Nick Bryan

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NaNoWriMo Week Two – Book Existence (WriteBlog #6)

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I was chugging along nicely with the novel for a while – it had been around three whole chapters since I last stopped and reworked half the rules of my fantasy setting – when I ground to a halt and thought: Right. Shit. This may not be working.

Hate it when that happens. Happily, after only three hours of staring into space and 507 words of notes, I was able to get back on track.

This is the fourth time this has happened since I started the book, to be fair. A couple of pauses back, I ended up moving a chapter two spaces forward and writing its replacement out of order. Also decided to introduce some extra suffering in the beginning, which needs to be woven into the rest of it at a later stage.

For the first time in my life, I have started a document with changes I will have to make as soon as I’ve finished this first draft – holding them in my memory was getting unreliable. A number of times, I’ve wondered why I’m bothering continuing writing the ending, when I know I’m going to do dramatic rewrites on the start, which may will necessitate knock-on changes to the conclusion.

I’ve decided it’s important I finish the thing, basically. I’ve seen it as advice in blogs, had it delivered to me in real life, and reached the point of agreeing. It’s psychologically useful to get to the point of “This book exists and I am tinkering with it,” rather than “OH DEAR SWEET MERCIFUL LORD JESUS I KEEP GOING BACK TO CHANGE THE START AND AN END WILL NEVER COME.”

Or at least, I’ve decided it’ll be psychologically useful to me. Your mileage may vary etc. I did briefly wonder whether the inevitable changes are so severe that I should rechristen this as Draft 0.5, but no, fuck it. That’s just dissing myself pointlessly. I’ve spent six months writing this, parts of it are pretty good, the potential is there. Be strong, Nick. Finish the book, then we can move on to the editing.

If you’re anticipating a lot of weekly WriteBlogs about editing once this draft is finished, then you are a wise reader. For now, though: I still have no story idea I like better than this one, I’m still determined to get it as good as it can be. Remind me to re-read this in January/February when the editing is beating me down.

If you want a writing-related blog by me with less stream of consciousness and more lists/jokes/focus, I did a blog on the Tuesday Serial site recently about my adventures in awkward webserial marketing online – try that. Also, no, little mention of NaNoWriMo in this blog besides the title. Not worrying about word count much at the moment, sorry NaNoFans. Maybe next week.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #11 – The Dark Spoons

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What are… The Dark Spoons? Hobson and Choi dive deeper into the underworld this week, and it’s all set-up for something truly disgusting next time.Meanwhile, in the back pages, there’s NaNoWriMo spilt everywhere and I recommend Crossed: Wish You Were Here, available from http://www.crossedcomic.com

You can listen on Mixcloud, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Guest post about pushing webserials

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A blog post for the lovely TuesdaySerial people about the awkward art of pushing webserials online, now with eight months of H&C-declaring under my belt.

I did a similarly themed blog here back in March but this one has more experience and a blog-friendly list format. So if my recent WriteBlog pieces have been too conversational for you, here’s some structure.

NaNoWriMo Week One – Uh-huh? (WriteBlog #5)

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You wouldn’t think I’d have time to dash off mid-length blogs about my writing process in the heart of the NaNoWriMo maelstrom, but I’m trying to treat this piece as a short warm-up for later greatness. However, if it seems slightly more rushed or badly spelt than usual, the month-long writing bender is my entire excuse.

So, I’ve been on the NaNo gravy train for nearly a whole week, I’ve written just under seven thousand words (so yes, I am pretty behind) – how is it going? Can I describe my experiences? Well.

I’ve been trying not to worry about word count too much, whilst simultaneously not ignoring it, and that doesn’t make a vast amount of sense. Basically, if I ignore the NaNo word-churning ethos, I just won’t produce anything, which isn’t helpful – but on the other hand, I also don’t want to churn out shite.

There have been a couple of days where I’ve thought – even as I’m writing something – “Fuck, I’m clearly just rattling that off to hit word count.” Case in point: I’m 99% sure that once I sit down to do today’s NaNo words, I’ll be deleting the final section of yesterday’s scene and rewriting it. This is arguably against the Sacred NaNo Spirit, but having worked on this novel all year and been surprisingly happy with it, I don’t really want to spend November grafting some kind of rotting tail onto it. Yet again, I’m trying to use the NaNo Spirit but only when it’s useful to me.

The good news is that despite my angst about quality, I’m just about on track to finish the book (if not the required 50K) by the end of the month, which will mean I’ve at least won my own personal battle. I’ve also been distracted repeatedly by my various other projects – Hobson & Choi will continue, of course, but if you’re a huge fan of my TV reviews, you may see a dip in those as the month goes on. Sorry about that.

Yesterday, I got the good news that H&C was #9 in the Jukepop charts for October, which is yet another personal best and one I might struggle to replicate/beat in future months, to be honest. Nonetheless, good to know people are enjoying it – the even more gratifying part is that I didn’t badger that many personal friends into voting during Oct, so those votes could be from real human interest. Score.

And #39 of H&C will be with you in a few hours, so that’s exciting. Right now, I’ve got to plug a blog post on Twitter (not just this one) and record H&C Podcast #11, then publish #39 – and only after all that can I get back to work on NaNoWriMo. Busy life but I like it a lot. See you all next week.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #10 – Day Two

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The second day of the investigation begins, and time to check in with the locals again before heading out on the road! Meanwhile in OutroWorld, the crazy powertyping event of NaNoWriMo is upon us, which may explain why I’m talking so quickly…

For the second week running, fellow serial author Alastair JR Ball was integral to this podcast existing, stepping in when I failed to give myself access to the file. Show your gratitude by visiting his site at alastairjrball.blogspot.com

You can listen on Mixcloud here, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.