Telling ... too much telling!

::sigh::
Since I've been working on my outline for so long, I'm super used to throwing ideas out and arranging them, not in making them sound good.  Now I'm working on Exchange, and I'm having to slowly break out of that.

Lots of revisions using AutoCrit.  Love that website.

I kinda missed these characters.  Hopefully, in revisiting them, I'll get another idea for them and write something else in the spring.  I guess every writer goes through this, but I'm a little afraid of running out of ideas.

Exchange

For those of you who read and loved The Silent Treatment (pictured to the right in printed book form), I wrote another "episode" back in February, featuring the same basic characters.  This is sort of my answer to Nancy Drew.

Since I finished up with my mammoth outline for Awake (which I'll be doing the first draft for in November ... but you already knew that), I needed something to occupy my time.  Exchange has been happily sitting in my "novels" folder for quite a few months now, and I figure it's about time to get it polished up and send it out to work.

Outlines, Audiobooks, and other rambling stuff

The Outline (again)

Yes, I got my outline to 50,000 words (and worked much too hard to make the number exact). It's excessive, and I'm guessing the finished product won't be much longer than that. Although, I've got to add all the dialogue, so that could take up a few thousand more words. I think the story itself is nice and solid now. When I wrote it before, I only got up to 40,000 words, and there were way too many plot gaps for it to be considered good at all. Ask me on December 1st if the monstrous outline was worth it.

Audiobooks

In an effort to keep my brain happily occupied at work while I'm doing things that don't require much thought, I've been looking for something worthwhile to listen to. I found a very good website called LibriVox, which specializes in making public domain (i.e. classic) books available free to the public. Today, I started listening to the German version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the guy who reads it makes me love the German language more than I thought I would (very expressive ... beautiful voice).

Yes, I understand a little German. In listening to this book (got through 3 and a half chapters before I went home), I understood about half of it. It helps a lot that I'm familiar with the story already.

But the website (LibriVox) has mostly English books. I haven't listened to any of the others yet, but I'm looking forward to letting my brain occupy itself with some classics while my hands sort the mail/email at work.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I'd really forgotten how much I enjoyed this story. I've read it 2 or 3 times already, and saw a movie version of it (from 1945). I didn't like that movie because Dorian didn't show any emotions ... I don't think that's an accurate portrayal of the character because even though Dorian became evil, that doesn't necessarily mean he's got a blank face all the time.

I even got to thinking that my current project, Awake, is sci-fi/fantasy in the same way that The Picture of Dorian Gray is sci-fi/fantasy. That is, a tiny plot point is supernatural, and the rest of the story is rooted in reality. I enjoy reading things like that because I don't have to learn a completely new world or alien races, etc. (such as Lord of the Rings -- which I loved, by the way).

Awake is also a mystery in the same way that the TV show Lost is a mystery. There's no "whodunnit" to figure out, just a big "what the heck just happened??" As such, it's extremely difficult to categorize my story. Is it urban fantasy? mystery? literary ... something? Ah, you guys don't know because I'm not giving out any plot details, am I? I like that to be a secret because ... I just do.

I guess genre placement doesn't matter a whole lot, and I'm not worried about it. But when it comes to submission (It'll get to that point probably this time next year once I'm done with the tedious and numerous edits), it helps to pick out who to send it to. Anyway. Doesn't matter. Thanks for reading all this rambling!

Waiting

Even though my word count is climbing to a ridiculous level (mostly in part to the "distraction from reality" it provides me), it seems like I'm waiting on stuff right now. I have "The Silent Treatment" out there talking to agents -- although right now it's at one place which doesn't allow simultaneous submissions. They might like it, they might not. They're "going steady" right now.

I'm also really looking forward to November where I'll participate in my second NaNoWriMo. The outline I've been spending my free time working on (see above) is what I'll be working on during the challenge.

So stress, right? It's not fun. But sometimes writing is like going to another world ... even more than watching TV or a really good movie. Since writing takes a lot of thought and imagination, it often blocks the "bad thoughts" ... or at least I can incorporate said problem into some sort of plot. *

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I've got to say that the forums on that website have been extremely helpful. Whether I'm trying to figure out what a 911 dispatcher would say or just want to browse overheard dialogue, I couldn't have asked for a better help. Maybe this year I'll actually participate in the in-town gatherings ... meeting some 3-D people in a non-work environment would be nice!

Lest I start blabbing, I'll leave the update here.

*Note: Just because I use some of my own experiences in the stuff I write, there's always, ALWAYS enough fiction thrown in so that you can never assume I've gone through exactly what you've read.

It's come to this

I've posted my trusty word count widget to the right regarding my monstrous outline word count. I'm having so much fun with this story that it's bordering on addiction. Maybe this is bad for me.

This outline is almost a novel by itself

I'm over 34,000 words at the moment on the outline for "Awake". I've said this about previous projects before, but I'm not sure if the length of this outline means I'll have an extremely long novel when I'm finished, or if it means I've just about said everything I can say. We'll see.

The plot has gone past the climax now, and I'm working out how everything winds down to a satisfying ending. Thinking about using an epilogue.

Awake!

Nothing really to report, but I've been having a good time outlining my latest creation. It is called "Awake" (as you can probably tell from the title of this post). So far, the outline is 26,000 words, which is about the length of a novella. This thing is getting crazy.