I reached a personal milestone today – 200 pages. That’s right, I am now officially 200 pages into The Novel. (Is it appropriate to call it a novel? I feel like that implies some sort of class and prestige, and not at all the general pulp spectacle that I have been crafting, but I digress.) Even better, the finish line is in sight. I’ve got the major plot line to resolve, obviously, with all of the little character bits that are tied into it, and I’ve also got one major dangling plot thread that I need to address and figure out how to weave back into the whole of the narrative. It’s one of those bits that may be cut the second time around. The characters at the center of it were at one point in the planning stages relatively important to the plot, but as it developed, their stories and mine diverged from one another. But! As I said, personal milestone achieved. Now I just need to make that final push, and then, with a first draft in hand, I’ll actually be able to get a little rest. Huzzah!
Archive for the 'News & Updates' Category
I’ve reached that stage in the creative process where, on the verge of finishing draft one of the novel, I find myself struggling to force out the final sixty or so pages. I think the problem is twofold: first, I’ve already unintentionally turned my mind toward the first revision. It’s impossible not to think about the changes that I’m going to make when I go through the story again. That makes it significantly more difficult to focus on the draft at hand, especially when I find myself coming up with new ideas that, while appropriate for the late stages of the book given the way certain characters have developed, contradict already-established events that I’ll have to change the second time around. It’s frustrating to not be able to guide the story the way I’d like it to this time around, but that’s what I get for the way I write. I don’t like to lay out the whole story before I write it, because then I’m stuck trying to conform to an outline, and by extension, shutting out potential sources of inspiration and avenues of creativity. On the whole, I prefer my approach, but it is not without its consequences.
Second, independent of any next steps in the process, I’m just ready for this draft to be done. It’s a tremendous intellectual strain to force myself to write every day after work. Some days I hit my word goal, some days I don’t, but I am at least getting a couple of pages done every day, and I’m finally reaching the point of exhaustion. I need to finish this draft just so I have a draft finished, at which point I’ll be able to step away from the process for a couple of weeks before starting again. I’m honestly just ready to be done with the thing for a bit, but in order to do that, I have to finish it, as exhausting as that may be.
But I’m slowly but surely making my way to the finish line, and I hope to have a draft completed by the end of the month. Here’s hoping!
Good Lord, February is almost over. As a winterphile, that is extremely uncool. As a baseball fan, though, I feel unwarranted excitement building inside of me. I mean, I know that the Cubs have about as much chance of winning the World Series this year as Jimmy Carter does of winning a second term in the White House, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll be any less excited to watch them play. I’m actually considering purchasing an MLB.TV subscription so that I can actually watch the games, but I think that I’ll probably end up just making due with the MLB At Bat iPhone app that got me through last summer. Besides, if I have to choose between listening to Len & Bob and Pat & Ron, I’ll choose the latter every time.
Being creative every day is hard. If this statement comes as shock to you, then you’ve probably never tried it. I’m about 170 pages into my novel right now, and even though I know where I want to get and know the road that I need to take to get there, actually walking that road is getting very difficult. I think part of it is just fatigue from having written so much over the last couple of months, and the rest is an eagerness to just finish this draft and be done with it. I’m thinking more and more about what needs to be fixed with what I’ve already written and less about the writing I’m doing now. That doesn’t make for productive writing, but it’s also unavoidable. The story has developed in ways that I didn’t expect, and now I’m filled with the desire to return to the beginning of the story and make changes to reflect the turns the tale has taken. Themes have begun to emerge, and I want to make sure that those are properly seeded throughout. I also want to make sure that the characters are behaving consistently, as well as make serious changes to the language used throughout. Truthfully, I always expected the first draft to run long, and now I’m ready to cut it up. But I can’t do that until I finish this draft. I’m guessing that I have between 70 and 100 pages left to go. Here’s hoping I can finish before the end of March.
I’ve decided not to get an iPad right now. Don’t get my wrong: I’m still wildly enthusiastic about the device, and am convinced that it represents the first step into the future of computing. But unfortunately being a poor white boy is not conducive to buying highly advanced technological devices, even when they are semi-reasonably priced. The bottom line is that right now I need to be watching my money, and spending $500+ on an iPad would not be fiscally responsible. But there’s another factor at play as well, namely that just as v2 of the iPhone was a huge leap over v1, I’m confident that v2 of the iPad will be light-years ahead of v1. The design will be refined, we’ll likely see a front-facing camera integrated , and the price may well drop. When that happens, a purchase will be inevitable. But for now I’ll just to be content staring at them through the display window. Alas…
I’ve spent way too much time recently improving my computer. I’m coming up on the end of my warranty, and consequently am taking steps to make this thing last as long as possible. I’ve cleaned out nearly everything Power PC related, moved a significant amount of media to external hard drives, and freed up about 30 additional gigs of memory on the machine. I’ve also replaced all my icons, installed Adium as my chat client, and have been experimenting with Boxee, among other things. I would ask if that makes me a nerd, but I know that the answers is no. There are many, many other things that make me a nerd. This is just frosting.
Was I the only person bored by the Incredibly Important Summit to Decide the Fate of Our Health Care System yesterday? No? Good.
I have been listening to the Alan Parsons Project way too much lately.
I have been blogging way too little.
Go USA.
For those of you who may not have noticed, I do not update this blog with tremendous regularity. I regret this, as during my college years I made it a point to blog frequently, either here or on one of my now-defunct sub sites. Unfortunately, as the responsibilities of real life and adulthood have set in, I have found myself visiting this space less and less. I haven’t intended to neglect the site, but I have, and there’s no excuse for that.
I have noticed that the primary purpose of Google Wave so far seems to be inspiring jealousy in people who haven’t been invited to it yet. The furor with which some individuals lobby for access to the program is fascinating, as no one yet seems entirely sure what it does or what its practical applications are or may one day be. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to be enthusiastic about this bizarre and as-of-yet exclusive digital club, if only because being a member means getting to point and laugh at those who are not members. It’s like being the keeper of an incredibly mundane secret.
Many apologies for neglecting the site over these last few weeks, but I’ve got some big news that I’m all too happy to share with you fine people. I’ve been hired on by the Republican National Committee as a Product Manager in their New Media Division. As of two weeks ago I am officially a resident of Washington, DC, and am currently living the exciting life of a young professional in the wild world of politics.
Hey everybody! I strongly encourage you all to take a look at the D.C. Writeup. It’s a news and opinion site maintained by and for young, politically-minded adults. I’m writing a weekly column over there now. My first entry, entitled “A Call For Leadership,” was published today. Give it a shot, and be sure to check out the rest of the site as well!
I’ve managed to port over some more of the old Blogger posts, which are now available in the archives. I’ll be doing more updates throughout the week. Stay tuned!
While you’re waiting, here’s a video on President Obama’s plans to cut military spending.
Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon
I’ve spent a lot of time building two web sites over the last ten days. Consequently, I haven’t been able to write as much as I’d have liked. That said, since I have more or less got the sites where I want them, I am now able to get back to work on the important stuff – content. I’m going to try to do as much as I can over the next few days, because on Wednesday I’ll be receiving recordings for the first episode of Escape Pod X. That means that I’ll have to begin editing the sound files together and composing music. I’m looking forward to it, but it will be time-consuming.
I also need to test the podcast feed for Escape Pod X. I’m having voice actor extraordinaire Derek Long record a few samples in-character as Captain Clarke for a teaser, which I hope to have out by the end of the week. Hopefully by this time next Sunday, I’ll be well on the way to launching on August 1st.
Right now I’m working on a pair of writing projects. The first is for Escape Pod X, and will be the podcast’s inaugural serial. I’m calling it Blood and Thunder, and it’s based off an idea by Middlebury student Willy Guida. The second is a prose adaptation of my radio play The Infinite Boy. I’ll make a decision soon about whether or not to post either of them to this web site.
Work continues, and I’m slowly getting the archives up. Hope you enjoy the site, and I encourage you to stay tuned.
Links of the Day
Hey, another new one! Seriously, once I had everything for my other sites ported over to Wordpress, I just had to do it with this one as well. I’m going to be experimenting with the design for the next few days, but I’m pretty pleased with it.
To elaborate, these past few weeks I’ve put a lot of time and energy into learning quite a bit more about web design and programming. I’ve learned a great deal about CSS and the Wordpress system, and after putting so much energy into the project, I couldn’t just leave StefanClaypool.com sitting there at Wordpress.com. Furthermore, I felt like the old look of the site reflected a period of my life that has past. The plain truth is that I’m not a college blogger anymore, and I need a site that reflects that.
Consequently, I’ve divided the old StefanClaypool.com into two sites. There’s this page, which is designed for writing and political commentary, and then there’s the new page at SMClaypool.com, which is designed as a more professional web space. The separation enables me to present myself both professionally and personally, which is something that the site didn’t really allow.
The challenge now, as always, is finding content for this space. However, I’ve been working on a serialized story that I think would suit it nicely. I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks getting all the old content ported over here, and then I’ll figure out how to move forward. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the new design.
