tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66672602820674726462024-03-13T02:36:45.652-07:00Muse Riding Shotgun<strike>The writing blog of Mason T. Matchak</strike>Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.comBlogger270125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-76751724342381952892018-02-27T18:41:00.000-08:002018-02-27T18:41:44.035-08:00Shutting Down.As of this post, the blog is on hiatus until further notice, because I can't do this anymore.<br />
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I'm tired of sitting down every week to talk about what's not working. I'm tired of talking about things I've learned that I should have figured out years ago, especially when I'm almost certain I've talked about learning that before. I'm tired of finding new ways to say that another would-have-been story didn't work out.<br />
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This thing has become a weekly reminder of everything that's gone wrong with my attempt at a writing career, and I don't need that.<br />
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It feels like there's no point in talking about how things are going for me anymore. Simply put, I'm in the worst place I've ever been. Everything I come up with dies - I can't figure out how my plots are supposed to go, my attempts at character creation are shallow and empty, and my world-building is barely there. I don't get excited at working with new ideas, and looking back at old ones seems pointless.<br />
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It feels like something broke in me. I don't know how to get back to how I used to be, or how to push through it to get to where I can make things work again.<br />
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Before anyone asks, no, I'm not giving up writing. I'm still trying, if "sitting in front of my computer unable to force myself to even open up my word processor" counts as trying. But I don't want to talk about it anymore.<br />
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Anyway. Thanks to those of you who've stuck with me through this thing. I'm truly grateful for your encouragement and support over the years. I don't know if I'll pick this up again, but if I do, I'll post it on <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak">Twitter</a> as per usual. I'll keep reading everyone's blogs when I can; I know y'all are working hard at this and I want to see you succeed.<br />
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Thank you and goodnight.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-84947422227290970442018-02-21T05:00:00.000-08:002018-02-21T05:00:33.945-08:00A Slight Hitch in the Process.This is not what I'd planned to be working on right now. I'd planned to work on Project K, to take it from a handful of pages in my idea file and put it into an actual plotting document, so I could work on turning it into a full story. But right now, I can't bring myself to do it.<br />
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Because it feels like my plotting documents are where my stories go to die.<br />
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I've talked about some of this before. Part of my process is scribbling down things in my idea file, and adding more and more to that as I come up with it. But I can't do all my work in that one file - the thing's up to nearly eighty pages again, I have to take stuff out of it once in a while. Unfortunately, I've noticed a pattern over the past few years.<br />
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Every single time I take my notes out of the idea file and give them a plotting file of their own, I'll keep working on that story for a little while, and then it falls apart. I've covered the multitude of reasons why this happens over the past few years, because that's what's happened every single time, and I don't need to go over them yet again. But it keeps happening.<br />
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I've talked about this with my therapist, as it's something that's troubled me ever since I realized it. It feels like there's something about giving a story its own file that creates some kind of commitment to it - it stops being just an idea, and becomes something I'm going to dedicate time and energy to making it become an actual book. And that's when the problems start. I lose interest, or I find something wrong with the original concept and try to rework it, or any number of other things that I just said I wasn't going to talk about again. The end result is the same.<br />
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This has already happened to Project H, which is the one that brought me out of my long writing funk in the first place. I've completely redone the second act and changed a huge chunk of the story's setting in doing so; the new stuff works better but I haven't felt like touching the story since I did that. And I've already done some major revisions on Project K to begin with - this past weekend, I made some changes to the setting that work really well but mean I have to rethink a lot of things about the story.<br />
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So when I sat down to put Project K into its own file, I couldn't make myself do it. Because I really like this story, and I don't want to see it die.<br />
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I know it's possible (maybe even likely) that I'm thinking on this too hard, as per usual. The fact that I have an idea file that's more than seventy pages long means that I have a lot of things I've written down and not done any more work on. And my main writing folder is filled with things that didn't work out, that's nothing new. But this consistent pattern of creating story files and then having them crash and burn... it scares the hell out of me.<br />
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I'm a plotter. I know this because I've tried writing without a plot and it's never gone well. I need to know where a story's going to (theoretically) write anything worth a damn. So when every single time I try to create the very document I need in order to write a book, it leads to that story going nowhere....<br />
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What the hell am I supposed to do?Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-234871217215231232018-02-14T05:00:00.000-08:002018-02-14T05:00:31.735-08:00The Person, not the ThingIt's time for yet another episode of "things I should have realized a long time ago." :P<br />
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A while back, I talked about how many of my ideas start from a single point: a person doing a thing. I'm not sure which entry that was in - I've talked a lot about how I try to get things to work because most of what I've done for the past two years is trying to get things to work. Trust me, it's out there. But like everything else that's part of the writing process, I've learned more about this concept as I've worked with it, and recently I've realized something important about it:<br />
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The person is what's important, not the thing they're doing.<br />
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I've got a project I've been working on that's going reasonably well. Let's call it Project H, for reasons that would take too long to explain. Project H started with one single image - a person of a fantasy race doing something people of that race don't usually do. Something about it struck me, and I knew I wanted to tell her story. When I started developing the idea, everything came from that image, and it all led toward the main character doing what she needed to do.<br />
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Everything I created was for a world where this character could do the forbidden thing that started her story. But if I'd decided to develop the world in general terms, without knowing who she was, what she was going to do, and why it was forbidden, I would have come up with something completely different. And odds are good it wouldn't have worked.<br />
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This feels like something elementary. And yet, if I'd realized this months ago, I probably could have saved myself a lot of heartache.<br />
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I like world-building, kind of a lot. Part of the fun of developing STARWIND was coming up with all the different places the crew would go and what those places were like, what had happened to make them what they were. But I also know that a lot of the trouble I've been having over the past two years stems from not being able to find the story - from having a whole lot of 'where' and 'what', and nowhere near enough 'who'. Hell, I have a fifty-something page document that's full of seven different attempts to rework a world that's based around what I thought was a great concept.<br />
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Only one or two of those attempts has an actual story anywhere in it. Because I couldn't create a world worth writing in without anyone to live there.<br />
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I have something else I'm working on - let's call it Project K, to prevent confusion - which is the first thing I've done since I realized this. (I didn't realize it all that long ago.) There's also all kinds of weird world stuff to do with this one, and to make things even stranger, it's a world that has nothing to do with the main character. But a lot of the design I've been doing has one goal in mind: what do these places need to be to serve the main character's story?<br />
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And I'm pleased to say one thing about Project K: so far, so good. If I have to keep learning stuff that feels like I should have learned long ago, at least I can do it right.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-65292268903319272212018-02-07T05:00:00.000-08:002018-02-07T05:00:40.075-08:00IWSG: No More Shiny New Idea<a href="http://http//alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhtVKNjio7u_-iZOm6CCWhkMrjz1VnHxoc_uN4ivV23DW8rWcpYWfWr99oOhHFCdwynTRE8E1ASmNmWxNZwPCIzB1jvigX2IcSN_8TwgZTO5PzjHSneSz7spj0oqu9R728y2rfcciAN51/s320/Insecure+Writers+Support+Group+Badge.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
I think it's safe to say that everyone reading this knows the concept of the "shiny new idea". It's something that happens to we writers when we're supposed to be working on something else and we get this idea out of nowhere that's <i><b><u>just so cool</u></b></i>.<br />
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I know this as well as anyone. My idea file is seventy-something pages' worth of ideas that once were new with varying levels of shininess. Most if not all of the blogs I read have had entries about this. It's one of the things that all writers, regardless of genre or book length or whatever else, seem to share.<br />
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And yet, it's something we complain about.<br />
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The visual we share of having a shiny new idea tends to be something like the dog from "Up" - it's like we're diligently working on whatever we're supposed to be doing, and then suddenly <a href="https://youtu.be/xrAIGLkSMls?t=17s">SQUIRREL!</a> as the new idea appears. I thought about this for a while, about why it's such a common perception for having a new idea, and I realized what the problem is.<br />
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It's not the new idea that's the problem. It's calling it "shiny", like it's some pointless distraction that only serves to take our attention away from what we need to do. We act like we've got some sort of pseudo-ADD thing going on, that we can't help but be distracted by something we want to write <i>right now</i>. But that's not what it is.<br />
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Everything we do comes from new ideas. So why do we mock ourselves for having them?<br />
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As you might have noticed if you've been reading this blog for a while, I have a serious tendency to be self-deprecating. My therapist calls me out for doing this, and my usual response is "But I'm really good at it!" But as she's told me many times, the way we talk about ourselves and what we do affects us a lot. What we call things affects how we see them and how we feel about them.<br />
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And by mocking our own new ideas as "shiny", we're giving ourselves a negative association with something we writers need.<br />
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So here's my bit of advice: don't call it the shiny new idea. Call it the lovely new idea. Same number of syllables, even scans the same if you want to write a poem about it, but using nothing but positive words for something that really should be a good thing.<br />
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Enjoy your lovely new idea. Write it down. And when you have the time, show it the love it needs to grow into what you want it to be.<br />
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Next week: it's the Person, not the Thing.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-38888578476042108142018-01-31T05:00:00.000-08:002018-01-31T05:00:32.935-08:00To Speak or Not to SpeakAbout a month ago, I <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/12/magnificent.html">started off an entry</a> saying I was going to ignore all that advice about not talking about what I was working on and tell everyone about a plot-in-progress. I now regret this, and I think it's time I changed how I approach this part of the process.<br />
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To put it very kindly, I've been having trouble with my plots. To put it bluntly, I have not been able to take a single thing from concept to complete plot in a long, long time. I haven't finished a plot and gotten it ready to write since STARWIND, and that plot was two years in the making. And I wrote that book in 2016.<br />
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It's been nearly two years since I was able to make anything work.<br />
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The creative process is a long one, I know this. And a lot changes along the way. I've had plenty of ideas grow and twist as I worked on them, to the point that their origins were lost somewhere in their depths or excised completely as I discovered something new within the tale that worked better. It would be kind of depressing to go through this blog and look at all the plots I've talked about and see what did or didn't happen with them.<br />
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But it wasn't until I realized that I was losing the Snow White story that I started to wonder if I should talk about my works-in-progress here. Oddly enough, it's because people actually said they wanted to read the thing that led to this. Shortly after I talked about the plot, I lost all enthusiasm for it; I've since realized why, but that's another entry. And I felt like I was letting people down.<br />
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On one hand, I have a story that people want to read just from the basic concept. But on the other hand, I don't want to write that story, not the way I've plotted it. I <i>could</i> write it, but with what I have now, it would be crap. And I will not deliberately write crap.<br />
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Considering how much changes over the course of plotting, I've come to realize that I shouldn't talk about what I'm working on when it's still in the early stages. (Except for the occasional tweet, but I keep those deliberately oblique.) I think I need to wait until things have developed a great deal more, until I'm at the point where it actually could be a viable plot, when things might not be set in stone but are at least....<br />
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I don't have a good way to complete that metaphor, but I'd like to wait to talk about things until I've got the story to the point where I know what it's going to be. I don't think this will change much about the blog - probably more whining about things not working instead of talking about things that might work, but that's about it. So if things keep going the way they have, it's not like there will be much of a change.<br />
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Anyway. That's all I've got for this week. Thanks as usual for listening to me ramble. I've actually had some reasonable success with recent ideas, which feels good. Wish me luck on making any of them work.<br />
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Next week: IWSG - No More Shiny New Idea.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-62077532634475187422018-01-24T05:00:00.000-08:002018-01-24T05:00:08.909-08:00A Week Off/An Off WeekThe past week and a half has been pretty hellish, and I don't have anything to say this week that isn't more whining. >_< But I didn't want anyone to worry about me if I didn't post, so this is me saying I'm okay, just... weary. Weary and not much feeling like blogging this week. Hell, I couldn't even get around to everyone else's blogs last week, and I apologize for that.<br />
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But I'm going to try to pull myself out of this and have something worth saying for my next entry. And hopefully get some good work done between now and then. Thank you all for the encouragement on last week's entry, and I'll see you next week.<br />
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Until then, here's an H.P. Lovecraft poem that someone discovered scans perfectly with Billy Joel's "Piano Man", so of course, they put them together:<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CKKTqB_Lzv0" width="560"></iframe>Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-13643101071128540852018-01-17T05:00:00.000-08:002018-01-17T05:00:46.158-08:00Kicked off the First Step.I have had the weirdest past few weeks when it comes to querying, but that's over now.<br />
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Back in September, I finally heard back from an agent who'd asked me to query her thanks to the July IWSG pitch contest. To my utter and complete shock, <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/908451172985344000">it was good news</a> - the agent wanted my full manuscript. It took me a while to actually believe that this was happening to me, but I took care of everything and sent her what she wanted.<br />
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Then, I accepted that I'd have to wait for a while, and when the answer came in December, it wasn't what I thought it would be.<br />
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Querying has a whole lot of "it's not you, it's me" in it as agents tell us (or at least, tell me) over and over again that the writing business is very subjective and just because our work isn't right for them, we should keep trying because it could be right for someone else. I see this all the time, and now find it odd when a rejection letter <i>doesn't</i> include some variant of that. But when I heard back from this agent, I didn't actually hear back from this agent.<br />
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On December 27th, I got an e-mail from another agent at the same agency, saying the original agent wasn't able to get to my submission due to their workload. But, this second agent said, they'd read my query and would like to see my manuscript.<br />
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If you're getting emotional whiplash from any of this, imagine how I felt. :P It's one thing to hear "it's not you, it's me", quite another to hear "it's neither you nor me, it's my workload."<br />
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After a significant amount of sputtering at how damn weird my life can get, I sent my book off to that agent as well, and settled in to play the waiting game again. I've heard that it can take 3-4 months to hear back from a full request, and I didn't get a response from the first one for three months, so I didn't think I'd get word from her anytime soon.<br />
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I heard back from her on Monday. She said no.<br />
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When this all started, and I was breathlessly telling people about it, I described the publishing process as like trying to climb a pyramid, and the higher you got, the lower the odds were of you getting any farther. After fifteen books and hundreds of rejections, <u>this was my first full request ever.</u> Technically my second one too. It felt like I had finally climbed onto that first step.<br />
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And now, I've been kicked off, and find myself exactly where I was before.<br />
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I'd love to say this makes no difference, because it's just another rejection, right? But it doesn't feel like that. It feels like one of those "why did I bother hoping" things. I know I should send more queries, but . . . I don't even want to. Having finally reached that first step, every time I don't get there is just going to feel worse.<br />
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I swear, if I had any other story that was actually working and might become a book someday, I would have trunked STARWIND by now. But I've got nothing else.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-42781862585751068442018-01-09T20:17:00.001-08:002018-01-09T20:17:02.532-08:00Stumbling.This feels like the kind of entry I should have made last year. No, wait. This is the kind of entry I would have made last year if I'd been able to actually work on anything.<br />
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Anyway.<br />
<br />
Plotting-wise, I'm having a few difficulties. I have two different plots that I'm actively working on, at least in theory. One is the Snow White one I talked about <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/12/magnificent.html">a few entries ago</a> and haven't touched since. The other is a plot I've told I think one person about and am keeping largely quiet until I'm sure it'll work. And then there's last week's <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/949126765321977858">shiny new idea</a>, which I haven't done anything with since I first wrote it down.<br />
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To put it simply, I'm having a hard time drumming up the energy to work on much of anything, even though I want to. All of these stories have a great deal that I need to do on them, and it's getting to the point where I'm mentally exhausted just thinking about all I need to develop.<br />
<br />
...I swear, this didn't sound so whiny when it was just in my head.<br />
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I know that writing is work. It wears me out sometimes, even on an physical level - when I'm working on a book, I usually finish the night's writing session exhausted. Hammering out 2000+ words over the course of one CD will do that. But this is the first time that even getting things to the point where I can make them into books is just as tiring.<br />
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There's a part of me that wants to blame it all on work - y'know, the job that pays me so I can afford to sit here and whine about my writing problems. :P We've been dealing with a massive amount of stuff to do since July, mandatory overtime included. There's a constant level of stress as we continuously get more work in than we can do. So a lot of the time, all I want to do when I get home is sit down and relax, not try to hash out a plot and a world and all of that.<br />
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On the plus side, when I have felt like working on writing stuff, I've been doing more. Over the long weekends for the holidays, I tried doing a midday writing shift. Most weekend days, I have this period around 11AM where I find myself wondering what I should do next, so I figured I might as well try to get some plotting done instead of saving it all for the evening.<br />
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It worked really well. I got a lot done over those long weekends, and while I didn't pull two writing shifts every day, I did it enough that it's something I can try for every weekend.<br />
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Of course, me being me, now I get on my own case when I <i>don't</i> do two writing shifts on weekend days, and doing more leaves me, you guessed it, even more tired.<br />
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I'm sure I'll eventually figure out the best way to handle all this. It's just that, after last year's doldrums, I'd been hoping to dive right into this year with a fresh start and go forth and kick ass at everything. But as if being worn out wasn't enough, it's hard to get past the fear of things not working out, and I have to fight that off every single time I sit down to work.<br />
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All I can do is keep trying. And try to get more sleep.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-87000583064928890172018-01-03T05:00:00.000-08:002018-01-03T05:00:06.878-08:00IWSG: Start Over<a href="http://http//alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhtVKNjio7u_-iZOm6CCWhkMrjz1VnHxoc_uN4ivV23DW8rWcpYWfWr99oOhHFCdwynTRE8E1ASmNmWxNZwPCIzB1jvigX2IcSN_8TwgZTO5PzjHSneSz7spj0oqu9R728y2rfcciAN51/s320/Insecure+Writers+Support+Group+Badge.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
Every single year, on January first, I pay way too much attention to what I'm doing for the first time that year. I recognize my first meal of the year, my first reading of the year, so on and so forth, and try not to attach any symbolic importance to all of it. (I usually fail at that.) I think the new year triggers some weird part of what I call "writer brain", and prompts me to think that everything's significant just because the calendar rolled over.<br />
<br />
But this got me thinking: if I'm going to be a little bit neurotic about the new year, there has to be some way for me to use it to my advantage, to get something good out of it. I looked back at how my attempts at writing went in 2017, and at all the time I spent trying to make things work when they just plain wouldn't.<br />
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And I realized that the new year is the best time to start over.<br />
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I think a lot of the problems I had with making stories work was that I kept trying to build on what I'd already done, or take a few elements that I thought worked and put them into something else, stuff like that. Most of the ideas I worked on were things I'd been messing with for quite a while. To be fair, that doesn't mean none of those older ideas could work - as I said <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/12/magnificent.html">a few entries ago</a>, one of my current projects is something I first started working on in 2014. But I think that one's an exception.<br />
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It's possible, maybe even likely, that I would have had a much easier time last year if I'd been willing to just start things over - to let go of what I'd done before and come at it completely fresh. You can build up a tremendous amount of baggage around a story idea that won't work. I know this very well; there's a story file somewhere on my computer that's more than fifty pages long and doesn't have a single complete plot or reasonably-developed character anywhere in it, because I kept trying to find a new angle on the same idea instead of just dropping it and starting over.<br />
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Hell, my idea file has three or four variants on an idea from 2016 that I never could get to work. Some of those notes include sarcastic comments about how I'm still trying. And saying mean things to myself in my idea file kind of says it all about last year.<br />
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Anyway. I'm sure that everyone who reads this has different processes for going from idea to finished story. But I know I'm not the only one to try to build a new story on the broken bones of another. So this is me giving advice in IWSG for the first time in I don't know how long:<br />
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Stop that. Start over. Start anew. Build your story without looking back. Because I think you've got a better shot at finding what the story's supposed to be if you're not trying to keep pieces from what it's not. One of my two plots-in-progress is something completely new for me, and it's the one that's <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/947899174464274432">going really well</a>.<br />
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So I hope that, in the new year, starting anew will work well for you too.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-76933535471595622022017-12-27T07:00:00.000-08:002017-12-27T07:00:21.267-08:00Year in Review: What the Fuck was That?I know I'm not the only one out there who had a rough 2017. But this is my blog. :P And most of what I have to say about this year is summed up right there in the title.<br />
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I have never had such a hard time with goddamn everything as I've had this year. I've never <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/03/iwsg-i-want-to-quit.html">wanted to quit</a> more than this year - and that entry was back in March. Things went bad for another eight months after that. There were times when I came close to writing an "I Still Want to Quit" post, not only because it was how I felt but because things were going so bad that I had nothing else to say.<br />
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There are a lot of reasons I could point to for this. The current political/world climate is one, to be sure; I don't want to get into that here but I will say that the way the world's going right now is <a href="https://twitter.com/SarahCAndersen/status/890217847682715648">not exactly conducive</a> to me being a happy and productive artist.<br />
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Another reason is the multi-layered hell that is the querying process. I started querying STARWIND this year, though barely - I only sent out thirty-two queries because it all started to feel pointless. Getting rejected for this book hit me harder than any other. A lot of that is because it feels like no one's looking for the sort of story it is. As I said in my "I Want to Quit" post, the book's weird and finding an agent who wants it will be a struggle, and if I was writing anything but what I want to write, odds are good I'd be getting better results.<br />
<br />
Then again, if I was writing something I didn't want to write, it probably wouldn't be worth reading, so then I'd have written shit and be getting rejected for it. So I'm better off getting rejected for writing what I want, as depressing as that is.<br />
<br />
To add to all of it, I've spent most of this year trying everything I could to get a plot that works. For most of the year, nothing did. Back in February, I plotted out the sequel to STARWIND, which is largely wishful thinking and won't do me any good unless the first book sells. So that felt even more futile than my usual attempts. I then spent the rest of the year making my usual attempts and watching every single thing fall apart.<br />
<br />
This is the heart of why I felt like quitting. There's something staggering about watching a dream fall apart and feeling like every new attempt makes it worse.<br />
<br />
Among everything else, I was ready to quit blogging here too. I'd mentally prepared my last entry - it was going to be this one, and this paragraph was going to say that I couldn't keep struggling to find something to talk about and I felt like people didn't want to read my constant litany of failures. I would end it by saying I'd be back if things got better, but not to wait up.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, things turned around for me <a href="https://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/12/iwsg-something-from-nothing.html">earlier this month</a>, and I don't have to make that entry.<br />
<br />
It's scary to think of how bad things got, knowing they can fall that far again. But it's been a good December. I've been switching between the two plots I'm working on, spending about a week on each before going back. I put one of them into its own planning document last night and did some good character work, fleshing out both the <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/945500563495469056">main character</a> and figuring out the <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/945505885631037440">antagonist's</a> plans. So many times, stories start to die when they get their own plotting docs, so I'm glad this one's still alive and <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/944406762077151232">kicking</a>.<br />
<br />
And so it goes, hopefully up from here. I'll start querying STARWIND again next year; I still believe in it and I don't want to give it up yet. With time and work, I should be able to get at least one of the plots ready to become a book; I'd love to have both.<br />
<br />
Here's hoping next year is a great deal better, for me and for all of you.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-61484830205650980732017-12-19T20:37:00.000-08:002017-12-19T20:38:46.647-08:00MagnificentThis is the part where I ignore all those other writers who say not to talk about what you're working on. :P I figured that, after ending <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/12/dwarves.html">last week's entry</a> with the premise for what I'm hoping will be my next book, I might as well talk about it, especially since I spent so much time this year wondering if I was ever going to have a next book.<br />
<br />
Anyway.<br />
<br />
The basic premise for this book actually comes from an old "Pinky and the Brain" bit, wherein Pinky responds to "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" with "<a href="http://youtu.be/v-xrnIXQ3iQ?t=5m16s">I think so, Brain, but who wants to see Snow White and the Seven Samurai?</a>" I heard this many years ago, and as much as it stuck with me, it took me a long time to develop it into something I wanted to write - I first started talking about doing this <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2014/08/cracking-magic-mirror.html">more than three years ago</a>. I totally thought I had it figured out back then. (Spoiler alert: I did not have it figured out back then.)<br />
<br />
To make one thing clear: this will not actually feature any samurai. What I'm doing is taking the fairy tale trappings of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and applying the plot structure known as <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMagnificentSevenSamurai">The Magnificent Seven Samurai</a>. I do, of course, have to bend things to make the two fit together - it's less "assemble the crew to save the village" and more "learn who you truly are and return with those who trained you to save your home kingdom from a dragon."<br />
<br />
Yes, <i>of course</i> there's a dragon. What kind of writer do you think I am?<br />
<br />
There's also the magic mirror, because you don't do a Snow White story without one, and an evil stepmother, which I almost wish didn't work because I did good character stuff with Snow's mother and having to kill her off makes me sad. Snow herself is determined to step up and do what must be done and would never just wait around for her prince; much of the story is her journey and how she deals with the blood curse put on her before she was even born. I've never liked the idea of the passive princess, and she's got some real surprises ahead of her.<br />
<br />
The poison apple won't be a thing, though. The stepmother in this story does not fuck around with little tricks like that. Not when she's enacting a decades-long revenge plot.<br />
<br />
It's been interesting to work with magic in this plot, as it's different from what I've done before. I tend to like well-defined magic systems, but fairy tales keep magic mysterious and hard to nail down, so I'm aiming for that. The people Snow works with are those who try to figure magic out and make it work for them, many of whom were affected by magic themselves. I can't help comparing them to a fairy tale version of the X-Men, and I'm okay with that.<br />
<br />
So, yeah, that's where I'm going with this thing. I'm still <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/940433638360883201">combining the two versions</a> of the plot I've worked on over the past few years, but it's going well so far. There's a lot of work ahead of me, but really, what else is new? I'm just glad to have a plot that's working out and characters I want to write. (Including the one who turns into a bear.) I'm hoping to continue making progress on this and start writing it next year.<br />
<br />
Next entry: 2017 year in review.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-76157982598308043212017-12-12T19:52:00.001-08:002017-12-12T19:52:49.250-08:00Dwarves.I tend to go through several different versions of an idea as I try to make it work. This past year being what it's been, I've been doing this more than usual; when nothing works, it's easy to try throwing everything away and starting anew. One story I've been trying to do has its origins in the classic Snow White fairy tale, so when I first tried to figure it out and it didn't work, I thought there was one major thing I'd done wrong:<br />
<br />
I hadn't included any dwarves.<br />
<br />
Looking back, I'm not sure how I ever thought I could tell a Snow White story without dwarves. I mean, they're right there in the name. So when I started to plot a new version of my story, the dwarves were front and center from the beginning. There would, of course, be seven of them, because that's just how it's supposed to be. However, the farther along in development I got, the less I liked what I was working with. It took me months, but I eventually realized that I'd fallen into a trope's trap.<br />
<br />
That trope? <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame">Our Dwarves Are All the Same</a>.<br />
<br />
Much as I hate to say it, this one's really true. I'd bet that, when you read this entry's title, you got a mental image of a dwarf that would be about 90% similar to anyone else's mental image. And I found that, when I tried to develop seven distinct dwarven characters for the story, I had some real trouble getting them to be different from each other.<br />
<br />
This is not an issue I've ever had. I've written a bunch of humans, some elves, some dragons, several cat-people, quite a few demons, so on and so forth. STARWIND alone contains wargolems, a gnome, a lamia, and a handful of different species I didn't even give names. Yet somehow it's easier for me to write a small furry creature as the ship's pilot than it is for me to imagine a dwarf who steps outside of the usual dwarven traits.<br />
<br />
The weird thing is, this took me out of the story entirely, and I stopped wanting to write it. The idea of having so many characters who just blended together in my mind had me wondering if it was worth working on or not. I genuinely don't get it. What is it about dwarves that makes so many people want to only write them one way? There are always stereotypes about fantasy races, but for every magical, forest-dwelling, utterly stuck-up elf out there, there are dozens of variations on the race. So what was wrong with me that I couldn't get this right?<br />
<br />
Eventually, I accepted that it wasn't going to work out - I couldn't find an answer that led to me writing the characters as the individuals they should be, not just plain dwarves. I delved back into my notes for the initial version of the story, and looked up the characters who'd originally played the roles of seven specific people. Then, I put the two plots into a blender and started mixing.<br />
<br />
The result has been overwhelmingly positive so far. Part classic fairy tale (I even worked in the evil stepmother), part classic movie plot. I'm starting to think this one's going to work out, and hoping I can get the plot done this year and write it next year.<br />
<br />
Because if I'm finally going to do "Snow White and the Seven Samurai", I'm going to get it right.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-17216331232701105522017-12-06T05:00:00.000-08:002017-12-06T05:00:33.681-08:00IWSG: Something from Nothing<a href="http://http//alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhtVKNjio7u_-iZOm6CCWhkMrjz1VnHxoc_uN4ivV23DW8rWcpYWfWr99oOhHFCdwynTRE8E1ASmNmWxNZwPCIzB1jvigX2IcSN_8TwgZTO5PzjHSneSz7spj0oqu9R728y2rfcciAN51/s320/Insecure+Writers+Support+Group+Badge.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
This isn't the entry I was going to write.<br />
<br />
I had it planned, I really did. I was going to leave the entire thing blank, except for the IWSG logo, for the length of my usual entry, with a sentence at the end saying the above text consisted of all the writing work I'd gotten done in November. I might have left it up for all of December, if things continued to go so badly. Some part of me called it melodramatic, but I thought it would be a good way to show what it felt like to look back at an entire month and see that I'd done nothing.<br />
<br />
It was also kind of a riff on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0nI8ZsG10A">John Cage's 4'33"</a>, but that's neither here nor there.<br />
<br />
Things didn't seem to be shaping up last week either; I thought I had an idea that would work out, but once I wrote it down, I realized that I <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/935723155494199297">didn't want to write it</a> at all. That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, I accepted that I didn't feel like trying to get anything done, and pulled up an old e-mail from a friend. The e-mail is something she copy-pasted and sent to me, titled "falling in love with your story", but that's not really what it's about. It's a writer talking about finding out what's wrong with your story and figuring out how to fix it.<br />
<br />
Something about that must have sunk in, because on Thursday, I started thinking about a project I hadn't worked on since August. I remembered what the e-mail said, and came to realize what was wrong with the main character that was keeping me from wanting to write her. I scribbled down notes at work for the first time in I don't know how long. And later that day, when I was out on my second break, I started having ideas.<br />
<br />
No, let me rephrase that: I started having <b><i><u>IDEAS</u></i></b>.<br />
<br />
Do you know that moment, when you put something together in your head for the first time, and it sparks a character and setting, a place and a reason for them to be, and you know you've got something worth pursuing? I got that. For the first time in I don't even know how long, I got that.<br />
<br />
So, I went home and got to work. And to my great surprise and relief, everything I worked on <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/936445203979780096">actually worked</a>. I leaned back from my keyboard, thrilled but exhausted, and felt like I'd just woken up after spending most of this year in one long nightmare.<br />
<br />
It's been a busy few days since then. The new idea is still going strong; I've been developing it a little bit at a time and seeing how things play out, letting the actual plot work its way into my head as I develop the world. As for the project I'm getting back to, it still needs work, as I have the entire thing plotted but something about it still doesn't seem right. But I have ways to try to fix that. And even if I can't, then at least I have something that is working.<br />
<br />
We'll see where it goes from here. I know it'll only take another story crashing and burning for me to feel like it was all for nothing. But I have a place to start from and one to build on. And it feels good to have hope for my own work again.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-15281960641216636482017-11-28T19:30:00.000-08:002017-11-28T19:30:26.037-08:00A Combined Problem, Part 2: Love, SuddenlySo this is building on what I talked about in <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-combined-problem.html">last week's entry</a>, which was based on the two entries before it. Next week's entry will be about the entirety of five and a half years of blogging here.<br />
<br />
No, probably not.<br />
<br />
Today I'm talking about what seems like the next level up from arranged marriages: plot devices that give two (or more) characters some sort of unbreakable bond, including but not limited to them falling in love with each other. This can be instant or build over time, it can be subtle or ridiculously blatant, so on and so forth - there are dozens of variations I can think of right now and I'm sure the rest of you could come up with hundreds more. This sort of thing has been around since the early days of storytelling and anyone who's heard more than a few fairy tales is surely familiar with it.<br />
<br />
And, like arranged marriages, it's a trope I like but have no idea if I actually want to work with it. Some of my reasoning is the same, largely the part about not forcing characters together. Yet this concept can lead to so much conflict, meaning it can fuel a great many stories.<br />
<br />
It also can make things ridiculously uncomfortable, especially if the bond involves attraction and/or love. I can see it being played for laughs, but being attracted to someone not because you want to be, but because you're somehow compelled to be? Up to and including being in love with that person? Something about that just rubs me wrong.<br />
<br />
It should come as no surprise, then, that my last attempt at this didn't go well. Last year, in an attempt to make one of the too-damn-many things I was working on actually work, I <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2016/10/iwsg-this-months-work.html">decided</a> to spend a month on one story idea. The basic idea was that people in that world who bonded with familiars (magical animals) gained additional abilities, so it was a desirable thing. The plot started with three characters accidentally bonding with each other as familiars. There are a lot of reasons why it <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2016/10/well-that-didnt-work.html">didn't work out</a>, and one of them was that I started feeling more than a little iffy about the relationship between the three main characters.<br />
<br />
I thought that bringing the three of them together would lead to interesting conflict and character development, ultimately ending with something fulfilling for them that made their lives better. Instead, it felt like a glorified plot device that only made them all mad and uncomfortable.<br />
<br />
So, yeah. I'm still not sold on this one, and I doubt I'll use it again, at least not as a driving thing. But <a href="http://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/">Tonja</a> brought up a good point on last week's entry: if something's important to the story, then it needs to be in the story. It's one of those things that seems so simple, but it's easy to forget. While there are things I won't write, just being iffy about an idea shouldn't be why I decide not to put it into a story, especially if the story absolutely needs to have that thing.<br />
<br />
This has been a bit more of a ramble than I expected, and I'm not sure if I actually made the point I was hoping for, so I'll cut this off here. See y'all next week for IWSG.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-74668733372059817852017-11-21T19:20:00.001-08:002017-11-21T19:20:23.189-08:00A Combined ProblemThis one stems from my <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/11/now-kiss.html">last</a> <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-arent-you-writing.html">two</a> entries. It's about something I think I'd like to write but don't know if I really want to, and it's theoretically about romance - okay, it'll be about romance if I write it, but it doesn't have to be.<br />
<br />
I'm talking about <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArrangedMarriage">arranged marriages</a>. (In fiction. In real life it's something I have trouble with, but that's neither here nor there.)<br />
<br />
This is a trope I've worked with before, in two different books. I wanted to make it part of the main characters' pasts in a way that would get them to realize they wanted it to happen, despite the issues it had caused way back when. It was . . . kind of awkward in both stories, and looking back, it seems out of place. When I started to consider an idea I dug out of my file that also has this element, I gave it some heavy thought and wondered:<br />
<br />
Is this really something I want to do?<br />
<br />
I don't like the idea of forcing characters together. Despite joking about the idea in my last entry, I think that sort of thing is both bad for the story and has far too many unfortunate implications. But at the same time, an arranged marriage is a remarkable plot device for all kinds of shenanigans, romantic and otherwise. There's a lot you can do with it. As I write this, I'm considering using it to fuel an escape plot. So, like most story tropes, it's not something we writers should dismiss out of hand.<br />
<br />
One of the main issues I'm having with the arranged marriage thing is that it can come off as contrived. I realized this when I was trying to see how the story idea could form a plot - everything I came up with, there were ways to make it happen without the arranged marriage, and those ways often made more sense and were less likely to make the people involved seem like enormous jerks. To make it work, I think it would need to be a cultural or legal thing, something with precedence, rather than just a clause someone puts into a contract to fuel later romantic tension.<br />
<br />
Of course, someone could throw it into the contract just because they're manipulative and/or evil. I did think of that. I don't know if I'd go with it, unless the main antagonist was in for some serious mustache-twirling.<br />
<br />
I think the main thing to ensure with this trope is that the characters involved in the potential marriage are the ones who determine how things play out. Whether they find a way to break the arrangement, decide that they'll go through with it for one good reason or another, or find a third option, the result should come from them. A favorite line of mine from <a href="http://www.writingexcuses.com/">Writing Excuses</a> is "your protagonist must protag", and that's especially true with this trope. If there's an arranged marriage involved, no one who's part of it should go passively along with it.<br />
<br />
Unless it's part of their own greater and more devious plot. I'm okay with that.<br />
<br />
Next week: A Combined Problem, Part 2.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-21121509423440177262017-11-14T20:07:00.000-08:002017-11-14T20:07:07.198-08:00NOW KISSWhen I first get an idea, it's most often a Character doing a Thing. Said Character will also usually be in a Situation where they can Do That Thing, and said Situation usually involves a Place for the story to happen. Once I have those crucial elements set in my head, I can start building on them (and often end up with something completely different), but there's something that always comes up in these early stages:<br />
<br />
Who is the Character going to Kiss?<br />
<br />
Gratuitous Capitalization aside, this is something that comes up in nearly everything I try to write. It's rare for me to come up with a cast of characters without wondering who should end up together, if they'll have chemistry, and what will or won't develop between them. I'd love to say that I let this happen organically as the characters develop, but I can't even type that with a straight face. Most often I'm <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shipping">shipping</a> my own half-formed characters together before I even know how the story ends.<br />
<br />
...that's not entirely true. Most often, I know that the story ends with them together in some way, because <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/02/endings-and-expectations.html">I can't stand tragic romances</a>. Anyway.<br />
<br />
For me, a lot of this probably comes from writing the same couple over and over again. When it's inevitable that two characters will get together, it gets easy to make that part of the planning process for every story. In one of my plots-in-progress, I realized that there was no romance, and immediately started wondering if the main character should get together with someone. When I determined there was no one suitable, I thought about changing one of the other significant characters to make them a better romantic foil.<br />
<br />
I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. The characters should define the romance, not the other way around. Otherwise it ends up feeling forced or problematic. And I'd really like to avoid that kind of thing.<br />
<br />
Realizing that this is how I approach romance has me reconsidering a lot of things. I had some romantic threads to pull in another plot-in-progress, but as I (struggle to) develop that one, the more I work on it the more I wonder if that's how it's actually going to turn out. What seemed natural for the characters now seems contrived, and I can't tell if it'll turn out the way I imagined. I'm a little disappointed, as losing this romance means I wouldn't get to write a sex scene that's both very touching and rather unconventional, but I've sent enough of this story to the cutting room floor, what's one more bit.<br />
<br />
(No, I'm not going into detail on the sex scene. It comes purely from the characters, and without knowing them and what they've had to deal with, it would just seem strange.)<br />
<br />
Anyway. I am absolutely certain that I'm not the only one here who's dealt with this sort of thing. So how do you deal with it? Do you ship your characters before you've even written them? And have your characters ever refused to get together?<br />
<br />
Next week: problematic plot elements.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-59866152628442239962017-11-07T20:34:00.000-08:002017-11-07T20:34:32.155-08:00What Aren't You Writing?No, this isn't just a cheap excuse for me to say "EVERYTHING" and have another really short blog entry. :P This is something I've been thinking about for a while.<br />
<br />
I do a lot of plotting, when things are going well. (When they're not, well... look back over about 70% of this year's entries.) There are common threads that show up in a lot of my plots, mostly in the form of a few favorite tropes - things and themes I like to return to, whether I've really worked with them or not. Sometimes they work with what I have planned for the story, while other times, I have to either strip them out or not add them in the first place.<br />
<br />
After seeing this pattern, I asked myself: these themes are clearly what I want to write, yet I keep putting them in as part of the background. Why am I not writing a story that focuses on them?<br />
<br />
Since I'll need an example for this, a big one for me is the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CosmicHorrorStory">Cosmic Horror Story</a>. There's something about the overwhelming darkness of the universe and the horrors that dwell within it that appeals to me, and I've never been sure why. Themes from that show up in a lot of my plots, but I haven't put any real work into a story that makes them the focus. The closest I've come was <i>way</i> back in my second book, which dealt with a dark, corruptive god as the big bad behind the actual antagonists.<br />
<br />
I've never gone back to that story because I pantsed that book and ye gods, it was a mess. But something about that darkness has stuck with me ever since.<br />
<br />
I know that "write what you want to write" is one of the big pieces of advice we writers get; I think we've all been hearing it for years. But when I started thinking about this, it struck me as interesting to have something that I clearly want to write but never have. There are, of course, bits and pieces in my idea file that could count as this type of story. One is a seriously warped take on an old fairy tale that is entirely <a href="http://lonitownsend.com/">Loni</a>'s fault. :P And yet, I never do much work on these ideas, even the ones that intrigue me the most.<br />
<br />
After spending some time thinking on it, I think I figured it out: I like happy endings. And stories like this are largely meant to end in pain, despair, insanity, and/or death. Most cosmic horror stories I've read are like that, and while it works for the genre, it's hard for me to think of stories that don't end without at least a little happiness. So I suppose it's easier for me to work with some of the themes and ideas from the trope, rather than going full doom and gloom.<br />
<br />
Though I might have to try that someday, just to see if I can do it.<br />
<br />
So, what about the rest of you? Are there themes that pop up in a significant amount of what you write? Is there a genre or something like that in which you'd like to write but don't? And do you know why there are things that you aren't writing?<br />
<br />
Next week: NOW KISSMason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-85723812063278209562017-11-01T05:00:00.000-07:002017-11-01T05:00:05.204-07:00IWSG: One Good Thing<a href="http://http//alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhtVKNjio7u_-iZOm6CCWhkMrjz1VnHxoc_uN4ivV23DW8rWcpYWfWr99oOhHFCdwynTRE8E1ASmNmWxNZwPCIzB1jvigX2IcSN_8TwgZTO5PzjHSneSz7spj0oqu9R728y2rfcciAN51/s320/Insecure+Writers+Support+Group+Badge.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
I had one good thing happen this week:
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
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Wrote two full pages of character backstory. I haven't done anything like this in many months. Feels good. Hoping it'll last. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmPlotting?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AmPlotting</a></div>
— Mason T. Matchak (@MasonTMatchak) <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/924829031249297410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Naturally, it didn't last; I haven't done a thing since then. But it's the one thing I've got, and I'm sticking to it, since everything else lately has been the same shit as the rest of this year. I'm overworked and exhausted and I feel like hell when I don't get any writing done but I damn sure don't feel like doing anything after yet another ten-hour workday.<br />
<br />
Hope everyone else out there is doing better than me.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-20377473524469744422017-10-24T20:15:00.000-07:002017-10-24T20:15:31.949-07:00Short Fiction: Princess, take 2The <a href="http://masontmatchak.blogspot.com/2017/09/short-fiction-princess.html">last one of these</a> didn't quite work for me, and I couldn't figure out why. So over the past few weeks, when I've felt like working on anything, I spent some time working on the character, and I think I've got a better hold of her. I had to throw out a big chunk of her background, but I think she's a lot better for it. I mean, what makes for a more interesting character - one who was locked away for millennia, or one who spent all that time fighting to stay alive?<br />
<br />
So, without further ado, here's the second take on writing for Princess, or as I call it, "The Right Side of a Conversation":<br />
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So, you want to know about Princess. You could have just asked. I talk better when I’m not a prisoner. Fine, kid. Ask.<br />
<br />
Yes, she’s the last of the elves. You know the history, right? Elves spent thousands of years warring with each other. That was a long time ago, but–<br />
<br />
No, I don’t know for sure if there’s any other elves left, but I’d think word of that would get out. She never talks about it, probably would kill ‘em if she found one.<br />
<br />
Anyways. The war. The elves had enough of themselves to fight for three thousand years. Got a lot of people like you and me killed too, but elves being elves, they used their magic on themselves first. Made a lot of their own kind into living weapons. She’s one of those.<br />
<br />
No, I didn’t hear anything. Why?<br />
<br />
How’d she live? She didn’t get killed. Don’t look at me like that. You know a better way to live a long time than not getting killed?<br />
<br />
Okay, okay. She lived because she’s just that damn good. I know you think you’re some flashy blade, but she’s killed more people than you’ve got hairs on your head. She doesn’t talk about it much, but her war stories, they’re all full of blood. Everyone’s blood. Some of it’s hers, yeah, not that you’d know by looking at her. She says elves don’t get scars.<br />
<br />
But that’s the thing with her. She fought in all three thousand years of that war. And the war ended maybe four, five hundred years ago. So if you wanna know about her, think of how she lived through all that, and how she’s still kicking around.<br />
<br />
I don’t know her real name. She only goes by Princess. I don’t know if she really was one, or–<br />
<br />
No, that didn’t sound like a scream. This place creaks like my aunt’s bones, though. How do you mooks live here?<br />
<br />
Yeah, I get it. Good work and people you can trust, not easy to come by these days. That’s why I started running with Princess’s crew. She calls the shots, but she’s seen it all, so she knows what she’s doing. She lets you in and you do what she says, you live better than most people trying to scratch a living outta the wastes.<br />
<br />
And we live big when it goes well. Baron Brandir’s fortress job, up in the tundra? That was us. Brought down whatever the hell that thing was in the basement, kept us in god-stone for months. The defense at Demman Pass, that was us too. Believe me, the last survivor of her kind knows how to hold a front and make damn sure nobody gets past. That was ten years ago, and people still tell stories. Makes me proud I was there.<br />
<br />
We do peaceful stuff too. Did guard work for the pilgrims of Karra, took those people all the way across that damn cratered wasteland. Didn’t lose a single one, except for that whack job who ran off and dunked his head in one of the pools. Never seen skin boil off a skull so fast.<br />
<br />
Her secret? Are you serious? I thought everyone knew what she did by now. Okay, listen. You know how I said the elves made their own people into weapons? For her, it’s literal. She makes weapons out of magic. They never break, and you can’t disarm her, because she just makes more. And in her hands or out, they hit right where she wants them to go.<br />
<br />
What do they look like?<br />
<br />
Kind of like that hammer that just broke through your door.<br />
<br />
Seriously, kid? Everything I just told you, and you think that sword’s gonna help? I didn’t think you were that bright, but damn. Nobody ever uses their heads in this town, do they?<br />
<br />
I told you. You wanted to know about her, you could have just asked. Now the last thing you’ll see is why she’s the only one of her kind left alive: because they couldn’t kill her.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-35993253155205618082017-10-17T20:13:00.000-07:002017-10-17T20:13:43.858-07:00Attachment to Detail"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLo7IgXjpk">I got a lot of good ideas! Trouble is, most of 'em suck.</a>" --George Carlin<br />
<br />
For once, I'm actually not being down on myself with that line. (Mark your calendars.) But it's the first quote that came to mind when I started thinking about this. I do have a lot of good ideas, and the problem isn't that most of them suck.<br />
<br />
The problem is that I want to keep all of them.<br />
<br />
Most of my early creative process consists of throwing a whole lot of stuff against the metaphorical wall, then trying to sift through everything that's on the wall until I can figure out what's going to stick and what's not. (It also consists of abusing the hell out of the wall metaphor.) But no matter how many times I do this, or how many things I come up with while I'm trying to figure out what a story's really about, the same thing always happens: I have stuff that I really want to keep, but it doesn't work with the rest of the story.<br />
<br />
Too much of the time, that moment is the one really cool idea that started the whole thing. So once I've figured out what the story is really about, I still want that thing to happen, but odds are good I've bent some part of the plot into a pretzel trying to accommodate it.<br />
<br />
Everything would work better if I didn't need that scene. Or that aspect of that character. Or that bit of world-building that's going to be much fun to work with.<br />
<br />
I found the phrase 'attachment to detail' in an update for a game I've supported on Kickstarter, and it stuck with me, because I realized it's something I'm stuck on. It is really hard for me to leave story stuff behind. And I can see how this has caused me problems in the past - book #13, <u>The Book of Lost Runes</u>, ended up feeling like I mashed two stories together because it changed so much in development but I couldn't give up the original concept. As much as I once liked it (clearly I must have, as I sent out nearly a hundred query letters), I can now see that I should have reworked it to go with one major concept instead of trying to blend the two together.<br />
<br />
As proof that knowing a problem doesn't means solving a problem, this is giving me trouble even now. The main plot-in-progress that I'm trying to get to work has hit a wall and I think a lot of it is because my original concept for one of the three main characters just doesn't work. So I'm trying to figure out how to re-conceptualize her and seeing how the story's going to change, and . . . and I don't know what to do with it anymore. And it just starts to fall apart.<br />
<br />
So in not knowing what to throw away, or sometimes <i>how</i> to throw it away, I can end up losing everything. This is nothing new, but still.<br />
<br />
As usual, I now ask: what about the rest of you? How much do you stick to your original ideas? Are you good at getting rid of what doesn't work? And how much do your stories change from your first concepts to the final piece?Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-45609308121977655342017-10-10T18:56:00.000-07:002017-10-10T18:56:15.086-07:00Comfort WritingOnce in a while, someone asks me why I don't have dessert foods in my house. My answer is a simple one - "I'd eat them." Sweets are a major comfort food for me, and a big part of the reason my weight has stayed largely the same for years is that I don't keep that sort of food around and I only bake when it's for others.<br />
<br />
Which is kind of a shame sometimes, because I make some damn good pies.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the idea of comfort food fits with something I discovered when I was looking through my idea file. I found a story idea I'd largely forgotten about (yes, I wrote it down so I wouldn't have to remember it), partly inspired by a song and set in a place I thought up long ago. I started wondering if I could make something of this, and then I ran into something that made me stop, blink, and sigh.<br />
<br />
I'd noted that this idea could be yet another attempt to write two characters I've written as the lead couple of seven different books. They've been through multiple names and incarnations, many of which I've talked about here, and I set them aside about two years ago, figuring I needed to write some other people.<br />
<br />
This made me wonder if trying to write something with them, yet again, might actually be a good thing.<br />
<br />
As anyone who's read this blog over the past few months can tell, I'm not in a good place with my writing. I've gone from not being able to make plots-in-progress work, to getting frustrated with everything and closing my documents after less than five minutes, to not even trying to write or plot anything. So the idea of writing some characters I know well, in a world that's been in my head since 2003, has a certain appeal.<br />
<br />
This, I think, is a kind of comfort writing. When everything else is too damn difficult, fall back on something that I know works, something I can hash out without getting frustrated. Because it's better to work on something than nothing, right?<br />
<br />
Granted, I still don't know if I'm going to pursue this; I looked over the notes when I was tired and frustrated and I know better than to make decisions when I feel like that. And the story notes are a rough collection of vague ideas that I'd need to filter down to a single concept to make a story out of it. But there's potential there, and it's been a long time since I wrote in an academic setting. Also, a possible title for this thing was "Thesis Papers and Magic Vapors", which is kind of funny but suggests entirely wrong things about the story. I probably won't use it, but I had to share it.<br />
<br />
To be fair to myself, this might be a non-issue. I've managed to take down some notes on other projects recently and I feel like my enthusiasm and desire to get to work is slowly coming back. So we'll see how it goes.<br />
<br />
So, what about the rest of you? Do you have things in your writing that you fall back on when it gets difficult? What would your comfort writing be? And is it Thanksgiving yet? Because I kind of want to make a pie.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-27605032658313551742017-10-04T05:00:00.000-07:002017-10-04T05:00:23.450-07:00IWSG: Lost<a href="http://http//alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhtVKNjio7u_-iZOm6CCWhkMrjz1VnHxoc_uN4ivV23DW8rWcpYWfWr99oOhHFCdwynTRE8E1ASmNmWxNZwPCIzB1jvigX2IcSN_8TwgZTO5PzjHSneSz7spj0oqu9R728y2rfcciAN51/s320/Insecure+Writers+Support+Group+Badge.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
So. Something happened <a href="https://twitter.com/MasonTMatchak/status/908451172985344000">a few weeks ago</a>, something good, something that will have me nervous about checking my e-mail every day for the next three to four months. I'd like to say this was inspiring. I'd like to say this was what I needed to have more confidence in my work, and that I've been getting more done lately. I'd like to say that this has led to me querying more, in hopes of making it happen again. I'd like to say I think it's going to turn out well.<br />
<br />
But I can't say any of that.<br />
<br />
I haven't felt the desire to write anything in the past week. I haven't felt the desire to write anything in the past damn <i>month</i> except for the character bits I posted over the past few weeks, and those were done half out of desperation to get something, anything, done and half out of feeling like I should have something for the blog besides more of my whining.<br />
<br />
Even the blog's not an exception - every post I've made lately, I've wondered if it would be the last one, if I'd close it off with "I'm putting this thing on indefinite hiatus, maybe I'll start it up again when I have something worth saying." Hell, I wasn't even going to make a blog post this week. I thought a lot about just not updating anymore and seeing if anybody noticed. That felt a little too dramatic, though.<br />
<br />
So here I am, halfway through a post and feeling like I've said nothing of note because I don't know what to do. I've tried everything I can think of to pull myself together and get back to work. I've taken breaks, to no avail. The short stuff last month was another attempt, and it was all right, but feeling like I still couldn't get a hold of that last character despite living with her in my head for at least a year killed it for me. I've tried being easier on myself about this whole mess, but that's something I just plain don't know how to do; my therapist has tried to help me figure out how to not be so hard on myself about damn near everything but nothing's worked so far.<br />
<br />
Everything I think about working on, I just... I don't even want to try. Because everything I've tried for the past year and more has fallen apart. And I don't even remember the last time I had a new idea to write down.<br />
<br />
I'm sorry that, yet again, this is all I have to talk about. I'm sick of it myself. I wish I had anything else to share.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-90169490204641925662017-09-26T20:06:00.000-07:002017-09-26T20:06:14.094-07:00Short Fiction: PrincessWelcome to the conclusion of my unintended Short Fiction September. :P As with the others, this is a character study for a plot-in-progress, and the third of the three main characters. This is also the one I had the hardest time getting a hold of. While this character has been in my head for years, this is the first time I really tried to capture her, and she's not one to easily be tamed. I feel a little better about writing her, but I do think she's going to cause me a lot of trouble.<br />
<br />
And in case anyone asks, I don't know her name. I've never given her one. She's always only been Princess.<br />
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Eleventh princess of the house, they called, me, and also ‘weapon.’<br />
<br />
From birth, I learned of the elven houses, and how the Divines granted each of them a different facet of magic, and how the houses had all come to hate each other for having magic that they could not themselves use. When I showed talent at my family’s facet of magical creation, of fusing magic into items to make wondrous things, they praised me. My kin taught me to make solid objects from pure magic, and told me what they would have me do with them.<br />
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I would make weapons, and kill, all to advance the family’s goals. Ever since I was young, my uncles had filled my ears with tales of the glory of battles long-past. So I agreed.<br />
<br />
From then, the lessons were simple. Here are the seven points to strike an elf’s neck if you want to paralyze, or cripple, or kill. Here is where to cut to slow or stop an elf from walking. Here are the largest veins though you’ll only make a mess if you cut them, why do you even ask. Here is where to strike to keep most targets from screaming, and here is where to strike to make any target scream, though there’s no reason for you to ever do that.<br />
<br />
Training with my manifested weapons was much the same. Stilettos for striking at the smallest points. Daggers to find tiny holes in armor. Hammers for armor with no holes to find. Put that axe away, did I think myself some kind of barbarian. Curved blades for elegant cuts, when a target deserved an artistic death. Chains to bind and strangle and what do you mean you wonder what’s best to hang a body from. A simple bow for a traditional strike from a distance. A great bow with sweeping curves for a targeted strike from a great distance. What are you doing with that enormous sword, you look a fool swinging that brutish thing.<br />
<br />
Before my first kill, my parents told me the specific reason for my training. Our kind had become so reliant on magic that when someone was murdered, they would use magic to locate the weapon. But with no weapon, there was nothing to find. They taught me magic to keep blood from touching me, to make it run free from my clothes and skin, leaving me unmarked.<br />
<br />
I stood ready to slay in the family’s name, to bring them what they wanted. But assassination sounded so boring. I wanted blood and carnage and the glory of battle.<br />
<br />
When the wars began, I remember the joy that surged through me. To the surprise of all my kind, the lesser races rose against us. And before my family could stop me, I sped to the front lines. As a princess of a noble house, none could deny my right to serve.<br />
<br />
The lesser races knew magic, true. But they did not live it as we elves did. I carved my way across fields of battle, swords of bright blue magic glowing behind the blood that coated them, my dress still pristine white. They knew me only as death, and I smiled.<br />
<br />
Battle after battle, I fought, and knew the glory of my uncles’ stories. When I returned, I told my family how many I’d slain, and looked for pride in their eyes. I saw only unease, and fear, and condemnation.<br />
<br />
Didn’t they understand?<br />
<br />
The wars slowed, and peace talks began. My father the king came to me, and at last said how proud he was of me. And since I’d done so well, he had a very special job for me. There was to be a peace accord among the races, but the death of one man would stop it, and keep the war going another decade at least. Would I like to make this happen?<br />
<br />
I struck in the center of the accord, twin blades glowing as they cut through my target’s neck. The guards were ready and waiting, and captured me in a moment, then bound me in a timeless coffin to await trial for murder.<br />
<br />
It seems my father betrayed me. But we elves live a very long time. And he will regret turning me into a weapon when the day comes that I escape this coffin.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-24354390255131740902017-09-19T19:42:00.000-07:002017-09-19T19:42:02.628-07:00Short Fiction: AklinSince this seems to work pretty well, here's another character study for a current project. She's loosely based on a concept for a character I played in a tabletop RPG years ago, mostly so I could use the name again. I was having trouble getting a hold of her in the new world I'm working with, and wasn't even sure how to write her character study, until I realized I needed to let her talk. I feel a lot better about working with her now.<br />
<br />
Here's the bit; hope y'all enjoy it.<br />
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You’d think that in a world like this, people would be used to a little weird.<br />
<br />
My mom kicked me out when I was twelve years old. Said I’d caused enough trouble in her life just by being born, and now that I had a wyrd, that was all the proof she needed that I would only make things even worse. So out the door I went, with nothing but my clothes and a few things I could keep in a bag.<br />
<br />
Thanks, Mom. Bad enough you gave me a name that’s the old elven word for ‘disaster.’ I guess I should be glad there’s not enough people around who understand it, or my life might actually have turned out worse.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I should be careful what I wish for.<br />
<br />
At the time, all I could think was how to survive. I knew there were people who preyed on kids in the city. Being a human with just enough elf in me to give me a look that some creepy jerks called ‘exotic’ even when I was a little kid, I knew if I didn’t find a safe place and quick, someone would snatch me up, and that’d be the end of me. So I had to find someone who would take me in.<br />
<br />
Of the three gangs who run the city, only the Syndicate was worth trying. The goblins, the minotaurs, they wouldn’t take in anyone not their own kind. But the Syndicate? All kinds of people made up the Syndicate. The trouble was finding a way in.<br />
<br />
So I asked. Crazy thing about growing up in the city, you hear about who’s bad and who’s okay and who acts nice but will stab you if you look at them funny. And I knew that one of the okay ones was a guard for a gambling hall downtown. When I got to him, and asked if the Syndicate was hiring, he laughed and asked why they would want me.<br />
<br />
So I showed him. I worked my wyrd, I disappeared and reappeared ten feet away in the time it took him to blink. I told him, I could do that and get anywhere I could see, long as it wasn’t more than ten or twelve feet away. I could get on the other side of windows, and closed doors, long as I could see where I was going.<br />
<br />
Gotta give the guy credit, he caught on quick. He brought me before some Syndicate underboss that same night. After a few trials and a few swearings, I was in.<br />
<br />
I’m not proud of everything I did over the past ten years. Sometimes it was for people who deserved it, like the time we shut down that slavery ring. That’s one of the rules the three gangs agreed on – nobody buys or sells another person. I found one tiny hole in the wall where they were keeping the slaves, got in, and let them all out to help bring the place down.<br />
<br />
Other times, it was just plain thieving. I was okay with that, most of the time; I knew I was in for that sort of work when I told them I could get into places others couldn’t. But some jobs came back to bite me, one of them in the worst way.<br />
<br />
When I was new, I stole something from the wrong person. I didn’t know he was secretly a higher-up in the Syndicate. The jackass who put me up to it didn’t say a thing. But he found me, and he told me, I owed him for keeping quiet about it. And someday, he’d collect.<br />
<br />
So now here I am, on loan to the Lord of Bones. Everyone has debts to pay, and the guy I stole from owed a favor to the creepiest person in the world. But I think anyone in the Syndicate would have pointed to me if the Lord of Bones came knocking and said, hey, do you know someone who can get into anywhere?<br />
<br />
Even one of the lost elven cities?<br />
<br />
Because somewhere in this wasteland, there’s a sealed city of crystal and light, and at the middle, the last lost elven princess. Still alive. And the Lord of Bones wants me to get in.<br />
<br />
What if I can’t?Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6667260282067472646.post-55416004980105349772017-09-12T20:16:00.000-07:002017-09-17T16:42:40.574-07:00Short Fiction: SophieSince I don't have anything worth writing about this week, here's a small character study from something I'm trying to work on. It's not much of a story, just me trying to get into a character's head and life a little. I've been having trouble with, well, everything, so I thought trying a different approach might help. No idea if it will.<br />
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Sophie lives among the undead, and never knows when she’ll join them.<br />
<br />
Soon, they tell her. They tell her every day. The ones without voices, she sees it in their eyes, behind the dead blue glow. The ones who speak, they taunt her, their rattling voices telling stories of her inevitable end. They want her to become one of them. They want her to suffer as they do.<br />
<br />
But Sophie knows they won’t kill her. They can’t.<br />
<br />
Some of them still try to hurt her. They lash out as she walks the halls, swords and claws and chains and skinless fists striking at her, trying to make her scream. Over the years, she’s learned to endure it in silence. Every time hurts as bad as the first, but if she cries, they’ll try harder to make her cry again.<br />
<br />
The new ones, the freshly raised, are the worst. They vent their rage at her, at all the living, in frustration at what they’ve lost. Some part of her still pities them, and she wonders if she’d do the same in their place. She hopes not. She hopes that death won’t make her cruel.<br />
<br />
Sooner or later, they learn she hurts, but she can’t be harmed. She knows the way their blades feel, knows the difference between swords and axes and daggers by the way they try to cut her. She knows the sound of hammers on flesh, from all the times they’ve tried to break her. And the undead try, again and again.<br />
<br />
But no weapon makes its mark. And eventually, they get bored and leave her alone.<br />
<br />
When the change came over her, she doesn’t know. But the land is littered with the corpses of dead gods, so no one’s a stranger to magic they can’t explain. All she knows is the day she discovered that pricking her finger on a needle drew no blood, that holding her hand over a candle didn’t burn her. She felt the pain, she felt everything, but came away unharmed.<br />
<br />
A wyrd, they called her, a name for people with magic from nowhere. And when the Lord of Bones came to her hometown, they offered her as a sacrifice, pleading with the undead master to spare them all in exchange for one.<br />
<br />
For while any town’s people could become undead, the mayor said, what other place could offer a girl who it seemed nothing could hurt? And wasn’t the Lord of Bones skilled in the ways of magic and fallen gods? Perhaps he could learn the way of her wyrd, and make undead that couldn’t be stopped?<br />
<br />
So the bargain went, despite the screams of Sophie’s parents and her own. Too many were willing to trade someone they didn’t understand for their own safety. And the Lord of Bones spared the town and took Sophie away.<br />
<br />
She supposed she ought to be grateful; she saved so many lives. But she refuses.<br />
<br />
Sophie sees the Lord of Bones whenever he wishes; his servants drag her from her room at all hours for his tests. He hasn’t yet learned how she works. He hasn’t yet learned how to kill her and preserve her wyrd. Every day, she wonders if this will change. Every day, she finds the faintest hope, that he would call her a mystery he can’t solve, and set her free.<br />
<br />
But every day, he threatens progress.<br />
<br />
In her years among the undead, Sophie knows her body has remained the same. Her hair hasn’t grown, she’s lost no weight though food is often scarce, and her reflection in glass looks as it always has. She tries not to think that her wyrd is somehow preserving her, keeping her always the way she is.<br />
<br />
Because if that’s the case, then it could be that she cannot die. And she doesn’t want to know what the Lord of Bones will do if he cannot make her one of his own.Mason T. Matchakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382636658554302699noreply@blogger.com6