Building a visual world

So I'm far enough into the first draft of the novel that the end is now just over the horizon and within sight. And after a year of life drawing, painting, studying and reading I'm confident enough to start building the visual aspects of my world. Previously I relied heavily on found imagery, my own photograph and tracing light boxing to create images, all done in an effort to avoid doing the hard graft of gaining the art muscles I knew I didn't have. And even with the reference I had, I didn't have the necessary skill to interpret it as I saw fit or bend it to my needs. This all came from a severe lack to practice. A lesson which had to learn the hard way

But now, having learnt or at the very least having started to learn what I didn't know and know exactly what I didn't know and how to find out how to learn what I don't know, I'm in a far better position than I was last January.

Still, I can guarantee you, writing was the easy part!!

For the next few weeks I'm going to start breathing life into my characters. With pencil and ink and brushes I'm going to try to get them looking as close to how I envision them as humanly possible.
I've got well over 25 empty sketchbook littered around my room. I aim to fill up at least half of them by the time all of the illustrations are completed. And i can promise you that they will look at much like this as possible.

And as a rough estimate, we are talking about a 40+ black and white illustrations for a 200+ page book. Not to mention a color front cover. To to be done by the beginning of the festive season.

Sweet baby Jesus, I better get started and very organised!!

Wish me luck


Oh yes. Remind me to show you the books and the artist whom I'm looking at for inspiration. It's a long and varied list, I can promise you!

On writing

Sometimes writing is like pulling teeth. Or worse, like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

No, it like trying to find a needle in a haystack of needles.

I've just spent the last 2 days writing less then four hundred words. I'm trying to articulate a crucial plot point without it seeming too forced or like an info drop. And it's been a gratuitous experience.

Still I'm at the other end of the process now, clawing my way, inch by inch to the pre written final chapter.

A very difficult two days.

Nearing the end, reaching the begining again

So the first draft is like 95% done.  I've already written the ending and the epilogue, and now I'm marrying the two piece I've written together.  I did consider writing the remaining chapters retrospectively, but for one reason or another i decided not to.

Don't ask me why.  I just picked up writing where i left of and I haven't looked back.

Reaching the end of the first draft has made me start to consider two important things:  Firstly, that I have a hell of a lot of work to do on this first draft before its readable and even more work to do before its publishable.

Secondly, I've actively started thinking about the space the first novel will take.  What it will look like.  What kind of illustrations will fill its pages and how many.  Reaching the end of one journey really do present you with a door to yet another.

If I want to get the book finished by December and have it in my hands by Christmas then I have to be very, very specific about the illustrations I want to create.  And I need to start working on them. NOW.

Seven months until Christmas.  Blink and it'll be October. 

There really ain't enough hours in the day are there?

More later.

Determination

To hell with it.
Lets try and get this novel written, illustrated and printed by Christmas.

If I fail, I fail. But at least I tried.



To work then

Novel Progress Report

A finished book by Christmas: Addendum

But then again, compromise is not necessary a bad thing.

I believe i'll give the matter some thought before coming to a definite decision.

Two hundred pages of prose edited polished and 30 black and white illustrations, designed, printed and bound by the festive season 2011.


Appealing, attractive and completely doable. Thought not without some serious hardwork.

Hmm....food for thought indeed......

An observation

Its a strange thing picking up a manuscript from a point you jumped forward from. All the doubts and anxieties have evaporated.

A finished book by Christmas?

It occurs to me that, if it wanted to, I could conceivably cut my manuscript in half, edit and polish, illustrate, design and publish this part by Christmas.  Which was my original plan.

But I really, really don't want to.

I want to have a hefty fully illustrated tome of a novel, 400 pages plus in peoples hands in summer.

I really want to hold my book in my hands, but I refuse to compromise. 

I can't afford compromise.  Not this early in the game.

Novel Progress Report

Things i've come to accept recently

I can only do so much in a day.

I should never write when I'm tired.  I end up writing crap.

Sailing against the wind

Writing can be a strange process. Sometimes you have a clear path and a destination just on the horizon. Other times your characters pull a fast one and take you in a direction that you haven't considered but end up becoming far more interesting than what you have previously plotted.

Take the following for example: A character I had originally created to act as one of the novels primary antagonists has throughout the course of the writing transformed herself into a protagonist who will necessitate serious rewriting of early parts of the novel. She be came someone who I wanted to know more of the more I wrote about her. This has happened several time during the course of writing the first draft. Similarly, a character who I hadn't planned to expand upon in this novel has, due to uncovering a gaping plot hole, has needed to become an integral part of the story. Originally I hadn't planning to deal with her at all until part two of the series.

Woooo! Look at me! Already planning book number 2? Ambitious ain't I!!

One of the many things I've learn over the course of writing my first novel is how much of an organic process writing is. A plot is at best a loose map and not a thing carved in stone. Also, characters have a mind of their own and can demand that you give them a voice when you would have them behave themselves.

Every time I sit my ass down to write, I learn something new. Where as writing used to be a chore, now it is a pleasure. Make no mistake, it is work. But my G-d its a pleasure.

Yes I can her all you published writers scramming all over the world "Just you wait until you're working to a deadline. Then see how much of a pleasure writing is!"

Hush!!

Back to work.

90% perspiration

"It’s like they always say — 90% perspiration. Or as my fine art buddy Dan Attoe says, “Painting is like mowing the lawn.” Slow, tedious work. You feel like a leper – crumbling over your little drawing desk – while life passes you by. But life passes by no matter what, and at the end of a day, or a month, or a year — you have something to show for it. Like the Velvet Underground says, “You’re gonna reap just what you sow.” (Or is that from the Bible?) My main barrier in the past was starvation. Now it’s hand pain and business crap and self doubt and blahblahblah. We’re not alone in the struggle!"
-Craig Thompson

Good work takes time

"Ten years from now, no one is going to care how quickly the books came out. The only thing that will matter, the only thing anyone will remember, is how good they were. That's my main concern, and always will be."
-George R.R. Martin

Peace and quiet make Josephus a creative boy!!

So I discovered early this week that the Royal Festival Hall on the South bank is open from 10am to 11pm everyday, all year around. It has free wireless internet and tons of floorspace. It's quite a social environment, with students, artists, social groups, graphic designers and the Comica Social club making it their meeting spot.

But most importantly it has the one thing I crave in order to be creative: peace and a lack of interruptions or distractions.

Its a short train ride from my house and a small price to play for a creative atmosphere.

In fact I'm there now, writing this post.

Tomorrow I'm going to bring along my French homework and my brush pens to fill the day with art and the French language. Until I, like Val McDermid am successful enough that I can both afford to own my own house and build a small office in my garden where I can be a writer/artist, the various libraries and festival halls in London will have to suffice.

May your weekend be as productive and creative as mine.

Have a good one.

Right. Back to work.

The difficulty of finding plus size female reference

So I've started collecting reference for the illustrations I want to create for my novel and I'm finding it difficult to locate imagery of plus size women that isn't located on porn websites.

There are no photography books dedicated plus size women. None. Believe me I've checked.

It appears that noone deems plus size women interesting enough to photograph. Or maybe the prevailing notion is that BBW's are a fetish subject. But even then you would assume some photographer would have created something to cater for that market. Not the case. So all I'm left with is a ton of adult imagery which I will have to compile into a pull file for later use.

Christ I wish I was competent with a camera. I would make it my mission to create a book of plus size nudes.

(If your wondering why I'm trawling through the net looking for picture of plus size women it because my main protagonist is a ginger haired freckled plus size women)

Figure the world need at least one ginger haired, freckled, plus sized heroine.

It's done!

Slowly getting arseholed on cans of London Pride as celebration.
Whiskey tomorrow.
Plotting for novel 3 on Sunday.
Maybe.
Depends on the strength of the hangover

National Novel Writing Month or 30 days of coffee induced sleep deprevation

I feel like a challenge. I feel like testing myself. I had an idea for a novel growing in the back of my mind for sometime now and very recently a plot has begun to emerge.
It deals with 70's terrorism but from a fantasy prospective. The Baader-Meinhof complex or Black September through the lens of Hellboy, Planetary and Harry Potter.
A cat and mouse game that criss crosses a world not unlike our own, but with differences. Some minor, some large.

Last night whiles watching the Carlos the Jackal mini series, i came across a link to the National Novel Writing Month competition or NaNoWriMo colloquially is its called. I though about participating last year, but retrospect it's best that I didn't. I didn't anywhere near as much confidence in writing then as i do now. I had a unhealthy fear of the the blank page which used to take me days to overcome. Not now though.

The deal with the Novel Writing Month, is that you have 30 days to write a novel a minimum of 50000 words length. Which works out at something like just over 1500 words per day, everyday during the month of November. The competitions goal is to inspire creativity and short deadline liberates the participant from major rewriting and editing. The idea is to get the idea on paper no matter what. You can plot the novel before hand and do research, but the 50000 words have to be written from scratch during that 30 day period.

Sounds steep. huh? Well not really. Either way, want to get from the experience is the pressure of having to work from to a deadline and the liberty from rewriting and editing during the writing process. Christ I'm looking forward to this!

Well I've just under four days to read several books, watch several documentaries and write a plot.

See you in 30 days.

Who knows. I might even illustrate the novel I'm going to write.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Addendum: Is anyone else whose reading this participating the the competition?

Test

Test
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

DONE!!

Almost a year to the day that I started, I have FINALLY finished the first draft of my first novel. 63,343 words. 236 pages.
Now I have to write the second half of the novel! However, before that I'm going to get me some BLOODY SLEEP!!

The last hurdle. The last chapter

51954 words.
293802 characters.
167 pages and counting,
and I'm still not done.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so clearly that I can feel the cool air on my face. But this last chapter has thrown a barrier in my path that I'm having to slowly navigate my way through.
I read somewhere that the first and last chapters of a book are always the hardest to write. Well I'm here to confirm that little rumour. I'm have to slowly piece the conclusion of the novel together with tweezers and a magnifying glass. It helped that the book mostly out of order. And that I plotted the novel well before I started writing it and wrote the conclusion second just after writing the first chapter.
But now that I'm approaching the end I'm finding that the writing has slowed to the speed of a crawl.
It's frustrating because I know what happens and I know how to get there. It feels almost as if I'm laying a railway track and the more I lay then the more track I feel I need to lay and the greater the distance becomes.
Things are occurring to me as I write which are elongating the writing process.

And this is only the first draft.

What happens when I start work on the second, third and fourth drafts?

It's strange. A part of me enjoys the process and doesn't want it to end. While another part of me is anxious about holding a finished manuscript in my hands. Because I gotta tell you, this is the first time in my life that I've ever committed myself, mind body and soul to complete something as demanding as this. I'm emotionally invested.

This is no longer for a grade, or for kudos.

This is completely for me. I'm doing for myself.

I just want it to be over. I want this story to leave my head and enter the world. I want other people to be able to react to my work. I want to hold my work in my hands as physical proof of my ability. I want to be done.

But I don't. Because I'm enjoying it too much. Writing is the most rewarding thing I've ever done. More so than the art.

So what is the solution, then.

Just keep doing it I guess.

Only another 2000 words to go.....i guess.