Kam Oi Lee » progress

am currently occupied sharpening fuzzy things

Kam Oi Lee — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:15:18 +0000

Whoa, it’s June. How the frell did that happen so fast?

I’ve spent all month working on Sweetheartcatalyst. I now have an agglomeration of wordage that I’m calling “Chapter 1″. It’s been very slow going, like wading through molasses. I realized that part of the reason for this is… um… apparently, I’m actually writing a crime novel. Something I have zero experience with, LOL. (OK, I still consider the story to be science fiction, but… it’s actually both.) My lack of knowledge and experience causes a phenomenon where sometimes it seems like, every damn sentence I write, I become stymied with “Wait.. would the cops really do that? Before or after? How many times? Who would do it? How long would it take?” This then necessitates sitting & racking my brain, or a trip down Research Rabbit Hole Lane, or even getting frustrated and knocking off for the day in disgust at my inability to write more than 12 words per 24 hours. However, it *is* getting better, because I’ve been researching my @$$ off. I created my “story bible”, which helped a lot. And my fuzzy grip on How Things Work is becoming sharper.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten an @$$load of incredibly helpful feedback on “The Collapsing Hills”. Of course my impulse is now to immediately jump back into editing that story and sending it out somewhere. If I do that, though, it could easily take me another month. (Yes indeed. I’m just that slow.) Then when I’m done I’ll have to spend more time getting my head back into the novel. I read somewhere that when you are deep into a task and your brain is focused, and then somebody interrupts you and breaks your concentration, it can take 20 minutes to get your head back to where it was before the interruption. I don’t want to do that to myself by constantly switching writing projects every month. My attention span is ADD enough as it is. Therefore I’m going to hold off on editing, and keep plugging away on this novel for another month or two, at least.

One more thing: Inspired by this episode of K.M. Weiland’s Wordplay podcast, I started keeping a writing journal. She has a lovely pic on her web site of a handwritten journal; I just have a text file, because writing longhand makes my paw hurt. But anyway, every time I sit down to write, I make a new journal entry with the date, what I’m working on, & what I’m hoping to get done. I try to keep it fairly short, log book style. So far it’s been really helpful to focus my thoughts on the work ahead, as well as being able to look back and see my progress.

news & progress

Kam Oi Lee — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:58:11 +0000

I started spelling the title of my WIP as Sweetheartcatalyst, all one word. It looks better to me that way. I dunno, maybe I’ll change it later. Maybe not.

So my official word count is now a little over 16K. Yay! It helped that I was able to copy and paste a few scenes from the old draft of the story. I think when this is done it ought to be 70 or 80K-ish. So that means I’m 20 – 22% done. Not bad. Not good, but not bad. I picked a difficult project, I don’t have that much spare time to begin with, and I’ve allowed myself to become easily distracted which has made me inefficient in using the time I do have. Henceforth I’m making a concerted effort to use my time properly and not allow it to be eaten by internet fluff.

One more thing: I’m super excited for next weekend! I’ll be attending a three day workshop, The Fire In Fiction Workshop And Master Class In Science Fiction/Fantasy with agent Donald Maass and author Nalo Hopkinson. *squee*

this is the sound of me writing

Kam Oi Lee — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:44:39 +0000

So it was back in August that I decided I needed to start over on SHC. But almost immediately, there were a bunch of interruptions, in the form of short stories, novellas, and giant home improvement projects, so for all intents and purposes, SHC was on the back burner. Now I’ve switched to the front burner and am trying to burn off all the brain cobwebs and dig in once more. I read through the material I already have, and was pleasantly surprised that it’s not as bad as I feared. In fact… you know when they say you should write the kind of book you want to read? This is totally it. I’d read the hell out of this book, if it existed… which it will! If I didn’t have the confidence before to believe that I was capable of writing it myself… I do now. It is a big project, however…

One of the ~~problems~~ challenges I’ve been having with this story is that I decided to make my main character a police officer… ahhh, who am I kidding? ‘Twas my character who decided that. And holy heck, is there ever a lot to learn about his job. I never really was a big fan of cop shows or crime novels, so I have a lot of catching up to do & sometimes the amount of info seems, well, daunting. But hey… other writers manage to learn this stuff and write stories about it, so I can too. Fortunately this will be a science fiction story set in an Earthlike, but decidedly not-Earth location, so I can take a few liberties, but still, lots to learn if I want this aspect of the story to be at least somewhat realistic.

(Speaking of which, in tooling around the internetz I discovered this thing called the Writers’ Police Academy. Which is exactly what it sounds like: writers get to train as if they were really at the police academy, with real instructors and equipment. How cool is that?! Gawd… I would love to do it. It sounds really intense… and challenging… and fun! It’s for 3 days in September 2011. They haven’t posted the tuition cost on the site yet. Hope it’s not as much as going to the real police academy =D )

Another challenge: lots of characters. I’m a big fan of having as few characters as necessary to tell the story, and only giving them names if they really, really need them… so of course it turns out that my main character comes from a huge family, and has a couple of really important, contentious & tempestuous relationships: his mother, his older brother, and… his seventeen identical brothers who are all the same age (they’re clones). I was just calling them brothers, but decided today that I’m going to call them some new word (I’m thinking about counterparts or compeers) just to make the distinction clear. And I do have a big ol’ list of all their names–but the reader doesn’t need to know ‘em all, just a few… and to know that the rest of them exist. And that my main character is one of this big batch of peapods. How much screen time do I give the rest of the peapods? Still working on that…

And then there’s another big thing: my character possesses an extra sense, so he perceives the world differently than most other humans do. I don’t really have that extra sense, so I always have to think about what the world is going to “look” like to him. Or “sound” like, because that’s the metaphor I’m using. One thing I decided was that he and his [whatever I end up calling them] are so physically alike that even they can’t always tell each other apart by appearance alone. But every human mind has its own unique sound–that’s the definitive characteristic they use to know who’s who. What does a human mind “sound” like? What does a whole city filled with people “sound” like? Well, that’s the part I make up. Like trying to hear what dogs hear… or see in the infrared part of the light spectrum…

I don’t know if it’s harder to learn all the details of stuff that already exists, or to make up all the details of stuff that doesn’t. I suppose it doesn’t matter; I’m finding both to be necessary.

What I’ve gotten done this year in the writing department

Kam Oi Lee — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:56:11 +0000

January – I submitted “Algae” to an anthology of novella-length science fiction. I also decided that for my next project, I would condense a pre-existing, old sucky trilogy into a single volume, titled The Free City.

February – I worked on detrilogization.

March – I received word that “Algae” had been accepted! Continued work on detrilogization, then switched gears to write an “Algae”-related bonus story. Finished that, and was about to jump back into detrilogization when I got bit by the Sweet Heart Catalyst plot bunny.

April – Completely abandoned the detrilogization project to work on SHC. By the middle of the month, I had 12,000 words of utter tripe. I also refluffed my official writing blog.

May – I came to the realization that I’d bitten off a big chunk to chew with SHC. I began to split my time between the research rabbit hole (reading about cops and serial killers), and the worldbuilding rabbit hole (inventing new forms of telepathy). I also started a short story, “Wallwalker: Encounter on Planet 352″.

June – I worked concurrently on SHC and “Wallwalker”. Gave the first draft of “Wallwalker” to my writing group for crit.

July – After a short period of unmotivation after returning from Mexico, I jumped back into SHC. Received some feedback on “Wallwalker”. Also started another short, “Desert Walker”, but I didn’t really know where it was going, so I put it aside and began writing yet another short, “Bright Light”.

August – With about 20,000 words on SHC, I realized that I needed to start over from scratch. Also, I finished the first draft of “Bright Light” and gave it to my writing group for crit. Giant home improvement project is competing for my attention.

September – Small amounts of SHC work done, but the giant home improvement project is still cutting into my writing time. Finally received edits for “Algae”, so switched gears to work on that.

October – Sent the “Algae” edits back to my editor. Started revising “Bright Light”. SHC on back burner.

November – Still at work revising “Bright Light”. Then I received the second round of “Algae” edits, so I broke off to work on those, and managed to send the final version back to the editor by the end of the month.

December – Finished the second draft of “Bright Light” and gave it to my writing group for crit. Now getting ready to jump back into SHC.

Looking back at this, it could also be read as the chronicle of my slowness and easy distractibility. I kept switching projects, and I only managed to submit one story in 2010. I was hoping I might be able to have “Bright Light” ready to submit before the end of this year, but that’s looking pretty unlikely.

Alternatively, it could be seen as an accomplishment that I’ve managed to get any writing done at all, what with all the other stuff I’m doing (two jobs, playing in a band, various fitness pursuits, home improvement projects, and travel). I’m honestly not sure which one it is.

Anyway, Sweet Heart Catalyst is the next project. Part of me thinks I should return to my detrilogization of The Free City, but that will have to wait. I feel more inspired to work on something new, and I also think that writing a new thing to completion (even if technically, I’m starting over on it) will be easier and less time-consuming than refribulating an existing thing. I still think The Free City is worth doing (at some point), but I can only work on one novel at a time, or my brain will explode.

sticking names on places

Kam Oi Lee — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:08:03 +0000

Have been doing one last read-through/brushup on the novella. There was a place name that had always bugged me. It was the name for the highest point on a certain rugged mountain road. Originally I had called it Midpoint, always thinking I’d come up with something better later. Later I changed it to Vista, but it kept reminding me of the sucky Windows OS, so I changed it to Farview, which sort of meant the same thing. But I never liked Farview either. I do favor simple, descriptive place names, but Farview sounds too generic to me. I thought about changing it to Iron Peak, but I already have a similar place name, a bar called the Iron Pig. Today I felt compelled to list all the proper names and place names in the story, thinking somehow this would help me choose a better name. It did help; I came up with a new name, Magnet Peak, which fits the composition of the rocks there. Much better!

Then I remembered that cool Wordle site. So I took my list of names and made a Wordle!

In this story, there’s also a mountainous area called the Tiger Range. There are no tigers on this planet and never have been. The reason for the name had to do with a secondary character and his very rich father and how the father’s personal symbol was a tiger… and well, that secondary character isn’t even in the story any more, but the mountains were still called the Tiger Range. And I had been wondering if I should change the name… However, the planet does have plenty of Banded Iron Formations (layers of iron oxides and shale, chert, tiger eye or jasper), and today I discovered that there’s another name for them: Tiger Iron. On Earth, tiger iron is found in Western Australia. *wants some tiger iron jewelry now*

NoNoWriMo

Kam Oi Lee — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:13:39 +0000

Well, after resolving that I wasn’t going to do Nano this year, I’ve been seeing a whole boatload of my friends declaring their Nano intentions… and this really tempted me towards Nano’ing after all–but upon more mulling, I’ve decided to stick with the original plan. I wish all of you the best with Nano 2010, but there will be no Nano for me! See, here’s the thing: I have two novel projects that need to get written, but I’ve already written zero or first drafts for both of them. What I really need to do is write a second draft, and there’s no way in hell I can do that Nano-style. I’m slow enough as it is; even when pushing out zero draft tripe, 1667 words a day is a super tall order for me. I think I could do it if I just picked a brand-new project, which, if you’re a Nano purist, is the way to go: pick a brand new thing that you don’t already have a lot invested in, and pour it onto the page. But what I need to do is finish my existing projects, and I can’t pour them out in a stream; they need to be parceled out in spoonfuls. So here’s what I’m going to do in November: write. Write my ass off. But probably not 1667 words a day, not unless I discover some new brand of coffee that packs the power of crystal meth.

Speaking of wordage, I’m up to 4,600 words on Bright Light. But I think the length will decrease again when I do my next pass of refribulation. I think I will probably have to get rid of the mother’s POV too, and just have the kid’s POV. Some issues are still being worked out. But I’m enjoying the process of working on it, and also liking the fact that I can be working productively on one part of the story while at the same time, being aware that there are unresolved problems with other parts, and keeping those in the back of my mind for later fixing. Rather than doing a “omg, the entire story is squirrely, it’s hopeless!” type thing.

Going forward by going backward

Kam Oi Lee — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:54:37 +0000

Well, I’ve come to a decision: I need to start over on Sweet Heart Catalyst.

See, it took me forever to come up with what I have. First of all, my pesky main character had decided that he was a cop investigating a murder: a giant subject about which I Knew Nothing! (as Schultz would say) So I had to read up on that, which took (and is still taking) time.

Secondly, I tried a new thing when I was writing this story: being deliberately disorganized and un-chronological. I now have a large number of bits and snips that I wrote out of order, at different times, whenever the ideas occurred to me. I’m not saying this was a bad way to write it; it was a different approach that resulted in a lot of ideas coming to the forefront. The only problem is that with this scattershot method, I tended to lack a sense of how the story was going as a whole. I had also avoided writing a lot of the police work related scenes because, heheh, I wasn’t totally clear on what exactly they would do, and needed to learn about it first.

So now I’ve thrown all those bits and snips in a document, in rough chronological order, and I have about 20K of wordage. A lot of it is “dated”, in that, things have changed considerably, particularly with the older stuff. Rather than continue adding to the existing stew of bits, I’ve decided to start a fresh document and write it chronologically from the beginning (which is not to say that I might not fold the spacetime continuum into flashbacks later). I can still keep some of the later material, but there is a lot of earlier stuff that’s going bye-bye.

But that’s OK, because I have the bones of the story figured out, including the police scenes that were confuzzling me before. So there!

* * *

Also, I finished the first draft of Sergio, which has been renamed Bright Light, and have sent it out to my crit group and already gotten some very useful feedback.

The end, and other stories

Kam Oi Lee — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:14:06 +0000

I wrote the end of Sweet Heart Catalyst yesterday! Now all I have to do is write the, ahem, pesky middle part

But before I do that, I have to finish up that shortie about my bad guy who’s bad, bad, bad, and how he got that way. It’s about 1700 words so far. For now, the working title is Sergio after the main character, but I hope I can come up with something that sounds a little more badass. (Side note: I apparently really like the name “Sergio”; I just realized that I also have a “Sergei” in another, unrelated story.)

Short stories Encounter on Planet 352 and Desert Walker are temporarily on the back burner.

I recently discovered She Writes, a site for, by and about women writers (thanks to my friend Kat for the heads-up!) It’s a great resource with an active community of writers. I’d like to encourage all you writer folks on my list to join me there. (Men are welcome too, though the site is female-focused).

I had to write an intro blurb for one of the groups I joined on SW, and one of the questions was about our current WIP. So it forced me to think about just what the frell this thing is that I’m writing, anyway. Here’s what I came up with: “A twisted mutant hybrid of near-future biopunk-ish science fiction and political/crime thriller”. Heheh! … although I forgot to add, “with a delicious coating of dark chocolate”.

What I’ve been working on lately

Kam Oi Lee — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:21:48 +0000

Sweet Heart Catalyst progress. Slow, but better than going backwards!

Thanks to my writing group, I’ve received some very useful feedback on my first draft of the Wallwalker short story, which I’m now calling Encounter on Planet 352. Looks like I have my de-tripe-ification work cut out for me

I started writing a new short story that I’m calling Desert Walker. After being on a snow, ice and cold kick for so long, I’m apparently on a desert kick now; Encounter on Planet 352 also takes place in a desert. Although the desert in Desert Walker is considerably more aggro. As in “melt your shoes off, hide in holes in the ground during the day & only travel at night”. Oh, and I apparently also have a thing for characters who, heheh, walk

Also, I spotted a call for submissions for stories about characters who are just bad, bad, bad, and unredeemably evil. I believe I have a character who fits the bill, and I actually have his “origin story” already written. So I’m going to brush that up this week.

Writing the sweet things first

Kam Oi Lee — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:23:33 +0000

The Sweet Heart Catalyst progress bar is still moving, however slowly. My new “write everything out of order, in small chunks, and in response to random prompts” approach makes me feel like I’m moving at a glacial pace and in a disorganized fashion–but on the plus side, it feels like almost everything I write, comes out as an intense, pivotal scene. It’s like I get to write all of the sweet parts (haha!), while skipping (1) the boring stuff and (2) the parts where I have no idea what happens, LOL. I just write the chunks I feel like writing, and then add them to my master file in chronological order, with titles like “Scene where Thing A happens”. In between, I have notes in all caps, like “ADD THE SCENE WHERE CHARACTER B DOES THING C”. It’s going to be a really weird first draft when it’s done, but I’m not going to worry about that right now.

On a side note: while driving to work this morning, it occurred to me that my character’s coworkers nickname him “Spooky” (because it sorta fits him, and it’s a play on his last name, Spinney). I’m also toying with the idea that even though this is a technologically advanced society, many people are very superstitious, and they really do believe that people like him are “touched by the gods”, and not necessarily in a good way. His coworkers also (initially) think that he can do stuff like (1) getting “impressions” off of physical objects (such as a knife that might be a murder weapon) or locations, and (2) being able to “see” the winning lottery numbers. So he has to disabuse them of these beliefs, and reiterate that his ability only works on people. Living, breathing, thinking people.

* * *

Oh, and one more thing: I also have progress to report on Wallwalker, which I’ve been working on as a side-project, for whenever I get stuck or need a break from SHC. Yep, I’m doing it, I’m writing a short story!