Blue Uncertainty-BTS: The Title

A few months ago, I had a dream that I watched the trailer for a movie called Blue Uncertainty.  I loved the title so much, that I wrote it down.  The movie looked like a RomCom, but since I don't do comedy, I decided to go in a different direction.

First, I broke the title down into two sections: blue, and uncertainty.

Next, I got out my trusty Signs and Symbols book, and looked up what blue meant.

Here's what I came up with:

Emptiness, the infinite, the divine.

Calmness, reflection, intellect.

Depression, sexual explicitness, and class ("blue-collar workers," for example).

Divinity.

Scandinavia: naivety, gullible.  Japan: naivety or inexperience.  Buddhists: steadfastness, strength.

Purity, divine wisdom.

Roman Catholic art: humility.  Ancient Egypt: truth.

Next, I looked up what uncertainty/uncertain meant:

not able to be relied on; not known or definite.
(of a person) not completely confident or sure of something.

I let this sit and stir for about a week or so, until I came up with my next step.  I wanted to do something I had never done before, and what I came up with, I had never done before.

What did I do next?  You'll just have to wait and find out.

Subject Verses Substance

"Write what you know."  That's a familiar phrase among writers.  But what exactly does this mean?

I was talking to a friend of mine who brought up a very good point.

"Yeah. I hear that advice all the time. "Write what you know" or whatever. And generally I agree, but when it comes to genre that advice just doesn't follow. Know what I mean?"

To which I replied:

"Yes, I do know what you mean. What you know is the substance, not the subject. You can put substance into any subject (genre)."

Hence the title of the post.

Every genre has characters, whether they're humans, animals, inanimate objects, even ideas can be characters. Let's call this, characterization.  That's substance.  Dialogue, description, symbolism, morals/themes, are all parts of substance, as well as others that I cannot think of at this time.

What is subject?  Genre.  Fantasy, horror/thriller, adventure, steampunk, western, what have you.  Each genre has its own elements that make a story that genre (dragons, fairies, magic, for fantasy, for example).  These elements are must haves to create genre.

Once you find what elements are in each genre, you can then apply the substance.

Think about life.  Let's pretend "life" is the genre (the subject).  In life, we all have struggles (a substance).  If we know the substance, we can apply it to each "life" because we know that every "life" has the same substance (characters, dialogue, etc.).  But it's the genre that dictates not the substance itself, but the kind of substance.

Write what you know.

What do you know?  What do you think "write what you know" means?  Did this post make sense?  What is your opinion on the matter?

NaNoWriMo-Doug

I wrote this little piece here at 1 o'clock this morning.  Mom likes it, I like it, someone else who read it likes it.

Do you like it?

(Scene Set Up: Doug to talking to reporters about a dead body he found)

~~~

“Well, I was walking.  I like to take walks early in the morning.  And, I like to take this path.  It’s quiet, and there’s not a lot of people."

Doug stopped and slowly looked up.  A smile grew across his face.  “It was so weird,” he started, putting a hand on his hip, “I just, I just knew something was up.  I’m kind of an observant person, and I didn’t feel right this morning.”

Doug put his hand down and straitened up, putting a hand on his stomach.  “You know how you get these, I don’t know, feelings?  Like in the pit of your stomach?”

He held out both of his hands, palms towards them.  “Well, as I was walking, I could tell something was off.  I just knew something was up.”  Doug put his hands down and laughed.  “And, I saw the blood marks on the sidewalk.  So, I followed them.”

The reporters looked back to see them.  “Oh, no, they’re gone now.  Someone came and cleaned them up already.”  The reporters looked back at him and nodded.

Doug widened his eyes and pointed to where the body was.  “When I got back there and I saw the body, I was shocked.  I mean, who would do this?  He’s just a kid!”  Doug hung his head.  “Humanity, going to Hell in a hand basket, as my mother would always say.”  Doug looked up and crossed his chest.  “God rest her soul.”

Doug looked back down.  He cleared his throat and changed his expression to one of surprise.  “I went to the street and I yelled for someone to call the police.  I left my phone at home, you see.  I don’t like to take it with me on walks.  This is a time for me to be alone with God.”  Doug folded his hands.  “Looks like He’s the one who needs the credit for me finding this young lad.”  Doug looked up and closed his eyes.  “Thank you.”

He looked back down at the reporters, some looked sorrowful, others as if they were thinking too hard.  They all wrote on their pads of paper.  Doug smiled.

Don't Diss Courage

In my last post, I talked about my NaNo novel from 2912 (more like 2012), titled Times. I talked about how it was poorly written. I want to talk about that in this post.

There is so much to do with this story. I'm talking editing wise. I need to rewrite most of it, now that I know the real relationship between the characters. I also need to rewrite most of it because there's a lot of looking:

Talitha looked at David. He looked at her, then at Isaac. Talitha looked at Isaac, who wasn't looking at anyone.

In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we call this word padding. Ugh.

So you can see why it's hard for me to read. And if I can't read it, I can't edit it.

Enter discouragement.

After reading a page or two, I quickly exit out of the program, and walk away from the computer, feeling as though this story isn't as awesome as I think and know it is. It will never be what as it is in my head: a best-seller, soon to be a movie. I just want it to be good enough to be publishable, really.

It's been eight months since I finished it. If I remember correctly, about five pages have notes on them. I can't quite get past this next part. Or maybe I just don't have the courage to.

When you get discouraged, you diss your courage to try.

I won't sit here and tell you to keep going, to keep trying, to keep doing. Because I'm not. What I will say is, every day I feel more and more like I'm getting to the point of getting there. I did write one note on it yesterday. It was a small note, but it was a start.

Now, how did I get here? Time. Patience. Building up my confidence by writing other things. Also, getting annoyed at the fact that I haven't gotten there yet.

It's ok, we'll get there. We will.

Cheating During NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is less than a month away. Can you believe that? Just last month I told myself, "Eh, I have awhile to plan." No, no I do not. In fact, planning should start in August.

Before I begin, what is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo, also known as NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, starts November 1st and ends November 30th. You have the whole month to write 50,000 words. That breaks down to approximately 1,667 words per day.

Sound hard? For some, it is. Children, school, work, etc. For others, it's still hard, but they persist. Some are planners, some are pantsers, but we all have one common goal: the end.

Now, technically, you're supposed to write a novel. But, of course, you have those rebels who have other plans. Like me, last year. I tried to write about everything that happened that summer. But since it had just happened, it turned out to be crap. I only wrote about 10,000 words (if that) when I got to the end of my story. I decided to write the remaining words elsewhere. It was a bad year.

This year, I'm cheating again. First, I'll tell you why. Back in 2012, during NaNoWriMo, I started a novel called Times. I finished it at the beginning of this year. I started to edit it, but it's so poorly written, I can't even look at it. But I love it. It could potentially be great...it just isn't (yet).

My characters told me there's a second book. I love the ideas they're giving me. I want to start it, but I will not subject it to the craziness of November. I really don't want two poorly written stories (even though I probably wouldn't let it get that way).

I'm in the process of writing a murder mystery, but I'm stuck. If I can't figure stuff out now, I have no time to be doing research when I have 50k words to write!

Instead, I will be writing short stories. My stories usually run between 2,000 and 3,000 words, so this should be fun. And who knows? I might find a novel in there somewhere.