Camp NaNo 2018: The Dilemma of Stagnant Progress

It’s been a slow week for me this Camp NaNoWriMo. I’ve restarted about five times, struggled to write that killer opening line, and now I’m trying to get my story going. As slow as it’s going, I’m working on not quitting. I think there’s a gem in this story somewhere and I just have to keep chipping away until it reveals itself. I will probably re-write it anyway but for now it’s all about getting that word count going yeah? Speaking of which, here’s my current progress:

 

 

Writing Without a Plan:

The idea formed back in March (how is it April already!?) and back then I couldn’t wait to write. So I put down the basic thought and left it to simmer. What happened between then and now? Who knows. I didn’t want to think about the story in case I write it before I write it. You know? It’s playing out in your head, building itself up but not in any physical sense? Yeah that. Only when I sat down to start writing, I found that the story had lost its bulk and become a wasted, formless thing. Skulking in the dark recess of my mind on its last leg.

I didn’t know where to start or how. Couldn’t figure out where I wanted the story to go. I still don’t, but it’s beginning to take some shape again. My little ball of unformed clay spinning and spinning and spinning while my dirty hands form and reform the piece of clay into something. Anything.

Getting Over It

As much as I hate that “Just get over it” phrase that we sometimes use, with the expectation that the recipient of the advice will simply overcome their struggle and be fine, I’ve had to tell myself the same thing. It didn’t work, of course, but it changed my mindset a little. Set a silver lining against the clouds of doubt forming. This was augmented by:

• Reading: Okay so maybe Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Brandon Sanderson aren’t the greatest motivators, when they know how to spin engaging stories so well and seemingly easily. Nonetheless reading their works has helped clarify some of my own writing issues. Especially with the skeletal framework that is my current WIP. I just finished King’s ‘Salem’s Lot and looking to finish The Illustrated Man by Bradbury. I’m feeling a shift in the winds.

    

• Music: I’m writing a horror so I needed something heavy. That turned out to be Lamb of God, Slipknot, and the occasional Paramore because there’s apparently romance in my story. Hearing the heavy guitar riffs and deep vocals from these metal bands (not you Hayley Williams, your voice is a dream) I find the scenes writing themselves out naturally.
  
• Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Manga: Movies, series, anime, and manga – that’s the good life. There’s a lot of good content out there, with unique stories and characters. How they form all of those smaller intricacies that later reveal themselves to be key sub-plots to an even bigger (and mind-blowing) main arc still baffles me. It also motivates me.

Not My Best – That’s For My Editor

Nicky, if you’re reading this, I apologise in advance haha. I’m not really happy or proud of this novella, but I’m writing it. I will finish it. By the 30th of APril (hopefully sooner) I will have 30 000 words of story. Of writing. Of content that later can be tweaked and refined and made better. Maybe this is my Carrie (Stephen King threw it in the trash. His wife rescued it. It was his first published work). Maybe. Nonetheless I will keep writing.

And that’s all I can do right now.

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Writing Hiatus (Not Really)

Hey all,

I guess it’s been a long time since I updated the blog and the reason for that is my mind just failing to wrap itself around life in general. Just a lot of things happening all in all which makes writing difficult. No it’s not writers block, and nothing health wise. Just choices I’ve been making in the last couple of months all catching up at the same time, and emotionally I’m frayed.

At the same time, yesterday I churned out 3000 words in about an hour as two different intros for an idea I have. Each of them an intro to a new story twirling about in my mind like a ballerina doing an endless series of pirouettes. So rather than trying to catch up to March blog posts and book reviews and the endless list of books I keep adding to my reading list, I’ll be going on a mini-hiatus.

So what will I be doing in the mean time?

Camp NaNo Prep

Camp NaNoWrimo is coming up next month. I’ve decided to write another novella (while my other one is still with my editor/publisher). The story is a horror romance temporarily named Upon an Endless Sea. That’s about all I have (I doubt I will use all previous drafts I’ve written haha) so I’ll be using the rest of March to put down some characters and a plot of some sort so I can pants my way through April.

Reading

I am so behind on my reading. Not that I haven’t been reading. On my bedside table (and following me around like a demonic shadow) is the book Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams. It’s about an angel who goes into hell to rescue his demon lover. Beautiful ain’t it? Not so much. It’s like Williams was playing DnD with his characters and every side of the die was an even worse situation than before. A true descent – pun intended. I also have to finish The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradubury and a bunch of other author requested book reviews.

Binge Watching (a.k.a Inspiration)

Yes, yes, yes. I will be watching all the series and movies and anime I haven’t seen yet. Me and Netflix/Crunchyroll gonna have a good time. On my list is:

1. Altered Carbon
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Insidious 2 + 3 (watched first already)
4. Baywatch (Don’t even ask)
5. Dexter
6. The Machinist
7. The Taxi Driver
8. Jacob’s Ladder
9. Requiem for a dream
10. Zodiac
11. A list-full of Anime

Talk about distractions inspiration. Anyway, here’s to a productive March of planning and onwards to an April of writing.

Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see ya’ll in April yeah!?

The Other Side of World Building

March was a month dedicated to world building in preparation for Camp NaNo, which is already at the end of its second week. One of the biggest issues with the process of world building is the fact that you are not writing as you build the world. You have concept characters in a concept world pushing conceptual plots.

As a writer, you should know, what you have in your head never works out the same way once the words fill up your blank page. Your characters start misbehaving, adding more to their backstory, referencing characters you haven’t really created because you didn’t think about them. The world, which was rich and expansive, does not incorporate the little spaces your characters decide to visit.

This has been my woe with the first of the novels I’m working on, Last Robot on Earth (name to be revised). Below is the mind map that plots out all the places where the story takes place. This is one of five mind maps that are just as detailed. I figured that all of this would be sufficient… but it’s not.

I had to create a sixth map where I outline what happens in the first arc, and within that arc all the details of what should happen. I say should because when I started writing, I realised that what I had built was still being shifted around by the story itself. On this side of world building, the story is the boss.

Plotting vs Pantsing

I’m not a plotter by default. Perhaps that’s why this isn’t working as well for me as I thought it would. I lack the details. I see the overall picture and think little of the puzzle pieces that work together to build the picture. What has definitely helped with the plotting, is knowing where I am going. Which means I still have the freedom to write the scenes as they happen. Of pantsing my way through the checkpoints I have planned.

This also means writer’s block doesn’t strike so often. I am thankful for all the work I put in to planning and so onward I go. 18,582 words and counting.

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Have you experienced this when you are world building?

Camp NaNo 2017 – The Beginning of the End

I have a draft folder full of all these ideas I never pushed far enough to publish. I was content with this. Figuring that eventually I would sit down and turn them into novels worth publishing. This was sometime in the future but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the years of spawning new drafts on a whim every time is this: if I don’t actually sit down and write, not just have the intention but put in the work, I won’t ever publish. Ever.

So future me will have to thank me for this camp’s ambitious endeavour: writing four novels in four months. Camp is the beginning of it all.

 

Camp NaNo Writing

The four novels (well three and an anthology) are as follows:

Junk Yard Angel – A Steampunk novel

She is a guardian, a saviour… an angel, spending her time in the scrap yards filled with discarded metal parts – fixing the broken with an amazing new technology powered by steam. They call her, the Junk Yard Angel.

However, some know a darker side to her. A murky, questionable past that still haunts her – for demons were once angels too.

Junk Yard Angel Short Stories – A prologue to JYA.

In the growing metropolis of Neandershöhle, a great revolution is on the rise. The Church and the State fight to keep their dogmatic rule and absolute Monarchy over the people, while the people fight for Enlightenment and individual liberty.

A young girl finds purpose in the fragile Age of Enlightenment. She stalks the scrap yards and uses the discarded metal to bring hope to the hopeless.

Yet something within rattles her soul. Whispers dark thoughts, and with the revolution so close at hand, she must choose her destiny wisely or endure the resulting consequences.

Last Robot on Earth – A Dystopian Novel

The world is a ravaged war-torn landscape still carrying the scars of nuclear war. Melted ice-caps have increased water levels, submerging much of the world under water. What little habitable land remains becomes a haven for those who survived the war.

Humans, living under the effect of the radiation, begin to mutate to their environment. Exhibiting bizarre adaptations and abilities.

Roaming uninhibited by the radiation is a single sentient machine. Living among the humans.

Waiting.

Watching.

Preparing.

Dominae Mortem – A Dark Fantasy Novel

Princess Arabella has a secret. Following her mother’s death, she sought the council of the Great Elders on what happens after death. Their answer drives her towards performing one of the Great Sins – suicide. Her premature death sends her to Orcus where she meets Death himself.

Following her defeat of Death, yet unable to reclaim her mother’s lost soul, she returns to the world of the living. The mantle of Death has been passed on to her yet she refuses her responsibilities.

But death is necessary. It calls to her. Summons her to its dark realm… and Fate decides to make a personal call.

The idea here is to write at least 12,500 words per novel between Camp and the next camp in July. That’s about 200,000 words in total (50K per novel although some will probably be much much longer than that eventually).

Thus this camp starts the real journey of becoming a writer. Of not just procrastinating and putting things off. A little ambitious I know, but…

“Ambition… is a great man’s madness.” John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

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Are you participating in Camp Nano? What are writing? If you need a cabin (there’s about 7 spaces left) comment your username and you can join us. Happy writing!

Want to find out more about my writing projects? Sign up to my newsletter:

We are! We are!

Our shells decay over time,

Souls trapped in finite casings

Ghosts of a terrestrial plane.

We are, we are, sublime.

 

Consciousness captured through ingenuity,

Subconsciousness fueling creativity,

Driven by proficiency,

We are, we are ambiguity.

 

Disparity in human principle,

Purpose defined objectivity,

Time is running out, yet

We are, we are, invincible.

 

“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
― George R.R. Martin

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Camp NaNo is around the corner. Let’s take the world by storm!

 

Marching On: The Muse Lives

It seems that my writing slump has passed, *touch wood*, and a number of ideas and story iterations are coming to the fore. With Camp NaNoWriMo coming up next month, this is a good thing.

Junk Yard Angel

Setting up JYA is quite a mission. There’s a lot of worldbuilding to do, character profiles to outline, and an actual plot to figure out. It’s great to have this amazing budding world at the fore, and a stellar character at the center of it all, but there’s no story to write if there’s no goal to achieve. That’s what I’m working on now through a number of short stories.

The short stories are set before the JYA novel story, which means a richer background to work from. This also allows me to figure out what’s about to happen, why it’s going to happen, and who will be driving it all forward. So far I have written two short stories posted on my Patreon page. If you would like to read (and enjoy) them, please drop by.

Patreon.com/NthatoMorakabi

Here are excerpts from both:

The Botanist

A little after two in the morning, the doorbell chimed.

Klaus raised his head from his work on the counter and glanced at the silhouette at the door. His gas lamp, fixed on the clay pot and scattered paintbrushes among the work tools, created the only light within the room. The person remained in shadow at the doorway. Petite. Slight. A woman perhaps.

“Good morning?” He called to the figure.

“A little early for botany isn’t it, Herr Klaus?” the voice was light. Feathery. A woman indeed.

“A little early for a visit isn’t it. Frau…?”

The woman idly slinked sideways. High shelves lined the walls, more shelves divided the store into flowers, pots and various garden utensils. The air carried lilac, fressia, jasmine, and an underlying waft of fertilizer. Klaus followed her movements behind the silhouetted flora by the sound of rasping cloth across the floor. She was moving towards the furthest edge of the shop. That was where he kept his private collection.

“Prince Clemens speaks highly of you Herr Klaus.” Her voice echoed from the back. Klaus stood quickly from his counter, the stool scraping across the floor with his movements. He swept a hand agitatedly through his thin hair.

“And what does his praise have to do with this visit? Could it not wait ‘til sunrise?”

Der Engel von Garzweiler

As I shuffled out of the church, I could feel the pitying looks of Mother Mary, and the Saints, casting down at me from their perches.  If there was some sort of guardian in Garzweiler, I hoped she would have a less agonizing face – and perhaps, her gaze set on me too.

The air outside the church nipped at my fingers, and cut through the holes of my shoes. Frau Berger from the convent across the road bustled about draping patched coats over some of the street urchins. Their emaciated bodies, enveloped under the woolen layer, would probably not see food for another week. If this Engel showed no benevolence towards the children, then what compassion would she have for me. It was a sobering thought on that long walk down the wide dirt paths towards a safer, warmer, terrain until my duty the following day.  Death awaited the following day with a plate of food and a pocket full of money.

I walked to my grave.

Innocence – a Wattpad novella

I read a “free to use” prompt on Wattpad that inspired this horror novella. The story revolves around four cops and a fledgling doctor giving a known murderer the Death Penalty, but they do it illegally in an unused basement of the police precinct. The murderer swears revenge before he dies and… well you’ll have to read the rest of it to know what happens. I’ll be posting new chapters every Friday as part of my usual Friday Fiction. Chapter 3 goes up tomorrow.

I watched as Marius de Wet was injected with Pentobarbital. He sat calmly through it all, his eyes falling on each of us as though memorizing our faces. There were only four of us within the dim precinct basement when it happened. Five if you count the shaking, greenhorn doctor who administered the lethal injection.

Rudolph, one of the detectives, was on his sixth cigarette by then, filling the room with acrid odor, the same that lined his clothes and drifted from his breath. Without his uniform, you could see how gaunt he was. The black hair looked slick and thin, face long and sallow, all exacerbated by yellowing teeth where one of the front two had a chip. He tapped his sneakered foot incessantly on the grungy cement floor of the basement holding cell, still sticky with Marius’ blood.

Maybe some of ours too.

Read it: wattpad.com/NthatoM

The Last Robot on Earth

Last year July, my close friend Carin Marais, a fellow writer, Patreon, Folklore/Myth virtuoso, and creator of the amazing upcoming novel The Ruon Chronicles, gave me a prompt: the Last Robot on Earth. As her reward I wrote her the story about Tobor, a robot pretending to be human and taking part in a Hunger Games style competition. The idea has evolved quite considerably from that and hatched a completely new series. *Thanks Carin! Swoons.*

Right now I’m in the world building stages of the novel, and it will be slightly different from my usual fantasy/horror but of course with elements of both. Since it was a Patreon inspired prompt, it will be running concurrent with JYA on that end, which means special rewards if you’re a Pledgee.

Not much I can tell you right now except that one of the characters is inspired by John Constantine, the fictional DC comics character, and the story will lean towards a darker, gritty, comic-book style novel. As a comic book fan (and not because of the movies ugh) my idea needs a lot of work so it doesn’t come off as another Marvel’s the X-Men vs Bolivar Trusks’ mutant killing Sentinels (did i just give the plot away? hehe). Nonetheless, I’m loving the world building.

Other Short Stories

There’s so many ideas and stories in the pipelines, and rather than tackle them one at a time (which is the most sane thing to do) I’ll be dabbling around each one as short stories that will eventually culminate into their respective novels/novellas. This means constantly writing and (hopefully) never getting bored. I will obviously keep you updated as things happen.

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How’s your writing going? Any exciting projects coming up? Are you taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo next month?

Through the Looking Glass: July

Hi All!

So. My blog has been quiet for the last few days. It’s been a very busy month and it’s only getting busier. So I am asking for your forgiveness and asking you to bare with me until the end of July. I promise I’ll get back to my regular schedule once I’ve caught up to all the deadlines:

Reading:

I haven’t forgotten my review. I finished the book, the review is in drafts I just need to complete it. And then there is a backlog of book reviews I still need to do as well:

Stephen King – Doctor Sleep: Done

Michael Smorenburg – Life Games: To Read

Xane Fisher – BoyzNite: To Read (Blog Tour on the 27th)

JT Lawrence- Sticky Fingers: To Read

Mary Ann D’Alto – He Counts Their Tears: To Read

Willow Palecek – City of Wolves: To Read

Melissa F. Olson – Nightshades: To Read

Jennifer Withers – The War Between: Communicating with author

Writing:

As you know, it’s camp NaNo right now, 15 days in and another 16 to go (if my math is correct).  I’ve had a slow start to the week, but I managed to push through to 25,000 words and hopefully to 30,000 by this weekend. So I won’t have a Friday Fiction today.

Number of Days:	Word count:
Day 1:	0
Day 2:	3590
Day 3:	535
Day 4:	4612
Day 5:	189
Day 6:	5476
Day 7:	1807
Day 8:	0
Day 9:	0
Day 10:	2522
Day 11:	1437
Day 12:	1086
Day 13:	4282
Day 14:	0
Day 15:	Today=0
Total:	25,536

 

Patreon:

As you all know (now you will), I joined Patreon and got my first official Patreon. I have to submit a short story between 1000-3000 words with the theme: Last Robot on Earth. I have so many ideas I want to implement, including videos and artwork and and and. But… gee time is running out. Squeezing everything into one month is quite a challenge, especially considering I still have to go to work, work for my designated 9 hours, drive back, and do what I have to. I haven’t even played my Xbox in a long time, and I”ve cut down on my Hearthstone and League of Legends because… well I ain’t got time for that!

I’m supposed to say “No” to any more work, right? But:

Pledge $1 or more per Per story

• A Patreon-only short story (between 1000 and 3000 words) of your making. You tell me what you want and I will give it to you
• Insight into the making of the story, including sources, first drafts, revisions etc.

If you would like to pledge and get your own Patreon-only short story (I will not publish or sell it anywhere – unless you want me to or something.), then please feel free to do so:

Patreon.com/NthatoMorakabi

 

Camp Nano / Patreon Update

You know, when I attended the NaNoWrimo write-ins last year, I found out I could write quite a lot of words in 20 minutes if the words are just flowing. And they have been flowing. The story is just so alive in my head it’s amazing.

Camp NaNo Update

My word counts have been as follows:

Day 1: 0

Day 2: 3590

Day 3: 535

Day 4: 4612

Day 5: 189 (power outage)

Day 6: 5476

Today: Who knows!?

Total: 14402

My goal was to get to 15000 this Saturday, but I’m now thinking of setting my word count higher and aiming for 25000 this weekend. That would be half a “novel” in a week. Imagine how many books I could write in a year! :O

*Starts preparing*

Patreon Update

I wasn’t going to announce this Patreon thing for quite a long while, perhaps beginning of 2017, but Carin Marais my dear friend (with the evil laugh) decided to speed that process up with my first official pledge. I’m working on a short-story (1000 – 3000 words) with her request: The Last Robot on Earth.

I’ve had a few ideas already, but I need something different from the Dystopian, Sci-Fi kind theme that seems to be overdone. At the moment, I only have $1 pledges which qualify for:

Pledge $1 or more per Per story

• A Patreon-only short story (between 1000 and 3000 words) of your making. You tell me what you want and I will give it to you
• Insight into the making of the story, including sources, first drafts, revisions etc.

If you would like to pledge and get your own Patreon-only short story (I will not publish or sell it anywhere – unless you want me to or something.), then please feel free to do so:

Patreon.com/NthatoMorakabi

 

The Star and the Flowers

Mountains claw at the sky,

Asperous ridges etching morning radiance,

Scabrous silhouettes impress evening gloom,

Rumblings of Earth in her final cry.

*

Oceans grasp at the slick sands,

Surging gallons crashing with flow of tide,

Cavernous depths gasping at precarious ebbs,

Unrequited. They drown the transient lands.

*

Nature tainted slinks on callous,

Lion of gazelle, man of woman; child,

Dissolute deportation insentient,

Feigned morality swathed in malice.

*

Where then lies hope? We lament.

Beyond the stars in cosmic knowledge?

Intrinsically within ancestral bones?

In religiosity bred malcontent?

*

There is no hope.

Only pain.

Only death.

It’s depths we can never grope.

*

The star gazed upon the ravenous nature around him and wept; cosmic-imbued tears fell to the ground and sprouted perfect, white four-leaved clovers. He reached for one and watched as it turned to dust between his fingers. Disintegrated. Falling on his knees, crushing the sprouting flora, he continued to weep and bring to bloom a myriad of the fragile flowers. Like everything else on this cursed planet – this cursed universe; life was temporary. And he would continue to experience the anguish it wrought within his newly formed heart.

Writer Values: Time

Yesterday I posted my Wednesday book review very late in the day. Normally I finish a book a week before so I can get the review scheduled and ready for Wednesday afternoon, 12:00PM GMT+2. Not this time. With CampNaNo starting up, preparations to make, book review requests flying in, reading to be done, social media updates, blogs to read and trying to squeeze in what I can still recall from my art lessons… an obvious conclusion suddenly hit me:

Precious Time

Well I do have the time, but all of these activities are time consuming. With work taking up a bulk of my day, it leaves a very limited amount of time to do everything. If you remember my previous blog post Trade Mistakes, I talked about one of the bad habits writers must work through, the “I don’t have time for this.” bad habit. Now there are legitimate reasons, and you can read the article for clarity, but here’s a truism about writing we as writers must embrace: writing takes time.

“Time is what we want most,but what we use worst.”
― William Penn

I write for Gamecca Magazine, a free online digital magazine on games, lifestyle, comics, technology and great articles about the world of gaming in general. My monthly writing consists of a writing previews, which are foresight on upcoming games, what they entail, when they release and so on. Now a one page preview is about 270 words. I can bash out 270 words in 5-10 minutes easy. But to make sure I don’t end up re-hasing the same content the myriad of online gaming sites have, my writing involves lots of research – websites, trailers, developer blogs. And then the writing is no longer 5-10 minutes but 20-30, most of which is spent re-writing, rephrasing, and making sure I don’t overshoot the word count. Three or four previews could take close to two hours in a day.

Earlier this week, determined to write, I got home from work at around 6PM and just crushed out around 3000 words. Being a discovery writer is a perk in this regard as I hadn’t touched that draft in months, picked up the story and just flew right through. I looked up and it was 8PM. 2 hours, gone, just like that.

My Steampunk horror story has a lot of research and looking up the right words, places, settings etc. From the top of my head, I have no map of England to refer to, or what cities are close enough for my character to traverse and how would that happen in that setting etc. So the 1500 words I wrote for one scene took a little over 3 hours.

Book reviews take time to write, writing this blog post takes time to write, making preparations for a writing project takes time, research for your writing takes time, writing your novel, short story, poem, article etc takes time: writing in general takes time.

“Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.”
― Ray Cummings, The Girl in the Golden Atom

It’s so obvious and yet we completely overlook it, or at least don’t grasp it’s fullest extent. So here’s some things to consider as you plan to write:

• Plan the prep AND the writing: Don’t put aside an hour for writing and spend half of it researching and the other half writing, break those two into separate times if you can. The odd Google or Thesaurus check is okay.
• Outlines: I know, I know, and as a discovery writer this is not really up my alley, but as my previous article My Plotted Guide to Pantsing has said in more detail, get a basic outline to guide you and pants your way through it. Separate the two too if you can.
• Goals: Although it can be linked to “outlining” you can also set goals for your writing before hand. Find out what your average word count is in an hour or two or however long, and set that goal. Or set a scene as a goal. Or plotting as a goal. Or research as a goal. And stick to it! Then you know how long you can plan your writing time for.
• Tell people to go away: Okay just warn them that for the next hour or so you are not to be disturbed, even if the house is on fire. Disruptions can take precious time away and you don’t want that.
• Put aside distractions: Turn off the internet. Put your phone on silent and hide it in the other room. Log out of Steam or Battle.net or Skype anything that will pop up and distract you. You’ve set time aside for writing, and writing takes time, so just do it.
• Find your space: Find a a good corner away from distractions and where you are most comfortable. Writing takes time, and that’s time spent in one position for quite a while. Make it a pleasurable experience.
• Time your writing: You know when you are most productive in your writing. If it’s between 2am and 4am, then schedule everything else around it so you don’t arrive at work as a zombie. Or bark at the car beside you because you overslept and they are in your way.
• Prepare your environment: Move the kettle to your writing space. (Sorry fam, I need dis!) Take your bathroom break, set-up your laptop/computer. Prepare your playlist. Don’t waste your writing time with things that could be done beforehand. When you have an hour to write, write for an hour.

And lastly, be disciplined. If you have free reign on your time, as I sometimes do, then plan it accordingly. But keep to your time. Also, take breaks. You can’t be staring at your screen for three hours straight. Well you can, but don’t. Get up and take a short walk. Stretch. Do breathing exercises. Go talk to your family or friends. And lastly, enjoy your writing and just write.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
― Louis L’Amour