Through the Slog

Write. It all starts with a word. You put one word onto the page and then another. You follow that word with one more, and then one more, and one more. Soon enough there's a sentence. Then another sentence. A paragraph. A page. A scene. A chapter. And the more you write the more the characters come to life. The more the plot is revealed and the setting explored.

At first you are driven by sheer inspiration and force of the initial story. Then suddenly your running off of wisps of energy left by that inspiration and more of a desire for the characters to make it to the end. Eventually you're left with fumes of that desire, and the only fuel you've got left is pure force of will to finish that damn story. But even that doesn't last. That will, indeed, run out too.

Now you have, what? An unfinished story with no will or desire to really finish it? Oh, but what about that one scene? You know, that one that comes later in the story. The one you were really excited about writing before. You aren't there yet, and there's a good amount of slog to... well, to slog your way through. (Slog is a fun word.) And that just doesn't sound exciting. In fact, it seems irritating, boring, and you generally just don't want to.

Burn Out

"Yeah, I only got three-hundred words today. I write really slow."

"Dude, you act like you never get burned out."

"What do you mean?"

"You participate in, like, three NaNoWriMo events a year."

This is an actual conversation someone had with me. And it's true, I've participated in every NaNo event since my first one in 2011. But, even through that, my answer really should have been, "No, not really." Because that's something about me that's maybe confusing to some people. Allow me to explain.

I don't burn out. I can't. Sure, I can get tired. I can hit writer's block. It happens. But burning out? I'm honestly curious as to how that happens. See, my problem is that I have so many ideas churning about in my head. There is too much to be done, and very little time to do so. At the speed which I write (not very fast at all), every story that I decide to actually put down will take immeasurable amounts of time. If I sustained the capability to burn out, then I would never finish anything. In fact, that may quite be the reason I have yet to finish anything to this point.

There is too much to say, too many stories to tell, to let myself burn out. And if I am to make the career that I wish to make out of writing, then assuredly this will come in handy.

RWBY: Episode the First

For those who are uninformed, I'd like to inform you that Rooster Teeth's RWBY released yesterday. The first episode was put up on their website, and after a good few months of waiting I am satisfied with the result.

Four trailers were released before the show officially came out. One for each of the main character's (and labeled by the color of that character). Red first, which featured kickass action from my favorite character of the four (Ruby). White released next, Weiss showed off her musical talent and her magical capabilities (along with some interesting yet elegant swordplay). I discovered and jumped onboard just before the Black trailer was released. It was the first with actual dialogue, and Blake robs a train (or something like that). Finally, the most epic (and longest) of the trailers was Yellow, featuring Yang and her beast as hell fighting style.

A Seesaw

I have an analogy for you today. It's an analogy you probably won't understand until you get to the end of this post, but that's okay. I just want you to imagine this with me.

There is a seesaw. It's this really giant, awesome seesaw (cause seesaws are awesome). For all intents and purposes, the seesaw is in the middle of the ocean, okay? And when I say it's giant, I mean it. There's a dragon on one side. And there's a pirate ship on the other side. Now, on that pirate ship there is (obviously) a pirate crew. But that pirate crew is fighting for control of the ship with a group of ninjas. The dragon is at a stalemate with the pirate-ninja ship on the seesaw. Neither of them are going up or down.

Following? Good. Cause it gets better.

Suddenly, a wizard appears in the center of the seesaw. He's a little guy; you wouldn't really expect much from him. But that little bastard whips out his staff and ZAP! The pirates and ninjas are allies. They've formed a pirate-ninja alliance that will last through the centuries. Another ZAP! and the dragon shrinks. Smaller and smaller until... SPLASH! The pirate-ninja ship is in the water again! They unfurl the sails and (with a gust of wind from the wizard) they're on their way to treasures untold!

Sequels

Oddly enough, this is actually a bit of a touchy subject for me. (Sometimes I marvel at how weird I am about some things.) A sequel (that includes third, fourth, etc. installments) can be very good or very bad. It depends on a lot of things. And the sequels also say a few things about the people behind them. (If you aren't catching on, I'll be talking pretty much on writing here.) 

I like sequels. I love reading them; they're a return to familiar settings and characters with new twists. It reminds you why you loved the story in the first place (or the author, too). Sequels show you more of a world that you already were interested in, and series give the opportunity to tell many stories inside of an overarching main story, which can be used to glorious effect. (Keep all this in mind as you read on.)

I'm picky about sequels. Especially for myself. I plan to write stand alone fiction. (Okay, except for this one idea for a series, but that spans four different genres and plentifully diverse characters. So it doesn't count.) my reasoning for this is complicated, or at least I think it is. You see, first off, I don't get how authors write these seven to fifteen book series. My mind flits through hundreds of ideas, and no matter how many I mash together, there are still to many. If I focused on one series for that long, I would never get that many ideas out. It simply could not happen. Stand alone fiction gives me the opportunity to put down an idea and then check it off the list. Move to the next one.