Eureka Moments in Writing

Posted by EleCivil, Dec 30 2009, 06:13 AM

I was working on Leviathan Rusts earlier today, after watching The Big Lebowski and splitting a pot of coffee with a local DJ (Yes, it's always a wacky adventure!). So, amped up on caffeine and with a head full of surreal scenes and strange dialogue, I had one of those Eureka Moments. The entire plot became clear to me. The beginning, middle, and end all aligned before my eyes, and the characters' arcs all fell into place.

I had some basic ideas and a first chapter written, but now it's all pieced together. And I'm thinking this might be my best story, yet. I'm excited. I love it when a plan comes together.

Of course, now I've got to tweak the first chapter some more. Remember when I said in a previous post that it would be released in December '09? Don't count on it. I mean, there's still a couple days left in December, but I'll still need to get it edited, and then it'll probably be a few days until The Dude and the CW Web Guys get it upped. So, January 2010. A new story for a new year.

After all, anyone who's followed my stories before knows better than to believe me when I mention a deadline, right?

If you want some hints about what it'll be like, read on. If you'd rather be surprised, stop here.

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Last chance.


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No, seriously this time.


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Don't say I didn't warn you.


First, a recap:

Leaves and Lunatics - My first attempt at writing a novel/novella/serial story. At the time, I was aiming for Nifty Archives quality, because that was about the extent of my experience with net fiction. I started writing it when I was 17 and fresh out of high school. It was a somewhat sappy romance story with a lot of editing mistakes and some plot points that still make me cringe. The story didn't really go anywhere. But it did have some characters that I like. I rushed the ending because I had the idea-seeds for Laika and I wanted to get started on it.

Laika - My second serial novel. As I explained in the Afterward, I played around a bit with symbols and theme (socks = freedom). It fits a lot of the characteristics of a screwball comedy - A central romance, romance across cultures/socio-economic strata, fast-paced dialogue, false identities, some physical comedy, etc. I wasn't as happy with the ending as I could have been - I kind of ran out of steam, and the last couple chapters fizzled out and included some scenes that didn't really go anywhere. Still, I'm happy with how it turned out.

Now, my current project...

Leviathan Rusts - The third in the "L series", it takes place in the same "universe" as the first two stories. Keep an eye out for returning characters. It takes place about six years after L&L, and about two years after Laika. The main characters are college aged. It does not take place in Curson, MI or Gordon, OH, but in a new city - the college town of Milkthistle, OH. The protagonist may be difficult for readers to relate to (except for one or two of them, who might get him right away).

As for genre...well, it's different. At some points, darker than Laika. At others, lighter than L&L. That's as much as I'll say - you can see the rest for yourselves. Here's some hints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Anthropology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan


***




Update: First chapter has been sent to a (potential) editor.

A New Novel by EC? Sooner Than You'd Think.

Posted by EleCivil, Nov 29 2009, 08:46 PM

Buried under the weight of words.

Posted by EleCivil, Aug 11 2009, 01:27 PM

No one told me that when, over the course of 23 years, you accumulate roughly eight metric assloads of books, you eventually have to MOVE eight metric assloads of books. To a third floor apartment. With no elevator.

Sweet Fancy Moses, this is gonna take forever.

But on the plus side...I've got a lot of books.

Also, I've got a new place that's fairly close to my new job. Best thing about the new place? I can finally get broadband access. Up until now, I've been scraping by on my gas-powered 56k connection.

"Our aspirations are wrapped up in books,
Our inclinations are hidden in looks."

EC: The "E" is for "Employed"

Posted by EleCivil, Aug 8 2009, 02:45 PM

I got a job. Just in time, too, with less than two weeks before school starts.

I don't want to give too many details in a public post like this, because I wouldn't want to be recognized (hit me up on AIM or YIM if you're that curious about the details).

Here's what I can tell you:

I'm a reading teacher for a mix of elementary and middle school students (that's right - my designation is "EleMiddle." Heh.)
It's an inner-city school with 99% of the population below the poverty line. Many of the students are homeless, parentless, or penniless.
It's a very poor school in a very poor area during a recession, so I'll probably be laid off at the end of the school year, regardless of performance.
The school has no art, music, gym, recess, or extra-curriculars. These were all shut down because of low test scores.
The school itself is on the verge of being shut down by the government (depending on this year's test scores).

Euphemistic Edition

Posted by EleCivil, Jul 1 2009, 03:32 AM

I'm trying to give up swearing. It's not that hard - it's not like I was a big fan of the profanity, anyway - but I figure that it'd cut down on my chances of saying something that could get me fired once I'm actually teaching. As such, I've been throwing around some rather colorful euphemisms, lately. They tend to make bystanders do double-takes (which, I'll admit, is true for a lot of the weird stuff that I do). Here are some stand-outs:

"Matt Lauer!" and "Mothra Faulkner!" were both mentioned in previous blog posts, but they're worth repeating.
"Grinnin' Bedlam!"
"Horsemonger!"
"Gorbachev!"
"Dopefish!"
"Andrew 'Old Hickory' Jackson!"
"Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum!"

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On the writing side of things...

-Wrote the first two and a half chapters to a "Laika" sequel, but I absolutely hated it. Consider the project scrapped indefinitely.
-Wrote three poems, currently posted in the poetry board. Used one of them to win a local poetry competition (the prize was a blank book with the words "Carpe Diem" inscribed on the cover).
-Wrote the first six chapters of a sci-fi/urban fantasy story. It has two secondary characters that are probably my favorites out of everything I've written, and I'm having a lot of fun with building a plot around a home-made mythology. I don't know if I want to post this one, though.
-Wrote a few pages and a decently workable outline for a new AD/CW story. Don't expect to see anything of it for a while - I'm still kicking ideas around.

Grayfaces and Graduates

Posted by EleCivil, May 14 2009, 02:45 AM

I passed student-teaching with an A, and I'll be getting my degree on Saturday.

My students wrote me goodbye letters on my last day. Some of my favorite lines include...

"Mr. EC the he has a cool hat." [sic]
"The best thing Mr. EC did was freestyle rap with [X] in the computer lab, then drop his pencil on the floor like it was a mic."
"I thought Mr. EC was really weird at first." [I find this one funny because I thought I was really weird the whole time.]
"Mr. EC needs to keep being a straight-up G."
"Mr. EC needs to come teach at the high school next year so I can have him again."
"Mr. EC looks like the Hitman [see below], and that game is awesome."
One student included a drawing of the ninja turtles, in which he misspelled both "Ninja" and "Turtles". But that's okay - I only had that student for science, not language arts.

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I went to the awards ceremony for my graduating class. No one told me that it was supposed to be a formal affair, so I came dressed to my usual slacker standard (purple and black checkered t-shirt with a large skull on one side, slightly frayed and baggy black pants, a black fedora cocked jauntily to one side, and my trademark macaroni necklace). Once I'm inside, I notice that every other guy in the room is wearing a suit, or at least a collared shirt and a tie. Heh. Oops. It reminds me of my freshman year, when I came to the invocation (presented, unbeknownst to me, by the Mayor) dressed in a similar way. The difference? This time, I was wearing my noodle necklace with confidence.

At one point, the president of the student body came by to say hi, and did a kind of double-take. He asks "Why didn't you dress up?"
I shrug, look around, and say, "Hey, this is how I always look. Why'd everybody else feel the need to change?"
He opens his mouth, pauses, shakes his head, and mutters "I wish I was as cool as you, Civil," before walking back to his seat. I'm positive he was being sarcastic, but the whole interaction still made me laugh.

Anyway, awards-wise, it turns out I'm going to graduate Magna Cum Laude (which probably isn't half as fun as it sounds). It was funny to see the reactions in the crowd when I went to get my honors tassel and they were all looking at each other as if to say, "Wait, the dude with the pasta necklace? Really?"

The Curse of Greyface in action, ladies and gents. Ain't it sad?

Now, on to looking for a job! When I find out what state I'm moving to, I'll let you know.

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"We are a new faith,
We are a new face,
We are everything
In this world that personifies change."

EC vs. The Forces of Exhaustion, Erosion, and Erudition

Posted by EleCivil, Mar 15 2009, 03:45 PM

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything in here, huh?

Well, I've got a fairly good excuse, this time - with my commute added in, I'm working about 13 hours every day. For no money. In fact, I'm paying about 10k for the privilege of working 13 hour days. That's right - I'm student-teaching.

I've already finished up with my stint as a language arts teacher. Right now, I'm teaching science. Starting on Monday, I'll be teaching not only general science, but for one hour a day I'll be teaching forensic science - crime scene investigation stuff, like DNA fingerprinting, blood spatter analysis, and fingerprint lifting. This means that I get to stage crime scenes around the school, drawing chalk outlines and leaving bloody footprints and such. Fun, but it doubles my workload. I'm looking at 14-15 hour days, now. My 8 hour shifts on the weekends are like a vacation. I'm pretty much a coffee-fueled zombie.

For more of my wacky, school-related adventures, check out the thread "8th grade is more exciting the second time." at Codey's World.

---

A pothole ate one of my tires, the other day. Actually, not just the tire - the entire wheel was mashed to oblivion. I couldn't even change it - I had to call AAA, who actually had to chip away the old wheel with a chisel. The pothole had to have been at least five inches deep, and it stretched across an entire lane of a two-lane road - there was no way to avoid it. AAA had had so much business because of that pothole that they had a guy stationed there, so it didn't take much time. The mechanic suggested that I send the wheel to the city, so that maybe they'll get to work on that ridiculous pothole.

---

True telephone conversation:

EC: What are you doing?
Friend: Drinking coffee, listening to techno, working. You?
EC: Same, except replace "techno" with "NPR."
Friend: ...
EC: I mean, "punk." I'm listening to punk! Uh, hooray for anarchy. I'm definitely not listening to Garrison Keillor talk about Lake Wobegon, right now.
Friend: See, this is why I can never tell when you're being sarcastic.

Magical History Tour

Posted by EleCivil, Dec 6 2008, 01:08 AM

I've been driving around to various historic locations, getting pictures for a travelogue I'm writing for an Ohio History course. It's a lot of fun. I'm seeing a bunch of towns, cities, and even parts of my own city that I never usually see.

Here's a picture of me at Fort Meigs, watching suspiciously for the British Navy (Camy, I'm looking in your direction - you'd give me a heads up if you guys were going to give it another go and put us colonists in our place, right?).

[image removed]

Also, I've been given a student teaching assignment. Looks like I'll be driving for more than two hours every day for four months. So, that'll suck, but once that's done with, I'll be done with college. For a while, anyway.

My placement is way out in the boonies in Michigan. It's weird. I'm used to the Big City ™, with our graduating classes of 600+ and our businesses that are open past nine. To get to my placement, I have to leave the city, then drive through roughly thirty miles of corn. Fun stuff, right? But it'll be cool to see how a rural school differs from the urban and suburban places that I'm used to.

Funny story, though - I'm at the school with my adviser, waiting to meet with the cooperating teachers. We're both dressed in black suits, and I'm wearing a black fedora, cocked jauntily to one side. A student walks through the room, sees us, does a double-take, and just mutters "Whoa." I think she thought that we were there to erase her memory to cover up extraterrestrial activity. Or maybe sell some bootleg gin at the school's floating craps game.

Anyway, I've gotten a look at exactly how much work I'll be doing for these next few months, and it's not pretty. Don't expect to see much of me between January and June.

Ear-ly in the mornin'.

Posted by EleCivil, Nov 16 2008, 04:21 PM

A friend of mine recently joined the Navy. He was in town the other day, so we (and a couple others) went out to a karaoke bar to hang out. Now, for as long as I've known him, he's always thought that it would be hilarious to get the whole group together and perform a boy band song on stage. The rest of us figured, hey, the dude's home from the Navy - we ought to indulge him. This was the day it was going to go down.

So, we get a turn, and saunter up to the stage. He's already close to falling-down drunk (and he's completely tone-deaf even when he's not), so we know how great we're going to sound.

As I'm stepping onto the stage, he bumps into me, and I bite my tongue. Hard. Like, broken skin hard. Honestly, it felt like I just bit off half of my tongue. It hurts like hell, but, hey - the show must go on.

We get up there, and we pick the song "Bye Bye Bye" by *NSync. It was popular when we were in middle school, so we all knew it. The music starts, and I open my mouth and begin singing.

There's a gasp from the audience, and in a few seconds I know why. No, it wasn't because we all suck at singing (though we do). It's because there's blood pouring from my mouth, dribbling down my chin in fairly large quantities. Needless to say, I also sounded goofy as hell, because the whole of my tongue was nearly numb with pain.

In short, it may have been the most violent performance of an *NSync song, ever.

A few hours later, as we're getting ready to go home, we notice that our Naval friend is missing in action. One guy goes to the restroom to see if he's in there. He comes back, laughing, and says "He's in there puking his guts out into a urinal, because some guys are smoking up in the stall."

He stumbles back to the table, puts his head down, and stays in that position for the rest of the night. People at the table behind us entertain themselves by trying to bounce quarters into his exposed plumber's crack.

Being sober, and therefore the designated driver, I carry him out to my car, Bride-of-Frankenstein style. Now, he hasn't been in town for quite some time, so I don't know where he's staying, and he's in no condition to tell me. Hell, he's in no position to point. I glance at the clock and see that it's two in the morning, and I think to myself:

"What DO you do with a drunken sailor,
Ear-ly in the mornin'?"

I considered dropping him off on his grandmother's lawn. She lives close to me, so it was convenient, and it had the added bonus of making for a rather amusing story when he woke up. I decided it was a bit too cold to be leaving him on the lawn, however, and he ended up spending the night in my bathtub (because he wasn't getting anywhere near any carpets or furniture, heh).

The next morning, he said "Man, that really sucked, but you know the worst part? We never got a chance to sing. That would have been funny."

"We did." I replied.

"What? Awww, I can't remember it!" He groans, gripping his head. "Were we good?"

"There wath a lot of blood." I shrugged.

"Oh. Cool." He says, looking rather confused. "Wait...why do you have a lisp, now?"

"Becauthe the front forth of my tongue ith gone."

"...Oh. Damn, I missed a lot."

(Actually, most of my tongue is still there. It's just got a giant scab across the front. My whole mouth tastes like pennies.)

NaNoWriMo, Yo.

Posted by EleCivil, Nov 2 2008, 02:05 PM

It's begun! I'm ahead of my daily word goal, so I'm happy. I'm hoping to hit 10,000 by midnight, tonight. I know I won't be getting nearly as much writing done during the school/work week, so I'm sneaking my laptop into work on the weekends to write during down time.

If you'll direct your attention to the right of this post, you'll see that I've added a word-counter-ma-bob to the side of the blog. Feel free to berate and/or badger me if you don't see the number on that thing increase for a couple of days.

You can click here if you want to see my NaNo profile, story synopsis, or an excerpt (once I actually post an excerpt, that is).

The coolest thing about NaNo is the community. There's a fairly large number of us in the metro area, so we meet up at the local Barnes and Noble to talk books, writing, and geek culture. If you've never tried it, there's still time to get started - you're only a day or two behind. Just check out NaNoWriMo.org, and check the forum for your regional lounge to see if there are any meet-ups happening in your area.

In other news, remember that six hour long standardized test I mentioned a couple posts ago? I passed it. I've got another three hour long one coming up on the 15th. Big fun, no doubt.