Progress

It's funny, the way my two interests seem to toggle on and off. I am capable either of having the creativity to write and be productive in a semi-marketable way, or of roleplaying for entertainment and exercise. It seems the two really cannot coexist. I've been charged with creative energy lately, moreso than ever, and have simultaneously not visited any of my RP sites in weeks.

I think I'm quitting, slowly. I'm staying on with the Untamed Spirits community indefinitely--I have friends and memories tied up there, and it's not that time-consuming. I think I might be quitting Gaia. I don't know...I'll see who's all right with me being somewhat inactive. When it comes right down to it, I begin to realize that I actually don't care all that much about being booted out of the community.

Anyway. As for this new creative jolt....

I'll blame some of it on the season and the weather. It's been perfect here, not exactly cold but definitely cool; the sky has been clouded over in a few layers of shaded greys; the air is moist and tangible, and while the rain toggles on and off it still lingers and follows you around. Occasionally it breaks out into full storm. It's funny to think about it, but practically every major thrust of creativity has occurred during the late winter/spring months, and generally during this sort of weather. I find myself wondering if I'm just that inspired by it, or if it's somehow tied to seasonal depression. I don't suppose it matters.

I opened Carnal Jesus back up a couple days ago. I'm feeling better about it. I had written three unconnected scenes since receiving my wiped harddrive back, and they'd been sitting there collecting dust. One is the opening, which is still feeling rather flat and not accomplishing everything I want it to. The other two, however, are fairly valuable, if only because they occur after the point I had finished on the first run-through and are thus fresher to me.

Randy arrives at Davin's workplace and brings him to The Underground's meeting where they discuss the rogue liberals and what to do about them in the first scene. Julian resists The Coalition in the second scene, culminating in his death. There is a logical flow and connection between the two scenes, and a clear pathway to a third scene, so I've been putting together bridges; continually typing on the first scene to draw it closer to the second, and adding more and more to the end of the second to creep up on the third. Altogether I'm almost back at my prime word count, and am pulling out 800-1,000 words a night of writing...which is impressive, considering I'd started cold. More ideas for the novel's internal logic and world keep occurring to me, and I love it. I really am starting to feel that the world is gaining some solidity in my head and taking logical form--which had been a great concern for me to begin with.

I've also started doing some research. What I like to call "soft research." This, as opposed to "hard research," where you're looking specifically for facts about a certain thing, is more a form of research by understanding and immersion. You read up on things and experience things to get a handle for the feel of a situation, to understand the logic of a group, to see the conventions of a genre, etc. It occurred to me one night of typing that I've fallen out of contact with the Christian community, and that my representations of them on the page were losing some of their credibility. I want very much for a sympathetic audience to buy their existence; I want them realistic enough that you can simultaneously loathe them and almost question whether they're right. So I went off to Google and started searching; Christian news, gifts, music, communities--I'm trying to find absolutely any and all fodder for the story which I can take and stretch to an extreme while keeping the basic feel. It's an amusing pasttime.

Outside of the Carnal Jesus world, I've been toying with a few short stories. I have one which is a few pages away from completion which is slowly losing its steam and I'm not sure why; I'll drag it out and force myself to finish it soon, so I'll at least have something to work with and edit. I wrote a flash fiction piece last night, off the cuff, and am still relatively proud of it so I might clean it up and find a short-short competition to send it to. I also have a few thousand new ideas, with which my notebook is becoming fat, and that's an absolutely wonderful feeling.

I've been ignoring the freelance half of my calling. I was doing some market research and coming up with various articles and spins...and then it all just sort of quit. I'll try to get back onto that soon, as it'll be the easiest way to begin making a day job out of writing. The whole concept is still incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around, but I'll look into it.

I also started work on my website. I'm taking a web-design class as part of my Journalism minor, and for the personal project I decided to make my personal/business site so that I could eventually buy a domain and air it publicly for work purposes. I'm still not wholly certain what all needs to be on my site, but I've found lots of webpages of authors in varying degrees of success and fame, and am going to begin modeling my site after that.

I'm thinking it will have a biographical information page, a page for writing samples, a page to chart all of my publications, a page for FAQ, and as I get them, pages for each of my novels, unless it somehow becomes necessary to give my novel its own site. I might link to this blog. I'm undecided.

At any rate, the surge of creativity is a good thing, and I take it as a definite positive sign. Now, to go be productive.