Friday Wordle: Soulwoven Book Two Ch. 17

Y'know, this whole writing blog posts on "Friday" while really writing them on Saturday thing would work a lot better if I still lived in New Zealand. One of the things they don't put in the brochure is that you're perilously close to the frontiers of time itself down there, blazing a trail for the whole world through the hours to come. Which makes it possible to do things early on a Saturday and still have it count as Friday.

In other news, time seems to have been on my mind lately. Someday I will turn it into a science fiction story full of wanderings and musings and coolnesses.

...

I haven't posted a Friday Wordle in a while. Last week was a bear, writing wise. This week was better. I revised several chapters in Book Two of Soulwoven and finished a first draft of a sci-fi short story involving androids, virtual reality, ultimate fighting, newspaper clippings, first-person present narration, and several other things that I don't usually work with. It was fun, but difficult. It is now sitting quietly on my hard drive while I do other things and think occasionally about what I really want it to become.

So I've picked one of the revised chapters in Soulwoven Book Two for the Wordle. It was hard to write, because while a lot happens, not a lot HAPPENS, if you know what I mean. There are important things afoot and the characters are unfurling their sails and much beauty exists to be described, but in terms of flash-bang-whizz-make-you-turn-the-page, it's a little sparse. In that environment, figuring out how to make you turn the page anyway can be challenging. It took me about three days to get this into a shape that I approved of.

So yeah, there we go. I like the fact that the word "pants" appears prominently in this one. It opens with a funny scene involving Cole, a manservant he's been assigned, and a pair of white trousers. Interesting to me as well is the fact that Quay's name appears despite a lack of his physical presence. Speaks to what's on Cole's mind, I suppose. Lots of names in this one. New characters abound. I first wrote the chapter while under the influence of War and Peace, so there's quite a few drawing room, comedy of manners sorts of happenings.

Anyway, I continue to ponder putting chapters of Soulwoven up on Wattpad. If a few more months go by without any bites from agents, I may just do it, at which point these weekly Wordles will probably change shape to accompany the chapters going up over there.

Happy weekend. May it be full of flowers and sunshine and cool, spring temperatures.

Friday Wordle: 4/7/12, Soulwoven: Exile, Chapter 17

I would call this a "Saturday Wordle," but that would totally throw off my grand tag scheme. In some alternate universe, it is surely still Friday right now, so if you like, feel free to assume this blog was posted there and somehow crossed its way over to our universe via Internet tube wormhole.

Anyway, this week saw me working on both Soulwoven: Exile and Soulwoven: Redemption, polishing in the first case and rough drafting in the second. Tsu'min's story in Exile is expanding significantly in this draft, which I like, because I find him a fascinating character. This chapter takes place alternately in his point of view and in Maegan (the daughter of Len Heramsun)'s.

Poof!



So, names and eyes aside, what have we got here? Green and blue and ancient and gray and old, rock and wind and sky and summit and overhang. The imagery in this chapter was inspired in no small part by my experiences climbing volcanoes in Ecuador and New Zealand. The Wordle reflects that nicely, I think.

And if you ever have the chance to climb a volcano, take it. They are cool by definition.

Friday Wordle: 3/16/12, "September"

Wow, Friday already. I got painfully sick on Tuesday night, and that sort of dominated my whole week. Unpleasant.

I did, however, write a short story on Tuesday morning, all in one go, before the illness settled in. It was one of the ones that comes out pretty much fully-formed, just the way you like it, on the first try, and I'm rather excited about it.

Abracawordle!



The word "like" just kinda leaps out at you, doesn't it? I'm fairly certain that's because the story is written in first-person narration, and the word "like" appears in some of the narrator's favorite turns of phrase. Also, there's a severe lack of names. There are only three characters in the story, and only one of them has a name, and he's a cat.

That may contribute to the size of some of these other words.

But just look at all the great words squeezed into the middle of the football! Some of them are used only two or three times, I'm pretty sure. Maybe that makes for the best kind of Wordle--words used more than once, but not so often that they lose their meaning.

Maybe that makes for the best writing, actually.

Hmm.

Anyway, this short story makes the fifth that I've written since the bug bit me last August. I'm quite happy with all of them, and they share a lot of thematic elements--the supernatural mixed up with the mundane and a sense of the sublime hanging just out reach, grazed with the fingertips but gone before it can be comprehended.

A few of them are still out on submission to various magazines, but if none of them decide they're a good fit, I think I'm going to bundle them and put them out myself.

Keep an eye out for "Three Dances." It's gonna be sweet.

Friday Wordle: 3/9/12, Chapter 14, Soulwoven: Exile

Edit: To aid comprehension of the blog, I've put a little box about my writing on the sidebar. It's called "About My Writing."

Hola! Back to the Friday Wordle trend this week. I've been putting a lot of work into Exile, the second book of Soulwoven. After months of feeling like I was dragging the thing through a swamp, it finally feels unstuck. Most chapters still need significant revisions, but I've been able to figure out what they are. I'm finally starting to see the contours that I want to sculpt around the skeleton I put up last year, and it feels really good.

So. Image.



Maia is...well, Maia is Maia, and she changes Litnig's life forever. Won't say much more than that, because I'd hate to give things away. Bonus points for the best guess of the chapter's plot based just upon the Wordle.

...also, it has occurred to me that not everyone who reads this blog has the faintest clue about any of the characters I'm talking about. Lately, I've been mulling over starting to post chapters of Soulwoven: Exodus on Wattpad, where people can read them for free. If that's something you'd be interested in, drop me a line on Facebook.

Friday Wordle: 2/24/12, Chapter 11, Soulwoven Book Two

Happy Friday! And happy Wordle. This week I've been working on Chapter 11 of the second book of Soulwoven, which takes place from Dil's point of view and starts to set up the trajectory her and Cole's story is going to take over the next two books.



Interestingly, you would think that the chapter focuses around Cole from the Wordle, although it really doesn't in real life. His name appears 15 times to Dil's six, but the word "she" is used 29 times, mostly to refer to Dil. (Wordle doesn't show common English words like "she," because then all Wordles would look more or less the same). Anyway, other words of note seem to be clustered towards the right side of the Wordle: "rain," "hands," "squeezed," "dawn," "hard," "away," etc.

That's all for now. The sun is shining and the apocalyptic winds of midweek seem to have blown on to someplace else, for which I am glad. Looking forward to getting outside a bit over the next few days. And spring is just around the corner! Hooray!

Friday Wordle: 2/17/12, Shoes

So! This week, for something new and different, I spent most of the week working on a short story. Short stories, I've found, turn out to have all kinds of uses, none of which is "learn how to write," or "practice your craft so that you can move on to novels," which is how they were introduced to me. They are, instead, great for exploring a single idea, or a thought, or an image, or a trick of words or structure you'd like to try. Sometimes they're great for all of those things at once.

At any rate, I'm having fun with them, and putting together what will eventually be a collection that I plan to self-publish, because I want to see what that's all about.

So a week or two ago, I had an idea for a a story about a young woman doing a "walk of shame" (or, as I prefer to refer to it, a "walk of pride and joy and happiness and afterglow") through New York City, sans shoes. That story, now mostly complete, looks like this in Wordle form:



Main characters are Carly and Melody (or Mel). I think you can kind of get an idea of the direction of the story by the words floating them. I'd tell you what it's about, but to be honest, I'm still sort of figuring that out myself. I think it's got something to do with memory and sexuality and regret.

Friday Wordle: 2/10/12, Chapter 10, Soulwoven Book Two

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday!

And that means it's Wordle time. I'm trying to strike a balance these days between working on the first draft of Soulwoven's Book Three and the third draft of Book Two. Since I shared a Wordle from Book Three last week, I figured I'd share one from Book Two this week.



Chatper 10 of Book Two is about Tsu'min's past. He begins to take on a much more central role in the opening chapters of the book, and here we start to learn why he is the way he is--what drives the anger in him and why he can be so cold sometimes. A lot of that revolves around the characters Mi'ame (whose existence is hinted at in book one) and Maegan (who is new in book two), which is why their names appear so large. The eyes are back as well, because Tsu'min spends a lot of time in this chapter staring down Maegan as she asks questions about him.

What I love about this Wordle is that it captures so many of the important details of the chapter. It takes place on and around a barge, and words like "bloody," "shattered," "wanted," "pale," "pierced," "never," "chest," "cried," "cold," "guilt," and "pain," pretty much sum up what's going on here. If you skip over the names and body parts, you get a very good sense of the atmosphere of the chapter, and I just love that.

More blogging to come next week. Happy weekend!

Friday Wordle: 2/3/12, Chapter 17, Soulwoven: Redemption

Hello and salutations! It's Friday, and that means it's time for another Wordle. This week's was generated from my great accomplishment of the week: Chapter 17 of Soulwoven: Redemption (the third book in the story), which represented the breaking of the writer's block dam I had been struggling with for a few days. Without further ado:



Want to know what my favorite part about this Wordle is? The fact that the word "eyes" appears in very small type at the edge of the design. BAM! One of the things I was wondering when I began this Wordle-by-chapter experiment (something I've never done before) was whether my heavy use of that word stretched across every chapter, or whether it was clustered in particular places. I'm quite gratified to learn that I don't use it everywhere. I was also gratified to notice, as I was reading a short story collection of his this week, that Neil Gaiman uses it quite often as well.

So! This chapter takes place in a town called Violan in Dil's point of view. The important moment in it is a conversation between her and Cole in which she is watching him very carefully. Hence the importance of his name in the Wordle. Other big words, like "want," "make," and "normal," hint at the direction their conversation takes. I'm always gratified when the word "want" appears in these things. It's a powerful, powerful word that lies at the center of all great stories.

Other notes: "Pyell" is the name of a character who appears in Book Two of Soulwoven and has quite an impact on the direction of Cole and Dil's lives. "Cara" appears at the very end of Book Two and is becoming more important as Book Three stretches on (I'm really coming to like her--I can't wait to see where her story goes).

Random Wordle sentence for the week: "Cara found whole sun inside stone."

In other news, it dumped snow on us last night and my girlfriend got the day off of work because the roads are terrible. Not to be outdone, I'm taking one off as well.

Happy weekend!

Friday Wordle: 1/27/12

So it's been ten days since I posted. Many things have happened: I received a new, publishing-related job offer, which I shall be very happy to share details about once they have firmed up. I have decided to participate in what amounts to a Muay Thai bout with pads and started training for it. I submitted to a new agent and learned something very important about what I really need in an agent, and I've been working on my synopsis.

So without further ado: a wordle of the synopsis of Soulwoven!



As you can see, quite different from the wordle for the full draft. Note, specifically, the lack of the word "eyes." No room for silly description in a synopsis! It's all plot, all the time, baby. Also, you may notice that Litnig seems to have jumped into the lead in terms of importance. This is because the most important thing you can do when writing your synopsis (as chronicled here and here in my old blog) is to focus on one character, one arc, one storyline. Since Soulwoven opens with Litnig, he gets the focus in the synopsis.

Also interesting is that, because the synopsis is so short (3400 words, which equates to about 10 pages and is a decent length for a detailed synopsis), it's easy for words to jump out. "Grandfather," for instance, only appears in the description of two chapters. Yet it gets used enough times to merit inclusion here.

Synopses are a strange beast. They have to hit as many of the interesting bits as possible, in as short a space as possible, without confusing the reader. They remind me, in many ways, of the graphic novel scripts I've read--pared down to bare bones, with most of the space left open for the interpretation of someone else. Not my favorite form of writing, but it beats ad copy.

Friday Wordle: 1/13/12

So there's this really cool tool out there on the Internet called Wordle. You have probably seen some of its work. It takes a block of text of any size and creates a graphic with it, sizing words by how often they occur within the text.

I discovered it a few years ago on someone else's blog, and since then I have always run my manuscripts through it after I finish a draft of them. It tends to be a pretty rewarding experience, and it usually tells me more than I expect about my writing. For instance, I have learned that I use the word "eyes" a lot. So I keep an eye out for it when I'm editing and make sure that there isn't a better way to say whatever I'm using it to say.

I've been wondering how I might be able to share what I'm writing with people on the blog, and I think that Wordle might be a good way to do it, since I can just take whatever I've been working on that week and feed it through the Wordle machine, then talk about what it is. We'll see how it turns out.

This week I've been working on the full manuscript of my YA fantasy Soulwoven. When I run it through Wordle, this is what I get:



So--interesting things. We can see that I still use the word "eyes" a lot. I'm all right with that. Eyes do a lot of things, and we get a great deal of information from the movement of someone else's eyes. It's also pretty easy to see who the book's main characters are (Litnig and Cole are the brothers the narrative centers on). More interesting to me are some of the smaller words that make the cut. Words like "light," "darkness," "life," "fear," "cold," "heart," and "wall." Things that turn up again and again in the novel.

Oh, and I like to make sentences by following the words around the Wordle. Like "Leramis felt hand fingers, even opened beyond wind." Or "Ryse thought, 'Look. Light. Darkness. Never long.'"

It's a fun game.

I'll be submitting the manuscript starting next week, which means it's synopsis time, during which I get to boil 130,000 words of novel down to about 300 of plot description. As you might guess, there are more enjoyable ways to spend an afternoon, but it still beats cleaning the bathrooms.

In other news, I have discovered this week that if one substitutes "whipping cream" in a quiche recipe that calls for "light cream," one will end up with a very heavy, very tasty quiche, in which all the cheese sinks to the bottom and the whole mixture forms sort of a quiche pie.

Yum.

Happy weekend!