City of Truth. I need a break from stories, reading them and writing them. I've been doing 3-4 critiques a week for the past month, and it's draining me. I'm starting to realize that stories aren't my cup of tea. Mostly becuase there's no real market for them, but also because I don't read them unless I have to. And I hate putting so much effort into a story and then spending the next year sending it out to all the pro publishers who are already overstocked with stuff, just to wait 2 months for the inevitable rejection. That's not to say I'll have much more luck with my novels, but at least I can keep myself busy with them so I don't have to worry about submitting them right away...
mjj
October 23, 2000
Today's Words:
1,500
Today's Quote:
"You come at me with pincers?" John said, lowering his hood. He'd hated wasting the charm and the words on one such as O'Shea, but time was running out. He swung with all of his might at the back of the Irishman's head, elbow connecting with hard skull.
O'Shea fell forward to one knee, the pincers falling from his hands with a clatter. John didn't wait for the other man to get back to his feet. He was thirty feet away when he heard O'Shea calling to the night in the strange language of the Fist. As every passerby became a potential enemy, every walking stick and cane a weapon, John reached the Chicago River. He had less than a minute left.
Good morning. It looks like all my preparation for this fantasy novel is finally paying off. I can see the headlines now: "Over seven years in the making!" Of course, most of those seven years were spent doing stuf other than working on the story, but the general public doesn't need to know that, right? So you guys don't tell, okay? Once again, I have to sing the praises of having an outline. And doing research. I found just one fact-filled paragraph from an online resource (www.historynet.com) that gave me all sorts of good details to help me write this section. Preparation is everything, especially for someone like me who's easily distracted and has little time. I wrote a very rough draft of the prelude to the novel, taking place over a century before the bulk of the novel takes place (which is more or less in the present). It was fun, and it made me want to write more scenes throughout history. I think I can make it work, too, as I slowly unfold the history behind John and Azure and the rest of the magic-users (who are soon to be extinct). The real test comes tomorrow, as I start reworking that first chapter, which I originally wrote way back in '92 or '93. I think I'm getting my hooks into this beast. I still need to complete the outline for the rest of the novel.
In any case, it's good to be writing again. I feel like a productive member of society again!. Allow me a brief tangent here. I was e-mailing my pal Toby about my latest projects, and I had a little revelation about research. He's a research buff to start with, so I was preaching to the choir, but I really surprised myself with how important research is, to any story. I figured I could fake it with my current story, about the magic-users in present day Chicago, but after doing some research into the fire of 1871, I had a very nifty prologue to the novel, with lots of great details, as I said earlier. Now, as the story flashes forward to the present, I want to take some virtual tours of Chicago for that wondrous word: verisimilitude -- the sense of realism and believability that comes from factual details and logical actions. Verisimilitude. Great word. I still can't believe I'm enjoying research. Crazy.