Some thoughts on Language

So, this isn't much of a spoiler but one of the characters in The Chained series is properly Anglo-Saxon, by which I mean she died in 1016 or something, I'll have to double check my notes but circa William the Conqueror. For plot reasons (waggles fingers mysteriously) she has a working knowledge of modern English with occasional problems regarding sentence structure and mixing up modern and middle English vocabularies.

When I first tried to write her, I attempted to functionally teach myself old english and actually wrote out her dialogue. This proved tireless and unnecessary because the protagonist does not speak old english and likely neither does my reader base. I'm not Tolkien, I'm not trying to give anyone homework. So I took the old english out and just described her speaking rapidly in a strange language, this worked much better.

Fast forward to the end of the Series, where I have decided for plot reason (waggles fingers mysteriously) that she starts teaching Old English to the protagonist. Now I have to include the actual language and working definitions.

Why am I like this?

We just don't know.

The research rabbit hole

Finding the right facts for a story is important. You want it grounded in enough reality to flourish. But you do sorta have to cherry pick your facts. Want a story about life beyond the solar system? You're probably going to want to ignore that we can't actually go faster than light. Want a story about the horrors of the deep? You're going to have to make stuff up. Making stuff up is, at the end of the day, the job of a writer.

But you should still research things so you have a good selection of facts to cherry pick from. For example, I have the wiki page on Pyjama Sharks open right now along with a list of coral species and some facts about them. I'm writing a short horror story that involves sharks and coral and before I narrowed it down to the pyjama shark had to look at other species (I picked pyjama sharks because they're pretty small, pretty aggressive and really fucking cute). But it's easy to see how you could get lost in the search for knowledge because it's neat. And once you find all these good facts, you're going to want to use a lot of them.

• Let a lot of your sudden knowledge be backdrop to the story you're writing. YOU know how the shark goes vroom, but if it doesn't work with the story you have to not force it in. 
• A piece of advice I stole from an older writer who's name I can't remember was to mark where more research is needed with TK because it's easy to search TK in a manuscript and find the place immediately and by just marking it down you can keep writing what you can. I being lazier just tend to write things like FIGURE OUT HOW FAST THEY SWIM in all caps and keep going. 
• Limit yourself to three tabs of Wikipedia. Just do it. If you need more than that write for a bit and see if you actually need more than that. 

Research is important, it is very important and you should do it, but when you're writing fiction it's generally best to figure out your balance of fact to fiction before hand. Have some things you ignore and some facts you hyper focus on. 

Proper Sleep and Such

So I didn't sleep yesterday at all finally conking out after more than 24 hours last night around 10. This has put a damper on my work because it's hard to think through the cotton in my brain. However, I'm about half way done with that new project I mentioned on Wednesday, so I'll hopefully get more written over the weekend and have good news for you all soon.

Today, however, is mostly being spent screwing my head on properly because there's still some cotton behind my eyes.

New Projects

Kind of a short post today. My P.A and I came up with a new project that's eating most of my limited attention span. It did give me a good chance to think real hard about saliva though, and so I almost threw up.

That's always a good sign, isn't it?

I'm going with yes.

Anyway, I should get back to it, hopefully there'll be more details I can share soon.

Outlining Outlining And Furthermore, Outlining

Today we are spending the day with the outlines of a couple of projects. When I was a younger, lazier Aki I didn't tend to do much in the way out outlines and tended to just let my projects grow in whatever direction they saw fit. These days, however, I like to think I'm a wiser Aki and have learned the merits of a good, but flexible outline.
Nothing works for everything and there's a good chance that what works for me won't work for even most people, but this is my blog and I'm going to share my method for outlining.
Start simple, have a vague idea of what you want to have happen and write that down.
"But Aki," I hear you cry, "surely I don't need to write down the basic premise of the book I'm working on before I outline it"
Yes, you do. You will get up to make tea and it will be gone forever. Write it down in three different places.
Then decide how you want your work to be divided. With Diary I knew I wanted to tell and apocalypse story in three parts so I treated each section like its own novella. With most books, this is just going to be by chapter.
Start with Chapter 1 and have an extra document for brainstorming, the brainstorming doc contains everything, your cool idea for the middle, the gripping hook that came to you in the shower, spare characters, everything. Your outline starts with chapter 1. Figure out the main action for chapter 1 and jot that down, leave yourself enough wiggle room to add things while you're actually writing it but make sure it's detailed enough that you have a clear map of where you're going. Then do chapter 2, building from what you've written in chapter 1. I like to start with five things per chapter, but again, mileage may vary.
When you're done with your outline, keep it close, tinker with it, if you see places to add foreshadowing jot that down. Go in and change things as you see fit.
And that's Aki's quick and dirty guide to outlining.

Resurfacing after a long dark sleep

Hey all, sorry the blog has been inactive for so long but I'm really a very boring person and was having trouble thinking of what to put up. Unfortunately for all of us, the left hand of God, my P.A. has informed me that I need to get back into the swing of updating this blog more often. So I'm going to, because I fear no force on Earth the way I fear them.

Things have been slow, but I've been working, plugging along at a number of projects that will eventually bear fruit. Hoping to have good news for you all in the near future.

Yep, Still Bad At Updating

The Booksigning went marvelously! The folks at Title Wave are phenomenal and I seriously can't recommend their store highly enough. It's cozy and close but even I didn't feel crowded. I've been invited back for Banned Book Week to do another reading and another signing.

Other than that things have been kinda slow. I've been working on my health but there will hopefully be some good news about Nibelung in the near future. So look for that!