Go check out my new site, people! I'm still working on it, though, so don't expect too much just yet.
Angry TV Robot!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Sigh
I am indeed one lazy motherfucker. I have not done any writing, any character creation. I have been fixated on my website. But the good news is that that is almost finished, and in record time for me, too.
I find that I get fixated on whatever I happen to be doing, to the exclusion of all other projects. This is a fine trait, except that I'm always wanting to do ten things at once, and I keep switching back and forth between them, never finishing, always restarting. Well, hopefully when I am finished with this site (and it looks as though I actually will finish this), I'll hop back over to my novel.
The only thing that may mess me up is my Lit 220 class. I have to read 35 adolescent novels by the end of the semester! Holy... shit-that's-a-lot-of-reading....
I find that I get fixated on whatever I happen to be doing, to the exclusion of all other projects. This is a fine trait, except that I'm always wanting to do ten things at once, and I keep switching back and forth between them, never finishing, always restarting. Well, hopefully when I am finished with this site (and it looks as though I actually will finish this), I'll hop back over to my novel.
The only thing that may mess me up is my Lit 220 class. I have to read 35 adolescent novels by the end of the semester! Holy... shit-that's-a-lot-of-reading....
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Updates and News
Alright, I have spent the entire day today... doing nothing. Unfortunately, I had to do some stuff that was work related. I need to get paid, after all. So my characters remain uncreated. This is unfortunate. I might not get around to much tomorrow either, as I actually have work, and my move back to my dorm. But tonight I'll come up with some ideas for characters.
Onto other news. I made my first credit card purchase tonight. I feel like a man, now. A man who is technically now $45 in debt until I pay it off. But this newfound source of money shall be put to good use. I do have textbooks to buy, and all that. However, I am referring to a website. It's something I have always wanted to have. I never really had the money to do it, though. But now I do. Websites are only around five dollars a month. I make that in a couple of minutes at my job. So I am thinking of venturing into the world of credit card bought web space. Ooh. Of course, I would never actually buy space until I had a finished or near finished site. But I have ideas for one. Part of it would center around this novel. I also have another blog about programming. And I also have another blog that I did for school about the environment. I ended up turning my portion of it into a green technology section, and I wouldn't mind continuing that somewhere else, where I have more elbow room.
Well, I have to think about all this. I suppose I could, in the spare time between school and writing, start to whip up a website. My skills are a bit rusty, but so were my programming skills, and I am now back up to muster on those. And websites are a little easier. Especially if you keep it simple, which I do (this is as much for the end user as it is for me- simple sites coded in well standardized code don't need interbrowser/OS tweaking).
I also need a place to put up the pictures from my trip to Israel last Summer. I told everyone, promised them, that I would do that.
I'll update you all tomorrow. 'All' meaning the two of you who visited this site (I have a counter on the bottom).
Onto other news. I made my first credit card purchase tonight. I feel like a man, now. A man who is technically now $45 in debt until I pay it off. But this newfound source of money shall be put to good use. I do have textbooks to buy, and all that. However, I am referring to a website. It's something I have always wanted to have. I never really had the money to do it, though. But now I do. Websites are only around five dollars a month. I make that in a couple of minutes at my job. So I am thinking of venturing into the world of credit card bought web space. Ooh. Of course, I would never actually buy space until I had a finished or near finished site. But I have ideas for one. Part of it would center around this novel. I also have another blog about programming. And I also have another blog that I did for school about the environment. I ended up turning my portion of it into a green technology section, and I wouldn't mind continuing that somewhere else, where I have more elbow room.
Well, I have to think about all this. I suppose I could, in the spare time between school and writing, start to whip up a website. My skills are a bit rusty, but so were my programming skills, and I am now back up to muster on those. And websites are a little easier. Especially if you keep it simple, which I do (this is as much for the end user as it is for me- simple sites coded in well standardized code don't need interbrowser/OS tweaking).
I also need a place to put up the pictures from my trip to Israel last Summer. I told everyone, promised them, that I would do that.
I'll update you all tomorrow. 'All' meaning the two of you who visited this site (I have a counter on the bottom).
Friday, January 11, 2008
Oops
I forgot something, and it's definitely going to set me back at least a day, perhaps two. As I have stated, my novel is character driven. Unfortunately, this means it needs characters. What all of you do not know is that I already made an attempt to write this novel. Back then (a good couple of weeks ago), I started writing strictly on paper with my pen, with no storyline in my head, and a page of characters. What's the problem, you ask?
The problem is that the storyline has changed. The characters have changed. Originally, there was a military team aboard the ship, just because. They were specially trained in everything from some complex scientific stuff to flying to everything. Basically, the perfect people to make main characters, because it seems like main characters can already do everything they have to do, right?
Now, my characters are scientists. The ship does not need military men. There are no people to fight in the Alpha Centauri system. So now my characters are just ordinary people with different skills. They lack certain skills, too, that they will have to learn over the course of this and subsequent novels.
Also, my idea is now to establish as many characters as I possibly can in this novel, and keep track of them. The ship (yes, I have designed their ship, including drawings and specifications) has a crew of approximately four hundred. No, I cannot, and will not, have four hundred characters in this novel. I have no idea what the final number will be. I am thinking perhaps somewhere between twenty to seventy. I will have to weigh a couple different factors to decide.
So now what I need to do is make a couple new characters- a lot of new characters. I have to design them, what they look like, what they do, and perhaps a paragraph or two of back story. These will be my main characters in the future. They will be my main characters now, so I definitely do not want to half ass them. Everything needs to be accounted for.
So yes, this will definitely take me a day or two to do. I also will be busy tomorrow from four till whenever I am no longer busy (work related), and on Sunday I am busy definitely from nine to one. Then I move to back to my dorm room, which will take a little while longer. Add to that helping my friends move back in, and spending time catching up, and Sunday does not seem like a prime time to be writing. But I shall make a valiant attempt.
I still am not going to come up with any storyline though, that stuff always seems to come together in my head.
Oops, I probably should have mentioned that....
The problem is that the storyline has changed. The characters have changed. Originally, there was a military team aboard the ship, just because. They were specially trained in everything from some complex scientific stuff to flying to everything. Basically, the perfect people to make main characters, because it seems like main characters can already do everything they have to do, right?
Now, my characters are scientists. The ship does not need military men. There are no people to fight in the Alpha Centauri system. So now my characters are just ordinary people with different skills. They lack certain skills, too, that they will have to learn over the course of this and subsequent novels.
Also, my idea is now to establish as many characters as I possibly can in this novel, and keep track of them. The ship (yes, I have designed their ship, including drawings and specifications) has a crew of approximately four hundred. No, I cannot, and will not, have four hundred characters in this novel. I have no idea what the final number will be. I am thinking perhaps somewhere between twenty to seventy. I will have to weigh a couple different factors to decide.
So now what I need to do is make a couple new characters- a lot of new characters. I have to design them, what they look like, what they do, and perhaps a paragraph or two of back story. These will be my main characters in the future. They will be my main characters now, so I definitely do not want to half ass them. Everything needs to be accounted for.
So yes, this will definitely take me a day or two to do. I also will be busy tomorrow from four till whenever I am no longer busy (work related), and on Sunday I am busy definitely from nine to one. Then I move to back to my dorm room, which will take a little while longer. Add to that helping my friends move back in, and spending time catching up, and Sunday does not seem like a prime time to be writing. But I shall make a valiant attempt.
I still am not going to come up with any storyline though, that stuff always seems to come together in my head.
Oops, I probably should have mentioned that....
So
In the interest of setting up backlinks, I found something cool on another blog. The author calls it Friday Flash Fiction. It looks to be just a little writing, probably to keep him in shape or something. Anyway, it is the first link on my link list, http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com/. Maybe I could do something like that, to keep in shape. I do plan on writing pretty heavily, though. Maybe if I periodically write something in a slightly different genre, I can have something of a perspective on what I am writing in my novel.
-Sean
-Sean
Ah, post number one
Well, hello there, people, and welcome to my new blog!
It is my hope that this blog may one day start to generate buzz about a novel I am about to start writing, so that if it ever comes out, I will have a couple people guaranteed to read it. So, let me enlighten you all about my vision.
My goal used to be to write a series of novels, however I came to my senses and realized one novel shall be enough for the moment. Rather than spreading my plot out over the course of the series, I plan to resolve the plot quite nicely in one, longer novel. Of course, I do have plans to write, or attempt to write several spin offs, involving different sets of characters from the main novel.
I have always loved science fiction, and especially the type of science fiction where a group is cut off from their home. It gives people a chance to grow, to change into something better- or worse, than what they were. It makes for a nice, character driven atmosphere in which to write.
I am interweaving current science and current predictions for scientific advancements to create a story that occurs roughly thirty to forty years in the future. In the novel, the very first spaceship capable of traveling faster than the speed of light (well, not technically- I do try to follow our current set of scientific laws) is preparing to go on a voyage to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. However, a series of somewhat improbable events leads to the ship being thrown far outside our galaxy, to one of the farther clusters of stars.
In this new galaxy, the crew finds a well developed and highly sophisticated civilization, composed not of one race, but of many, many races. It's more than one hundred, definitely, but we're not talking Star Wars infinite races here. I want to keep it somewhat manageable. In this galaxy, there is a race that is very close to Humans (although there will be plenty of difference), however, unlike the majority of science fiction like this, they are not the main players of the galaxy. Rather, they are but one of perhaps five dominant races in the galaxy. They form a government that is very much like that of the United States. That is, on the whole they are a good governing body. However, upon closer inspection, they are actually crumbling away very slowly, patch jobs doing only so much to keep it together.
The crew of the ship, almost entirely scientists, are thrust into this new life, and must learn to adapt. They have to find their niche in a new galaxy. Of course, they get some help along the way, as well as suffering some setbacks.
The novel specifically addresses their adaptation to the new environment. I plan on introducing as many characters as I can without making the readers' heads explode. That way I can flesh them out over a series of follow up novels and short stories, without having to constantly introduce new major characters.
Well, how does that all sound? I have always had an idea to do a novel like this. I have written extensively in the past, but never really completing anything. I do have an unfinished novel sitting on my computer, unfinished only in the sense that I have not done the final edits. It is the entire novel. But I wasn't very happy with how it turned out. But hey, I was sixteen when I wrote it. It's been two years, but in those two years I like to think I have learned a lot about writing styles, and my own writing style.
So, a little about myself now. My name's Sean. I'm a freshman in college, but am not going there for anything to do with writing. This is strictly a hobby, something I have wanted to do my entire life. I do not ever plan on living directly off my writing, hoping instead that it supplements my salary a little, if I am lucky. I like to think that I have something of a gift with words, because it would probably be the only gift I have.
Despite the fact that I am starting a new semester at school within the week, I hope to write roughly at a rate of five thousand words per week. If not a set number, than I want to write at least several hours per week. The former strategy will have me finishing the rough copy of my novel anywhere from five to seven months, although perhaps it may take longer.
If you have any sort of suggestions, comments, anything, I would prefer a comment here, rather than risking spam and writing my email address here. But fear not, I am going to make an email address specifically for this blog. Yay for being able to have as many email addresses as you want! *cough*I have more than ten*cough*
Well, the magic begins tonight. I won't start counting words until Monday (what I consider the start of the new week), so I'm just starting to write today. Just a little writing.
Well, that's it. I have created this blog to keep an update of how I'm doing, and also to potentially get help and/or unveil parts of my story for criticism. Until then, it's time for dinner. Don't forget to add this site to your favorites!
-Sean
It is my hope that this blog may one day start to generate buzz about a novel I am about to start writing, so that if it ever comes out, I will have a couple people guaranteed to read it. So, let me enlighten you all about my vision.
My goal used to be to write a series of novels, however I came to my senses and realized one novel shall be enough for the moment. Rather than spreading my plot out over the course of the series, I plan to resolve the plot quite nicely in one, longer novel. Of course, I do have plans to write, or attempt to write several spin offs, involving different sets of characters from the main novel.
I have always loved science fiction, and especially the type of science fiction where a group is cut off from their home. It gives people a chance to grow, to change into something better- or worse, than what they were. It makes for a nice, character driven atmosphere in which to write.
I am interweaving current science and current predictions for scientific advancements to create a story that occurs roughly thirty to forty years in the future. In the novel, the very first spaceship capable of traveling faster than the speed of light (well, not technically- I do try to follow our current set of scientific laws) is preparing to go on a voyage to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. However, a series of somewhat improbable events leads to the ship being thrown far outside our galaxy, to one of the farther clusters of stars.
In this new galaxy, the crew finds a well developed and highly sophisticated civilization, composed not of one race, but of many, many races. It's more than one hundred, definitely, but we're not talking Star Wars infinite races here. I want to keep it somewhat manageable. In this galaxy, there is a race that is very close to Humans (although there will be plenty of difference), however, unlike the majority of science fiction like this, they are not the main players of the galaxy. Rather, they are but one of perhaps five dominant races in the galaxy. They form a government that is very much like that of the United States. That is, on the whole they are a good governing body. However, upon closer inspection, they are actually crumbling away very slowly, patch jobs doing only so much to keep it together.
The crew of the ship, almost entirely scientists, are thrust into this new life, and must learn to adapt. They have to find their niche in a new galaxy. Of course, they get some help along the way, as well as suffering some setbacks.
The novel specifically addresses their adaptation to the new environment. I plan on introducing as many characters as I can without making the readers' heads explode. That way I can flesh them out over a series of follow up novels and short stories, without having to constantly introduce new major characters.
Well, how does that all sound? I have always had an idea to do a novel like this. I have written extensively in the past, but never really completing anything. I do have an unfinished novel sitting on my computer, unfinished only in the sense that I have not done the final edits. It is the entire novel. But I wasn't very happy with how it turned out. But hey, I was sixteen when I wrote it. It's been two years, but in those two years I like to think I have learned a lot about writing styles, and my own writing style.
So, a little about myself now. My name's Sean. I'm a freshman in college, but am not going there for anything to do with writing. This is strictly a hobby, something I have wanted to do my entire life. I do not ever plan on living directly off my writing, hoping instead that it supplements my salary a little, if I am lucky. I like to think that I have something of a gift with words, because it would probably be the only gift I have.
Despite the fact that I am starting a new semester at school within the week, I hope to write roughly at a rate of five thousand words per week. If not a set number, than I want to write at least several hours per week. The former strategy will have me finishing the rough copy of my novel anywhere from five to seven months, although perhaps it may take longer.
If you have any sort of suggestions, comments, anything, I would prefer a comment here, rather than risking spam and writing my email address here. But fear not, I am going to make an email address specifically for this blog. Yay for being able to have as many email addresses as you want! *cough*I have more than ten*cough*
Well, the magic begins tonight. I won't start counting words until Monday (what I consider the start of the new week), so I'm just starting to write today. Just a little writing.
Well, that's it. I have created this blog to keep an update of how I'm doing, and also to potentially get help and/or unveil parts of my story for criticism. Until then, it's time for dinner. Don't forget to add this site to your favorites!
-Sean
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