NaNo & Scrivener

Didn't win NaNoWriMo, which I'm okay with. At about 35k and still working on it. We'll see where that goes. I'm trying to get 10k a week, as a general rule.

I recently moved all my stuff to Scrivener, to test that program out. It's kinda neat. So far I'm mostly appreciating the ability to see my wordcount as I type, and to break out sections in different sub-documents. So far that's mostly just "each day's work is a new note," but I suspect that when I get around to editing it's going to be broke down a lot more like scene. There are actually two separate novels in this project, maybe more. Breaking away from the Word-inspired idea that a big project has to be written all at once, straight through, with no breaks in between has been liberating. Double plus the idea that I have to know what a project is about before I start writing. That's the big thing that I'm glad I've learned from NaNoWriMo now.

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again. That's one reason why I've been quiet lately. (Other reasons: Not gaming as much as I was, not running anything, busy getting settled into work/new apartment/post-college life.)

It's weird. I'd totally sworn of NaNoWriMo the last time I did it. Forever. Succeeded twice, failed twice, decided I'd learned all I could from it and that it was time to move on to Real Writing. And now I'm back at it.

I'm doing it partly because DrRotwang announced he was doing it for the first time, and it's always good to support first-timers. Partly to keep me busy while I get back on anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medication.

Have I mentioned that here? I got whacked with the depression stick pretty bad in middle school. Managed to get that under control at the time, but looking back it was an issue on and off for most of college.

It’s tough for me to get a sense of perspective on it because I don’t have the crippling, free-floating, self-esteem battering emotional regulation issues that have landed a couple of my friends and acquaintances in the hospital recently, and de-railed work and school for others. What I do have is a lot of anxiety and a hard time telling when I’m getting anxious, so it alters my behavior in ways I’m not always aware of. The last six to twelve months have involved a lot of both figuring that out and attempting to get a handle on it. One conclusion I’ve had to draw is that it’s started to affect my gaming (and maybe always has). That’s one of the big reasons I want to get it under control. Not being able to DM because of how nervous making things up on the fly makes me is no fun at all.

Medication seemed to help towards the end of school, but then I stopped taking it for various stupid reasons, so now I’m having to go through the unpleasant, why-is-this-making-my-symptoms-worse?!! process of getting back adjusted to it. Writing doesn’t help, exactly, in the sense that it makes me feel better. It keeps me occupied, though, and it helps me feel grounded.

It’s good to get back in touch with that. I did a lot of writing in college. I was an English major, as I will never tire of telling people. But it was a lot of very busy, very harried, very fragmented, very goal-focused, and often not-very-fun writing. I mostly lost track of my old high school habit of carrying a notebook around with me everywhere and writing whatever, whenever, wherever. I have an entire shelf full of these notebooks. If there’s anything you admire about my writing “style,” those notebooks are probably why. I’ve written a lot. Just sheer volume of words.

And, you know, focus and goals and piece completion and all that is good. I’m proud of a lot of the work I did in that English program. Even the research papers, although mostly what I learned from them is that I don’t ever want to go near an English Masters program oh god get it away from me. The reading I had to do for those classes made me a better writer, and I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent am a better writer because of the things I talked about and learned and had to write for my workshop classes.

But I kind of lost that sense of writing as this self-contained thing that lets me structure the world. It was constantly, as Steven King would say, “writing with my door open.” I got better at writing, but I was doing it for classes, for peers, for teachers, for friends. Sometimes for friends I was working on projects with. Not for myself.

NaNoWriMo, and this story I’m working on? Completely, totally, one hundred percent for me. This is good. The story itself is kind of terrible, and it’s tough, but every time I knock out another two thousand words I’ve learned something new about it, and I don’t have to worry about how anyone else is going to evaluate it in two weeks. Or maybe ever. If I show it to anyone else, it’ll be because I want their feedback, and I want to make it better.

Game Masters Should Also Be Writers

One of my more peculiar beliefs is that all game masters who possess the time and interest should also be writers. This is based entirely on my own idiosyncratic personal experience, and may very well not be universally applicable. But it's kept me out of trouble, and done a fair amount of good for my players, so I feel confident in recommending the practice.

It doesn't even have to be good writing. It may help if it's not. I've written two and a half novels, a play, and a novella, all spectacularly bad. That hasn't stopped me from getting a good deal of benefit out of them, both the practice of writing and the artifacts themselves.

In the first place, it encourages a creative habit. Not particularly necessary for an experienced game master, but it does a novice good. My first campaign was loosely based on the first (and most dramatically terrible) novella I wrote, and having that grounding of ideas on which to base a campaign made that early campaign much more successful than its inspiration. And my habits of thinking about stories and places and ideas for a long time, being used to doing "work," alone, as a source of entertainment, and writing down ideas as they came to me or as I stole them all started with writing, and all were handy as a game master.

It's not just being a former writer that's a benefit. Knowing that if an ideas proves to be unworkable for a game, I can just repurpose it for a story or something, keeps me focused on the table, and on ideas that make sense there. Likewise, there are certain things I'm uniquely terrible at writing about, but still call to me -- things involving guns and explosions, mostly. So action and adventure go in the gaming bin, and anything philosophical or sociological, (I read too much Heinlein as a kid, but I'm trying to kick the habit) focused on particular moments of emotion or decision, or that comes with anything resembling a plot goes in the writing bin. It also keeps me from getting too wrapped up in theme, though I'm starting to come around to the idea that there is a place for such things in a game. A decorative place, sure, but a place.

Most importantly, writing makes me appreciate just how easy running a game is. Running a game comes with a source of ready made ideas and information in the rules and whatever setting is implied or described by them, frequent but small deadlines, and a gang of happy, crazy people with ideas of their own and responses to mine. I have much more control over the finished product when I write, but that also means I have a lot more work to do. Writing is sometimes frustrating, often time consuming, and often hard -- and game mastering is, too. But compared to writing, it's a dream.

National Novel Writing Month

I don't have a plot. Or more than the vaguest sketches of characters. I don't even have that much of a setting.

But I've got enough. "College. In space. With pirates."

That should be enough for anyone. We'll see how this goes.

Oh, and I'm Oddysey on the NaNo website too. NaNo madness is better together.

Players: Inspiration, Aid to Laziness

As much as I like being a game master and a novelist (sorta) it does get to be annoying sometimes. Because right now, when I'm gearing up for a game, and should be focusing my creative energies on that, I suddenly realize that the short story I was working on is not nearly as interesting as what's going on in the background, because there lie the seeds of an epic tale.

This is not the first time this has happened.

But for the most part, it's a good thing. The writing reminds me just how much less work gaming is, when I have the players there to protagonize for me. Though I know I must have done it when I was first starting out, I can't imagine railroading my players past "hey, here's where the game starts, think up some reason to get yourself involved," because then I'd be stuck making all the decisions, and who wants that kind of responsibilty?

Well, novelist-me, I guess.

Doctor Cataclysm

I mentioned Doctor Cataclysm, and his blog A Villain's Life, in sort of an offhand way, but it really deserves a full, proper post. If you haven't read it, go read it now, so far it's very short. (I further recommend that you add it to your feed, and if you don't have a feed, to get one, but now we're shading into irrelevancy.)

I'm really quite taken with it. I have a mild obsession with non-standard storytelling, and I've been interested in the idea of fictional blogging for a while. And, of course, superheroes are cool. Supervillains even more so--especially mad scientists.

That's all certainly part of it. But Doctor Cataclysm himself is really quite charming. He's a super villain, but he's not psychotic. When he's not engaging in (excellent) supervillainy, he occasionally stops muggers, and worries about being "too much of a moocher." The villainy is entertaining, but it seems like a cross between a job and a hobby, (love your work, I guess) and less like destroy-the-world craziness.

Which is good. It's relatable. And, at times, very sweet. (Though I recommend running through the previous posts before hitting that last.)

My favorite thing about this is that it's not fiction in blog form. It is, in fact, a fictional blog. In addition to recounting his villainy, he blogs about movies, politics, and YouTube videos. The politics and the videos are fictional, which is probably necessary, (though the videos might make an interesting project) but the movies are real, which is excellent.

The only trouble is that there's not very much of it, yet. Which is great for me, and you, and everyone getting into it right now, because there's not much to get into before we're up to speed. But I sure hope it keeps up, at the same level of quality, because it sure is a lot of fun.

(I can think of one other nitpick--the most generic of the generic blog templates. But in some ways, that adds to its charm, and I can't fault a brand new blog for not having figured out it's look yet. I still haven't really figured out mine.)

Oh, and a thank you to Neitherworld Stories, for linking to A Villain's Life in the first place. From there I have also learned of Velvet Marauder, but haven't yet had quite the chunk of time I'd like to get through it.

Questions Relating to Web-based Serial Fiction

Why is it web-comics rather than web-fiction?

Is that what fanfiction is? The text-only equivalent of webcomics?

People like funny stuff. Is funny easier to do with a visual medium?

People like pretty things. But one of the most popular webcomics out there is xkcd, and Penny Arcade was popular even before it looked awesome. (Of course, back then, Penny Arcade had a lot less competition.)

Is pure text fiction significantly harder to serialize than a comic strip? The only serialized fiction I know of is Othar Tryggvassen's Twitter. (By which I am fascinated, as previously discussed.) There has to be something else like that out there.

Does anyone blog fiction? There's Banter Latte and Short Little Stories, (both, oddly, by comics bloggers, at Websnark and Damn Good Comics, respectively) but that's not quite what I mean.

Webcomics, at least the serious/story variety, tell a continuing story over a series of installments. Does anyone use blogs to do a similar thing?

Does anyone read them?

(I would mention Doctor Cataclysm, but that's clearly not fiction.)

Writers Strike Video

Noticed that the Daily Show is in reruns? Wondering why the writers are striking? In a nutshell:

Not In My Pie

Very little blogging of late. Been busy. NaNoWrimo, etc.

In other news: Some random dead guy just took over my novel.

Huh.

Serial Distractibility

Just as I decide to do NaNoWriMo, I start spinning out another campaign setting, this time a desert ruins exploration deal, in the style of the West Marches. I probably won't get far enough to actually be able to run it, but it'll keep me from using my downtime to work out bits and pieces of the novel.

Which I'm currently worried is not stupid enough to make a really good NaNoWriMo entry.

And this is in addition to planning campaigns way off in the mists of time, for next summer. Which are at least guaranteed to get run, unless I come up with some really cool idea two weeks before kick-off time and decide to go with it instead.

In other news: Roy is screwed. Check out that second sentence.

Regrettably Inspiring Title

Now I really want to write a novel (or something) called Saturday's Warrior. This is unfortunate.

It puts me in mind of a character. There is a person named Saturday, and this person has a warrior. Something of that nature. Not even the least bit related to what the title actually refers to.

Sort of like what happened when I heard Keep on the Borderlands for the first time.

Maybe I should write a novel containing the ideas that the title inspires, but call it something else. Give it a different title from the one I'm holding in my head.

Because No Game Master Can Be Too Insane

I'm of the opinion that every game master should write at least one novel.

Or make at least one movie. Or one comic book. Or video game. But a novel is one of the simplest, most solitary, and easiest to complete narrative forms around. (And it will be particularly easy to complete when NaNoWriMo rolls around.)

Trying another narrative form is a good way to pick up tricks applicable to running a game. Character development, world design, the generation of conflict; a novel improves all these skills.

But more broadly, knowing another narrative form is a good way, maybe the only way, to find out what roleplaying is really good at. What can I do with a campaign that I can't do with a novel?

Once I've answered that question, those are the things I should focus on. Because those are the things that players can only get from my campaign. Those are the things that will keep them coming back.

NaNoWriMo Scheduling

Considering doing National Novel Writing Month. Like I don't already have enough to do.

Mostly I'm trying to figure when I should do it. The time I actually finished it, I did in December, but conditions are different this year, so that may no longer be the best time. Might actually consider doing it in November; otherwise I'll probably wait until January.

The major consideration is when other people are available for the escapade. I have never done NaNoWriMo with other people; that is my plan for this time.

Then I just need to figure out what it's going to be about. But this is NaNoWriMo, so the "what" is less important than the "when."

And They All Lived Happily Ever After

I just want to go on record as actually liking the ending of the latest Harry Potter book. Not for any particular reason; just because I've read two people today who didn't like it, and while I understand their objections, I still like it.

I'm not going to talk about exactly why I liked it, because it would be too much work to phrase it in a non-spoiler way. (And bringing up specific objections would give too much credit to the people who raised them, roughly half of whom hail from the "hate hate hate" school of literary criticism.)

'Course, everyone who cares probably has already finished the book. So I guess I just don't want to do it. I will say, though, that it is not how I would have handled it. I am more a student of the hard-stop school. Show's over, everyone goes home now.

Which is part of the reason I liked it. The approach simply wouldn't have occurred to me; it's a fresh thing to my mind.

Mind you, the one time I did do a little bit of the "twenty-years later" wrap up, with that latest campaign, I was really happy with it. That's actually one of my favorite parts of that campaign, that little thumbnail sketch of the rest of their lives. I'm even holding a few things in reserve, in case we ever go back to it. Doesn't quite count, though, because it wasn't my idea. Didn't have it planned.

But, anyway. Liked the ending.

This Feels Like A Manifesto

I don't use the phrase "spitting mad" nearly enough.

It's not like I don't have occasion to. Take this Livejournal entry. A fairly typical demonstration of female objectification, notable primarily for the excellence of the visual aids, and the obtuseness of the commentary. Spit-inducing enough in its own right.

But scroll ye down to the comments section. Therein, you will find similarly familiar responses--and the inevitable admonition that we're all taking this too seriously, because it's "just fiction."

Excuse me? When did you join the human race?

I run into this every single day. Not just in a context of feminism--everywhere.

"It's just fiction."

"It's not important."

"It's not real."

"It's just art."

"Spend your time doing something important."

Well, sorry, but fiction is important. Stories are important.

Art is important.

Drafts Up The Wazoo

I have 95 un-posted drafts. 95! It's crazy!

A lot of them are just things I thought were funny, and might build a post around at some point. "Kung Pao Squid," that kind of thing. Observational.

Some of them are half-written posts that I will probably never get back to, because the moment has passed. Like how the culture's monster of choice says a lot about the zeitgeist. Or something. It wasn't a very good post; that's why I never finished it.

Occasionally, I will write a full post, complete, and then not post it. Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Sometimes I forget about them. Sometimes I'll write it and then think, "Nah. I don't want to put that up."

And sometimes I'll write something and then pull it down later. Which people may or may not notice.

Anyway: lots of drafts.

Really don't have much more to say.

What Is This "Plot Hole" That You Speak Of?

I don't understand the concept of a "plot hole." When I see what other people tell me are these things called "plot holes," I don't think, "HAHA! TEH SUK!" I think, "Huh. That's interesting. I wonder what that means?" And I'll think about it for a bit, and it'll usually inspire some insight.

At least, I think that's what I think. I can only assume that this is what people are talking about. People will say, "Oh, that movie had so many plot holes in it, nothing made sense," and I will have, literally, no idea what they're talking about.

This happened with Transformers, (Great movie, go see it.) which inspired this line of thought. I am told that this movie's plot is full of holes. I have no idea what this means. Where are these holes? Would someone care to enlighten me on this topic?

And, heck, does anyone have an example of a plot hole in a general sense? In a movie, in a book, anything. Examples are the key to learning!

My Newest Fiction Adventure

Othar Tryggvassen has a Twitter. It's a mostly day-by-day account of his adventures as a professional hero. Full of lines like "Have noticed that Spooky is staring at me. Follows my every move. Unnerving. Ate some cheese."

I love stuff like this. Square Zero has something similar--the characters post in the comments section. Which is weird, especially if you've read Schism, the webcomic it's based on. (And which I wish would update. Hasn't in ages, but when it was updating I liked it a lot.) They'll often have these odd, extended arguments with people. I don't know if the author already knows these people, or if they're just random, but either way, it's cool.

Having characters interact directly with the fans of a production is cool. It's the sort of thing that works especially well with webcomics, and other web-based media. The reader space is less formal, and it's easier to get from a webcomic to whatever forum or blog you're using. Not a bad marketing technique, really. Especially when done on a social type site, like the Othar thing is.

But what would be really cool is if the character interaction system was the whole point. Say you had a blog, or a series of blogs, and they interacted with each other and with the audience. There could be some kind of plot, and it could even be set in some world other than mainline Earth, but you'd also have the audience interacting with the characters in more or less the same format that the characters interacted with each other. Be a bit like roleplaying.

I need to get on this.

Extra Late Sci-Fi Rant Response

You may have read John Harrison's rant on how world-building is useless and counterproductive.

My initial reaction to this is, "Er . . . isn't world-building kind of the defining point of science fiction?" The point of a science fiction story--the reason you'd write a given story in a science fiction setting, rather than a contemporary or historical one--is that the world allows you to do something that would be impossible in a normal, real world milieu.

Maybe he's using a different definition of "world-building" than I am. He implies that "world-building" somehow involves exhaustively categorizing every feature of a world. I don't know of any writer, ever, who's done that. Even Tolkien didn't do that. As an example -- he never actually "finished" his languages.

But he created enough to give his world an underlying structure. Enough so that he could name things "Morgoth" and "Mordor," or "Minas Tirith" and "Minas Morgul," and have a reason for it. The reader need never even find out what the pattern means, but the fact that it's there lends the world verisimilitude.

The feeling of being real. Which is why we read science fiction.

Don't Do This!

Does anyone else read Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin's Knob?

Is anyone else really ticked off with it right now?

Skipping time, I can deal with. Skipping a battle, I can deal with. It was obvious what was going to happen; it didn't need to be shown.

What I can't deal with is this "Charlie" nonsense.

Creating suspense by arbitrarily hiding things from the reader isn't cool. Unless you've got an in-text reason for why the reader doesn't know everything (significant) that the character does. (i.e., the unreliable narrator)

Unless, of course, it's not going to be important. We never hear about Charlie again, so why waste a page showing who he is? This, I somehow doubt, because if it wasn't going to be important it wouldn't have come up at all.

Plus, it'd edge dangerously close to telling, rather than showing. The characters talking about how unreasonable Stanley is, rather than showing how unreasonable he is.

Upshot: Irritating. I like Erfworld, but this sort of thing had better not happen on a regular basis.