Scribbling in the Silence

Kudos to Stuart MacBride on the release of "Dying Light".

In related news, his "Cold Granite" will be released in paperback on May 2nd.

No, this isn't what you might think. Has nothing to do with my writing, but it is a reason I haven't been blogging for a few days.

I sliced a nice little half-moon off the tip-most half centimeter of the fingernail of my ring finger. Bled rather copiously for a while, but I still won't rival Stuart MacBride. It hurt like the dickens for a few days and I couldn't even type with that finger. Yesterday was the first day I could even hit "s" with the proper finger.

It isn't bothering me unduly as I type this, though, so I think I can get some words in today. Actual words, that is, and not the pittance I've been managing since nail-removal.

Well, okay, I couldn't do a few other things with that hand, either, but who cares about that? It's writing we care about here at Scribbling.

The previous post was supposed to have been published last night. However, the genius that is me clicked on "save as draft" instead of "publish post."

Just wanted to share that bit of incredulity with you.

Enjoy.

I was taking one of my breaks, and I decided to channel-surf for a while. I hit upon ESPN and there was a show which turned out to be the NFL draft preview. Now, I like sports as much as the next male, which is quite a bit. I don't mind the anchors and the guys who do the weekly analysis. But there is just something I can't stand about Mel Kiper, Jr. I mean, the guy basically created for himself a career based on only two days a year. His entire reason for existing in the ESPN universe is to do draft analysis. Where he thinks someone will be drafted, who he thinks a team should draft and then once the draft is over, who did a good job and who dropped the ball, so to speak. That's it. Admittedly he has to watch a lot of college football to figure this out, but he doesn't do weekly analysis or anything else like that. He only concerns himself with how it impacts the draft. And he gets paid how much to do this?

Unbelievable.

This, if nothing else, tells you how truly obsessed with the details that a lot of fans are.

Suffice it to say, I turned off the tv after about ten minutes of that drivel and got back to writing. If anyone around here is going to be obsessed with details, useless and otherwise, it'll be me obsessing over which details of my worldbuilding to include in my actual prose.

Added seven scenes in the new POV so far. I think it's going well so far. I've had to modify a few other scenes so I didn't repeat information and such. About par for the course.

I have to admit part of the reason it's such a big deal for me to do this is because I tend to avoid female POVs most of the time. Even though I have a wife and a daughter and five sisters, I still have a hard time with female POVs.

How about you? Do you still have a hard time with a POV of the opposite gender or are you used to it by now?

This warning is more for me than for you. I've decided, as an extension of my barbershop brainstorm, to make a few structural changes and add a POV. So I'll have to go back and add in that POV. Shouldn't be too hard to do at this point, though, because the new POV is kind of small at the beginning - just introducing the character and a new setting to set the ground for later events.

I'll have to do it just right, of course, or it'll blow up in my face. So my word count may suffer in the short term, but I think it'll help the overall progress of the book. This is only the third POV so I don't think it'll be a case of too many POV's. I have the male MC which is the main POV, then the female MC which is the main secondary POV (and the one I've decided to add). Then the third POV is my lesser secondary POV which is the antagonist.

Of course, just to play it safe, I'm going to save my what I've got so far in another folder just in case I decide I don't like the third POV. In which case I won't have to waste a lot of time trying to remember what changes I made.

Today PBWriter had an interesting post. I'll let you read it for yourself. Anyway, at the end she quoted an inspirational comment that she wrote on her bookmark and asked us what we'd write on our bookmarks.

At least for today, I'd write this: "Put your writing in your life and your life in your writing but don't make your writing your life."

I think that about says it all as far as where I am mentally and emotionally as it relates to my writing. I try to put some of my life experiences and feelings in my writing to, I guess, make my characters feel more real to me. And I try to implement my writing into my life somehow, be it sharing what I wrote that day with my wife, or talking to my friends about a plot problem I have. Everyone in my life knows I'm a writer but I sometimes tend to be very private about what I'm writing until I'm done. I'm trying to be less so, but it can be a struggle.

But I don't want to make writing my be all and end all. I have other interests in my life as well and I want to make time for them. It can be a difficult struggle to balance all those priorities but I think it's worth the effort. If I became a published writer, I wouldn't discard all those other interests so why should I now just because I want to be published? Either it'll happen or it won't. Que sera sera.

Just found out that Paperback Writer (over there on the left - yes, there) has returned the favor and linked to my blog from hers. However, she categorizes her links and I just noticed that mine is listed under "Roll with it".

And I immediately started singing under my breath REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes". It just somehow fit since it was kinda-sorta related to writing with that whole "same old story" and "turn some pages" part.

Kind of a strange '80's flashback trip there.

Even though I've been getting my words lately, I had the vague feeling that I was writing myself into a corner. Not the "I'm doomed" kind of corner, but the "where do I go from here" kind. Last night, I knew I had reached that corner. No nighttime inspiration struck.

I had high hopes for this morning's shower (a notorious thinking place for writers) but nothing. Well, there was a little niggle of something, but it didn't make it out of my subconscious in a, er, conscious way. If you know what I mean. So I left it there so my hind-brain could worry at it some more, kind of like a dog worries a bone.

So off I went to do my morning errands, one of which was getting a haircut. So there I was, sitting in the barber's chair when, to stretch my metaphor terribly, my subconscious bit through the bone. It was such an "Eureka!" moment that I had to literally force myself to sit still lest the barber go bzzzzzzt with the clippers where a clipper ought not to bzzzzzzzzzt. It was such a big idea that not only did it get me out of this corner, but the next one is, I hope, far, far away. I couldn't wait for the haircut to finish so I could go home and get started. Once I got home, I immediately opened the document, did a little judicious deleting and went on a roll. I came up for air a hour and a half later with about 2 thousand good words and left that to sit for a bit while figuring out my next small step. Which will be much easier with a new major step to aim for. Who knew the barber's chair would be so inspirational?

And, speaking of barbers and bzzzzzzzzting, I wonder how many people think about how things feel when you can't hear them? A lot of people assume that when you can't hear, your sense of sight becomes really sharp to compensate, but the other three remain intact. Not so. All four increase to compensate. Smell and taste, not so much, I'll admit. But touch really is up there with sight with how much it increases to compensate. I think a lot of writers miss that when writing about Deaf characters. They constantly have the Deaf person with really good vision - or, more appropriately, visual awareness - but they miss the chance to talk about how Deaf characters feel things differently, more acutely.

Obvious example - at the barber. I can't hear the buzzing of the clippers and the snick-snick of the scissors. But I can feel it against my skull. And, let me tell you, it's an interesting feeling.

Another example: thunder. Try and imagine what it would be like to know how far the lightning is by whether or not you feel the thunder. If the lightning is far away, then you don't feel it at all. But if it's close enough, you can feel the actual air that would be carrying the sound of the thunder. Kind of similar to how windows will sometimes rattle and sometimes not. And if it's close enough, you don't just feel it on your skin, you actually feel it in your chest.

I have the opposite problem. I have no idea what things sound like without being told or reading about it or whatever.

I don't know if it was just me or what. Over the past week, every time I tried to get in here to post something I couldn't. It kept hanging up on me.

Anyway, I've had a busy week. My son had his birthday (yes, my two kids have birthdays a week apart), and we had some family activities.

In spite of all this business, I still managed to hit my words so I'm happy.

Oh, by the way, this isn't gonna be the kind of blog where I say that I wrote such and such every day. I do hope to have more writing related things on here eventually, but it's been a busy past few weeks as far as family activities go. Things will remain hectic for a bit longer then it'll calm down. I hope. Heh.