Last week, I finally decided to take the plunge and make my story as historically accurate as possible. Though I'll have to do some rewriting to reflect revised ages and backgrounds for the characters, there are too many tasty historical coincidences, with just the right dates, not to take advantage of them. It's funny how close history was to what I had originally come up with.

Last Saturday I made this awesome Excel spreadsheet, taking in the birth and death dates of all 27 of Emperor Gomizunoo's children who survived infancy, their genders, as well as their mothers, color coded by rank. It's a very neat, very colorful spreadsheet. Extremely pleasing to look at. You can tell at a glance who was still alive in any given year.

This morning, I cleaned up the timeline of background events, matching it to historical people and dates. Also, I simplified the chain of past events and deleted a dead character (deceased grandmother) who would have required too much explanation. A very productive two hours today.

Day 10, and I am keeping up. Although to make a confession, today I spent my hour today deleting instead of writing. It's because I've moved on to a part of the story where the plotting and everything is still up in the air. I had about 25 pages of old stuff for this chapter, but having made some decisions as to where the story is headed, I had to sort out stuff that I wouldn't need anymore, and stuff I wanted to keep but needed to figure out how to incorporate still.

This is usually the point in my writing where I become deathly afraid and unsure of where to take my story, and then it languishes for a year. I suspect this is why, from college graduation until now, I've averaged a bit more than one new good chapter a year. It's a really sad pace at which to make progress on a novel. That being said, I must find a way to plow through this. Thinking is involved, yes, and planning, and plotting, but I can't let myself stop writing either. It's too easy to stop under the pretext of needing more time to think, and then suddenly half a year has passed and not a word written.

Thinking on it this afternoon, I realized that thus far, my characters have faced no great obstacles. Sure, there's the obvious one around which the story is centered, but there's nothing that throws a wrench in the works when they decide to do something. Perhaps that is why my story is languishing at this stage. Throwing obstacles in front of my characters would be a good thing to revive the pace of the story, introduce new things in interesting ways, and just keep the story going. My characters have had it too easy. But vacation is over! It's time for them to start working.

What is this, Day 6? Writing is still going well and I am keeping up. I finished Chapter 5 yesterday/today and today wrote the first page or so of Chapter 6. Chapter 6 goes back to the other character's side of the story, which is good because I need more time to think about how I want Hinako's story to progress. It's nice to finally be making progress, even if the quality is not so great.

Thursday at dinner a girl from my program asked me how my writing was going. I told her how I had not written anything for well over a month and then recently started writing an hour a day. She said, "Oh, that's good, to take a break and then start writing again when you're inspired." Maybe it's okay to take a break sometimes, but I think a one month break is just awful and lazy. There's nothing good about it. And I didn't start writing again because I was inspired. Inspiration happens in the early stages as a story idea is still fresh with endless possibilities. At this point, maybe a fourth of the way through the story, it's all about discipline. Forcing yourself to write and slugging through it no matter how you feel that day. There's no inspiration, except that which you create if you desperately need to delude yourself into believing that there is inspiration. Inspiration, if there is such a thing, only comes when you stick your butt in the chair, open up that story file, and start typing out the shaky ideas that you don't think will work but type anyway because you've got nothing else. That is my kind of inspiration.

Day 1 of NaNoWriMo off to a good start. One hour, one page. And a few great ideas, big and small.

One big idea was to change Kyoshi's name to just Kyou. That way it might better follow the conventions of female names in the given setting, and also it contains a delightful pun in Japanese that is particularly relevant to the story itself. You wonder why I didn't think of this earlier. Well, I still need time to consider it, but I like it, particularly in terms of the historical aspect and the pun.

Wrote another hour this morning, yay! Probably got somewhere around half a page, or a bit more, but more than yesterday, I think. I really want to try writing without obsessively going back and editing, because now I realize that that approach gets me one new, really good chapter about every year. Which is sad. So we're going to try to power through and not worry about details, even big ones, which I will need to change later.

Tomorrow the real (well, my version) NaNoWriMo starts!

Okay, as of this morning I have a brand new rough story outline. The last things are completely disjointed and will probably see great change, but having this really helps for where I am now. Which is, Chapter 5. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are more or less fine for this draft, Chapter 3 needs a ton of revision but I'm leaving that for later, and so now I'm working on Chapter 5.

Still have trouble pinning down K's voice. Is she taciturn and clipped or freely sarcastic? I want both, but I haven't figured out how to balance it.

Uwwah, okay. I really can't keep up blogs. I don't know how some people do it.

So right now, I'm working quickly through Chapter 5. The plan is to get a first, hasty draft done by my birthday next month, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, when they're not typing or otherwise engaged.

I applied to 11 MFA in Creative Writing programs and 2 East Asian Studies M.A. programs. So far I've heard from 5 MFA programs: 4 rejections and 1 waiting list. Keeping fingers crossed on the waiting list school. I guess perhaps I aimed too high and underestimated the competition.

Finished revising Chapter 3, though it needs much more polishing than Chapters 1 and 2. But for purposes of this draft, it's done. Moving on to Chapter 4 revisions/drafting. If you recall, I left Chapter 4 half drafted, a complete mess of 9 pages. Chapter 4, here I go.

Day 34 Progress Report

Days 34 (August 31) - Meh. Suffice it to say, I did not make the August deadline for my draft. Far from it. But I did get a lot done. Significantly, I hacked out a full story outline, so writing from now on should, theoretically, require less HUGE revisions later on, seeing that I actually know, somewhat, where my story is going. I sketchedseveral chapters ahead earlier in the month, though I'll have to go back now and see how much they deviate from my outline. Chapter 1 was revised, cutting out about 2-3 pages of angst and melodrama, leaving it at 6 pages. Chapter 2 was sigificantly revised--perhaps 10 pages of new material altogether--and now comes in at 21 pages. I'm still in the middle of revising Chapter 3, and I'm about halfway through that process. Chapters 1 and 2 still need to be polished, but I'm satisfied enough for now to move on.

Page/word count:

Chapter 1 -- 6 pages -- 3,638 words

Chapter 2 -- 21 pages -- 12, 257 words

Total: 27 pages -- 15,895 words

Chapter 1 has something of a prologue taste to it, but I don't want to call it a prologue until later, if I have to. The overuse of prologues annoys me. Excluding Chapter 1, I feel that most of my chapters will weigh in at around 20 pages.

In addition to the visible progress, I also developed more self-discipline in terms of writing, or making an effort, almost every day. And I've finally grown attached to this story. I'll continue to make writing a priority, and I want to continue blogging about it, although without the annoying day counter. :P

Days 30-33 Progress Report

Days 30-31 (August 27-28) - I work really well for a few hours if I wake up at 5 am, I've found. I don't remember what I did on these days, but I do know I got at least a little writing done. Oh wait, I do remember. I came down to Chiayi on Day 30, and I used the entire three-hour bus ride to run through my plot outline and do "image training" for the story. It was very productive. I got a lot of notes made and revised the plot further on. Three hours seems like a long time to do nothing but think, but I was able to keep focused with the plot outline printout in hand and make progress. With the new backstory and plot structure in mind, I looked over Chapter 1 again and started revising Chapter 2 on Day 31.

Day 32 (August 29) - Continued Chapter 2 revisions. Didn't quite make it to the end, but I reworked the Asagawa scene and streamlined it so that it wasn't the mismash of lines I'd left it as after the previous half-baked revision earlier this month. Worked through the chapter until about page 16 or 17 and went to sleep.

Day 33 (August 30) - Woke up at 5 am like yesterday and worked straight until 10 am. It feels so good. Yesterday morning I had to stop after only three hours because I was getting a headache, but this morning I was good. I continued with expanding the previously minimal travel scene, added a surprise family scene to help set up Ayaka for later (surprise because I wasn't planning to write anything of the sort), and then completely rewrote the part near the end that screamed PlotDevice! where the guide leaves to get himself killed. Most of the last few pages, from when they start traveling until the second-to-last second, is completely new or rewritten. And then I added a nasty little surprise for Hinako in the last scene. It's so much fun torturing my characters. I don't enjoy torturing characters in fanfics because I feel badly for them, but when they're my own characters...well, it's fun. And I don't feel bad at all. *grin*

Days 28-29 Progress Report

Day 28 (August 25) - Not much progress to speak of. Although I got some new intel regarding names for men and women in the Edo period. Need to do some thinking because some character names need to be changed.

Day 29 (August 26) - Finally got back to writing. Finished my rough drafting of Chapter 10 this afternoon. Chapter 10 being the current chapter designated as the flashback chapter. But even though I've done a rough draft/sketch of it, it's still very rough. In the end, I'm still a little confused on Kyoshi's motivations. In the end, did she do it out of jealousy or out of misguided love? Or both? It currently reads as both, but I think it's too much of a mishmash of things I want/wanted to include in the real draft at the moment for me to determine if it'll work or not. (Also, I'm tired of designating characters by letter, so I'm going by name now. Some of which have changed as of yesterday/today.)

Update: Rethought problems of character motivation in Chapter 10 and found a solution by creating a new character. I feel utterly brilliant. When evaluating names for the new character, Miyo vs. Okayo, both of which I like, I chose Miyo. I can just imagine the Japanese-illiterate reader coming across "Okayo" and seeing it as "Okay-o." =_=

This really helped clarify Yayoi's motivations, and having those in line, I was able to go back and install some order into the sequence of events and Kyoshi's motivations. Added another page of rough drafting to chapter ten, for a total of eleven very rough pages.

Days 25-27 Progress Report

Day 25 (August 22) - Got a little more writing done on the flashback chapter.

Day 26-27 (August 23-24) - Flying, jet lag, movies, loss of 15 hours, and less than one handwritten page. Hello, Taiwan! Royal Pizza is yummy.

Days 23-24 Progress Report

Day 23 (August 20) - Got two hours of sleep the night before, since I was busy packing for Taiwan. Managed about a page and a half of handwritten flashback story between sleeping on the plane to L.A. And then the rest of the day was eating at Curry House, sleeping, driving places, and eating steak at L.A. Prime. Yum. I don't think I've consumed that many calories in one day since last month.

Day 24 (August 21) - Woke up early (for California time, anyway) and got the first scene and then some of the K and Ya flashback sequence done. It's somehow refreshing to be writing from K's perspective with no H involved. H is always a difficult person to narrate for, even though she's more clearheaded than K and more appropriate as the POV character, most of the time.

It's also pleasing to transform the first two paragraphs I handwrote yesterday into two typed pages.

Discovery of the day: Yams and sweet potatoes are different! Yes, this is relevant to my story. I have a yam in there, and I was wondering if it was okay to interchangeably refer to it as sweet potato. (Thief, you're wrong!)

Day 22 Progress Report

Day 22 (August 19) - In addition to my non-human guy character, I had a human guy character who was supposed to be a supporting character in most of the story. But when I did my outline last night, I realized I had nothing for him to do. He was just an accessory for my other supporting character. So instead of having him hang off her arm doing nothing the whole time, I made him less noble and had him exit after only a chapter. Maybe I'm not representing men very well in my story. But if that's the case, it's better to be rid of them than have a flat character taking up space.

Finished my outline at noon. Three pages with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown. Maybe I should aim for having thirteen chapters. Unlucky thirteen. Of course, it really comes down to story progression and pacing. As of this moment, my outline calls for fourteen chapters. And who knows how it'll really go once I get to drafting. Anyways, having a finished outline that actually provides a fairly plausible storyline from beginning to end is a great relief.

Busy packing tonight...As I go through my shitajiki and anime folder collection, I realize that the only series right now I really like merchandise for is Gintama. Naruto stuff is nice too, but it's second to Gintama. Interesting. So I'm bringing some Gintama shitajiki for the heck of it, but I'm not bringing any of my anime folders. Nyanko folders are more bearable to use (I prize them less) while also being interesting but not too distracting. I think my taste in stationary is quite good, but when it comes down to what I actually use, most of it is utilitarian and plain in design.

Days 20-21 Progress Report

Day 20 (August 17) - Project status: A tangled mass of half-formed threads.

Spent some time browsing OSC's Writing Lessons. Very interesting. For example, he says that how long a novel is isn't about plot, but about pacing. Very true, but I never thought about it like that before.

As I read blogs and such, I'm beginning to realize that most authors already have the whole basic story in their heads before they begin writing. And the last few days (or more like, this month), I've been trying to do just that. It's helping, but it takes time. Of course, writing things out without forethought and then having to rearrange or delete them later would take more time.

Day 21 (August 18) - Spent an hour and a half right after waking up trying to work out the plot tangles. It worked! I have up to the climax more or less under control, in my head, at least. The climax and resolution are still a little hazy, but I do have a general idea for them.

Last night I played lots of FFVII before going to bed. It took forever to beat Yuffie's dad, so finally I resorted to the strategy guide for tips. At night, I dreamed about Materia distribution among the characters and my character K from my novel having a limit break called God Limit. ^_^;;;

Spent the whole day doing non-writing related things and running errands in preparation to go to Taiwan. And then procrastinated a bunch. And after all that, finally got back to writing and worked seriously on my outline, with my new plot ideas in hand. Didn't quite finish. Got near the climax (i.e. hazy problem area) and went to bed at 3 a.m.

Day 18-19 Progress Report

Day 18 (August 15) - Did some brief character sketching. Highly unproductive day.

Day 19 (August 16) - Jotted down some ideas for the second half. I've been writing notes on the back of these big monthly calendar sheets. It feels very good, and it's easy to skim over when I need to review my notes. A big blank piece of paper doesn't have the constraint of lines, nor the constraint of space. I like scribbling notes and drawing diagrams freely.

Anyways, I skipped ahead (or back, in one sense) to a memory sequence. THE memory sequence, essentially. And finally ideas and words are coming, and at last, the past is becoming a little less hazy. Then I hopped back to Chapter 7, skipped the first few completely unorganized pages of potential dialogue, and expanded on a scene marker.

Sometimes I find myself writing lines very suggestive of a mysterious grand plot. The character thinks, if X happens, then everything is finished! ...I only wish I knew what was being finished, and why. Tell me! T_T

Day 17 Progress Report

Day 17 (August 14) - Feeling stuck on how to approach magic. I think it needs a more Japanese approach. Someone mentioned somewhere how with a Japanese approach, magic is in the everyday and mixes with the mundane, whereas with a Western approach, magic is a dimension removed. Something like that. I'm sure I'm remembering very inaccurately. In any case. My head is full of Western magic. *headdesks*

Chapter 6 will explore magic more deeply than before, so I need to do some thinking. Even if I skip drafting all the magic-related parts, I'll need to have something worked out by the second half.

Also, I keep on having information crises on Japanese religion. Since the division between Buddhism and Shinto is so unclear, I keep getting paranoid over whether it's okay to have a shrine to Benzaiten or not. I really don't care who the shrine is for at this point, but I need to decide. It's convenient to have to be to Benzaiten because that's how it was written in the novella version, plus I've already done some research on her. But then I could always make it to Inari or something.

Anyways, skipping over a lot of such details, I managed to get Chapter 6 roughly drafted.

Message to YT: What the...??? Your last line was completely unplanned. You run wild, wild, wild. But on the other hand, it's perfect, in ways that I cannot yet fully fathom. It's exactly what I need to help set up for the second half.

Days 14-16 Progress Report

Day 14 (August 11) - Did preliminary drafting of Chapter 5.

Day 15 (August 12) - Plot-skimmed for chapters 5 onwards and came to the same conclusion as before--I can't make significant progress, even plot-wise, without drafting the first half in its entirety.

Back to drafting, starting from Chapter 5.

Day 16 (August 13) - Chapter 5 drafting finished, roughly. Very dialogue heavy.

Day 13 Progress Report

Day 13 (August 10) - Back to work. Spent the morning working on AK's short sections. She's easy to write for too. Maybe because they're short sections? Interestingly, she has me slipping into present tense narration, and I didn't even notice until the end. I have to make sure I'm consistent.

Speaking of tenses, it's always tricky for me. When I'm writing about things remembered, that happened earlier, I tend to stick in too many "had"s. He had laughed, and she had hated him for it, etc etc. You need one, or a few, to establish that the scene is not happening now, but it's easy to fall into the trap of sticking too many in and burdening the flow.

Today's progress: Revised and expanded AK's sections. Found a plot bunny with much potential for the second half. YU decides to be a show-off instead of revealing Major Plot Secrets. Drafted through page 9 of Chapter 4 and truncated the rest. AK needs three more chapters, starting from Chapter 4, before everything converges, so this way, if the truncated part can turn into another chapter, then everything will work out perfectly. We'll see. I'm flexible with chapter endings. As long as the story keeps moving, it's not hard for readers to interpret something that's not an intentional cliffhanger as a cliffhanger. I'm not entirely happy with Chapter 4 being only 9 pages, actually, but we'll see.

Days 11-12 Progress Report

"The best writers I know are the ones who treat writing like a job, whether or not they have another one. They work every day, they revise, they network, they educate themselves. They don’t think of themselves as artists, but as workers, and they take rejection in stride."

--From an agent interview on Guide to Literary Agents.


...Yeah, I need to work more seriously. I went out and socialized today, socialite that I am.

Days 11-12 (August 8-9) - Did some research, took some notes, decided I couldn't go forward without being more serious about drafting Chapters 4-6. Serious drafting will commence now.