Preparing for More Snow

This week didn't go as expected. The long and the short of it is that I only managed to write for about an hour a day. Be that because I actually had to - GASP - work at my job!, or I had home-invaders, or Hubby wanted to watch Netflix together, or my hands were frozen with the latest cold snap and snow storms that came in, or.... I simply wasn't motivated. Usually, it was a day combining just about all of those "reasons" that caused my lack of writing.

I did get at least an hour of writing in each day though! Again, yesterday not included.... Stupid Mondays... So I'm now up to 5 days this month that I haven't written. That also means I did write 24 days this month so far. I'll take it.

So. Many. Smiles.

Also, while I wasn't able to finish "Woven Heartstrings" in its entirety, like I wanted, I was able to complete the main story. Getting a new chapter up within the week isn't terrible. Not as quick of a turn-around as I would have liked, but it's still fairly quick for a raw-first-draft-to-final-product turn-around. At least, for me.

Chapter 7: Always With You

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I'm glad my chapter titles slowly improved as I went along...

All I have left of the story is the epilogue. I started off WH with my chapters ranging about 3000-words to 3500-words long. Then, when I started doing the gift exchanges in chapter 5, I jumped up to 5000+ words. This latest chapter is near 6000-words long! The epilogue, though? It SHOULD be back to the 3000-word range, if not shorter. We'll see how that goes....

We're supposed to get a nasty snow storm again today, so I may be staying snuggled under blankets all day. Hopefully that also means I'll get at least the rough draft of the epilogue done while I'm getting snowed in. My original goal was to have the full story done within two weeks of Christmas so it didn't seem dragged out; bleeding into Valentine's Day. That clearly didn't happen, so I then aimed for January 24th so it would have taken me exactly a month to write an eight-chapter story. Yet another swing and miss. So NOW my deadline - or, as one of my professors once called it, the Drop-Dead line - is this Thursday. I WILL have this story done before the close of January.

I'm still debating if I want to count WH as my "monthly new story update" for my New Year's Resolution, or if I want to see if I can also sneak in a short of some kind. We'll see what I have time for.

Speaking of time and resolutions, I finally cracked open my first book of the year. I've been reading fanfics throughout the month, but this is the first professionally written piece I've read in about 3 months.... Which is why I started doing these annual challenges in the first place. Granted, the real boot to the bottom was a few years back when I literally read ONE BOOK all year long. How could I want to aspire to become an author if I won't even read books?

I know it's a fairly universally followed rule that writers should also be avid readers, and, frankly, I probably still don't read as frequently as most authors. I know the reason behind this "rule" is because the best way to improve your own work is to study the work of others. Figure out what you like, and learn how to incorporate it in to your own style. Figure out what doesn't work, and learn how to avoid those pitfalls in your own writing. See what's popular. Admire the style and research poured onto the page by other writers. In the more literal sense, there's also writing How-To books that help sharpen skills and give motivation. Then there's the pure escapism. If you're stuck behind Writer's Block, what better way to become re-inspired than to dive into someone else's story within that genre? You let your mind wander, and something in the story could spark what you want to do with your own.

There are TONS of reasons why writers should also make sure to be readers.

But the one that I hold as the top-tier reason?

How could I expect others to read my works if I'm not reading the works of others? It's a karma thing. A full-circle thing. A balance of the scales thing. A professional courtesy thing.

I don't want to be a hypocrite, living by "do as I say; not as I do." I don't want to ask people to put aside their precious time in order to read my works if I won't extend the same basic courtesy towards others. Who am I? To think my time is too restricted and invaluable to dedicate to reading, but believe your time isn't at least as rare? No! If you can take the time to read my stuff, I can do a least one new story a month.

And I have grown to read roughly a story a month, plus whatever I read with fanfiction. Maybe one day I'll re-structure my freetime, or learn to read fast enough, to be able to read two books a month. Perhaps, one day, when I'm sitting in retirement or something, I'll make it to a book a week, or even two a week. I know people who read roughly 100 books a year! I don't know if I'll ever get to that point, but it truly is inspiring to aim for that. It's also uplifting to know there are still people who consume so much written word. Gives us writers hope that maybe our story could find its way onto someone's reading list.

Point being, I finally got around to reading yesterday. I had to do SOMETHING productive if I was avoiding writing. The story I started up was a Christmas gift from the hubby: Ernest Cline's second novel "Armada." Just reading the book description reminds me of "Ender's Game," so let's see how Cline puts his own twist on the concept.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over to psychosis.

Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator called Armada--in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders.

As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revelations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's fate in the balance.

But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like... well... fiction?

At once reinventing and paying homage to science-fiction classics as only Ernest Cline can, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a coming-of-age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before.

Perhaps "Ender's Game" is one of the "science-fiction classics" being referred to.... Basically, I'm feeling like "Armada" is what "Pixels" should have been....

I only took the time to read the first chapter, but I have noticed a pattern already in Cline's writing.

1. He likes to write in first person. I get it; I do too. I switch it up to 3rd with some stories, but I largely write in 1st. I enjoy it, and didn't realize it got so much hate until I had reviews for “Peeping Tomcat” telling me I changed their mind about 1st person POV. Maybe it's just fanfiction written in 1st that gets the hate????
2. Both of his main characters are males during their senior year of high school when they get the Call to Action. In "Ready Player One" his main character Wade realized where the first key to The Contest was hidden while he was sitting in class his senior year. In fact, I think it was January of his senior year. In "Armada" the main character Zack notices the flying saucer while he's daydreaming in class. He's 2 months from graduation, so... April of his senior year?
• I don't know if this means something significant happened to Cline during his senior year of high school, which is why this timeframe is the catalystic point in both books, or if he just figured "this way they're technically teenagers, but they'll have adult-like freedom within the timeframe of the book."
3. Both main characters have a strong connection to their deceased father. Wade was given that first name because his father liked the idea of his son having alliteration in his name, like the best comic book characters. Wade also was really into 80s culture, like his father. Granted, that was because of The Contest, and he never actually knew his father, who died during a power outage riot. Zack did know his father, and they bonded over Sci-Fi and... 80s culture. Zack's father also had mental health problems, which Zack seems to have inherited.
• Maybe Cline is working out his own father issues within these books? An homage to the man, perhaps? It seems significant that he has this trend between both main characters.
4. Cline has a thing for the 1980's. I mean, I just said that 80s pop-culture is present in both books. Now, I've only read the first chapter of "Armada," so I don't know if the 80s themes are going to run nearly as deep as they did in "Ready Player One" - which was basically a love letter to the 80s - but the theme is still there again.
• Cline was born in 1972, which meant he was a teenager during the 80s, so he may just be writing what he knows - how to be a teen surrounded by 80s pop culture - while still trying to be futuristic, hence all the throw-back references.

I wonder what the trends are in my writing. I know one of them is that I get VERY introspective with my characters, but I'm now curious if I have more specific trends, such as Cline's affinity towards the 80s, males close to graduating high school, or specifically pointed out connections between the protagonist and his father....

If you know of any oddly specific tropes or trends I include in my writing, feel free to point it/them out in the comments below. In the meantime, I'll see what other fun parallels Cline has in both stories.

I'll also be sure to have "Woven Heartstrings" finished up by the end of the week so you can see the conclusion of that next week. February is the start of me getting serious with my finishing the first draft of "One and the Same." As is, I don't know if I'll have it polished up enough for me to start publishing chapters by the end of March. Shame; I wanted to have it follow the same timeframe as "Peeping Tomcat". We'll have to see how everything goes.

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