Kam Oi Lee » wallwalker

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.

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.

Consider this wall… walked!

Kam Oi Lee — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:34:54 +0000

I finished the rough draft of Wallwalker yesterday! It feels good to actually finish a piece. I had been feeling a bit disheartened about my writing lately, for various reasons, and yesterday I finally realized that the only thing to do was to keep at it–which inspired me to bang out the rest of the story. So there!

Incidentally, all of the main characters in the story are cats. After finishing the story, I found myself looking at my own cats differently. Particularly Luba, our Siamese, who reminds me a bit of the character of Dark Tiger… I know, I’m a weirdo

I definitely want to come up with a better title, but for now I’m just calling it Wallwalker after the main character. Now–on to the whittling and polishing!

* * *

Oh, and I’ve made some progress on Sweet Heart Catalyst too:

* * *

And last but not least, I haz some new research books (and an excuse to try out the OpenBook plugin):

Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit)

Lee Lofland; Writers Digest Books 2007

WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder

Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

; St. Martin's Paperbacks 1993

WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder

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!