quote:Welcome to this week's Novel Support Group. Anyone can join. If you're new, tell us a bit about who you are and what project you are working on. Feel free to update the NSG Work in Progress thread with your current projects. Although we can report on any number of things, here is a list of suggestions (suggestions welcomed).
What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them? Describe what you worked on. Set goals for next week. Did you learn something during this week?
Here is a list of things that you can do each week as we work on our novels (suggestions welcomed).
Writing on a novel Characterization World Building Relevant research
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As for me:
Last Week's Goals:
DUAL MAGICS SERIES (THE SHAMAN'S CURSE, THE VOICE OF PROPHECY, BEYOND THE PROPHECY,and WAR OF MAGIC): Complete at least the next step to set up a mailing list. Um. Nope.
DUAL MAGICS SERIES: As time permits, go through the x-ray listings for the Dual Magics boxed set and THE BARD'S GIFT.
BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING: Start the read-through. Yes.
BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM: Finish the current chapter and then set aside so I can start revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING. Yes.
Wide Distribution Project (redux): Finish publication through Draft2Digital. Yes.
DUAL MAGICS SERIES (THE SHAMAN'S CURSE, THE VOICE OF PROPHECY, BEYOND THE PROPHECY,and WAR OF MAGIC): Complete at least the next step to set up a mailing list.
DUAL MAGICS SERIES: As time permits, go through the x-ray listings for the Dual Magics boxed set and THE BARD'S GIFT.
BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING: Finish the read-through. Start revisions.
BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM: On hold for revisions to BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.
Wide Distribution Project (redux): On hold for completion of the mailing list.
posted
Two new epiphanies this past week, a minor one about everyperson characterization and dramatic incitement and movement criteria, and another minor on its surface one that turned my writing plans upside down. The latter, known from aerospace think tank thought as the "Incessant Obsolescence Postulate" ("Interstellar Travel: Wait Calculation," Wikipedia).
The postulate basically indicates that an interstellar probe, before its time, sent to a nearby star will be overtaken and passed by later-sent, technologically improved probes, makes the earlier probes obsolescent. The ideal wait time for launch is when a probe is sent with an appreciation of a present-day and near-future realistic minimum time to destination.
The Global Age of Exploration waited until ship technology reached a reasonable time to destination, later than, say, the fourteenth century. Clipper ship technology surpassed that a few centuries later; not long after, steamships surpassed the age of sail. Fifteenth century technology wait time, though, met the minimum time to destination needs of the time.
For my writing plans, the postulate applies to knowing some destination and time to achieve it was reasonable -- not when or what. What my destination is has been a question unanswered for a long time. Recently, I learned much of that destination's identity, and could then estimate its minimum time to destination for overall storycraft wants. After all, what I read contains the criteria, even if across a broad span, and also a fresh departure from what has come before.
The postulate also applies to a given work. That's been a destination, too. What do I need to start and finish a project? When is the minimum time to achieve the whats? Appreciation of satire's arts and sciences went a long way for the overall and project-specific realizations. Anymore, I can estimate how many words a topic needs for full realization, what content is needed, what content is missed or excess. What I haven't been able to estimate is how long to destination reached.
Kerfluffled and befurbelowed dang epiphanies crop up unbidden and numerous and stall or ask for progress revisited. When will these pesky disruptions cease? When I know enough? When the cold misery will that ever happen? Won't. Do I have enough now? Maybe. Probably. Worth the launch effort anyway. Okay, so go with what I have and stay the course. It is enough. Wait time to minimum destination is no longer reason for delay.
Mind, the postulate itself is fodder for a narrative in an uncommon way. The material consumerism culture of the Digital Age relies on incessant obsolescence persistence. Computers, software, cellphones, software, probably obsolete months or years before marketed, already far out of date when acquired. Less so other material goods, though nonetheless planned for obsolescence. I am comforted that my claw hammers purchased decades ago, indistinguishable from similar tools made centuries, even millennia before, will never become obsolescent.
Shush! Don't tell anyone incessant obsolescence mandates that claw hammers be better built to an unrecognizable degree, please. They've already screwed up the wood, the screwdriver, drill, plane, chisel, ruler, and saw.
posted
Thing is, waiting until you've reached a certain level of writing ability without actually going through the writing growth process means that the growth may not actually happen.
If the quickly obsolete probe had not been sent, the more advanced probes may never have been built. So you have to go with what you can do now, in spite of the realization that what you will be able to do later will surpass what you can do now. You won't be able to reach that surpassing without going through the not-as-advanced state you are now in.
The growing comes in the doing, even though you know you are not where you could be eventually.
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posted
Many rejection letters and doubts raised therefrom leave me know I've written much for practice at least. Real growth didn't start until I'd mastered advanced grammar and appreciated subtext's functions. In all, the greatest growths have come from advanced preparation plans and appreciation of method and message's subtle expressions -- what I have to say that is worthwhile contribution to the social conversation that written word communicates. I now know the message; it derives from my recently discovered life calling.
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It took thousands of years of trial and error to build on the age of sail. Without that, we would still be in the dark ages, believing gods would do it all for us or sun around the earth thinking.
We may pass that probe in different increments, but each time will be faster and farther. Unless the tech destroys us first.
The key to exploration is first and foremost, the bravery to explore.
posted
I agree with Ms. Dalton Woodbury's observations, yet stress the points that in-process epiphanies, discoveries, and realizations emerge while later-sent probes overtake earlier-sent probes and that reasonable minimum time to destination estimates are knowable and useful.
Those are facets of critical path plans, also a facet of just-in-time inventory practices and print-quantity-needed, print-on-demand practices and -- well, Socratic irony's true basis. Yay much necessary now, more later, yet more later, according to the abilities available and foreseeable needs of an occasion.
Little doubt, at some point, probes will overtake and pass the Voyager spacecrafts. Current technology far surpasses that at the time of the launches, and incentives are strong though controversial for new and dedicated interstellar missions. Now-obsolete Voyager technology nonetheless persists, otherwise, at the very least, JPL would be unable to transmit and process data to and from those presently dormant probes.
When? Minimum time to destination estimates run to launches several decades from now and far less time to destination than the 40,000 years anticipated for Voyagers' future encounters with non-Sol stars at roughly eighteen lye distances from Earth. Those preliminary interstellar mission plans anticipate fifty or so years travel time to nearby stars, four or five or so lye distant, about how long the Voyagers have existed so far altogether.
Writer I am Jason's Argo and NASA's Voyagers and try for at once and the same time those future and further missions. Like domestic infrastructure falls apart and will not be repaired except as absolutely necessary, due to near future roadway technology anticipated in a few years will make major roadway repairs obsolete and too expensive to contemplate except as utter replacement. Drive by wireless is right around the corner; too soon for many, too slow for many, just right for Goldilocks.
posted
One of the blessings that writers have which probe launchers don't is the rewrite.
A writer may learn a great deal in the initial writing process, and may then go back in the rewrite and improve the earlier draft using what was learned.
If one of the things the writer learns is that the initial draft is unfixable (and it may be), it is possible to rewrite the work without reference to that initial draft, applying all that was learned in the first attempt - thereby making the next draft fresher than a mere re-edit might have been.
Writing a story that works is rarely ever a one-time-through process.
And then there's the question of knowing when to finally let the rewriting end and submit the work for publication. That is a "whole nother" skill in itself.
Writers who continue to grow as they write and publish will risk looking back on their early work and seeing its evidence of their progress beyond it, but as long as writers remember that they have done their best at each step along the way, there is no cause for embarrassment or regret.
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posted
By the way, I'd offer TRUE GRIT (the earlier version, except for the way they ended it, as well as the more recent version) as another book to movie comparison a writer may want to make as recommended by extrinsic.
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