On Wattpad and Book Covers

Success!

Today, after working on the story for the last ten years, I uploaded the first chapter of my Hogwarts fanfic to Wattpad.  Here's the link if you're interested in reading it. This is the first and only story I’ve ever finished, so this is a big deal for me. Uploading my words to the world is a big step, so I want to get it right the first time. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks tweaking this chapter, mostly in response to my critique partners’ suggestions. I’ve done so much tweaking that it’s probably a good thing I set a hard deadline for uploading. Otherwise, I’d tweak the darn thing forever. 

A couple of weeks ago, I figured uploading to Wattpad would be easy. I already had an account. All I had to do was upload my words, right? 

Wrong. Turns out I needed a story description, a bio, and a cover. The description and bio didn’t take long, but the cover was another matter. Now even though this story is fan fiction, I’d always planned to get a cover. My diabolical plan, once the entire story had been uploaded, was to combine the chapters into an ebook (good practice for when I eventually publish my urban fantasy), but for that you need a cover. Heck, I’ll probably make a print version at some point too, just so I can print a few copies to stick on my bookshelves. Hey, I slaved over this story for ten years. I deserve some sort of memento. 

But it never occurred to me that I’d need a cover for uploading to Wattpad. To be honest, it isn’t required, but everything I’ve read suggests that more people will read your story if you have one. I contacted a local illustrator that I’d met many years ago at a SCBWI function, but she has since become successful enough her prices were more than my wife I was willing to spend on a fan fiction story. 

My wife searched the internet for inexpensive covers and she found a great premade one that I ended up purchasing. So now I get to do something I’ve been watching you guys do for years. A cover reveal! 

Ta Daaa!
Cover Design by Consuelo Parra

There’s still a lot of work to do over the coming months. The book has thirty chapters and they all need more work before they’re of uploadable quality, but it’ll be an exciting time. I may find myself hard pressed to keep up with submitting my “real” story to my critique groups, but that’s a small price to pay for being able to write “The End” on this one. 

Ten years is a long time to work on a story. I hope my next story doesn’t take nearly as long.

ChemistKen
Hogwarts and the New Headmaster

Why Do Writers Write?

Why do writers write?

I suspect there are as many answers to that question as there are writers. Everyone has their own reasons. Me? I write for the same reason I read books and watch movies--it allows me to visit imaginary worlds I wouldn’t be able to reach any other way.

For example, my daughter loves dragons. She wishes they were real. Sometimes, she wishes she could be one. She’s even come up with a pretty good idea for a story about dragons. I keep telling her to write these ideas down. Perhaps she’ll never get around to writing the story, but putting the ideas on paper might make her dragon populated world seem more real to her. At least that’s how it works for me. I write because it makes my imaginary worlds seem real.

This mindset is what got me started on my writing journey in the first place. The Goblet of Fire (the fourth story in the Harry Potter pantheon) movie reminded me so much of my college years that I longed to return to those days, but the only way that was going to happen was if I sat down and wrote a story about it myself. In the process, I discovered how much I love writing fantasy, and things just kind of took off from there.

Some people consider writing to be therapeutic. I think of it as an alternative way to visit foreign lands/worlds/universes. Not only is it cheaper than flying/disapparating/teleporting, but I don’t have to pack any suitcases either.

Why do you write?

ChemistKen

Back From Vacation!

My family and I just returned from a trip to northern Michigan, so this is going to be a short post. Overall, it was a great trip. We did all the necessary touristy things - climbing Sleeping Bear Dunes, swimming (or at least wading) in Lake Michigan, and trekking through miles of forests. Northern Michigan can be a fun place to visit, but it’s easy to get lost up there, even when you have maps. The locals are rather relaxed about the whole street sign thing, and even when there are signs, you aren’t guaranteed that the naming system used by the signs match the system used by the maps. For example, the road called "County Highway 708" on all of our maps was named Deadstream Rd on the signs.  Took us a bit to learn all the proper translations.

 BTW, I’m going to have to find a way to use “Deadstream” in one of my stories.

Speaking of stories, despite dragging my laptop along on the trip, I did absolutely no writing. I tried working on the manuscript once when everyone else was in bed, but was so sleepy myself all I could do was notice how much rewriting needed to be done and so I called it quits. Still the story was never far from my mind.

When you're walking through woods like this, it's easy to image I'm trekking through the Forbidden Forest. 

Or that I'm gazing at the lake which lies next to Hogwarts?

At least now that I'm home I'll be able to work on my manuscript again. Yay!


P.S.  Thanks to my wife and son for taking these pictures.

Your Characters and Their Names

This will be the third Wednesday in a row in which I harp on characters and how to deal with them. Why? Because I have yet another problem with my characters. And this time I have no one to blame but myself.

After working on my story for nearly three years, I have yet to decide on the names of the characters. Yep. You heard me right. Of the 20 or so named characters in the story, I’ve only chosen names for five of them. And of those five, one has since been dropped from the story and another has a name I’m already itching to change. I don’t know if this is a matter of me being lazy or just overly anal-retentive.

The truth is, I’m being very particular about these names because Rowling was very particular about her character’s names. And since I’m patterning my story after her books, this kind of detail is important to me. Rowling often chose names that had some sort of special significance to the story or hinted at a character’s traits, usually deriving them from the Greek or Latin forms. And while I’ve had fun working up lists of possible names based on their alchemical significance (another little quirk of Rowling’s), I have yet to assign any of these names to my characters. I really need to sit down some night with a glass of wine (or something stronger) and make some decisions, but I just keep putting it off.

All this means I’m having to get by with placeholder names, which does have its advantages. For instance, I often use my friends’ names for the characters I like and the names of people I don’t like for the villains. I’ve found it’s much easier to write scenes loaded with conflict when I have a more personal connection. Since my story takes place at Hogwarts, I also need names for all the instructors, so I either name them using their field of study (Professor Herbologist) or their main trait (Professor Worrier). In a few cases I use the same names Rowling used, so my Potions instructor has gone by the name of Snape for a couple of years now.

But I’ve discovered a hidden danger with this method. You can’t let the placeholder name influence the character’s actions. You don’t want your character to behave like the friend whose name you’ve temporarily bestowed upon them. For example, I’ve called my potions master Snape for so long that it’s hard not to think of Alan Rickman (the actor who played Snape in the movies) whenever I play out a scene in my head. My potions master and Snape are similar in some ways, but very different in others, and I’ve had to periodically yell at my character for acting too much like Snape. (Heh. It’s fun to get mad at your characters, isn’t it? That is, as long as your family doesn’t overhear the arguments. L)

So how do you decide on your characters’ names? Do you ever use the name of someone you know?

The Insecure Writer and Fan Fiction

Today is June's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.






Why am I an insecure writer this month? Because my current WIP - my very first WIP as it turns out, the story that got me hooked on writing fiction in the first place - is fan fiction.

Hardly what real authors would consider real fiction.

It’s not that I have something against writing a publishable story – that’s my goal as soon as I’ve finished this WIP – but right now I’m content with using fan fiction to hone my writing skills.

But the stigma of fan fiction means I never know how seriously I’ll be taken by other writers, and as a result I’m often reluctant to mention the fan fiction part whenever I interact with them. For example, plenty of websites host contests with chapter critiques as the prize, but I never enter for fear of the reaction I might receive if I were to win and sent in a chapter based on JKK Rowling’s world. I can easily imagine the person offering the critique feeling as though their time was being wasted.

I shy away from local critique groups since I can only imagine the response I might get should I hand out copies of a story with the word Hogwarts sprinkled liberally throughout its pages. I’m not using any of Rowling’s characters or plotlines, but I’m not sure that makes any difference.

I finally worked up the courage to participate in Rachel Harrie’s beta reader/critique partner match (Highly recommended, btw. Thanks Rachel!) back in February and was fortunate to find a few writers who were willing to critique fan fiction. Thanks to them, my story has improved greatly in the last few months.

Even so, I still feel like an outcast at times, which makes me want to hurry up and get started on my own story. But I’m not moving on until I finish this one. This was the story that showed me how much I enjoy writing fiction and I plan on polishing this puppy until it shines. Besides, I still have so depressingly much to learn about writing that I need a story I’m obsessed with in order to keep learning.

Did any of you start out by writing fan fiction?

Rowling's Way or the Publisher's Way?

I’ve been in a bit of a quandary lately. I might even go so far as to call it a crisis of sorts. As many of you who follow this blog are aware, I’m writing a story based around Hogwarts, the school of magic invented by J.K.K. Rowling. Although this all started out as an exercise to discover how Rowling might go about writing another series based on her wizardring world, I’m now using this story to teach myself the art of writing fiction. And believe me; the amount of information I’ve learned so far is staggering.

The thing is, my goal is to write the story as close to Rowling’s style as possible – partly because I feel my style is naturally similar to hers (although still pretty raw) and partly because I have a pet peeve against fan fiction that doesn’t sound as though it was written by the original author.

And therein lies the problem.

I want to use this story as a learning tool, but Rowling’s style breaks a good many of the so-called rules. She often wrote in a distant third person, occasionally drifting into omniscient POV, which American agents and publishers don’t care for as much as their British counterparts (or so I’ve been told). She mixed in a lot of telling along with her showing, her pages were filled with adverbs, and she used a ton of dialogue tags other than “he said.”

Now when I read the HP books, I didn’t notice any of these “rule-breakages” until I began learning the “rules.” Rowling’s style has been described as feeling as though you are being told a story rather than experiencing it, which is supposed to be a bad thing, but personally I often enjoy that style – as did, apparently, legions of her fans. It has to be done well, of course, and the narrator has to have an attitude of some kind (funny, sarcastic, etc.) or it won’t work. But I feel it is a valid style.

The upshot of all this is that I’m always running into situations where my CP reminds me I’m not following the rules I’m supposed to be learning, which can be maddening when I can find Rowling doing the exact same thing in her books. So should I stay with the way Rowling does it or should I follow all the rules?

So what do you think?  I would very much like to hear your opinions.

Thanks for listening.

The Insecure Writer and a Lack of Ideas

Today is May's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.






What makes me insecure as a writer this month? Two things, actually. First, I noticed a good percentage of my posts this year have been for the monthly Insecure Writers Support Group, which tells me I’ve been lax about posting in a timely manner. Some of this had to do with my reluctance to spend what little time I have on my blog until I finished the structural rewrite of my first two chapters. I’m pleased to say the rewrites are essentially done, so my postings should become more frequent. No promises, though. Now that my WIP is moving forward again, I’m even more driven to spend time on it.

The main reason I’m insecure this month is because I’m worried about whether I’ll be able to come up with enough ideas for my next book. Now this might seem odd considering that I’m still probably at least a year away from finishing my current WIP, but this concern always sits there in the back of my mind.

You see, I’ve had (and continue to have) no problem coming up with ideas for my current WIP. In fact, I’ve had to strip many of them out simply because the book was becoming too long. One of the reasons I started to write a story about the further adventures at Hogwarts was because I found it so easy to dream up the wild and crazy stuff that happens there. But when this story is done, I’ll want to write something I can legally sell, so I’ll have to move on to my own worlds. And I have no idea whether the ideas will flow as easily once I walk away from Rowling’s world.

I already have the basic plots for two different story lines in my head, but it’s the filler scenes – the ones that flesh out a story - that have me worried. I’m afraid that, without the wonderful world Rowling created, I won’t be able to come up with enough new ideas to keep the story interesting.

Do any of you unpublished (or published) authors have the same fear? The fear that after pouring your heart and soul into your first book you won’t have anything left for another? If so, let me hear about them.

Massacring Your Darlings

The keyboard is covered in blood. My desk is awash in the stuff. And don't even ask about the floor.

And for this, I blame my son.

He came down with a cold on Friday and spent much of the weekend in bed, requiring me to stay home with him while the wife and daughter went to the movies on Saturday and again on Sunday when they drove down to the in-laws for lunch.

What did this mean for me? It meant I had a ton of time to work on the manuscript. Yippee!  (Admit it, you thought this was going to be depressing story, didn't you? By the way, my son is feeling much better today, thank you very much. A win-win situation all around.)

So what was all that about a bloody keyboard, you ask? Well, a recent count of pages revealed that, although I still have several more chapters to write, my book on Hogwarts is currently going to top 700 pages. Now perhaps J.K. Rowling might be able to get away with that, but I can't, so I'm looking for places to condense. I've already reduced the manuscript's length by combining scenes and merging characters, but it's still not enough. So I spent most of the weekend cutting out huge chunks of the story.

I've been told that to be a successful writer, you need to be able to "kill your darlings." But when you lop off this many darlings in such a short period of time, it's more like a massacre. Makes me feel a little like a serial killer, if you know what I mean. I'm sure it will make the book better in the long run, but as most of you know, it's still hard to do.

What about you guys? How do you deal with it?

Fan Fiction, Harry Potter, and Me

In my last post, I used the term “fan fiction” and a few of my readers indicated they hadn’t heard that term before, so I thought I’d elaborate a bit.

Fan fiction is fiction based on someone else’s work. Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Harry Potter have inspired legions of viewers/readers to write their own stories using the characters described in the shows/books. It’s one way for fans to hold on to a piece of the world they’ve come to know and love. With the ability to post these stories to the web, fan fiction has exploded over the last two decades. Over at FanFiction, for instance, the number of Harry Potter stories submitted has reached over 500,000!

Since my story takes place in Hogwarts, a location within the world of J.K. Rowling, my current story would also be considered fan fiction, although it’s somewhat atypical in that I do not use any of Rowling’s characters or any of the original storyline. My story is completely new -- partly because I felt the whole Harry Potter saga had come to a end and partly because I didn’t feel comfortable messing around with Rowling’s characters. In fact, the whole reason I started down this road in the first place was because I began wondering how Ms. Rowling might go about writing another book in the series.

Besides, if I don’t use my own characters and storyline, how can I expect to learn anything about writing?



P.S. GO CARDINALS!

P.P.S Why? I’m originally from the St. Louis area.

P.P.P.S. That last fact didn’t make me too popular in Michigan back in 2006 when the Cardinals spanked the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

Hogwarts on Hold

Yes, I know I've been a bad boy for not posting here for awhile. Yes, I promise to do better in the future. Really, I do. It's just that I have so little time for all things writing-related, (60-120 minues a day, if I'm lucky) I feel bad when I take time away from, you know, actually writing the book.

Especially right now.

You see, I'm fighting my way through a rough patch at the moment. I've spent the last two months working on one stupid chapter. Seriously. And it gets worse. This is the first draft. Please don't laugh. I know you are supposed to get through the first draft as quickly as possible and come back later, but my mind just doesn't work that way. I can't leave a chapter until I feel it's come together, no matter how badly I want to move on.

In fact, that's kind of where the problem started. Two months ago I was three chapters past this point when I glanced back at this chapter and was horrified to find just how big a mess it was. Apparently, I had told myself it was good enough for me to move on to the next chapter - obviously a big mistake! So I promised myself that this time, I wouldn't move on until I got it right.

I never would have imagined it would take two months.

I think I've almost got it now. Oh, there is still a truckload of revising and polishing yet to do, but the structure is in place now, and that's what's important.

Congratulations to William and Catherine

The title says it all. No I'm not British, but as an confirmed Anglophile, I sometimes wish I were.

I don't know if any of you saw the ceremony, but I caught most of it, and although the commentators were mostly concerned with who was wearing what, I was far more interested in the views of Westminster Abbey. Man, that place is magnificent! I've been there in person, but some of the views from the more strategically placed cameras were just awesome.

It's no secret I'm fascinated with old buildings, castles, and ruins in general. Just can't get enough of them. It's one of the reasons I'm I'm writing a story based around Hogwarts.

Sigh. I wouldn't mind retiring in Britain some day. Perhaps if I make a ton of money writing fiction....

I Survived Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey!!!!

Yesterday, my family and I returned from a four day trip to Orlando – three days at Universal Studies theme park and one at Disney's Epcot. It was an excellent time; the weather cooperated (for the most part), no one got sick (at least not until we got back home), and I’m extremely happy to report I rode the Harry Potter ride three times.

You have no idea how surprising that last bit is.

You see, I’m a huge chicken when it comes to rides. I hate the dropping sensation that comes with rollercoasters, or log flumes, or even fast elevators. Just absolutely hate it. The stuff of nightmares. So when I read reviews of the ride that mentioned there was at least one sharp drop, I was sure I was going to have to pass.

On our first day at Universal, we made a bee line to the Hogwarts area. Hogsmeade was nicely done, although seeing fake snow on the roof of the buildings seemed weird in 80 degree weather. We tried butterbeer, which I was told was JKK Rowling's own concoction (or at least had her seal of approval). Conclusion: not too bad. We checked out the merchandise in the gift shops, but unfortunately all the things I was interested in purchasing were the props used to make the shops look more authentic. Too bad. Then we headed to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride.

I waited in line with the family, since the queue takes you through a nice tour of Hogwarts, but I left before it was time for the ride itself. After they finished the ride, my wife and daughter worked very hard to convince me that there really wasn’t much of a drop and that I would love the experience. Had it been any other ride, I probably wouldn’t listened, but... it's A HARRY POTTER ride. Who was I kidding? I love the world of Harry Potter, I wish I had been able to attend Hogwarts when I was a student, and I'm writing a book based around Hogwarts. How could I not take the chance? I might regret it forever.

So I rode the Harry Potter ride.

And it was wonderful.

For those of you who haven’t been on the ride, there are several times where it convinces you that you're diving toward the ground at breakneck speeds, but the effect is almost all due to the video you see in front of you (or actually below you, since you are facing straight down when this happens). You don’t physically drop all that much; but your mind tells you that you're accelerating downward. Close your eyes and the effect vanishes. Amazingly, it was the drops that I looked forward to the most on subsequent rides. (BTW, I did not close my eyes.)

I should take the time to point out that, although the ride is okay for chickens like me, if you are prone to motion sickness, I suggest you stay away from this ride. You are bounced all over the place and even though I don't consider myself prone to motion sickness, after riding it twice in a row, my head strongly suggested that I not try it again for a while.

As I expected, being surrounded by Harry Potter paraphernalia has motivated me to work even harder on my Hogwarts book. Not that I needed any additional motivation. I was, however, reminded that the movies and the books don't always match. And since I've made the decision to base my book on Rowling's books, and not the movies, I'm going to have to work hard to ensure I don't get them mixed up when writing.

Now it's time to recover from the vacation.

How Long is Too Long?

I spent some time last night counting the number of pages in my Hogwarts book. This may seem like a trivial task, but each chapter is in its own file and I have to open each one up separately and add the totals by hand. I’m currently on Chapter 20 out of an expected 30 chapter book and I wanted to get a feel for how things were progressing.

The result?

Just over 600 pages!

OMG!

Now, I admit this number is somewhat misleading. Although I’m officially only on Chapter 20, I’ve done quite a bit of rough writing on many of the subsequent chapters. (I tend to jump around a bit while writing.) And some of the earlier chapters have multiple versions of the same scene, much of which will be cut later. But still, at the current rate, this book is going to hit 900 pages if I don’t do some heavy trimming.

To think there was a time when I worried I wouldn’t be able to come up with 300 pages.

Anyway, I’m already thinking about which parts of the book to cut. I know many writers will say I should wait until I get to the end before I do this, but I’m just not built that way. I’m going to fret about this until I do something, so I might as well do some of it now. Besides, if I don’t, I just know I’ll subconsciously start to write the rest of the chapters as short as possible to compensate. And that’s no way to write a first draft.

My Writing Style

I’ve spent the last two days reworking the second chapter of the Hogwarts book. And I think I’ve finally got it.

Maybe.

This isn’t the first time I’ve thought I had it fixed – this is probably the fifth rewrite -- but this time I really think I’m on the right track.

Honestly.

Maybe.

The problem with this chapter is that it was written before I had any clue about writing fiction. First of all, there was waaaaay too much exposition and essentially no dialogue, so I had to go back several times and convert much of the exposition into dialogue (show, don't tell!). This resulted in the removal of large chunks of the chapter; some of which I liked very much and it was painful. Truman Capote once said something to the effect that one of the tricks to being a good writer is being able to “murder your darlings.” In other words, being able to toss the parts of your writing that just don’t fit, no matter how much you are in love with them.

The other problem with the chapter, the one I’ve been dealing with the last two days, has to do with the writing style. When I began this project a year and a half ago, all I had was a collection of short, anemic chapters based loosely on ideas that had been bouncing around inside my head ever since I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The idea of combining them into a single story didn’t come until much later and my decision to write the book as if it was to be the next book in the series only occurred this last spring. But the second chapter didn't sound like anything JKK Rowling would have written.

If I had to describe my writing style, it would probably be a cross between Rowling and Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Not that my skill level is anywhere close to theirs, but the tone is similar. And my second chapter sounded too much like Hitchhiker's Guide, so I needed to fix it up to match rest of the chapters in the book.

I should have it finished by the end of the weekend. I guess I can't complain. I’ve heard of writers rewriting entire books -- many times over.

How Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Affected Me

I walked into the family room the other night and discovered my family watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth movie in the Harry Potter series. There were only 15 minutes left in the movie by then, but I was still reminded of just how much that movie affected me when I saw it the first time. Without that movie, I’m probably not attempting to write a story based on Hogwarts.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the books immensely, but until that movie came along, the world of Harry Potter seemed like an imaginary place – a place which would no doubt be fun to visit, but one in which I didn’t really picture myself visiting. That all changed with the fourth movie.

In the Goblet of Fire, the director (or perhaps the producer) decided to steer the movie away from some of the earlier fantasy elements, probably in an attempt to prepare us for the darker scenes to come. (At least that’s my guess.) Many of the scenes were now shot inside or around old stone buildings and it suddenly seemed much more real to me. (I absolutely love old stone buildings – the older the better – especially castles, and especially in Britain.)

The director also spent more time having the characters talk about non-magical things, more in line with what Muggle students might talk about, and these conversations reminded me of my college days, so much so that I felt a bit depressed for weeks after the movie, wishing I had been able to attend Hogwarts instead of the University of Missouri. Not that there’s anything wrong with the University of Missouri – it’s a great school – but a chance to study magic… in a castle… in Scotland? Come on…

Anyway, when I write my next book – assuming I’m not working on the second book of this Hogwarts series – it’s going to be based around another castle.

Cats and Christmas Trees Do Not Mix

Work continues on the Hogwarts book, but in the meantime, we put up the Christmas tree this weekend. My wife has already strung the lights, but that may be as far as we get for a while. Our two cats have decided that perching in the upper branches is the most important thing in their lives, despite how much water we spray them with. They climbed the tree last year too, but this year, they are big enough to knock branches loose (it's an artificial tree), so we may have to stick with unbreakable ornaments.

We need a cat repelling spell.

I guess this just means more time to spend on the book.

A Harry Potter Thanksgiving

It was definitely a Harry Potter Thanksgiving at our house these past four days. Not only was I able to spend plenty of time working on my book, but the family and I saw the Harry Potter movie on Sunday.

General impressions of the movie. First of all, I enjoyed the movie, as I knew I would, but it was noticeably different from the first six movies. As has been mentioned before, moving the story away from Hogwarts really affected the feel of the movie. And the constant jumping around to different locations gave it a more surreal feel – at least to me. There were plenty of action sequences, although they were interspersed between rather slow moving scenes designed, I suppose, to let us witness plenty of soul-searching by Harry, Hermione, and Ron. In addition, although the time spent having the three main characters work their way through mysteries was a big part of all seven books as well as the earlier movies, there was very little of it here, with either Hermione or Harry spotting some small clue and then suddenly announcing what needed to be done next. I realize they are trying to fit a lot of story into this movie, and need to keep things moving, but I would rather have seen more of the story and less soul-searching. But to each his own.

Another thing I noticed was the difference in the intended target audience. This was a movie designed to be seen by those who know the Harry Potter world fairly well. The earlier movies were pretty good about explaining why some things occurred – perhaps not always very extensively, but at least enough to give people who hadn’t read the book a chance to know what was going on. There were numerous occasions in this movie where an important event occurred or a concept was demonstrated – something that was important for the audience to understand – without the slightest bit of explanation. Since many of these events had not been shown in any of the previous movies, it you hadn’t read the books, you would have absolutely no idea what was going on. If you are reading this blog, you probably understood everything that happened in the movie, but I know plenty of people who completely missed why things happened the way they did.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie and now I’m psyched to work even harder on my book!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hogwarts -- The Place it All Began -- For Me At Least

I’ve read a few reviews of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie so far, and while they have mostly been positive, I did run across one that caught my attention. The reviewer didn’t care much for the movie, feeling that the series (and actors) was getting a bit long in the tooth. I can’t argue with him, either for or against, since I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the overall tone of the article suggests that the reviewer was predisposed to a negative review based on his opinion of the previous movies.

What I found interesting was his opinion that shooting the movie away from Hogwarts had drained some of the life out of it. And I’m wondering if I am going to feel the same way when I see the movie myself. Of course, I’m not complaining that the film’s producers did it this way. After all, that was how the book was written. But it still doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy about it.

To me, Hogwarts was what made the stories so magical. I recall being more than a little depressed when Harry announced that he wasn’t going back to Hogwarts at the end of the sixth book and I was disappointed there was so little of Hogwarts in the seventh book. Of course, I liked the characters and the magic and the general quirkiness of the wizardring world, but it was Hogwarts that first caught my attention, and it was Hogwarts that I enjoyed revisiting in subsequent books. (For various reasons, Hogwarts reminds me of my college days, but I’ll talk about that in another post) And it was my desire to keep the magic of Hogwarts alive (among other things) that led me to begin writing my book in the first place.

May Hogwarts live forever!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Movie

Surprise! I’m back. My apologies for allowing several months to pass between posts. My intention was, and still is, to post several times a week, but my schedule has been really tight for the last three months. In September, I began teaching chemistry (night classes) at a local community college, and it has required significantly more time than I had expected. The time I could spend on writing was cut drastically and whenever I found a few minutes to write, I always chose to work on my Hogwarts book instead of posting here.

This is now starting to change. As I've gotten used to teaching again, my work load has decreased, so the time I have to write has been slowly increasing. (Still not enough, though!)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1) opened today and I suspect the Harry Potter community is reaching a fever pitch. I won't be seeing it immediately myself – it will take some maneuvering to find a time when the entire family can go – and I no longer feel as though I have to be one of the first people to see a movie when it comes out. I can wait a few weeks for the crowds to thin down a bit. In the meantime, all this Harry Potter frenzy is inspiring me to work even harder on the book. It's still slow going, but it is progressing and I'm happy with that. I'm still estimating another year before it's done – well after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 2) has come and gone.

Hopefully some people will still be interested in what happens to Hogwarts next.

The Journey Begins

Finally!  My first post!  I've been planning on starting this blog for quite some time, but I've always been able to find reasons why I should do something else instead.  To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to having to decide how the blog would look (color schemes, layout, etc.), but I finally decided that enough was enough.  I grabbed the simplest template Blogger offered, used the default colors, and started writing this post.   As a result, this blog is still a work in progress.  I'll be rearranging the layout and adding all sorts of widgets over the next few weeks (or months), but I hope to be posting on a regular basis in the meantime.

The reason for this blog is simple.  I've decided to teach myself how to write fiction and this blog will track my progess toward that goal.
 
First, a confession.  I've always hated writing.  It's has always felt like a chore to me.  I've written reports for scientific journals (I'm a research chemist), but it was like pulling teeth.  Now this may sound strange coming from someone who is writtng a blog about writing, but it's the truth.  It turns out that though I may detest writing non-fiction, I've discovered that writing fiction can actually be fun. 

And for that, I blame J K Rowling.

Let me explain.  After I finished the "The Deathly Hallows," the seventh book in the Harry Potter series, I started thinking about how Ms. Rowling (or anyone else for that matter) might go about writing an eighth book.  A few ideas occurred to me that night, but I didn't dwell on the matter.  Over the next few weeks though, more and more ideas came to mind -- characters, plot twists, unusual events that could only occur at Hogwarts.  You get the point.  Soon I had so many ideas buillt up that I felt the need to write them down just to keep from losing them. 

Eventually I made the decision to write a story based on those ideas.  It might be lame, but at least the ideas wouldn't be wasted.

And then a funny thing happened.  I discovered I liked writing fiction.  Inventing characters and working up intricate plots filled with mysteries is a lot of fun.  And now I want to spend all my time doing it.

But there is a lot more to writing fiction than coming up with a good story.  There are all sorts of techniques to master and I quickly discovered that I have a lot to learn.  Tightly scripted dialogue, character development, pacing -- these are all things I'm now in the process of trying to teach myself.

So that's the point of this blog -- tracking my progress as a writier of fiction.  Hopefully you'll stay around long enough to find out where this leads.

BTW, since I''m a chemist you can expect me to occasionally write about science topics which I think you might also find interesting.  

Thanks for reading.