So, Back Story

So I'm working on this talking animal story. I wrote the first chapter, flung myself into the second chapter and realized that I couldn't proceed a step further into this world until I had a better understanding of it. I had a lot of vague basics floating around in my head, but I absolutely had to nail them down and define them if I was going to do this world, and its story, any justice.

So I just wrote a three page outline of the back story of this world and I think it has changed everything. While the beginning and the end are likely to be the same, I think the back story I came up with completely guts my planned second act -- which part of me is completely okay with and the other part of me is running around the house right now, screaming at the top of his lungs and searching for hair on his body to yank out (and there being so precious little of it, it's a Tolkien-sized quest unto itself).

So, you know. Grr and Yay!

Good Night

There's nothing so satisfactory as a productive night writing. The world is different now. A chapter of a book now exists in the world that did not exist just a few hours ago. Sure, it's just a rough draft of a chapter. Sure, it's just a rough draft of the first chapter. Sure, it's just a rough draft of the first chapter of a book that will require many, many more chapters for it to be any kind of entertaining or interesting.

But hey, it exists.

It's my talking animal story. I cracked its code this afternoon. Well, part of it at any rate. I know the big picture of the world now. I know how it begins and I have a vague idea of how it ends. It's all the little bits in between I am absolutely clueless about. But with this particular story, that doesn't bother me. With most of my scripts (I'd say all but this book proves that I can't), I outline the entire thing, scene-by-scene, before I ever start writing. Outlines are easy to change. Scripts are in stone (until we get on set, then we throw the scripts to the wind and let the actors improvise their way through it). But with this story, I'm going to wind my way through it. I'm going to let the world and the characters tell their story to me.

I haven't written anything like this in over ten years. It's kind of exciting.

Whirlwinds & Dissonance

Is it really only Monday? How can that be?

I'm listening to Muse's The Resistance, an album Ryan highly recommended and I can see why. It plays like a soundtrack. There's so much to it, the songs have layers. I listen to it and see three or four different scenes playing out to each song and on top of that, each song inspires three or four different scenes and/or stories as well as conjuring up images from TV shows and movies that have already used the songs in their advertisements. It's good stuff. I'd recommend it. It's good writing, driving, relaxing and/or living music.

I've got this sci-fi I'm struggling with. It's tentatively titled The Orion Trail, but I'm nine-tenths sure that it won't stay that way. It's a little too punny. There is something, however, about being able to sum up a book's entire plot with three words. Because it is, after all, shaping up to be the Oregon Trail in space. The problem is, of course, that is just the setting. I'm not entirely sure what the story is, other than it leads directly into the book Oasis, which was the original idea until I realized I needed to explain how the kids got abandoned on that dust bowl of a planet. So now I'm telling the story of the kids' parents and I have a lot of disassociated ideas rattling around the ol' brain box, just nothing coherent yet.

Then there's the talking animals. I have this image -- or should I say, "I was struck with this image." I'm not sure where it came from or who they are or what it means, but I see a little girl, maybe ten or twelve years old. Red hair, braided pigtails. On one side of her is a frog. The frog is wearing a vest and is holding a rapier. On the other side of the girl is a grey rabbit. He also is wearing a vest, but his ears are pulled back and tied together (like a ponytail). On top of his head is a tri-corner hat and he's brandishing a flintlock pistol. I think his name's Ignatius Rabbit. I can only assume this trio is some sort of Talking Animal Freedom Fighting Force who live in a children's book of the future, but I can't say. I don't know their story yet. But they just showed up and are taking up space in the brain.

Meanwhile, Michael's turning in music for Remnants. It's beautiful. Music is something I absolutely love and absolutely do not understand. But he's put together this theme for the opening credits that sounds like a discordant fiddle. It sounds like the song used to be patriotic, but now it's just sad. It's eerie. Listen to the opening titles of John Adams, by Rob Lane. It sounds like that song's nightmare. It's perfect.

Blimey the 11th Doctor is going to be fun. I'm going to miss the 10th, but the 11th looks like he's going to be a lot of fun. And we loves Amelia.

Also, there's a voice in the back of my head saying I should take another pass at the runners' story. It could probably be tighter. Or different all together.