Committing A Writing Sin

Confession Time!

 

Forgive me, for I have committed a writing sin…slightly.

 

Usually the smart thing to do before starting a story is to write down a plot and then edit said plot. My writing sin is that I didn’t write down the plot for “Invisible”.

 

Sure, I’ve got it chiseled in my mind, but even that isn’t enough. True, I’ve got some basic plot written down on paper in front of me, but it’s terribly disorganized. So last night, I finally got on with it. I really hate to keep plugging it, but it’s such a good system, it deserves another plug, as this realization that I had not written down my plot was spurred on by reading the article “7 Steps for Better Writing” on Wogan May’s wordpress blog.

 

So to read it, click here.

 

Shameless plug? Why yes, it is.

 

“Invisible” now looks to be a real story.

 

The a total planned word count is 120,000 with 30 chapters, allowing me 4,000 words a chapter. My aim of total words written per day is a minimum of 500. I’d much rather like to start at a minimum of 1,000 words per day, but with a job like mine (and I’m not complaining about it either! It’s awesome!) I’d much rather like to figure out how to manage writing time before jumping into the deep end.

 

A simple plot map has been my top priority since beginning it last night. Currently it sits at eight chapters, so I’m almost a third of the way done! Hopefully I’ll have it completed by this weekend. I’m off all next week, so if I finish it in time, I can begin to drill out my words per day.

 

Other than that, progress has been coming along with the regular swerving to avoid potholes.

 

I’m now using potholes as metaphors for situations in which nothing seems to fall onto the page?

 

Wait, am I even using potholes as metaphors?

 

Shows how much I know.

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Cheers,

Jared

“7 Steps for Better Writing” by Wogan May

Today, I’m letting my good friend Wogan May take over my blog. He wrote a brilliant article called “7 Steps for Better Writing”. It’s aimed at Digimon based fan-fiction since we both write in that area, but it can be applied to every other form of writing.

 

So if you’re thinking about starting up in the wonderful world of literature, check it out.

 

Click here for the article.

 

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Cheers,

Jared

The Many Adventures of Southern California’s Weather

There are many reasons why people live in Southern California. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the majority of people when asked would agree that the stability of the weather here is one of them. I know my name can be added to that survey.

 

Living here, you experience two seasons. That’d be Summer and Winter. You’re either roasting or freezing. Well, maybe not freezing, but it can get near freezing.

 

Spring could be considered a season here, but then again, it lasts for about a month and a half. It only does half it’s job.

 

June Gloom, a long period of overcast days that starts in mid-May and lasts till late June, can then take over until Summer busts the door down with its flamethrower.

 

Fall lasts for about two weeks. Usually coming in around Mid-November and fleeting away by the end of the month. In that time, day-time highs will typically go from 90 degrees before “Fall” to 65 by the end of “Fall”. So Fall is really more like a dive.

In fact, I’ll go ahead an rename it to “Dive”.

 

But today was one of those rare days that just happens to…well, happen here in Sunny Southern California.

 

Today I was at Dodger Stadium watching the Dodgers take on the New York Mets on my final day off before I go back to work with the Angels for a 6-game homestand. Sadly the Dodgers lost today 5-4 in 10 innings.

 

But let me tell you, if there is anyway to describe how hot it was sitting and watching the game, I’d try. But I just can’t. It was so hot…well…how am I suppose to describe it when I can’t? No use. You get the point that it was hot. Well, I guess I should allow some perspective.

 

I was wearing shorts today. Shorts that I bought because they said they were “breathable”. After sitting in my sat after just 15 minutes, my father was busting up laughing. I asked what was so funny with the toughest voice I could muster, and his reply:

 

“You’re sweating up a storm.”

 

Yes, sweat stains were upon my rump all the way down to where the shorts ended, darkening the material of the shorts where my body had perspired.

 

So, there you go. Quite graphic to some extent, but that’s how bad it was.

 

Want to know something that’s even more graphic than my description of my perspiration? The game lasted for 4 hours. Even more hideous? You bet.

 

But that’s not my point. Everyone in Southern California knows it gets hot. If anything, you should be calling me a wuss. Today was only 87F. Last year around this time, it was peaking to record setting temps of 100F+.

 

But that’s not my point.

 

Tonight, when I got home, I watched the finale of “The search for the next Food Network Star” which was quickly followed by what has become a traditional show to watch on Sunday nights, and that’s “Entourage”. So while watching it, I walked outside to grab some water. Outside, it was much cooler, and something else was happening.

 

Water was falling from a cloud stained sky.

 

It was raining!

Tonight there’s a chance of thunderstorms.

Accuweather’s forcast put rain occurring between the times of 7pm and 10pm at 113%. No joke. That’s like the weather man saying, “Rain?!? Hell yes there shall be rain!!! Rain!!! Come Rain!!! Praise Rain!!!” and then flippin’ out, as if he wasn’t already flippin’ out.

 

I love the rain. The 2006-2007 season was the driest on record. We only ended up getting about two and a half inches of rain for an entire year, so I’ve missed the rain. For some reason, I always do whatever I’m doing better when it’s raining.

 

This should hopefully clean the air around Los Angeles. It’s been getting bad enough to affect me while I run.

 

Earlier today I had been roasting. So much so, you could’ve smothered honey on me and sold me as a honey-roasted nut….

 

 

….that was a joke….

 

….but that’s not my point.

 

So what’s my point?

 

I forgot.

 

When a Dodger player hits a home run, they play “Zombie Nation”. So that was cool to hear some techno music with a lot of people chanting along with it.

 

I shall now leave you with a picture I took from the top deck at Dodger Stadium and the latest photo of myself.

 

 

Yes, I’m classy like that.

 

 

Today I heard the best “Yo’ Momma’” joke ever told:

 

“Yo’ momma’ so stupid, she failed a survey!”

 

I laughed so hard, I was crying.

 

 

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Cheers,

Jared

Writers Block Eliminated

Yes, the ideas have been flowing, but that’s been just about it. No words added to the page in God knows how long…that was until last night.

 

I really don’t know how it happened, but a writer’s block that has been bugging me for the better part of the last week and a half exploded, and is now just little bitty pieces all over the ground. I don’t know whether it was just a matter of walking around it or lobbing an incendiary device at said writers block, but it’s gone for good and bad.

 

Man, I’ve had a week and a half of writing hell. Zero progress usually means I’m either taking a break, or spending 4 hours staring at a screen, trying to break through. It was a combo of both, but mostly it was just 4 hours of staring at my computer’s screen trying to break through.

 

Luckily, I made it out alive.

 

Tomorrow night is the last show for “Improvalicous” in Anaheim. We’re moving to Long Beach, which shaves about 10 miles off of travel for me.

 

Yeah, I’m in an improve group, and yes, it is a professional one.

 

‘Tis the life of mine.

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Cheers,

Jared

Fan Fiction and Sex: It’s like Peanut-Butter and Jelly – and just as sticky

I’d like to take the time tonight to talk about the Digimon fan fiction fandom (more like “fandumb”). Yes, not only does it sound redundant, it most likely is redundant when viewed from a perspective constantly moving away.

 

This all comes out of a recent discovery of mine: that the fan fiction community actually has its own Wiki-esque page.

 

It’s called Fan History¹. A Wiki for the fan fiction world.

 

Curiously, I clicked on “Digimon”², expecting to read about the great fan fiction writers whose marks are still felt even today. Much to my dissatisfaction, at least two of the writers listed have an underlying foundation via the usage of sex in fan fiction.

 

So, if one were to base their opinion off of the usage of this wiki, they could come to the conclusion that at the bare minimum, 40% of people who write Digimon fan-fiction write mostly based on the principles of pornography³?

 

$10 says it’s more likely over 50%. And $10 more says that the majority of the remaining percentage left over are based purely in sappy romance.

 

I enjoy being a minority.

 

Honestly, are these the prime examples of what Digimon fan-fiction is all about? Relationships, and even further, stories based on nothing but sexual fantasies that’d make Freud’s toupee spin?

 

I’d like to hope not, but apparently this is the ideal in these modern times for Digimon fan-fiction writers. Sub-par soft-core pornography and all out pornography.

 

The majority of these people are thinking that they can take it, smear sex and relationships all over it and call it art. Sometimes it reads like a bad attempt at making another “Borat”.

 

“You wanta’ make sex?”

 

These people value their elementary writings to be untouchable and anything without original characters falling hopelessly in love on the level of teenagers with out of control hormones or, even worse, grotesque usage of sex is something to be looked down upon. Arrogance runs wild within this massive group.

 

Is that fair to us who are trying to write legitimate stories?

 

In everyone else’s opinions, the answer is simple: “You bet. Now let’s go have a screw.”

 

If you think it isn’t, get up out of that wet spot and let me hear you!

 

¹http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

²http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php?title=Digimon

³http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php?title=Digimon#Influential_Fans

 

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Cheers,

Jared

The Marathon of Happy

So now I just sit back and think of what to do next. New chapters always relieve the weight off of my shoulders, but then remind me just how far I am from the finish line. They say baseball season isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Well, I think the same basic principle can be applied to writing. Problem is that the marathon is between you and the page, not your team and other teams.

 

By the way, how about Vladimir Guerrero winning the Home Run Derby! It’s kind of nice knowing I work for a team that now has a new Home Run Derby champ on their team. The American League once again defeated the National League in a 5-4 victory, making it now 10 straight All-Star Game wins for the AL.

 

That’s pretty sad.

 

So, now back to some junk chocked full of happy!

 

Invisible has really been developing nicely. Beta readers have been happy with it. Reader readers have been happy with it. So that usually means I’m happy with it.

 

This actually was the first chapter in a long time that when done writing it, I had a full load of confidence in regards to its quality. I think it might be the best chapter I’ve written so far in my writing career so far….if you’d like to call it a career.

 

While writing this new chapter, I finally broke through a writer’s haze I’ve been having. Yes, writer’s haze. It’s not quite writer’s block, but you can’t just sit down a let the ideas flow. The ideas come in a haze.

 

For me, it was a purple haze, all in my brain!

 

Just kidding.

 

Is anyone alive even reading this? Let me know you’re out there.

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Cheers,

Jared

The Midnight Eureka!

I have just had a true “Eureka!” moment.

 

Course, I’m very far from Syracuse, and I don’t think anyone would want me running through the streets naked and proclaiming “Eureka!”

 

I had been trying to figure out how to get my story, “There”, up and going. Now I just finally got it. It’s been somethig that’s been the hardest lock to pick since March in my writing portion of my mind. No, it didn’t take a bathtub either.

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Eureka!

Jared

I want big boom!!!

What the hell is going on? My blog is consistently getting hits. I don’t understand. My first few were completely ignored, now, all of the sudden, you’re reading me.

Oh yeah. I started putting tags on.

Doy!

4^th of July is now 3 days away. So that means I’ll soon be within close proximity of low grade explosives. Sweet. Me and fireworks are a close pair that work well together. Plus, who the hell doesn’t like fireworks? I love them, especially the kind they have to shoot into the sky. You know, the big fireworks, where you feel their detonation in your chest as it blasts in the air.

So yeah.

Writing will once again commence on the first chapter of “Invisible” tomorrow. As will running. 70 minutes. That’ll get my heart yawning at least.

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Cheers,

Jared