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Writer | Registered: Oct 14, 2008 10:32
Welcome!
Just your friendly neighborhood coyote living down in Texas. I might not always have a lot of free time between college and work, but what I do have I try to spend writing. Doesn't always work, and even when I do manage to get my paws on my keyboard it doesn't always result in something worth sharing, but those few, rare times inspiration slaps me across the face and I hammer out something good, you guys'll be the first ones to see it.
I'm currently heading into Sociology, and spend a lot of time reading books and articles on the subject; you can usually tell what kind of studies I'm reading about by what kind of stories I'm writing at the time. Aside from that, I also tend to read a lot of SciFi and fantasy, and I was one of those weird kids back in high school that actually liked reading the books assigned in English class. I don't follow too many TV shows, but I do religiously follow the BBC's Sherlock and Doctor Who when they're running, and I've been known to get a wild hair and feel like rewatching the whole runs of shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Please don't be afraid to comment on anything you read; feedback's always appreciated! And I swear I don't bite, so don't be afraid to follow me on Twitter (@NalanHikari) or shoot me an email if you have any questions. I've been trying to get into the habit of tweeting whenever I post a new story, so follow for updates!
Just your friendly neighborhood coyote living down in Texas. I might not always have a lot of free time between college and work, but what I do have I try to spend writing. Doesn't always work, and even when I do manage to get my paws on my keyboard it doesn't always result in something worth sharing, but those few, rare times inspiration slaps me across the face and I hammer out something good, you guys'll be the first ones to see it.
I'm currently heading into Sociology, and spend a lot of time reading books and articles on the subject; you can usually tell what kind of studies I'm reading about by what kind of stories I'm writing at the time. Aside from that, I also tend to read a lot of SciFi and fantasy, and I was one of those weird kids back in high school that actually liked reading the books assigned in English class. I don't follow too many TV shows, but I do religiously follow the BBC's Sherlock and Doctor Who when they're running, and I've been known to get a wild hair and feel like rewatching the whole runs of shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Please don't be afraid to comment on anything you read; feedback's always appreciated! And I swear I don't bite, so don't be afraid to follow me on Twitter (@NalanHikari) or shoot me an email if you have any questions. I've been trying to get into the habit of tweeting whenever I post a new story, so follow for updates!
Stats
Comments Earned: 269
Comments Made: 339
Journals: 1
Comments Made: 339
Journals: 1
Recent Journal
The Yammering Yote - A New Journal Blog
11 years ago
I've started a journal blog over on wordpress.com that I'm going to be using to track my writing progress and general writing updates. Pasted in below is the first journal entry, an introduction to the whole purpose of the journal over the next month or so.
So, it’s October 1st, exactly one month before the start of November, which any startup writer knows is the loved and dreaded National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Like for the last three years or so, I’ve decided to try my hand at the daunting goal of 50,000 words written in a month, but instead of spending all of October planning and thinking and fretting about the experience, drafting outlines and whipping up character sheets, drawing up elaborate maps for my stories to take place or concocting expansive histories to backbone the narrative – I’ve decided to throw that all out, or at least put that on hold. See, like most years, this year’s big novel idea came to me around the end of August, and stuck with me throughout all of September, which, to me, means it’s worth holding on to.
It might seem disconnected, but I was raised by a series of women who systematically covered their bodies with an increasing number of tattoos, and despite their growing resemblance to Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man over the course of the years, they gave me one piece of advice that stuck with me, and that I’ve applied to practically all of my big decisions: it may seem like a great idea when you first think about it, but wait on it – give it a year. If, in a year, it seems as great an idea in a year, then it might be worth putting on your body permanently. If it doesn’t, then you’ve grown, matured, and your interests have changed, and it wasn’t worth putting there in the first place.
I might not wait and percolate on my story ideas for nearly as long as a year, but the principle remains the same: if the idea sticks with me for at least a month, and I keep coming back to it, and it keeps sounding like a good idea, then it just might be worth writing. So, the idea hit me in August, I held it throughout all of September, and it’s still sitting in the back of my mind as I write this, at the beginning of October – to me, this indicates worthiness!
But where I usually go wrong around this time, every year, is what I do in October. Instead of sticking with the central idea and running with it, I spend a month anticipating writing it, and systematically dissecting every aspect of it just to reassemble it every which way until I think it’s absolutely perfect! A prime example of this is what I did last year: I wanted to write a story with a very simple premise – two galactic factions at war, both spanning vast swaths of the galaxy, and one of them discovers an ancient doomsday devise hidden in the depths of a star to never be found or used again. For anyone familiar with the Star Wars extended universe, this was inspired by the hiding of the Sun Crusher at the end of “Jedi Search.”
The problem was, I didn’t let it sit there. Instead of making my protagonist, giving him a ship, and setting him off into the unknown reaches of space to fight off an enemy more powerful than he could imagine, I agonized over the finer details, and strove to make it the most complex piece of fiction I could manage. Now, the protagonist was to be inducted into a secret order! Oh, wow! And then, he has to team up with his mortal enemy – a smuggler queen that has vital skills he needs. And then, he’s working with an enemy turncoat that’s hiding his identity as really the eeeevil general that started the whole war! And then there’s an ancient temple he has to explore! And then an abandoned space station! And then he gets captured by the enemy, but not before he falls in love, and the enemy has to kill his lover to make it really hit hard! And then …
Needless to say, I let my inner 5 year old take over, and over-crowded a story that, while not the most profound or original, could have been decent fiction. All it was lacking was dinosaurs and battle mechs, and it would have been complete!
So, instead of that, I’ve decided to dedicate my October not to over-planning and over-thinking my fledgling story, but to honing my writing craft as best I can before November hits. I started last month, picking up all sorts of books and reading all sorts articles written by all sorts of writers. The most notable one, for these journals, at least, was Caroline Sharp’s “A Writer’s Workbook,” which I’ve decided to make my month’s writing textbook that I work out of. The book outlines 31 exercises for 31 days, all of which are supposed to call attention to different aspects of a writer’s craft, and help develop the skills as much as possible over the course of the month. The first of these exercises? Keep a journal!
The idea is to journal every day, before I start writing anything else, for what Sharp suggests to be about 30 minutes a day. She says to be candid and honest, personal and prolific, and entirely unedited, and to not focus on minor things like “this is what I ate today” or “this is my to-do list for the day,” but more vital, visceral, real-life things. As she puts it: “we want conviction, not calories.” It should be about my stresses and anxieties, tension, frustration, fears, and the occasional joys of not just writing, but of life. And, admittedly, for those that have known me well, they know I’ve had much of the above.
By the end of this month, this journal’s supposed to answer the critical question: “Am I a writer?” And I’m going into it with the answer “Yes, emphatically yes.” I’ll admit, I’ve got some hesitations, but I’m confident that I’ll come out of this experience holding to that answer, not like a trophy or title, something to put on my shelf or hang on my wall, but as a core aspect of my being. I don’t want this month to be about winning the right to call myself a writer, but to prove my right to do so.
One last thing: Sharp says to get nitty-gritty, and to really hit home with what you talk about in your journals – she never says to show them to anyone, but keep them for yourself. I’m doing this in a public venue for a few different reasons, but the biggest is for accountability. If I write these in a journal that I keep on my desk and tell no-one about, then the only one holding me accountable for writing these, and thus following through with the workbook, is myself, and as much as I do want to do this, I know from experience that I’m absolutely terrible at holding myself accountable to promises I make to myself. I’m much, much better at keeping promises I make to other people. So that’s what I’m doing – this journal, this workbook, is not just a promise to myself to follow through with each of the exercises, but a promise to the imagined audience that might or might not be reading this. Even if I’m the only one that reads these words, having the handy device of an imagined audience that I’m writing to keeps me a bit more on track. Perhaps it makes me a bit vain, and I’ll admit: it makes me feel vain. But it’s a weakness I can recognize, and a weakness I’m willing to capitalize on to make into a strength, and for that, I at least feel that makes up for it, a bit. Maybe. We’ll see how I feel by the end of the month.
So, with all that, let’s see how I do.
If it at all sounds interesting, go ahead and give me a follow over on http://nkhikari.wordpress.com/ ! I'll be continuing my updates from there.
-Nalan
So, it’s October 1st, exactly one month before the start of November, which any startup writer knows is the loved and dreaded National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Like for the last three years or so, I’ve decided to try my hand at the daunting goal of 50,000 words written in a month, but instead of spending all of October planning and thinking and fretting about the experience, drafting outlines and whipping up character sheets, drawing up elaborate maps for my stories to take place or concocting expansive histories to backbone the narrative – I’ve decided to throw that all out, or at least put that on hold. See, like most years, this year’s big novel idea came to me around the end of August, and stuck with me throughout all of September, which, to me, means it’s worth holding on to.
It might seem disconnected, but I was raised by a series of women who systematically covered their bodies with an increasing number of tattoos, and despite their growing resemblance to Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man over the course of the years, they gave me one piece of advice that stuck with me, and that I’ve applied to practically all of my big decisions: it may seem like a great idea when you first think about it, but wait on it – give it a year. If, in a year, it seems as great an idea in a year, then it might be worth putting on your body permanently. If it doesn’t, then you’ve grown, matured, and your interests have changed, and it wasn’t worth putting there in the first place.
I might not wait and percolate on my story ideas for nearly as long as a year, but the principle remains the same: if the idea sticks with me for at least a month, and I keep coming back to it, and it keeps sounding like a good idea, then it just might be worth writing. So, the idea hit me in August, I held it throughout all of September, and it’s still sitting in the back of my mind as I write this, at the beginning of October – to me, this indicates worthiness!
But where I usually go wrong around this time, every year, is what I do in October. Instead of sticking with the central idea and running with it, I spend a month anticipating writing it, and systematically dissecting every aspect of it just to reassemble it every which way until I think it’s absolutely perfect! A prime example of this is what I did last year: I wanted to write a story with a very simple premise – two galactic factions at war, both spanning vast swaths of the galaxy, and one of them discovers an ancient doomsday devise hidden in the depths of a star to never be found or used again. For anyone familiar with the Star Wars extended universe, this was inspired by the hiding of the Sun Crusher at the end of “Jedi Search.”
The problem was, I didn’t let it sit there. Instead of making my protagonist, giving him a ship, and setting him off into the unknown reaches of space to fight off an enemy more powerful than he could imagine, I agonized over the finer details, and strove to make it the most complex piece of fiction I could manage. Now, the protagonist was to be inducted into a secret order! Oh, wow! And then, he has to team up with his mortal enemy – a smuggler queen that has vital skills he needs. And then, he’s working with an enemy turncoat that’s hiding his identity as really the eeeevil general that started the whole war! And then there’s an ancient temple he has to explore! And then an abandoned space station! And then he gets captured by the enemy, but not before he falls in love, and the enemy has to kill his lover to make it really hit hard! And then …
Needless to say, I let my inner 5 year old take over, and over-crowded a story that, while not the most profound or original, could have been decent fiction. All it was lacking was dinosaurs and battle mechs, and it would have been complete!
So, instead of that, I’ve decided to dedicate my October not to over-planning and over-thinking my fledgling story, but to honing my writing craft as best I can before November hits. I started last month, picking up all sorts of books and reading all sorts articles written by all sorts of writers. The most notable one, for these journals, at least, was Caroline Sharp’s “A Writer’s Workbook,” which I’ve decided to make my month’s writing textbook that I work out of. The book outlines 31 exercises for 31 days, all of which are supposed to call attention to different aspects of a writer’s craft, and help develop the skills as much as possible over the course of the month. The first of these exercises? Keep a journal!
The idea is to journal every day, before I start writing anything else, for what Sharp suggests to be about 30 minutes a day. She says to be candid and honest, personal and prolific, and entirely unedited, and to not focus on minor things like “this is what I ate today” or “this is my to-do list for the day,” but more vital, visceral, real-life things. As she puts it: “we want conviction, not calories.” It should be about my stresses and anxieties, tension, frustration, fears, and the occasional joys of not just writing, but of life. And, admittedly, for those that have known me well, they know I’ve had much of the above.
By the end of this month, this journal’s supposed to answer the critical question: “Am I a writer?” And I’m going into it with the answer “Yes, emphatically yes.” I’ll admit, I’ve got some hesitations, but I’m confident that I’ll come out of this experience holding to that answer, not like a trophy or title, something to put on my shelf or hang on my wall, but as a core aspect of my being. I don’t want this month to be about winning the right to call myself a writer, but to prove my right to do so.
One last thing: Sharp says to get nitty-gritty, and to really hit home with what you talk about in your journals – she never says to show them to anyone, but keep them for yourself. I’m doing this in a public venue for a few different reasons, but the biggest is for accountability. If I write these in a journal that I keep on my desk and tell no-one about, then the only one holding me accountable for writing these, and thus following through with the workbook, is myself, and as much as I do want to do this, I know from experience that I’m absolutely terrible at holding myself accountable to promises I make to myself. I’m much, much better at keeping promises I make to other people. So that’s what I’m doing – this journal, this workbook, is not just a promise to myself to follow through with each of the exercises, but a promise to the imagined audience that might or might not be reading this. Even if I’m the only one that reads these words, having the handy device of an imagined audience that I’m writing to keeps me a bit more on track. Perhaps it makes me a bit vain, and I’ll admit: it makes me feel vain. But it’s a weakness I can recognize, and a weakness I’m willing to capitalize on to make into a strength, and for that, I at least feel that makes up for it, a bit. Maybe. We’ll see how I feel by the end of the month.
So, with all that, let’s see how I do.
If it at all sounds interesting, go ahead and give me a follow over on http://nkhikari.wordpress.com/ ! I'll be continuing my updates from there.
-Nalan
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