not a lot for the updating

between work and other issues, the writing has slowed considerably, but the ideas are getting down. I've been working on shoring up a few details for things like Under the Fairy Tree that, while I don't intend to do anything with just yet will be impactful. Likewise, Faceless has a few plot points added. I'm trying to ignore the stress of work currently so I can get some quick design sketches in for Cherry Blossoms, mostly figuring on the creatures more than anything. One detail I am trying to sort out is the dwarves, in that I want them to feel real, not a carbon copy of other accepted fantasy concepts. Dwarves are typically depicted as miners, and while that is an endearing image, I do not like it. I've come up with something which has traces of that fantasy heritage, but isn't bound by it and certainly won't be the major characteristic. Likewise a new naga/siren design is in the works but those are for later. I think I've simply lost a bit of the mojo for the moment and need to really kick myself back in gear. hopefully that will be soon.

life has a way of interfering...

I have been both "relaxing" and dealing with having plumbing pipes explode so writing has been a bit difficult to indulge in, but I've now gotten back into the bios. For the moment, I'm going back and forth between the locations and creatures, though I still have several "miscellaneous" things to write out. I think the biggest issue at the moment is less the actual writing as it is the details. I'll be creating an initial culture for the Fiorin Tygons, the mynobbs, and several other worlds and histories. These will be expanded on later, but for the moment I do want to concentrate and make sure I have the initial details in a way that I like and coincides with how I want the stories to flow eventually. Even though I know I can always change it later, I prefer to make it as close to right here and now rather than years from now.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

bios begin

I took a short break to mentally recharge then began working on some paintings of some of the characters (almost finishing the design of So'glin). Today though, I decided to get underway on the underlining biographies of Cherry Blossoms. It is slow going, requiring a lot of going back and forth between the written accounts and research but I've managed to finish 22 of the "miscellaneous" biographies. These include some foods, instruments, and general mentionings of the book. I figure I should get these out of the way, including the religion biographies (which took the longest) so I'd have a stronger footing for the locations, creatures, and characters. There thankfully aren't as many biographies in this book as there have been in others, but it is by no means brief unfortunately. I do hope to continue to gather momentum in completing them.

2nd Draft done

I was, admittedly, joking when I started the second draft and thought I'd have 300 pages or so by the end. Considering the 1st draft was 211, I didn't think I'd add in 89. Turned out to be 90 when all was said and done. I must say though, I like the story now than I did before I began and before I finished the first draft. The concept evolved so drastically that I don't recognize it as anything other than what it has become (even though I know it was originally far more of a lark). While it is egocentric to think it, I do feel like the various things I've learned over the years is finally starting to culminate. Cherry Blossoms just feels deeper than the others.

I think it's for that reason I'm certain this will be the book that I like more than other people do. You never know, it might be considered the best overall, but I can very well imagine the scenario wherein the book I think is the best to date is actually accepted as luke warm to mild disinterest. I do accept this, however. It does, in many ways, simply stand apart from the other stories so even if it stands as a poorly received book, I still love it.

Now onto the full bios and the third draft.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

By my math, I've added 1/4th of a book....

It seems odd to get a slight bout of writer's block on the second draft, though this would qualify more as a writer's break as I do want to consider whether or not I'm going to write some actual battle (as I initially thought to do) or the ending of that battle (which would be much shorter). I'll likely do the latter but for the moment my heart isn't in doing any more.

At current, I have added a total of 70 pages in this second draft, which means 1/4th of the current number is all new. It's hard to feel like I'm rewriting in the sense of correcting as much as writing a whole extra book. That said, it is making the original draft better (in my opinion) and filling in a lot of the gaps that simply were not in the first draft. I am now (mathematically) 73% finished with this draft, which I feel is quite good considering the amount I'm writing as much as correcting. Once done, I will give it to a second set of eyes for opinions and mark-ups and the like while I work on character bios and more sketches. And now that I have painter 12, I hope to make the sketching a lot faster.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

175 of 275

While the goal continues to move further back, and the progress is taking me back to a page number that was the original end to the first draft, I am now 2/3rds of the way through the second draft, and with an added 64 pages worth of new material (which in turn had to be edited and played with, etc) I can say that I have better hopes now for Cherry Blossoms than I did at the beginning. I would like to say I go into writing stories with a full understanding of what I will have by the end, but that's a lie every time. I do remember a director once saying "Once I've finished a movie, I know how to make THAT movie. But I don't know how to make any movie. Only the movie I just made."

This particular book has taken on fully, the dress and garb of what I was only half-heartedly believing that I could write. I wanted some story that helped tell the fleeting nature of life against a background of cherry blossoms and vampires and now it actually feels like it met that goal a bit.

Most of the 64 pages are not conflict but foreshadowing and character. I have had three scenes in particular which were very interpersonal and very character compelling and I have to say, I love them when they work, and they take as much difficulty to do as the writing of action scenes. Now I wonder how well those aspects will hold up against the character backdrops. I will see when I take on the 3rd draft.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

still not half-way....

48 pages now have been added in the second draft. I am currently at 126 of 259 and I know that I'll be making even more additions in the coming chapters. It's really hard to get a feel for how long this will take considering that I've added a third of what I've reviewed thus far. By such a notion, I should only end up with 70 pages added, but that percentage is going to spike something fierce by the time I get into part 3 of the book. I'm looking forward to the third draft because I'm certain I won't be adding nearly as much that time.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

Almost to half-way

I'm now mathematically at 43% rewritten. For the past four days it's hovered around 37-42% thanks to all the pages added during that time. This rewrite doesn't feel like rewrites in the past, mostly because of what is being added to it and how much rewriting I did in the initial draft. Normally I just write what I think and shift things around in the rewrite, but this first draft I was editing and re-editing pieces as it was being written, shifting pages and paragraphs all around.

At the moment, I have added 36 pages, though I'm averaging 4 pages at the beginning of every chapter, and I feel it will only grow more as the story progresses. Since the story is still at the investigation portion, there hasn't been as much done yet to add in the details of the religion but that will be a mouthful to add certainly.

Anyway, it's going good, thankfully, and I don't think the pace has been impeded yet by the additions. At least with the page total I'm starting to feel like the book is fuller than it was. the short length made me feel I was missing huge gaps.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

Seemingly Self-Inflicted Futility

The second draft of Cherry Blossoms is slow-going as expected, though not entirely for the same reasons as possibly it could. I like to create a full biography for every character, creature, location and odd reference in every book and do so in the first re-write, counter-intuitive as it seems. It's mostly because I've found that if I create a story, create a few basic characters and then let the characters discover themselves as they tell how they are going to go about the story, I find far more interesting and personal characters in the end. My characters sometimes come out fully formed, and other times there is a flatness to them initially that they grow out of as the story progresses. It allows me to go into the second draft and add in the personalities I discovered in the first draft and change my bios accordingly. So while I'm only on page 54 of the rewrite, I've actually accrued far more pages of writing that just isn't in the book (for use in future rewrites).

There is a feeling of futility, particularly with this rewrite, that I'm smiling at. When I finished the first draft, the book was 211 pages. Here I am, 54 pages in and I have 226 pages total. I've already added 15 pages to the actual book, and I know I have at least 54 pages of bios written. This is 15 pages more after several changes and augmentations, and I haven't even gotten to the greater additions I plan to do. So while I look at my pages and see how far I'm going, the distance to the end keeps increasing. There's a certain pleasure to that in an odd sort of way. It makes the tedium of bio-writing tolerable.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

Second Draft underway

It might seem a bit odd that I waited until the second draft to truly do a detailed dive into the religion and culture of the world of Cherry Blossoms, but to be frank, I went in with a good idea of what I wanted and cared more about making sure the characters and story held up and made sense. Now that I have the confidence that the story works, I am cramming in the world and making whatever additions and changes are necessary. To that end, Chapter 0 is done.

I've been looking at the various things I want to make sure I include (mostly notes decided while writing the first draft that I wanted to include earlier) and marrying with it other ideas created after the draft was finished. Among them is a redesign of an entire city and geography and the addition of a complete culture. Basically I'm adding my version of the Japanese myth of the Tengu and have been designing concepts for them this week.

But married to that has been researching and detailing the religious overtones. I didn't really want to put anything seriously religious in, initially, because that's always treading dangerously close to turning off some potential readers. Though I've written other books with a religious-themed group, as I was writing the first draft it became apparent that there was a need for a certain... heavy hand with religious figures included, just by the nature of what I was writing about. I try not to be heavy-handed but I do want a religious ideology that becomes the definition for the culture I'm writing so there was a strong attempt to sort out how I would weave it in unobtrusively. While I think I can manage it (at least to the point that it isn't really thought about much until the final battle), it was interesting to write the dissertation today to create the official mythology and worship practices.

Now I get to see how some of my additions to the draft will play out. I'm hoping that the additions will be flowery enough to impress but not deviate the story too much that you get lost in those details. And I hope people accept my chapter haiku (which I like the idea of doing, but I don't like haiku).

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

first draft: done

I remember back when Brett Favre was still in good favor and he was asked about retiring (about 2 years before he first did). He was on the fence a bit and spoke about how the choice wasn't just based on playing the game every Sunday. He reminded people that playing meant being at the practices, the training camps, the tape break downs, more practices, dealing with injuries, the interviews, the victories, the defeats, and then somewhere in there a game. Basically his decision would be on whether he wanted to continue doing all of the other things associated with the game. In writing, this would translate to the first draft versus the 2nd and 3rd drafts (and however many after that).

The first draft is always the easiest in many ways because of the freedom to write whatever you wish. Each successive draft after has to take what's been written and refine it, augment it, and change it drastically to correct errors, fill in gaping plot holes, or whatever else needs doing.

To that end, the first draft of Cherry Blossoms is now done.

Onto the 2nd Draft now. And unlike other stories written, the first draft of Cherry Blossoms actually was somewhat harder because I was already trying to do its second draft mid-way. While writing can be done non-linearly (writing chapter 5 before chapter 2 or such) I do try to keep it in a straight line as best I can. But I kept realizing new aspects that I wanted to add, other details that needed to be fleshed out, and scenes that would be perfect but should have happened 4 chapters prior. Now that I have the first draft done though, I can get to those immediate pieces that need reworking.

I admit, I think I like the rewriting better than the writing. I enjoy adding or editing my work a little more than the actual first pass. I think it's because the first pass there isn't a net or a guideline beyond what I can do in an outline. With each successive draft, the story remains and is bettered by the overhauling. And, I just like the process more. I already know some major changes too, which should make this second draft feel more complete than the regular 2nd drafts I do.

We shall see.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

moments in the head now on paper

One key part of the genesis for Cherry Blossoms came about 9 years ago back in 2002. It came at the end of watching Blade 2. Say what you will about the movie, in the end what I felt was there was a place that needed exploring with vampires. A scene played out in my head of a man holding his beloved in his arms and having the opportunity to sink his fangs into her to make her a vampire and save her life. But, having been involuntarily changed himself, he knew what life he had lost and was wracked with the decision of losing her or condemning her to a similar fate so that he could be with her forever. In the end, as she's pleading for him to bite her, he gets closer and closer, then finally snaps her neck to end her suffering, sinks his teeth in to fill up on her blood, then goes after her killer with renewed energy and blind rage.

This scene has played out in my head a myriad of different ways for 9 years and keeps changing ever so slightly. Now, 9 years or so after it's initial inception, I've written that scene out in the first draft. Like so many concepts, it comes out as like the concept in spirit, but not in exactness. The nature of the battle around them, the nature of how I want my vampires to be and act, all of these factors shifted elements around. Instead of a dark room, it's now a street with fires everywhere. She doesn't speak this time, merely succumbs to the pain. A lot of the conceived dialogue was replaced with far fewer lines and more name shouting because it felt cliche to do more than that. This book has been, so far, more of a book on character and small subtle characteristics, and it felt far more logical and hopefully more moving to leave 95% of the intended dialogue unsaid.

Now comes the tricky part of the final phase of the battle. The slog is almost complete.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

back on track

a graduation, a funeral, father's day and now finally some assemblence of "normalcy." I've finally gotten through the slow part of the final climax, and now begin to "ramp it up" so to speak towards the final confrontation. I already know that this will be reworked a bit, I just don't know how much yet. In trying to get the most satisfying ending, I realized I needed to change some of the focal points a bit and emphasize a relationship not even hinted at so far in the draft. This has made writing the ending feeling quite different, like a transition to a different story entirely. Still, I like the newer ending (at least in the concept phase).

I have also begun plans (in the stages at least) on how I want to get people's attention with the books when I publish them. I have repeatedly used a "Chapter 0" as a pre-amble or prelude to the story to follow. For the most part, it's a one-chapter short story that exists in the same world as the story, has many of the same characters, but isn't really a part of the story. It's more like a jumping off point to get people familiar with what they will be getting into, and setting up chapter 1 as more of a familiar ground than say starting from scratch. I think it would be best to release these Chapter 0's like a separate short story for free, advertising that they are the prelude to whichever book they will be in. Then have them included in their respective books. I figure "free" because it's a teaser, it's in the full book, and buying it and buying it in the book again would be a real pisser to potential fans. It also sets a precidence that I could write short stories rather than lengthy ones for some of the characters for their back stories. I plan to wait until I do the second rewrite of Cherry Blossoms before I really get into it as I need to design a cover for these stories too. It also solves the looming problem with Chapter 0 of Sphere of Time since it truly doesn't belong in the overall book.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

two steps forward, two steps back

The slog continues and while I try hard to avoid jumping into too many aspects of a rewrite, I couldn't help but inject a new addition to a scene. In the night prior I was almost asleep when a creature and whole ecology sprang into my head. It was enough that I had to jot down the idea and it has maintained throughout the day. Now with a sketch in place (re-purposing a prior sketch) I felt the need to inject it into the story post-haste before the inspiration grew cold. More pointedly, I had a conversation in my head that I felt I needed to write down immediately. So while the bitter fighting is still a slog, there is progress earlier in the book. (and if that doesn't show how non-linear writing is, I don't know what would)

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

it comes like a dream

I sometimes wonder what I used to think before I started writing years ago, and it marries to other questions about how different I would be as a writer had I gone through all the regimens of writing and english courses to structure me into some sort of story writer. It's amidst these thoughts that I wonder what I'd have thought about the most recent writing epiphany.

Admittedly it's not so much an epiphany of my life, more the expected epiphany for every book/story. Even though I worked on the outline, researched, and planned for (in this case several years of pondering), when I went into writing Cherry Blossoms, I didn't know what it would end up like. I often wonder if pre-writer me (or for that matter non-writers or hopeful writers) would understand that a book needs time to find its voice.

I am now knee-deep in the next to last chapter for Cherry Blossoms. Though it is only the first draft (and the laundry list of changes and additions is growing daily), it's only now with the ending redesigned that I know the nature of the story I want to tell. It's times like this I like to sit back and luxuriate in because it sort of releases a tension that had been building up since page one.

In Purple Sun, it took until I'd finished writing the first part of the intended story to realize I was writing two books at one time. Separating them created a far better flavor in the reading experience and created effectively two worlds/stories separate and conjoined. Blood Talon it took until nearly the end as well to feel like I knew how to actually write the story I intended.

It's kinda odd in a way. If you were to read just the first draft, the tone keeps suddenly changing until it reaches the feeling that you're reading a completely different story. I just have to keep in mind finishing the first draft. I have the urge already to go and start the second draft already.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

into the slog

as I've been trying to get deeper into the final battle, I'm realizing I need to re-design the ending a bit. Mostly I'm going from the large army/army fight, to a siege and a few smaller fights. still, marching into the slog.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

admittedly not as often as I'd like

Amidst the Memorial Day Weekend, and a trip to the Long Beach Aquarium (http://drgonfire1.deviantart.com/gallery/30495426) with a gallery that took 3 days to upload everything, updates have been difficult. That ssaid, chapter 14 is now done, well at least the first draft is done. This leaves me with the final battle and the final chapter. I'm reading a lot of history books now, looking for cultural references to add in. Chapter 15 will be the longest chapter, and the slog will be far worse. but I'm hoping to punch through it.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

Chapter 13 is finally "done."

And by "done" I of course mean the first draft is done. There is certainly a point where realism and story-telling must part ways. A city siege, for example, is one of these points. In a genuine siege, there are few "points of interest" in the telling of the siege. You can find this quite easily by reading historical accounts of castle sieges. Mostly it's a lot of waiting out the people inside, a few key moments, and a LOT of repetitive action. When writing a siege, it's the repetitive action which gets the most bogged down. I had characters charging through a defended entrance, racing through twisted streets, and being attacked by soldiers on the rooftops. There are a few major points of interest and several minor ones to latch onto, but the majority of the battle is effectively written "he slashed this one" and "she hacked at this one" over and over again. As realistic as it is to basically be hacking and slashing for hours on end and a few points of interest like a building collapse or a new bonfire billowing, most of the description becomes very repetitive, and in story-telling that will bore the audience.

Part of what made chapter 13 so difficult to write (and eventually chapter 15 too) is picking out how long I can be "realistic" before it's repetitive, and how many points of interest in the battle I can latch onto before it seems to be dragged out. Since it's a battle, you want the stopping point to be the end of the battle, but for a siege, that's not actually the best place to do it (in my opinion). So there was a lot of picking and choosing of what should be included, what can be inferred, and how long do I keep this up before I lose the nature of the story to the reality of a siege?

I think I found a happy medium, and saved myself from going too long. I'll be concentrating instead on the final battle in Chapter 15 which should be much longer, more grueling to write, but also has the benefit of a lot of different things going on to keep the flow nicer. We shall see.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

still here, still writing, finally getting blogger to respond...

I've had the oddest time with Blogger, when I've remembered to update, in that it seems to be... temperamental. Maybe it doesn't like me.

The next-to-last battle scene is a tough slog, mostly in trying to draw it out. I don't know how other authors implement music into their writing, though I suppose it is an ambiance thing mostly, but for me, music has become a "1st draft" if you will.

I discovered far back with the original Jurassic Park soundtrack when I fell asleep listening to it, that my imagination married to a movie score concocted an odd mix. I actually had a nightmare governed by the rhythm and tone of the music. I immediately woke up, put the track on loop and wrote exactly what I "saw" in my mind's eye for every section of the music as it dictated and guided my imagination. I've never looked back since.

The thing is, now after several years of it, I have collected over 400 movie scores, and begun mixing and matching tracks from various movies, cutting and pasting pieces from within some tracks to pieces of other tracks, all to make a new "remix" of sounds to listen to. While sometimes this is for my own enjoyment, the vast majority of the time I am cutting and pasting together sounds as a "rough draft" for my mind to plot out a scene. I then listen to these tracks for a minute or two at a time, closing my eyes and letting the music and my imagination plan out the scene to follow, then I write. It's a nice time-saver for writing as my imagination can repeatedly go over the music and sort out alternatives. And when I actually put pen to paper (as it were) instead of a genuine "first draft," those scenes are more like a 9th rewrite.

In the case of the current scene, this rewrite has yielded wonderful results and visuals that solve many problems I didn't think I could solve with how the drafts were going to go. That said, now I'm at a point where I have to ask if the scene should end or continue with more. It would drastically cut the intended scene, but I feel too much would be unnecessary. Plus, I want the final scene to be far more involving, which may be too difficult to do, if I waste all of my time on this scene. I will have to revisit this option in the rewrite I think.

David Barentine
www.wotps.com

and now I have an iPad...

When the iPad first came out, I was intrigued about the possibilities, but I held off. I have learned, especially on very expensive items, to wait and see if I want to still get something enough to make the investment worthwhile. After a lot of looking into the newest features for the iPad2, specifically the apps, I am now fully committed. Partially I wanted an eReader to cut down on the amount of physical book space I have, but the apps allowed me to have what I couldn't have with a traditional laptop: mobile work while at work.

My problem has always been that while I am not home able to write, I'm usually at work unable to do anything because of the breaks. This has compacted design concepts, notes, research, and writing all into a short amount of time each day. I'm sure that other pads can do what the iPad can do, but I went that route and I'm quite happy for it.

Specifically, I decided the iPad would work for me as a reader, and initially I was interested because I could read pdf files like an eReader file, which I can make my stories into PDFs to review that way. Then the apps for sketching caught my eye (as well as a stylus to double as a pen rather than my finger) which I can use to sketch while at work pressed the issue. When I found a document reader/editor on the iPad apps allowing me to write and edit my stories wherever I go, I was sold fully. Laptops never did it for me, since the power consumption required so much to ground you to one place, especially with the mouse issues. iPad, as I assume all other pads as well, outshine those issues of portability and mouse-clicking for me, allowing me to do quick sketches, minor revisions, and note taking without feeling restricted.

It has become a welcome distraction in that I've had to check and play with it to make sure it does everything I want it to, and even things I wasn't thinking of (like digital magazines you can read). I don't know how others plan to use their pad (all-encompassing of type), but I've found my worklife is a lot more flexible now. I might not write stories on it, but I can work on outlines, conceptual ideas, concept designs, and research without feeling like I need to be at my computer exclusively. I recommend it to anyone sitting on the fence about readers. Which reader is up to you (I went iPad because I have the iTouch and fell in love with that).

David Barentine,
www.wotps.com