Post-Part-One Depression

Following the conclusion of part one, I found myself disinterested in part two and have struggled over the last few weeks to find some motivation to begin writing again on a regular basis. Having "Pirates of the Burning Sea", one of my past favorite online games, go to a free to play status at the same time didn't help me get much writing done either.

The break, however, seems to have done me some good, and now that I've done a fair amount of plundering and pillaging, I'm back to writing every day.(as life permits) Clay and Mark have even had their first zombie encounter. There's nothing like the rotting living dead to get the juices flowing.

Point of No Return

I had not noticed that last week I'd reached the half way mark of my original 90,000 word projection. Having arrived at the 46,000 word mark, I'm as far from the end of the story as to the beginning. If I'm going to run out of fuel, it might as well be near the finish than somewhere along the trail heading back to the start. Then again, this logic might not apply as well to writing as it does to flying. No matter, I'd still rather crash and burn near the end than the beginning. (This entire issue is mute as my reassessed word projection is 120,000 words.)

"Part One is up 'n done," says I, wiping me bloody hams of the whole sodding mess.

(Would you believe I'm presently reading Treasure Island)

And there it is, lock, stock, and barrel, the whole bloody mess that is part one of Sunder, my literary tribute to the B-Movie genre. (This means that I have finished the first draft of part one.)

The ending of part one presented me with the closest thing I've ever known to writer's block. In this last chapter, all I needed was to find the portal to the next world and zap, let them port and be done with it. So why did it take me so many days to write a measly 2,440 words? Because the ending needed some sort of kick in the pants. By this point in the story, my readers (should I ever acquire some) as well as myself, would be sick of the damn hell trees. I needed to spice things up, so even though there was one last battle with the forces of darkness, I glossed over the final hell tree encounter and moved quickly on to the cave portal.

And there I became stuck. I was standing on the precipice of completion. All I had to do was end the thing.

The problem was that everything leading up to this point made it impossible to just say they found the portal and vanished. There had to be a problem. That, it turned out, was a problem for me.

Clay is standing before the portal with Mark.It's only a few feet away. Where am I going to come up with a conflict at this point? Is it time to bring in the machine gun toting naked women as suggested by course instructor, Zette? No, I want to save the naked women for later.

So for days, I half heartedly stabbed at the chapter hoping an idea would come before I lost patience and just had them port with the ease of turning on the TV. A solution did come, of course, and it was so simple I didn't even realize I had found it until I had finished writing it. I had even mentioned the problem earlier on but had overlooked it's potential. The solution, as I said, was simple. If you came upon a pile of stones you suspected of being a portal to another world, how would you go about triggering it? And there you go, a perfect little dilemma to frustrate the boys before they can port to Part Two.

I can now say the first draft of Part One is complete.

It's now time to move on to the more funner stuff: ZOMBIES.

One more Chapter to Go... before the next one

I just wrapped up chapter sixteen. Only one more chapter until Clay moves on into Part Two. This chapter contains the climax for Part one and, believe it or not, I'm satisfied with the result.

For months, I've lived with the knowledge that my resolution to part one might present a problem. The difficulty being,this chapter depicts the shortest battle, as opposed to the longest. Wham, bam, thank you, mam. Over and out. Please take all your belonging with you when you exit.

But the point is that, for now, I believe it works.

Of course, that's only the author's opinion. He'll have ample opportunity to change his mind once the critiques start rolling in.

Still Pluggin' Along

Clay and Mark have almost reached Lemon Town, the quintessential one horse town, comprised of a truck stop, service station, and restaurant. This is where the final conflict takes place before they hop over to the next world in Part Two.

A snippet from chapter thirteen:

Coming upon a light colored Prius, high centered on the edge of a shallow ravine, Clay shinned the flashlight onto the driver's window and found it shattered. Curiosity moved him to investigate. Drawing closer, the grisly remains of a driver could be seen seated behind the steering wheel. What remained of the broken window was splattered with the same dark substance that coated the area below the black cavity in the side of the driver's mummified head. 

Clay ran the light about the interior of the vehicle. He then opened the door, and holding his breath, reached across the corpse and took ownership of the handgun clutched in the man's grip. He then rejoined Mark, who had stayed back from the car.

Clay handed the flashlight to Mark and had him hold the light while he examined his new sidearm. Clay's knowledge of handguns was limited, but he found the model imprinted on the Clot Python barrel. There were four unspent 3.57 rounds  in the cylinder. He slipped the pistol into a coat pocket and said, “Funny what a little iron can do to raise your spirits. I'm already feeling a bit more optimistic about introducing myself to Dog and his friends.”

?

This is one mother of a chapter. Yes, it's the same chapter as mentioned in the last blog. One thing leads into another. The problem isn't so much what to say as what not to say. This is a chapter of ideas.  I can not bore my reader with ideas that are too inaccessible.  I want my readers to be able to look at my characters and think they are crazy, but crazy in the sense that most normal people are crazy?



Clay described to Mark everything he could remember, from leaving the Jeep to Nat's first sight of the petroglyphs. Mark became most interested when Clay mentioned the large stone spiral on the canyon floor.

Another circle,”said Mark.

Pardon?

Another circle. Like the glass anomaly. The spiral is one of the oldestt symbols found on Earth. It's usually two concentric spirals interspersed together like a flattened double helix. Or  you could call it a simple maze.

Double helix? Like DNA?

Exactly. Our ancestors knew a lot more than they're given credit for.

You don't really believe cave men knew about DNA?

Don't get me started. I could go on about this for the next year. Have you ever studied the Lascaux cave art?

Yes,some of the most profound works of art I've ever seen. They verge on the magical.

I Hate Red-Eye

I hate Red-Eye. It's so damn hard to concentrate on writing when that show is on.

Been struggling with some of Sunder's philosophical loose ends in chapter 12. I want to  get through this section so I can get on with the show. Here's a few lines to show the awful stuff I'm stuck trying to work through. Grrrr....

This is the way it stands so you'll have to live with the un-punctuation slop.

"The problem is the energy necessary to rip the universe in two would have to be astronomical. That much energy wouldn't just turn a little sand to glass, it would probably consume half the universe.

Humor me here. What about magic?

Magic? Not my forte. I pretty much follow Arthur C. Clark's supposition that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. 

Fine. I'll buy that. But what if there's a force in the universe that, for lack of a scientific name, we call magic? 

That is, a force that can't be measured by science. What do experts generally do with data that challenges their expertise?

They bury it under the rug. At least, that's what I'm always preaching to my readers.

Precisely.

You agree with that?

Of course. It's human nature. People protect what they have.

You think that's all it is, human nature?

Sure. What do you think, it's a conspiracy or something?

No, of course not. I mean, it's not like it's a back room conspiracy or …. look, never mind what I believe, you might be on to something, here. What makes magic magic is it's miraculous nature. It does what science dictates is impossible. You know, your theory sort of throws a monkey wrench in the Sherlock Holmes's notion that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  I mean, how do you eliminate the impossible when magic is an element of the equation?

 

You spend a lot of time alone, don't you.