ljwrites: Black-and-white portrait of Jane Austen (Jane Austen)
2014-08-03 11:21 pm
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Review: No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

No Plot? No Problem! was recommended on [community profile] write_away's writing advice book rec thread. It's by National Novel-Writing Month founder Chris Baty, and purports to be a road map to the process of writing a 50,000-word draft of a novel in one calendar month.

The book did at least one thing right for me as a reader: It got me excited about the idea of drafting a novel in a month and I decided to dive in with my own long-dreamed-of novel. I also decided to put off the review of the book until after I had tried the challenge so that I would have a handle on the subject matter. That chance came when I entered the July Novel Writing Month and Camp NaNoWriMo challenges. The following is my recounting of my NaNo experience along with the review of No Plot? No Problem! week-by-week, following the organization of the book.

ExpandAn emotional rollercoaster in five weeks )

I believe the true meaning of No Plot, and of timed writing challenges, comes down to this: Discipline, determination, and dedication are how we fight the clinging mud of our doubts and reach for our dreams. That is how we do our true work and make contributions that only we can make. If writing 50,000 words in a month is the way to do that, awesome. If writing every day at a more sedate pace is how to make it happen, awesome. The victory is not against a rival or a deadline or a word count, but against the resistance to creation--which, when you look long and hard at it, is in truth yourself.

2014 Camp NaNoWriMo Winner
Also, did I mention I won?


ljwrites: Black-and-white portrait of Jane Austen (Jane Austen)
2014-08-03 02:36 pm
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Back from Camp NaNoWriMo

I spent July writing the first draft of my Soseono novel via the Camp NaNo challenge. The default challenge is 50,000 words; I met that in the first week, spent four days in torpor hating what I'd written, found a new direction for the story, upped the goal to 100,000 words and met that, too. I ended up with 104,329 words, of which maybe half are salvageable after heavy editing and filling in all the gaps that remain. Let's just say it's more gap than otherwise at this point.

August will be spent on fanfic, to give myself a break from the orig project, plus research on the novel. I never expected that I'd need to concern myself with the Chinese colonies on the Korean peninsula, but that's where the draft took me. Luckily there are some great books on the subject, including the first volume of a full-color illustrated series on the military history of Korea. Squee!
ljwrites: A stern-looking woman in fancy traditional Korean clothes. (soseono)
2014-06-20 02:22 am

The Soseono Masterpost

"Sole reining queen and foundress in Korean history, she it was who built the two ancient kingdoms of Goguryeo and Baekje."
- Shin Chaeho, Ancient Korean History

Soseono (pronounced so-suh-no. 소서노 [召西奴]; 66 B.C.- 6 B.C.) was a part of the founding of two kingdoms in ancient Korea, Goguryeo and Baekje. She was the queen of the first king of Goguryeo and the mother of the first king of Baekje, but according to some she was far more than a wife and mother of founders but a founder and even ruling queen in her own right. The purpose of this post is to reconstruct the life of this remarkable woman based on reliable historical information.

* For a pronunciation guide and a note on the names see Korean Romanization and Notes on Ancient Names.

ExpandReliable being a relative term here... )
ljwrites: A woman in traditional Korean dress with earbuds in. (deokman)
2014-06-17 12:37 am
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20 Master Plots and Plot Versus Character: SMACKDOWN EDITION

Here's how big a dork I am: As I read 20 Master Plots, reviewed here, I kept pitting it in my head against Plot Versus Character, which I had read and reviewed earlier. The imaginary dialogue went something like this:

ExpandOf characters and writers )


So that's Exhibit One Million and One in my nerd trial, in case anyone's counting. But the juxtaposition was uncanny, and I found myself writing such well-reasoned and thoughtful responses as "A thousand times YES" in the margins as I read 20 Master Plots.
ljwrites: (workspace)
2014-06-17 12:27 am

Review: 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them

20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B. Tobias was recommended by [personal profile] splinteredstar on the [community profile] write_away writing books recommendations thread. I really liked it and recommend it even more for its introductory chapters than for the master plots, though the plots weren't bad, either.

ExpandA good book hiding an even better book )

Still, even in its disparate parts 20 Master Plots was well worth my time for its intelligent discussions about story, plot and morality. If nothing else I would recommend Chapters One and Four for the theory of plot and deep structure.

See also: 20 Master Plots smacks down Plot Versus Character, at least in my febrile imagination.
ljwrites: A stern-looking woman in fancy traditional Korean clothes. (soseono)
2014-06-10 12:53 am

Review: Part 2 of Plot Versus Character

Plot Versus Character by Jeff Gerke is a how-to book for both plot-centric and character-centric fiction writers to integrate these these two aspects of the craft. I have aired my decidedly mixed feelings about Part 1 of the book dealing with character. However, as expected, Part 2 on plot was much more satisfying. Plot is the author's own admitted strong suit, after all. I'll discuss where I found Part 2 helpful and where frustrations and questions still linger for me.

ExpandSome swell chapters and some big problems )

Despite the book's problems, I think Part 2 is still worth a read especially if you keep the book's overall limitations in mind, or have a good internal filter like recommender inkdust does. If you can winnow the chaff from the wheat, discarding the incomplete or flawed parts while internalizing the good, I think this book can serve as a good guide for story structure and how it can integrate with character development.
ljwrites: (workspace)
2014-06-07 11:40 am
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First submission and rejection postmortem

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
- John W. Campbell


Life was a blur of job and family activities the past few weeks, and while traveling to these activities I've been reading a lot on my phone. Reviews may be forthcoming. Still, I found the time for some creative stuff. I wrote a setting for a gamebook I'm publishing with my husband, and I submitted a short story to On the Premises as I previously threatened to do. Unfortunately I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to write until I was beyond all hope of editorial help or even self-editing. I submitted literally at the last moment knowing the story sucked, and the result was a kind, swift rejection slip.

ExpandReasons I Suck speech )
ljwrites: A black silhouette of a conch shell. (conch)
2014-05-15 12:10 pm
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Online summer creativity workshop starting soon

I've been talking to [personal profile] rejectionchallenge  over on [community profile] write_away about using Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, the creativity classic about unlocking creativity through spirituality, in a 12-week creativity course. It starts in a week or two and will take place on the community [community profile] artistsway. Rejectionchallenge has now written a post advertising the impending start of the course, and the artistsway community is coming back on, so I figured I'd give it a signal boost. I've been waiting a while for this to start up, it looks fun. Come join us if you have time!
ljwrites: (workspace)
2014-04-23 12:14 am

Review: Part 1 of Plot versus Character

Jeff Gerke's Plot versus Character starts with the premise that fiction writers tend to be strong at one of plot or character and struggle with the other. It may seem simplistic, but it's a dichotomy my own experience bears out. Even those writers who are good at both tend to have a dominant "hand" in their strength as a writer. Ursula Le Guin is no slouch in the plot department, but her stories are distinctly character-driven. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote deeply sympathetic and memorable characters, but the larger story always came first.

ExpandOn character building and the character arc )

Despite my criticisms, I don't regret reading Part 1 of Plot versus Character. It had genuinely witty and helpful advice, and I was given a lot of food for thought. While I think the author's treatment is incomplete or inconsistent at points, I recognize the value of being wrong because it's an opportunity to clarify things through disagreement and debate. At other points, the author simply did things differently than I did and that's not a matter of being right or wrong.
ljwrites: (workspace)
2014-04-18 01:01 am
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Review: Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird was the first book recommended in a thread I started about writing advice books over at the[community profile] write_away community. I've made it something of a project to read the recommendations in my free time. I started with Bird and finished it over a weekend traveling to another city and back.

ExpandHere's what I thought )

So, bumps and all, Bird by Bird is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in a perspective on the ups and downs of a writer's life, especially one that is funny and compassionate at the same time. I liked it a lot.
ljwrites: A man with his hand over his face. (sisko facepalm)
2014-04-09 10:06 pm

Argh.

I'm planning a short story for On the Premise's current contest, whose prompt is difficult decisions. I vacillated between several different subjects before settling on a story inspired by this recent story (warning: article deals with severe child abuse and carries pictures of a starved and mistreated child) where the teenaged stepbrother of an abused Texas boy evidently called the authorities and got into a fistfight with his stepfather--the child's biological father--over the kid's treatment. I can't think of many decisions that are harder than the one the teen made, though obviously I won't attempt a direct transplant of the RL events. I'm sure the actual in-depth story of the case when it comes out will be more riveting than anything I could come up with.

(This case reminded me of the abuse case of Lauren Kavanaugh, another Texas child who was imprisoned and severely abused by a bio parent-stepparent combo from hell. Obviously two cases more than a decade apart do not a trend make, but the brain will make patterns even where none might exist. And right now my brain is saying, WTH Texas?)

Of course, writing about child abuse means having to read a hell lot about child abuse (and then writing about child abuse), and several blog posts in I'm just about ready to ragequit. ARRRGH WHY DOES THE WORLD SUCK SO HARD GRBLTHTTT

If anyone's interested in the On the Premise contest, we should totally partner up to bully each other into getting something done. You're welcome to take this subject off my hands if you like, but something tells me that material unrelated to child abuse would be better for your well-being.
ljwrites: A typewriter with multicolored butterflies on it. (candle)
2014-04-02 05:17 pm

Weird

Ever get the feeling that you're really weird? Looking through other people's Facebook feeds leaves me feeling like the biggest freak in the world, like they have this whole world of grown-up real-life stuff while all I can think about is work and writing, specifically how to get the maximum amount of work done in the shortest amount of time so I can write, edit, and research.

While other people are posting about restaurants, careers, and wine, I'm obsessed about the implications of the bear as a water spirit in ancient Korea and how mythological symbolism might show up in the etymology of ancient place names. And Mongolian horse breeders left behind in Jeju Island in the 15th century after the great Mongol empire's influence had receded from Korea. Where and what I eat or do while thinking about these matters is just housekeeping.

I heard somewhere that people don't change but grow into more of themselves, and that seems to hold true for me. It's right back to middle school when I was reading Merriam-Webster's and writing down the etymologies of words that sounded pretty to me. This notebook has since grown to a 800-item text file. It now occurs to me--hindsight!--that this fascination might have been leveraged into the makings of a linguist, but who cared when I could become a lawyer? No one, certainly not me at the time.

I had the same confusion back then, my head buried in Lord of the Rings and Ivanhoe, that everyone around me was living in a world that I couldn't understand but should not only join but thrive in. I kept up that appearance as long as academic success was all that mattered, then started crashing badly once I went away to college and things like initiative and ambition became indispensable. I could bend myself out of shape for only so long, it turned out, before I started to break.

Self-acceptance is only marginally easier now than it was twenty years ago. At least I'm mature enough to admit what truly gives me joy. I still struggle with accepting that it's okay to take joy from what I do. And I wrestle with the fear, of course, the ever-present fear of failure, of commitment, of not being good enough.
ljwrites: A black silhouette of a conch shell. (conch)
2014-03-04 07:44 pm

Who is this Lunatique of whom you speak?

I've gone and renamed the journal, something I was thinking about for a while. I was originally gunning for lj-lee, but names with the lj- prefix are evidently reserved in the LJ system. This name was available through a deletion and purge, though, with a helpful link to rename my own journal. I'm not sure who the old ljlee was but I'm not them, I just hope the old one wasn't a serial killer or anything.

ExpandRamblings on name, race and gender )
ljwrites: A typewriter with multicolored butterflies on it. (Default)
2014-02-26 03:14 pm

Extended Fanfic Notes: Shadow of the Dragon King Part 3, Chapter 21

The final chapter in the Shadow saga. I had been going over and over the events of this chapter for over a year, and it took quite a bit of fiddling but came out mostly as envisioned. I had a feeling as though I had come home to find it an unfamiliar place, much as I felt with Chapter 18 (the Agni Kai chapter) except more intensely: This was what I had dreamed and worked toward for a long time, and the shape of the thing and most of the trappings were what I'd expected. Yet I found myself seeing with different eyes, ascribing meanings I had not thought of before, and for that reason it felt different. Maybe it was better, I don't know, it certainly felt deeper.

ExpandScene-by-scene account )
ljwrites: (workspace)
2014-01-27 03:21 pm

I'm DOIN' it, baby

I don't know what exactly moved me from inaction. Maybe it was a couple of recent experiences which convinced me that some published authors actually suck at this whole writing and thinking thing and I could do better if I put my mind to it.* Maybe it was the galvanizing examples of my friends, one of whom is working on her second novel and another of whom landed a photography intership. Even as I feel happy for them and root them on I can't stop a voice in a corner of my mind: "What are you doing, dumbbells?"

ExpandWhat I'm doing )
ljwrites: john boyega laughing (john_laugh)
2014-01-17 01:11 pm

Frozen: Good, could have been better

Frozen is, in my memory, the first movie I have been agitating to see for an entire month. This began when I saw the Let It Go clip on YouTube via Love, Joy, Feminism. Like Libby Anne I was deeply moved by the way Elsa felt free to break away and express everything about herself she had been forced to repress all her life. Watching it, I tasted again the lonely exhilaration of that moment when you forget about being good and dutiful and give yourself permission to be your own self, a necessary if not final step to healing.

This began my hankering to see the movie, which to my disappointment would not open in Korea for another month. I all but marked the day on my calendar and pestered the husband about it every few days, until the long-suffering man took me to see it yesterday on opening night.

ExpandHere be many spoilers )

For all its flaws and limitations Frozen has come further than just about any Disney movie since Lilo and Stitch, and shows that feminist storytelling is good storytelling, period. That's only natural, since stories are about human concerns and feminist themes are issues that affect people in their relation to gender and sex. Feminism, in other words, is about huge swathes of life. Leave those out and you can't tell the full truth of human experience. Frozen goes in the right direction. My only complaint is that it doesn't go far enough.
ljwrites: A man with his hand over his face. (sisko facepalm)
2014-01-12 04:58 pm

Why I unsubscribed from Holly Lisle's Site

So for the past couple of months I was subscribed to fantasy author Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways site. I hadn't bought anything prior to unsubbing, but got periodical e-mails and downloaded a free lesson. I found her content often common-sense and semi-helpful if not groundbreaking. A lot of the time they were things I knew already, but helped me focus my thoughts and get thinking about different parts of the craft.

Lisle's recent (January 10) e-mail about knowing oneself as a writer was much the same, helpful-ish if not consciousness-altering. In that e-mail she linked a quiz she did on Saving the World Through Typing.

And then this happened.

ExpandBecause one bald Starfleet captain facepalm is not enough )
ljwrites: A typewriter with multicolored butterflies on it. (Default)
2013-10-02 12:09 pm

Extended Fanfic Notes: Shadow of the Dragon King Part 3, Chapter 20 & Final Interlude

This post is about Chapter 20: Letters and Final Interlude: Making Up. I'll go scene by scene, using the labels I used in Scrivener.

ExpandLetters )

ExpandMaking Up )

Wrapping up the OCs' stories in "Letters" was the wind-up for the final chapter, when the action would rise a little again and finally tie up the long-running thread between Azula and Zuko--for a while, that is, until their paths crossed again in the show.
ljwrites: animated gif of person repeatedly banging head on keyboard. (headdesk)
2013-09-13 02:40 pm

Babylon 5: Irritating Me

I'm halfway through the fourth season of Babylon 5, which is to say nearly done, and I find it a mixed bag. A complete story with season-length, not to mention series-length, mystery and suspense is a rare enough treat in television writing that it should be cherished. And I do like how there was all this foreshadowing and how the later episodes built upon the earlier ones.

ExpandYou can see the BUT coming from miles away )

Babylon 5 has an interesting premise and some great moments, particularly with Mollari and G'Kar. However, it has some glaring blind spots and loses its way by buying into its own hero myth. I've read the Wikipedia synopsis for the rest of the show and might skip ahead for more episodes featuring my two favorite characters, but otherwise the show doesn't grab me as it could have.
ljwrites: A typewriter with multicolored butterflies on it. (Default)
2013-08-29 10:17 pm

Extended Fanfic Notes: Shadow of the Dragon King Part 3, Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Voices may be the most ambitious thing I've ever written in terms of sheer scope, not to mention the length. I mean, almost 20,000 words (19,629 to be exact) for what is ostensibly a single chapter? Here's to hoping I never do anything like that again.

ExpandLet's see if I can make the notes just as long-winded )