This time last year

When I compare this summer to last summer, one thing is definitely clear: I am less crazy. Or more crazy and it just doesn't get to me as much. Definitely less bored, though.

This time last year, I was at my wit's end. It had nothing to do with my results going up online (or somebody telling me every minute that they were up, when they weren't!). It had nothing to do with anything, really, which was precisely the problem. I had nothing to do. At all.

This year... well, I've been writing Dignity, for a start, after several failed attempts to get anywhere in this story. The first attempt was terrible. Got barely anything done. The second attempt at it, I made my plan for the story (the plan in my head) slightly longer. The third time, even longer and I completely changed the perspective of where the reader was seeing all of the action from. This time around, I've gone back even further and I'm incorporating a lot more material from the alleged "real life" that has been led and doing something quite strange with it... I'm giving it a plot. Life doesn't have a plot. The things we do each day aren't a plot. If you wrote a novel detailing even three months of a character's life and having every day being interesting and worth reading, it'd be the most unrealistic three months ever. Or the most adventurous.

(Little secret, though: even grand road trips across America can be boring to do, because from the stories I've heard of them, most of the time there's nothing to do. That's why America has so many tourist attractions along the highway.)

Okay, so with Dignity well under way, it's even not enough to keep me interested all the time. Thankfully, I've been given a day extra work each week. Rather than just work the weekends, I work a mid-week day, too! It's very handy for making the weeks seem less boring. When you have breaks in the week of two days each, it feels like school used to before I started working, only with twice the weekends - school, weekend, school, weekend - only in this case instead of school it's working in a bookshop, and instead of a weekend it's Mondays and Tuesdays, and Thursdays and Fridays. The extra work is also great for having that little bit more money.

To fill the days I'm off, I've done a number of things. One of these was a road trip across the country, looping down south briefly before taking the N7 back to Maynooth, and a train home. This day was occupied with chats with the driver, the radio, rain in every county we drove through, rail-way superstitions, music from 1994 and the accompanying dance moves, a new love of The Saw Doctors, Supermacs in Galway (because we're fairly sure it's illegal to not have a Supermacs when you go to Galway) and a double-rainbow on the drive home. Other less adventurous things that have filled the days between shifts at work have been: trips to the cinema, a trip to Balbriggan to see a friend off to Switzerland for the summer, trips to the comic book shops and bookstores in Dublin and a gig, at which I saw The Shoos play, got their autographs and a photograph with them.

Between these miscellaneous adventures in Dublin and around the country and writing Dignity and working in the bookshop, I've been reading a bit. I've read children's books, books about writing, adult fiction (not erotica... I just mean the books that aren't children's books but are fiction) and comics (hence the trips to the comic book shops!) Of the comics I've been reading... well, they've all been X-Men. Because I'm that cool.

Last year... last year had some adventures of its own, the best being a 21st party, but it also had lots of boredom and a bit (understatement) of moaning down the phone at the same person who drove me around the country (and repeatedly called it a boring day). It was a truly unremarkable summer last year. I making up for it this year by writing the book I've been trying to write for over a year (and writing an ending to Meet Sam that I'm actually happy with!) and arranging different odds and sorts to occupy my time between working on the book and working with books (and people... there are people in the shop, too.)

Maybe, just maybe, this won't be as much a bad summer as last year. Maybe.

PS my favourite line I've written so far today:

The context: the main character is essentially referencing himself in the narration in third person, though he's not the narrator... that description makes it sounds weird... okay, it actually is weird, but the description is worse... I'll just give you the line.

"He was too good to be arrogant."

Found the Plot

Well, I've been writing this book on 9 days (I started a while longer than that ago, but I didn't write every day), and I've finally figured out where it's going. For once, I know what to write later when I get home. It's going to be longer than Stepping Forward, but it'll still be a novella. The plot isn't too complicated, but I don't intend it to be. It's sort of a confession of a book, an examination of the lives of friends, of love and longing and pain, and once again something that pushes into the boundaries of hypthetics, creating things in people that aren't there, or that aren't seen, at least.

In saying that... I had a plan to show a particular side of a character, who was based somewhat on a friend, because that side of him is almost non-existent as far as most of us have seen. Only, last night he showed it off, without really knowing that nobody had seen it much. I won't go into too much detail on it, but I thought it was a nice coincidence, and it just means that my character is a little more real than I'd first imagined.

When I get home, I'll be acting the arse and recreating a series of events that I found quite hilarious. If I finish the chapter tonight, I'll be moving on to something a little more difficult, which I'm not entirely looking forward to, except for the exploration part of the plot. That'll probably be carried into the next writing session, tomorrow morning, which will also see the start of the side of the aforementioned character that I'd wanted to show. The last chapter might also get written, if I focus enough. I'm working at five, so I have a good few hours to get work done on this thing. I only wanted to get it done by Sunday night, but now that I know where it's going I think I can finish before I go to work on Friday, or at the latest when I come home from a seperate shift on Saturday afternoon.

After that, the fun begins with another book. This one will probably be another novella - I don't plan on publishing them, but I like writing them for the experiences involved. You know, writing a book, creating characters, exploring ideas of friendship, love, life, death, mystery, getting to know people better. It's all fun, even if some of it is quite depressing. In fact, the next one is by and large all death. It's called The Great Leap. I actually can't wait to get started on it. I imagine it'll be of a similar length to Stepping Forward, but the ideas in it are a lot more difficult to get a grasp of. It calls into question matters of faith, and presents a continuous idea of always having a second chance. So, depressing but still with a bit of hope.

After that... Dignity. Though I may finish the second draft of Meet Sam instead. I'll have six days off work to get The Great Leap written, which is plenty of time if I have no plans (so far I have one plan, in the evening, when I rarely write anyway). Yeah, I think I'll finish Meet Sam. It could do with completion. When Dignity is written, then, I'll do the edits of Meet Sam, then start on my parody novel, The Masked Expellator, which looks at the life of a vigilante with a strange ability to throw up at will, and how he actually becomes a real hero. It's going to be utterly ridiculous, of course, but fun to write.

When all this is done - Meet Sam, Stepping Forward, The Great Leap, Dignity, The Masked Expellator and Love is a Remarkably Destructive Bitch - I'll be printing them in matching books, the difference being the colour of the cover, and perhaps some clip art on the inside. The books will be fun to have, and handy for having people read them. Meet Sam and Dignity are sort of free-for-alls, though I think a couple of people will want to read them first. Stepping Forward is currently in the possession of someone, who'll be the only person to read it until it gets a seal of approval. This is actually the same as The Great Leap, though I may make changes to my original idea to make it less like real life. Love is a Remarkably Destructive Bitch has to be read by two people before I show anyone else, and The Masked Expellator will find itself in the possession of the person who I first presented the idea to.

I've even kind of figured out the dedications... Meet Sam is just for friends in general, Dignity being for my fellow students at college, Stepping Forward for a particualr friend, Love is a... for two friends, The Masked Expellator for the person who gave me the idea, The Great Leap being for the friends who helped me through the darkest periods of my life (they won't be named individually.)

Okay... that was weird. I don't know how all that happened from I know where my book is going! I apologise. My ramblings generally just happen. Still, I hope you're enjoying following me on my journey to printing a number of books, single copies only. This summer will be amazing if I can get all this work done!

Writing Days

I have a very particular writing day; I've gotten myself into a habit, based on how tired I am at particular times of the day. I can't write too much at night, anymore, unless I'm still in the swing of things. I usually wake between seven and eight in the morning, so I'll shower by nine or shortly afterwards and get going for the day. I got over three thousand words done today. That's not my best, but I'd be more than happy to get that done every day.

Every day I write is the same, assuming I wasn't out the day before, and therefore extra tired. Admittedly, the tiredness can carry on for a few days. I've noticed two day gaps developing in my writing. Anyway, every day is the same if I'm not tired; I write after my shower (and my breakfast) until about one in the afternoon. At that point, I'll have lunch. I'll also have had about two or three cups of tea. I'm an addict at this stage. I'll get a cup at lunch, too, and one at hour later; by five or six, I'll have to stop to get dinner, and afterwards I'll be to tired to write anymore, as the day will have stretched on.

My writing day is also filled with music. I know some people can't write with music playing - I can't write poetry with music playing, for instance - but when it comes to fiction, I have to have music playing. I like my little writing montages. Many days it's the same songs, over and over again, a playlist on YouTube of songs recommended by Liam (he has the best and most varied taste in music out of anyone I know); unfortunately, the playlist is twelve songs long. So I switch between that, Alex Day's album on his website, and The Doors. Today, I did something special. I wrote along to The Beatles. I never listen to The Beatles. Ever. But I loved it. (It was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club) I also played Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon; I'm familiar with a few of the songs, but played as a whole... wow! The next step is to get my hands on a Bruce Springsteen album, more of The Beatles, a Bob Dylan album or two and something by Simon and Garfunkel. Apparently they're all awesome.

Writing along to music like this, I can get through a story in no time. It's my job, though I don't get paid. I just work throughout the day, getting lots written on my current work in progress, Love is a Remarkably Destructive Bitch. If I'm forgetting all about modesty, it's a pretty good book. I need to finish it within the next couple of weeks, though, because I have three more books I want to write before the summer's over, and I'd also like to get the second draft for Meet Sam written. I think that'll be next, so that when I've written the next of my books, The Great Leap, and probably Dignity, too, I'll be coming back to it nice and fresh. Once the edits on the second draft are done, I'll be working on a new idea, fresh off the press last night: The Masked Expellator. It's a parody superhero novel. I blame Fiona for it.

As you can tell, I'm a little bit busy, and still working weekends. Miley Cyrus might be getting a job soon, so my Adventureland days with her may soon be coming to an end... scratch that, they'll be coming to a pause. Adventureland doesn't end, it only takes a short break. We'll make sure to get more stuff done during the college year. It'll be awesome. The only upside for me (upside for her being money) is that I'll have lots of time to write in between the less frequent plans with other friends, so I should be able to get at least Love is a Remarkably Destructive Bitch written. Hopefully by the end of the month. I'd like to write The Great Leap and Dignity before I go back, but I'd have to have many days like today, or like June 25th - 9385 words that day! I'd be writing a novel a week if I wrote like that all the time!

But there you have it: my routine and my goals. My writing will slow down considerably once I go back to college, so I want to get as much done as possible within the next couple of months. The upside, of course, is that I have breaks of this length every year. For the rest of my life. (assuming I finish college and get a job as a teacher, and that I don't end up working as a writer full time, in which case I have a "break" like this for the rest of my life, during which I can write a dozen first drafts a year if I wanted to.)

Actually, I like that idea in the brackets. See, I don't just write novels. I write novellas too, now. They're shorter, but I still manage to get some depth into them. My trick is to limit the number of characters in them, so that there's not too much to have to do. I had two main characters in one I wrote recently called Stepping Forward, with a grand total of seven side characters, with only two of them having any narrative focus at all. And it's quite awesome, if I do say so myself. The only printed copy of it is in the possession of a friend for him to read before I can show anyone else.

Novellas are a wonderful thing, though. I mean, less publishers are likely to print them, but they're still fun to write, and if I actually become a successful, popular author, a publisher might take a chance with something like Stepping Forward, or it'd be published as a serial novella, or with two or three other books in one volume. Something cool like that.

Now I'm getting myself all caught up in hypothetics, again. As you can see, writing days leave me with lots of time to think too much. I've been told I do that too much, anyway. I'll leave this blog post here, before I write all about my plans for WORLD DOMINATION.

SAND

SAND, or: Summer, Assuming Nothing (Dis)Improves. This is what I am calling my intended summer; assuming nothing gets worse for me, and assuming nothing drastically improves very suddenly, I have a set plan for my summer months. It involves organised chaos, time and words. Lots of words.

These are all fairly well linked attributes of my three and a half months off; organised chaos is interwoven with time, and is part of the process of creating words. Time is vital to achieve words. Words are the offspring of organised chaos and time, and can actually create different worms of them. Yeah... I'm a bit weird that way.

Okay, the plan for the summer. I know you're all dying to know this. Let's take this as one big plan, with smaller sub-plans that interrupt other plans (organised chaos in practice!). There will be, in the social way of looking at things, a trip to the zoo, about a dozen trips to the cinema, four poetry nights, far too many nights out (the sort of things that will make my bank account angry), and more than a few trips into town to meet more than a few people, though not all at the same time. Ever.

That's one sub-plan. Another is writing. Writing a lot. James told me not to. He said, "Well don't spend all your time doing it." No, I will. Well, in accordance with the plan. The plan that insists on my writing being interrupted by friends. Damn them. Damn them to their happy little place that I wish I could stay in for longer than I do. Damn them there twice! (hey cool, I typed that without even looking at the screen, let alone the keyboard!)

The writing will consist of a number of things; it has sub-categories of its own! There will be the editing of Meet Sam, en masse until it's completion. During this time, there will also be the planning and writing of two novels: Dignity and Love, Sam. About two people know about Dignity (the aforementioned James, and Liam, because it was his Facebook status and his hilarious stories that inspired the idea of the book!). About one person knows about Love, Sam. That's Monica. I told her because she insisted on a sequel to Meet Sam, and then suddenly there was one. And another one. I don't know how that happened. There might also be the writing of a third novel, written entirely in letter and diary format, with another author. She's a very good friend of mine, so it could be very interesting! And then there's all the poetry I might write, because poems attack my brain spontaneously. And the plays I might write. And the short stories. And the auto-biography I've had in my head (a letter to my younger self), that, if I complete it, will be sold online.

And, believe it or not, there's more. I plan on trying to learn the ukulele. I have one, just sitting there like a beaten puppy, begging not to be hit by the door again as I open it. I know, what a cruel analogy!

And that's my summer. My whole summer in its entirety. I'll have to take a leaf from Liam's book and keep a record of everything I do during the summer. Every little detail, every little anecdote. Everything that can be fictionalised and used in Dignity or The Sam Richards Trilogy. This is SAND. As it is written, so it shall be. (and due to the nature in which in what written, just about anything can happen!)