This was the short story I had initially intended to send to the New Scientist competition. It just came to me in a big, widescreen shot of mountains and snow. I could see an older man and a youth, climbing, straining. But something seemed of somehow.
And I just needed to find out what...
Enjoy!
LEGACY
(349 word count)
“’tis said that only from the shoulder of Durak-Nur can the world be seen.” The man paused to catch his breath. Then tugged at his long furry coat.
“That from its head one can know the truth. Merge with the Originator. And the Death Giver.”
The boy looked at him. Then at the gigantic mountains in the distance.
“You have reached the age.” Said the man. “Your father will be proud when we return.”
“But why did we have to come here?” enquired the boy. “Couldn’t we have climbed some other mountain? One closer to home?”
“No!” Said the man sternly. “In the Durak range there are no mountains.”
“But-“
The man exhaled steam while indicating the region all around them. “This is why we have brought you to the Durak-Nur, the first of the seven. What you mistake for mountains were not made by the fires of the Earth alone but had the almighty yielding hand of our ancestors. They’re machines.”
The boy strained his eye, trying to reason out the shapes buried underneath the snow.
“This is why we come. To pay tribute and homage to that long gone golden age. When the old ones could rip open the belly of the Earth to carve mighty engines. Able of planting whole forests in a day. Walking across the mighty Lamtik Ocean. And war the demon god Klaymma Tchang, the destroyer. The hungry god Ozuor that rose the seas and killed our ancestors. That bent event the winds to his command.”
The man placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“We have brought you here so that you can see that the legends are true. That millennia ago our people ruled the whole of Earth. That the star metal shines still today, hidden in the snow. To show you the lost city of Nur. Where thousands upon thousands lived when the Durak still roamed free, saving the world from total destruction.”
The man’s eyes shone with ancient glory.
“We have brought you here for you to pay homage to long gone ancestors.” He said.
“And become their legacy.”
END
Of all the stories that I wrote for the competition this is really the only one I'd like to explore further. All others are pretty much self contained, but this one... this one just keeps sneaking under the radar. It kept coming to my attention over and over again and, at every step of the way, something new would come out of it.
So, I've taken notes for what I could still do with it and, maybe one day...
In any case, this was the story that was the hardest to write. I wrote four different versions. And I worked on all four of them.
I got the idea right on the first go but not the tone and the mood - which was the most important part of it. I wanted to insinuate, to stimulate the imagination, more than tell people's minds what to visualise.
It was also a mini-tribute to that writer extraordinaire, that writer of writers, Gene Wolfe. I just kept thinking about his style, the way he builds things for you in such a precise way and yet, when you go back and re-read it, it seems as if only vague glimpses were given. What we saw, we made it all up.
Anyway, I really like this story and that's why I saved it to be the last one posted here.
Hope you've enjoyed them!
Peace
Showing posts with label gene wolfe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gene wolfe. Show all posts
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Truth
Yesterday I had a really good evening.
No. I didn't spend it on my own, writing or reading comics.
I spent a good deal of it talking and listening to the good people of the Graphic Novels Reading Group.
The subject? Autobiographical comics.
lately we've been focussing on themes rather than any particular book and I have found that not only this keeps us more aligned with the major theme (comics) but also that the discussions are almost invariably extremely rich in content. After all everybody has the opportunity to voice out their opinions on the themes at hand. And I mean everybody. I don't think that there has been a session where someone has not participated in the debate (unless they didn't want to). And, the way I remember it, everybody, in one way or another, has contributed greatly to my understanding of comics.
I decided to write this post because I really felt that we touched a nerve yesterday. To be perfectly honest, as soon as that chord was struck it actually became very difficult for me to focus on what was happening afterwards for the ideas kept pilling inside my head and wanting to come out.
I remember cycling home with the theme dancing wildly inside and wanting to write some stuff down. Since I didn't really have time, this morning, as I cycled back to work, once again the themes of truth and authenticity in comics (and in writing or creativity in general) again flooded me.
I do not know if I will be able to regain that state but I want to at least try to convey some of the ideas. They might not be entirely original or revolutionary for you (to a certain extent they weren't for me) but, when hey did come, they came with the force and the clarity experienced when one truly comes to terms with whatever aspect of our experiencing.
Most of the discussion yesterday was centred around ideas of what makes an autobiography real, factual, accurate, true or important?
What makes certain stories tick and other not?
We chatted a lot about not only the tricks that memory plays but also the tricks that the author must play on the reader in order to convey the story, if not with truth to the fact, at least with truth in relation to the story or to the emotions experienced.
I think we all agreed on one point. If we by any chance discovered that a certain element of the story was incorrect this would affect our whole perception of the whole, by giving rise to suspicion on the author.
Personally, I have found that the thing that connects me the most to a story is its inherent truth. It may not be factual but it has to be experienced in some way.
(Sarah raised the point that perhaps everything that is written IS personal and, therefore, autobiographical)
(but also that it all can simply be viewed as fictional - since the narration of the experience can never be the experience itself - and, therefore, such things as autobiographies or non-fiction books simply do not exist)
This got me to think on what things, what devices make me experience truth whilst reading a (comics) story.
The easy one is emotion. If the emotions are there and they are recognisable, then, as they shift and move through the page, I will be able to follow them and emulate them inside me, thus recreating the story in my own image, so to speak.
Logic was another one that I thought about even though I'm not talking about linear logic here but rather of a logic which is relative to the story itself. A logic that is logical within the context of the story.
These musings then led me to think that, in actual fact the most important thing about truth is the way we relate to it. All of these things are dependent of ourselves and our view of the world. And I think this is why Gene Wolfe puts the emphasis so much on the reader. In a way, the story only happens in the reader's mind. In the author's mind the story is a different one. Because there are more things at play than just the story. Or, at least, than just what is visible about the story.
The author has to consider characters, motivations, plot, beginnings, middles and ends, rhythms, beauty and a ton of other things. The author considers the story itself. And the author considers so that the reader is taken by the story rather than plummeted straight into analysis about it.
(this can be the sole objective, of course, but I think we'll all agree that this is not usually the case)
The author is seeing the story and constructing it in a way (most times at least) to cause certain reactions on the readers. The author is, to a certain extent, programming the readership. So, for the author, there is always more at stake than just the story (again, in most cases).
In my experience I have found that the simpler the artwork the easier it becomes for us to relate to it.
As the amount of visual information on a page reduces we are automatically motioned towards a more general, a vaster experience. This makes it easier to relate to. A child's depiction of a house with wall, door, window and triangular roof can as easily represent a house in the west as a house in the east. A tree is a tree. We recognise it as such but we do not ask which species for we do not have sufficient detail to even consider if such information might be crucial to the story.
We assume that it is not (unconsciously) and move on.
We get on with the story.
During the meeting I tried to say that I feel that truth has nothing to do with fact. That is with something that has been recorded in one way or another, thus proving it real.
To my mind truth has much more to do with a certain essence, with something that defies definition but that clearly exudes from certain works.
I gave the example of J. Michael Straczynski's THE BOOK OF THE LOST (which is to me a continuation of what he did in MIDNIGHT NATION). Here we have a fantasy setup which serves as a platform to beautifully point out all the wounds in human experience. Where we deign not look, Straczybski calmly brings us into focus, the good and the bad coexisting side by side.
On the surface this book is clearly a work of fiction.
But if we really read it, if we really allow it to reach into us and take us where it is supposed to take us, we can also clearly see that this book is a work of non-fiction. It draws from an experience that is deeper than just the physicality of facts. To me, it draws from the essence of what it is to be a human being and that is what makes this book precious, in fact, any piece of writing precious.
And more, because this book comes not to point the obvious faults but to direct us in the right direction.
Straczynski comes not just as an entertainer but as a storyteller. Reminding us why stories have always been told. In fact, why stories begun being told in the first place: because they were important. Because the knowledge, the essence they imparted or insinuated was crucial to one's existence.
But, Straczynski, like all great and truly awake writers, has transcended the simple and widely acknowledged survival of the bodily self to a higher viewpoint.
He is concerned with the survival (which is to say, the discovery) of our true nature.
And this is to me perhaps the main aspect of the truth (at least, it is now as I write this): it reveals our essence. It is the closest we can get to what we are. And, when we get there, the first thing we notice is that words cannot reach us (perhaps that is why there is a book for the lost but none for the found...). The essence is something far greater and, quite simply unreachable by words.
When we tell the truth while telling a story our sole concern should be in pointing the reader in the right direction. And it is that direction that carries the seal of truth. Not the goal itself. For the goal is the readers (the experiencers) property only.
The truth may well be hard to grasp but it is the sole objective. For that reason, facts or imaginings are simply tools to help convey that in the best way possible. I am not concerned with the intrinsic realism of the story but with the reality of where it takes me.
And, for now, this is my truth.
Peace
No. I didn't spend it on my own, writing or reading comics.
I spent a good deal of it talking and listening to the good people of the Graphic Novels Reading Group.
The subject? Autobiographical comics.
lately we've been focussing on themes rather than any particular book and I have found that not only this keeps us more aligned with the major theme (comics) but also that the discussions are almost invariably extremely rich in content. After all everybody has the opportunity to voice out their opinions on the themes at hand. And I mean everybody. I don't think that there has been a session where someone has not participated in the debate (unless they didn't want to). And, the way I remember it, everybody, in one way or another, has contributed greatly to my understanding of comics.
I decided to write this post because I really felt that we touched a nerve yesterday. To be perfectly honest, as soon as that chord was struck it actually became very difficult for me to focus on what was happening afterwards for the ideas kept pilling inside my head and wanting to come out.
I remember cycling home with the theme dancing wildly inside and wanting to write some stuff down. Since I didn't really have time, this morning, as I cycled back to work, once again the themes of truth and authenticity in comics (and in writing or creativity in general) again flooded me.
I do not know if I will be able to regain that state but I want to at least try to convey some of the ideas. They might not be entirely original or revolutionary for you (to a certain extent they weren't for me) but, when hey did come, they came with the force and the clarity experienced when one truly comes to terms with whatever aspect of our experiencing.
Most of the discussion yesterday was centred around ideas of what makes an autobiography real, factual, accurate, true or important?
What makes certain stories tick and other not?
We chatted a lot about not only the tricks that memory plays but also the tricks that the author must play on the reader in order to convey the story, if not with truth to the fact, at least with truth in relation to the story or to the emotions experienced.
I think we all agreed on one point. If we by any chance discovered that a certain element of the story was incorrect this would affect our whole perception of the whole, by giving rise to suspicion on the author.
Personally, I have found that the thing that connects me the most to a story is its inherent truth. It may not be factual but it has to be experienced in some way.
(Sarah raised the point that perhaps everything that is written IS personal and, therefore, autobiographical)
(but also that it all can simply be viewed as fictional - since the narration of the experience can never be the experience itself - and, therefore, such things as autobiographies or non-fiction books simply do not exist)
This got me to think on what things, what devices make me experience truth whilst reading a (comics) story.
The easy one is emotion. If the emotions are there and they are recognisable, then, as they shift and move through the page, I will be able to follow them and emulate them inside me, thus recreating the story in my own image, so to speak.
Logic was another one that I thought about even though I'm not talking about linear logic here but rather of a logic which is relative to the story itself. A logic that is logical within the context of the story.
These musings then led me to think that, in actual fact the most important thing about truth is the way we relate to it. All of these things are dependent of ourselves and our view of the world. And I think this is why Gene Wolfe puts the emphasis so much on the reader. In a way, the story only happens in the reader's mind. In the author's mind the story is a different one. Because there are more things at play than just the story. Or, at least, than just what is visible about the story.
The author has to consider characters, motivations, plot, beginnings, middles and ends, rhythms, beauty and a ton of other things. The author considers the story itself. And the author considers so that the reader is taken by the story rather than plummeted straight into analysis about it.
(this can be the sole objective, of course, but I think we'll all agree that this is not usually the case)
The author is seeing the story and constructing it in a way (most times at least) to cause certain reactions on the readers. The author is, to a certain extent, programming the readership. So, for the author, there is always more at stake than just the story (again, in most cases).
In my experience I have found that the simpler the artwork the easier it becomes for us to relate to it.
As the amount of visual information on a page reduces we are automatically motioned towards a more general, a vaster experience. This makes it easier to relate to. A child's depiction of a house with wall, door, window and triangular roof can as easily represent a house in the west as a house in the east. A tree is a tree. We recognise it as such but we do not ask which species for we do not have sufficient detail to even consider if such information might be crucial to the story.
We assume that it is not (unconsciously) and move on.
We get on with the story.
During the meeting I tried to say that I feel that truth has nothing to do with fact. That is with something that has been recorded in one way or another, thus proving it real.
To my mind truth has much more to do with a certain essence, with something that defies definition but that clearly exudes from certain works.
I gave the example of J. Michael Straczynski's THE BOOK OF THE LOST (which is to me a continuation of what he did in MIDNIGHT NATION). Here we have a fantasy setup which serves as a platform to beautifully point out all the wounds in human experience. Where we deign not look, Straczybski calmly brings us into focus, the good and the bad coexisting side by side.
On the surface this book is clearly a work of fiction.
But if we really read it, if we really allow it to reach into us and take us where it is supposed to take us, we can also clearly see that this book is a work of non-fiction. It draws from an experience that is deeper than just the physicality of facts. To me, it draws from the essence of what it is to be a human being and that is what makes this book precious, in fact, any piece of writing precious.
And more, because this book comes not to point the obvious faults but to direct us in the right direction.
Straczynski comes not just as an entertainer but as a storyteller. Reminding us why stories have always been told. In fact, why stories begun being told in the first place: because they were important. Because the knowledge, the essence they imparted or insinuated was crucial to one's existence.
But, Straczynski, like all great and truly awake writers, has transcended the simple and widely acknowledged survival of the bodily self to a higher viewpoint.
He is concerned with the survival (which is to say, the discovery) of our true nature.
And this is to me perhaps the main aspect of the truth (at least, it is now as I write this): it reveals our essence. It is the closest we can get to what we are. And, when we get there, the first thing we notice is that words cannot reach us (perhaps that is why there is a book for the lost but none for the found...). The essence is something far greater and, quite simply unreachable by words.
When we tell the truth while telling a story our sole concern should be in pointing the reader in the right direction. And it is that direction that carries the seal of truth. Not the goal itself. For the goal is the readers (the experiencers) property only.
The truth may well be hard to grasp but it is the sole objective. For that reason, facts or imaginings are simply tools to help convey that in the best way possible. I am not concerned with the intrinsic realism of the story but with the reality of where it takes me.
And, for now, this is my truth.
Peace
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
A View Of The Mountain - Uprise & One Last Chance
Yesterday I polished up a short script that I wrote on sunday. I'm calling it ONE LAST CHANCE for the time being.
(the title fits but doesn't feel completely right...)
It talks about doing the wrong things for the right reasons. It's a silent story and it's 30 pages long.
I found it really interesting to write this script for various reasons.
First it started simply with me chatting on the phone with a good friend of mine, also here in London, Marco A..
We were talking about writing, techniques, plot, characters, etc (the usual) and I started telling this story simply to illustrate a point. The idea was that we only get the story figured out as soon as we finish writing it. That's when we have everybody on board and we can start really making things click.
So I told this story about a kid and his girlfriend. And then started working backwards and telling him, now we could do this to make it more intense, and then that to heighten the human side and so forth. By the end I was saying: now I really like this story! I should write it!
And so I did.
But what I deliberately set out to do was to eliminate any speech baloons or captions. Initially this was simply to save time in telling the story. But then it became more of a challenge in being able to communicate ideas simply by using images.
I think it worked out pretty well.
And I realised that this is a brilliant and easy way to get stories out in a really condensed form. If I don't focus on the words then there's little or no backstory coming through. Or, rather, the backstory that comes through is precisely what I need to tell the main thing.
As I was writing it I kept hearing the characters wanting to come and play in my mind. To tell me what they felt, what they were experiencing. Little bits of dialogue between them. But I wanted to simply leave the images so that everybody will get to write those bits of dialogue in their heads, fill the gaps with their own experiences and make the story theirs. That's ultimately the goal of storytelling. The story becomes part of the reader rather than the writer.
In this respect I totally agree with Gene Wolfe. The reader is ultimately more important than the writer. If the receptacle isn't there why bother telling these stories?
I mean, I know them already...
(sort of...)
In any case, I felt this was a good exercise to keep in mind. Next time I'm stuck in a sequence with the dialogue, maybe the whole thing can be sorted out just with images.
Actually I did this yesterday in A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN.
I finally patched up Empire Growth and inserted it in the main text (after removing the old version, of course!), then a quick read (and page numbering!) on the next scene, inserted the new bit of text that I had written straight after Empire Growth (and more page numbering! Always one of my favourite moments...) and...
stopped.
I'm now on page 60.
And I have to re-write this sequence since it no longer holds true with the rest of the story. it's only 3 or 4 pages long so I should be able to do it still today, before I leave.
Since it has a couple of ideas that I want to keep, i'm going to be lazy about this and just re-write the dialogue...
And then... maybe I'll insert some of the script that I wrote yesterday.
I mean, if a guy starts talking about uprises, I guy should show some of that, correct?
That's what I did yesterday night up until 2am, with me falling asleep over pen and paper. 4 pages long hand with some 10 pages of silent panels.
Some good scenes though.
But they're a bit violent.
Well, not that much but, since this comic hasn't had any violence until now I'm a bit undecided if I should insert them in the script or not... The best solution I've come with so far is to insert a part here and keep the rest for the second half of the story, when the Prince is older and can hear about how things really are... At that point I'll probably add some captions to it.
In any case these next 20 pages should be easier...
Hopefully I'll be on page 80 or so by tomorrow...
And this was what I was talking about with Marco over the phone. you don't really get to know the story well until you've told it. Before that, more often than not, one feels that one doesn't know what one is doing... And this is the feeling that gets you - that gets me at least! - you don't know this, you don't know that... you don't even know that this or that is missing! Then the characters change and you don't know why... we have powerful scenes but disconnected from one another... it's a bloody mess. We don't even know where to start and, soon enough, we start thinking that this story isn't good enough to be told.
And we leave it at that.
But time passes.
And memory quickly forgets yesterdays depression and sense of failure.
And another story creeps in and, for some incredibly beautiful moments, this is going to be it. This is the story. the one you always wanted to tell. The one you will tell and that will turn heads and make them nod and smile and know.
But, as soon as you start writing, the question marks drip also into the text alongside the rest of the words.
There is only one solution:
to write.
I know that, as soon as I reach the end of A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN I'll have all the elements to actually clearly understand what this story is about.
I mean, I know the main things, of course, but there are subtler things, details, things that can tighten the story so much more (like Ardul's love of books or somebody else's obsession with war, etc) that only then will I be ready to truly tell it. That's when the structure starts to make some sense.
And it's s strange feeling because, if I think of it, right now, the structure is pretty much arbitratry (with a strong chronological component, though). It doesn't feel right. But, as soon as I go through the motions and tell every bit of this story... then it will start feeling as the best structure possible - and I'll know which bits are out of place.
Now, this is a perfectly alien feeling to me.
So, the main thing is to trust the story and to trust yourself.
Don't worry if you're writing too much. If new scenes keep being added. If you don't know where it's leading you. If everything seems so messy right now.
I get that most of the times.
It's easy getting lost when you have to find your way and the only things you got are a battered old compass that you don't even know if it works properly and a vague sense of direction.
The story needs that space to grow and to find itself.
So tell yourself you trust yourself and, most of all, you trust the story.
I do it all the time.
(it works most times.... other times I just need to be patient until the story is ready to come out...)
I just need to remember that.
And be patient and persevere.
And now I'm going to shut up here and pry my ears open somewhere else...
Probably somewhere with a view over a mountain...
peace.
(the title fits but doesn't feel completely right...)
It talks about doing the wrong things for the right reasons. It's a silent story and it's 30 pages long.
I found it really interesting to write this script for various reasons.
First it started simply with me chatting on the phone with a good friend of mine, also here in London, Marco A..
We were talking about writing, techniques, plot, characters, etc (the usual) and I started telling this story simply to illustrate a point. The idea was that we only get the story figured out as soon as we finish writing it. That's when we have everybody on board and we can start really making things click.
So I told this story about a kid and his girlfriend. And then started working backwards and telling him, now we could do this to make it more intense, and then that to heighten the human side and so forth. By the end I was saying: now I really like this story! I should write it!
And so I did.
But what I deliberately set out to do was to eliminate any speech baloons or captions. Initially this was simply to save time in telling the story. But then it became more of a challenge in being able to communicate ideas simply by using images.
I think it worked out pretty well.
And I realised that this is a brilliant and easy way to get stories out in a really condensed form. If I don't focus on the words then there's little or no backstory coming through. Or, rather, the backstory that comes through is precisely what I need to tell the main thing.
As I was writing it I kept hearing the characters wanting to come and play in my mind. To tell me what they felt, what they were experiencing. Little bits of dialogue between them. But I wanted to simply leave the images so that everybody will get to write those bits of dialogue in their heads, fill the gaps with their own experiences and make the story theirs. That's ultimately the goal of storytelling. The story becomes part of the reader rather than the writer.
In this respect I totally agree with Gene Wolfe. The reader is ultimately more important than the writer. If the receptacle isn't there why bother telling these stories?
I mean, I know them already...
(sort of...)
In any case, I felt this was a good exercise to keep in mind. Next time I'm stuck in a sequence with the dialogue, maybe the whole thing can be sorted out just with images.
Actually I did this yesterday in A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN.
I finally patched up Empire Growth and inserted it in the main text (after removing the old version, of course!), then a quick read (and page numbering!) on the next scene, inserted the new bit of text that I had written straight after Empire Growth (and more page numbering! Always one of my favourite moments...) and...
stopped.
I'm now on page 60.
And I have to re-write this sequence since it no longer holds true with the rest of the story. it's only 3 or 4 pages long so I should be able to do it still today, before I leave.
Since it has a couple of ideas that I want to keep, i'm going to be lazy about this and just re-write the dialogue...
And then... maybe I'll insert some of the script that I wrote yesterday.
I mean, if a guy starts talking about uprises, I guy should show some of that, correct?
That's what I did yesterday night up until 2am, with me falling asleep over pen and paper. 4 pages long hand with some 10 pages of silent panels.
Some good scenes though.
But they're a bit violent.
Well, not that much but, since this comic hasn't had any violence until now I'm a bit undecided if I should insert them in the script or not... The best solution I've come with so far is to insert a part here and keep the rest for the second half of the story, when the Prince is older and can hear about how things really are... At that point I'll probably add some captions to it.
In any case these next 20 pages should be easier...
Hopefully I'll be on page 80 or so by tomorrow...
And this was what I was talking about with Marco over the phone. you don't really get to know the story well until you've told it. Before that, more often than not, one feels that one doesn't know what one is doing... And this is the feeling that gets you - that gets me at least! - you don't know this, you don't know that... you don't even know that this or that is missing! Then the characters change and you don't know why... we have powerful scenes but disconnected from one another... it's a bloody mess. We don't even know where to start and, soon enough, we start thinking that this story isn't good enough to be told.
And we leave it at that.
But time passes.
And memory quickly forgets yesterdays depression and sense of failure.
And another story creeps in and, for some incredibly beautiful moments, this is going to be it. This is the story. the one you always wanted to tell. The one you will tell and that will turn heads and make them nod and smile and know.
But, as soon as you start writing, the question marks drip also into the text alongside the rest of the words.
There is only one solution:
to write.
I know that, as soon as I reach the end of A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN I'll have all the elements to actually clearly understand what this story is about.
I mean, I know the main things, of course, but there are subtler things, details, things that can tighten the story so much more (like Ardul's love of books or somebody else's obsession with war, etc) that only then will I be ready to truly tell it. That's when the structure starts to make some sense.
And it's s strange feeling because, if I think of it, right now, the structure is pretty much arbitratry (with a strong chronological component, though). It doesn't feel right. But, as soon as I go through the motions and tell every bit of this story... then it will start feeling as the best structure possible - and I'll know which bits are out of place.
Now, this is a perfectly alien feeling to me.
So, the main thing is to trust the story and to trust yourself.
Don't worry if you're writing too much. If new scenes keep being added. If you don't know where it's leading you. If everything seems so messy right now.
I get that most of the times.
It's easy getting lost when you have to find your way and the only things you got are a battered old compass that you don't even know if it works properly and a vague sense of direction.
The story needs that space to grow and to find itself.
So tell yourself you trust yourself and, most of all, you trust the story.
I do it all the time.
(it works most times.... other times I just need to be patient until the story is ready to come out...)
I just need to remember that.
And be patient and persevere.
And now I'm going to shut up here and pry my ears open somewhere else...
Probably somewhere with a view over a mountain...
peace.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
More View For The Mountain
Two and a half weeks gone past in a flash.
Went to portugal for 7 days and, thus, the writing more or less stopped.
Going back to my diary I can see that I worked a bit on RIGOR MORTIS and LAST RITES before I went but also in various other things. Mainly transferring the ideas I had in Myanmar from longhand to word files...
Even before I went I managed to do that analogue copy paste thing and assembled all the files and began mixing things a bit but it soon became too convoluted for me to pursue it. So what I did was make some sort of little cards with the name of the file, page, scene, characters and brief synopsis of content and then shuffled it all around on the wall.
Today I manage to do all the copy pasting on a word file that is now 205 pages long. The comic itself is probably closer to 250... seems way too long but it may well work this way. I'm not interested in making it smaller just for the sake of it. I suppose this is one of the benefices of non comissioned work. I can just do whatever the heck I please!
But I've been very good with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. I've been working on it everyday and it hasn't left my mind a day since I came back from Myanmar.
I also finished polishing up the second draft for LAND OF FOG. Mainly cosmetics in relation to the first (spelling, phrase construction, you know...) and two new chapters. I think they round the story a bit more.
And now I only have to figure out what I'm going to do with all the other ideas that I had in Burma... I don't really feel like doing a sequel. But perhaps a few short stories. Or a long short story would be in order.
(not again!!!)
I've been reading a few of Gene Wolfe's amazing short stories and I'm trying attain a greater depth in my storytelling. The man is quite clearly a god of writing and he teaches his mastery at every phrase, at each page and word. There is much I still need to learn. Everything flows so well with him. There never seems to be any rush to get anywhere and, yet, the story is always there. It's always present, taking care of the reader.
I'd like to be able to write like this.
But I'll continue writing even if I don't!
Today I'm hoping I'll start patching the huge scenes quilt that I have managed to weave today. There are bits missing and I want simply to start at the beginning and start filling the gaps. Missing panels and missing links between certain scenes.
After that I'm going to go through my extensive list of notes and tick all the "objectives" for this story. All the themes/subjects that I wanted to cover.
Then I think I'll print it out and read it all over again, make whatever changes I feel necessary and, finally, deem it a first draft!
(I'm very curious about how many pages the comic will actually have... the is the biggest story I've attempted to write yet!)
peace.
Went to portugal for 7 days and, thus, the writing more or less stopped.
Going back to my diary I can see that I worked a bit on RIGOR MORTIS and LAST RITES before I went but also in various other things. Mainly transferring the ideas I had in Myanmar from longhand to word files...
Even before I went I managed to do that analogue copy paste thing and assembled all the files and began mixing things a bit but it soon became too convoluted for me to pursue it. So what I did was make some sort of little cards with the name of the file, page, scene, characters and brief synopsis of content and then shuffled it all around on the wall.
Today I manage to do all the copy pasting on a word file that is now 205 pages long. The comic itself is probably closer to 250... seems way too long but it may well work this way. I'm not interested in making it smaller just for the sake of it. I suppose this is one of the benefices of non comissioned work. I can just do whatever the heck I please!
But I've been very good with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. I've been working on it everyday and it hasn't left my mind a day since I came back from Myanmar.
I also finished polishing up the second draft for LAND OF FOG. Mainly cosmetics in relation to the first (spelling, phrase construction, you know...) and two new chapters. I think they round the story a bit more.
And now I only have to figure out what I'm going to do with all the other ideas that I had in Burma... I don't really feel like doing a sequel. But perhaps a few short stories. Or a long short story would be in order.
(not again!!!)
I've been reading a few of Gene Wolfe's amazing short stories and I'm trying attain a greater depth in my storytelling. The man is quite clearly a god of writing and he teaches his mastery at every phrase, at each page and word. There is much I still need to learn. Everything flows so well with him. There never seems to be any rush to get anywhere and, yet, the story is always there. It's always present, taking care of the reader.
I'd like to be able to write like this.
But I'll continue writing even if I don't!
Today I'm hoping I'll start patching the huge scenes quilt that I have managed to weave today. There are bits missing and I want simply to start at the beginning and start filling the gaps. Missing panels and missing links between certain scenes.
After that I'm going to go through my extensive list of notes and tick all the "objectives" for this story. All the themes/subjects that I wanted to cover.
Then I think I'll print it out and read it all over again, make whatever changes I feel necessary and, finally, deem it a first draft!
(I'm very curious about how many pages the comic will actually have... the is the biggest story I've attempted to write yet!)
peace.
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