C6 Progress

Unlike other weeks, I have actually written a decent amount while it isn't the weekend - on Tuesday, I wrote over 2000 words, and after another heap of writing last night after work, Chapter Six is now at 3841 words. Originally, Chapter Six was going to introduce Angelica's sister... but I have actually decided to remove that character altogether. So, it will be following pretty much all of the main characters, which is something the story has not done prior to this chapter.

The chapter is currently titled Fly Like An Eagle. It is far more fast-paced than chapters before it, but it's yet to actually hit Pen Expers - however, it is offering important insight into "the pianist", who has decidedly become rather crucial, and the importance of Ian Treale and hitruix in the current events. Yeah, Chapter 4 was probably the worst of the bunch, but the information in it is important, especially in this chapter.

One of the main questions roused in this chapter are the importance of each character individually - previous chapters showed that they have a tendency to be sent out in a small group (C1) or pairs (C2/3), but the actual reason each character is involved in the Circle is at least being questioned in C6, with a few answers: eg, Angelica's 'mission' will be revealed, whereas August's will be kept a secret (with good reason...)

I dare say I'll have this chapter done by Saturday, giving me another two days to get into Chapter Seven, which will probably be called Pen Expers. Tonight, I'm going to be trying out the local writer's group - the only reason I have never done this is because I usually work late on Thursdays (it runs on the first Thursday of each month), but production night was last night... so yeah. ^_^

Jared's thoughts

Here's what Jared had to say about No Solitude For The Patient...

"No Solitude For the Patient significantly boosts the pace, and is reminscent of the high-quality writing featured in C1. Now that the world and main characters have been introduced and covered in sufficient detail the ball has clearly begun rolling, as in actually rolling... ...as opposed to stopping and starting as it had done previously. Eric is a great character and his past, while running the risk of being cliche, is handled nicely. This chapter also makes clear the timeframe of some events in previous chapters, such as the horrible situation Jai has found himself in and why Eric is needed.

However, the lack of Treale is disappointing, if only because C4 so revolved around him, with an ending that suggested he would go on to become a subject of much debate or importance throughout the succeeding chapters. Actually C4 is the most confusing chapter when compared to the other four: it is mostly in flashback, and the events that happen involving Treefingers are not particularly clear... who is Treefingers exactly? Why has Marie put everyone in danger? How is their arrival a sign?"

So, yes. I'm elated. ^^ Get it? Elations? For elated? HUR HUR HUR HUR.

No Solitude For The Patient Complete

I actually managed to get Chapter 5 done at 7090 words - about ten minutes ago, I typed the final segment of No Solitude For The Patient (named after the song by Eight Frozen Modules), rendering the chapter complete. The chapter follows Eric, who has been taken to The Other Woman; and Jai in Pen Expers, which Chapter 4 did not even really mention. Both timelines are almost parallel, maybe a few hours apart. It doesn't really matter. But the story is actually beginning to move - the wheels have begun to turn, and I'm happy with how I have started this process with C5.

So, yeah... I have now finished five chapters of Calibre... YEAAAH. If I manage to complete Chapter Six by the end of next weekend, I would have beaten my first triplet of chapters by about a week and a half. Which is cool.

Considering it’s only just struck 10pm, I’m going to try and start C6. ;)

Chapter Five Progress

After a relatively lazy week writing-wise (certainly not work-wise... gah), at around 5.00pm on Sunday, I'm at 4516 words with Chapter Five, titled No Solitude For The Patient. I've enjoyed writing what I have actually written for the chapter. It's similar to Chapter One in descriptive style (meaning there's a fair bit of it, mostly dominating the dialogue in the first two 'segments'), but is the baby steps into creating the full momentum of the plot. And yes. It will feature Jai in Pen Expers.

I'm hoping I will get it done tonight, and consider it possible to do so, as I am thoroughly enjoying the process of this chapter and have not actually had to cut anything major thus far (Chapter 4 had many parts which were removed because they were so damn boring).

Anyway. Thought I would update this. I'm going to have something to eat and then get back into it.

Chapter Four Renamed

I was browsing through some old (data) CDs and found the soundtrack of Requiem for a Dream on one of them, and noticed one of the song titles in particular. The title is far more fitting for Chapter Four, and suits the darker, calmer moments of the chapter, imo.

So, Chapter Four will no longer be named Ripples (by The Orb), and rather Ghosts of Things to Come (by Clint Mansell).

Depending whether I decide to include a particular character in the chapter, Chapter 5 with either be called No Solitude For The Patient or Who's Afraid Of... Yeah, it's pretty much dependent on the one character, and if you've read Chapter 3, I doubt I'd need to tell you who it is. If you haven't, then it wouldn't mean a thing, anyway.

Ripples - Complete

Finished the fourth chapter of Calibre today after doing the majority of it on the weekend. I'm not sure what to say about it because I'm not sure how I feel about it... But I'm sure I will revise it and fix some oddities up.

As I will be housesitting from tomorrow night, I hope to actually finish Chapter 5 by the weekend so I can make a promising start to Chapter 6 on Saturday. Somehow I doubt that will happen, though. :P

Because I'm tired and in a state of can't be fucked, I'm going to list the song references in Calibre so far for no particular reason.

• Come With Us, the title of C1, is by The Chemical Brothers from the album of the same name.
• If You Have An Enemy, the title of C2, is by Leafcutter John from the album The Housebound Spirit. Unlike C1, this track actually suits the chapter.
• In All The Wrong Places, the title of C3, is by Ulrich Schnauss from the album A Strangely Isolated Place.
• Ripples, the title of C4, is by The Orb from the album Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt.
• Pen Expers, the name of "the facility" mentioned in the first three chapters and named in C4, is by Autechre from the album Confield.
• The location Echo Beach is named after the song by Martha & The Muffins.
• The term "little fluffy clouds" is used in C3, referring to the song Little Fluffy Clouds by The Orb.
• The presence of a path on Green Hill is purposely mentioned to refer to the song Green Hill Path by Wisp.
• The Treefingers is referring to the track from Radiohead's Kid A.

That's all I can remember from the top of my head. There's probably a couple more. -shrugs- cbf.

Ripples progress

It's nearly 5pm on a Sunday afternoon and I am 4669 words into Chapter Four, now titled Ripples (after the song by The Orb). It's unfortunate that I did not get much writing done over the week to ensure I would have a solid momentum to getting it done sooner than this, but I still hope to be able to print out the completed draft tomorrow afternoon. I'm having a break at the moment, but I'm pretty confident I'll get it done.

What it's about has changed since my last update, too: it has three timelines going on and probably won't feature August at all. Instead, it will be following Ian Treale, a scientist in a time of the Fectoprine where competitors are actually called the gifted; Sebastian Wyre, about a week before the hotel incident; and finally, Eric and Marie on Green Hill, where they meet the infamous Treefingers.

It should be a more interesting chapter than Chapter 3 in the sense that it is finally shedding light on what is going on, and is easing in the last few characters who are going to be essential for the rest of the novel.

Chapter Four

I'll be honest - like every other week, I have no gotten far during the weekdays, basically falling into a "one step fowards and two step back" routine, thus I hardly make any progress. At the moment, however, it looks like it will be opening with an introduction to Ian Treale in a (so far) unidentified location. I'm hoping to also introduce Angelica and Owen, although I think I will be using C1+2's style and following two people almost exclusively: these two people for C4 being Treale and August.

I have essentially decided on what the plot is going to be sort of about, although I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen, which is what gives me more incentive to write: the less I insist on occurring in a chapter, the more I enjoy writing it. I think that's why I had a bit of trouble kick-starting In All The Wrong Places - I had decided by the end of C2 what was going to unfold in C3.

So far, I'm sitting around 500 words for Is It Any Wonder?, which I hope to do some work on tonight (considering writing tomorrow is basically out of the question). I would like to have at least 1500 words before the weekend, when the real work is put into it. I'm looking forward to writing this chapter, as I'll be introducing Pen Expers - which is to be a very important location - from two very different perspectives.

I'm pretty settled with this kind of routine - I found that when I was writing Come With Us, the "mandatory" 1000 words per day didn't really work for me at all, meaning the chapter took a lot longer than I wanted it to. So, each Sunday, I hope to be able to type the final word of the chapter of the week, print it out the next day, and then move onto the next one. Hypothetically, I'd imagine this would mean that Calibre will take approximately 16 weeks to complete. Am I going to finish it in that time frame? Probably not.

I've already started considering writing spin-offs, although I'm not going to bother just yet. I've been developing the world of the Fectoprine to be suitable for other stories - the events surrounding the ensemble of main characters, in terms of the world as a whole, aren't going to overshadow any possible sequels or other stories set in the world (so, no, Calibre is not going to end with the city exploding or anything like that at all).

OH SHI-time to do some actual work.

Chapter Three renamed and completed

After Chapter Three evolved to be fairly different to how I imagined it at first, the title Shadows did not quite fit with the what occurred, so it has been indefinitely renamed to In All The Wrong Places, named after the Ulrich Schnauss song from his album A Strangely Isolated Place.

Oh, and it's finished. Without a revision, it is currently sitting at 7212 words. This means that in my first 30 days of writing Calibre, I've written a total of 21249 and completed three full chapters. My deadlines are not based on word counts but just completion of chapters, and so I have managed to meet my own a few days ahead of schedule. I hope by this time next month, I'll be able to post a notification regarding the completion of Chapter Six. ;)

In All The Wrong Places is unlike the other two chapters in the sense that it isn't totally strict with who it follows - its main purpose in the story is to outline what happened to the characters after Come With Us and bring the two timelines into perfect synchronization. It has a bit of action orientation, particularly with Jai's part, and also actually names the 'redhead' who appeared in If You Have An Enemy.

I'm looking forward to writing Chapter Four, as I don't really feel obligated to do anything. With Chapter Three, it was really about time that I said what happened after the Building #12 incident at least. But Chapter Four will hopefully introduce some new important characters, and will definitely begin to lean towards letting on what the hell is going on. :P

Right. No moar typing.

Shadows Progress

So today I bought iWork for my laptop for $75 from work, thus getting rid of the additional step in starting up Pages. To celebrate, I did some actual writing, which is more than can be said for Monday onwards. In fact, I did over 1500 words, knocking up C3's word count to 3623 so far (yes, it seems contradictory of my last post, but I deleted a lot of one particular scene because it was crap before).

So far, Shadows is following the same kind of thing as If You Have An Enemy in the sense that it's significantly different from the chapters before it - there isn't really any strict focus characters when it comes to what the narrator actually follows; rather, it presents what's going on with the characters sometimes indirectly. Shadows basically starts right where Come With Us left off, so it's sort of getting the ball rolling a little more than C2 did. In what I have written so far, it has introduced a very important location. I'm still not sure if I'll be introducing any new characters until I feel I have fleshed out the mains so far (Eric, August, Jai, Marie, Seth). But this is undoubtedly going to be following an ensemble, so who knows...

Right. 12.24am. I'm going to sleep.

(Lack Of) Progress

I've had a fairly solid start to the third chapter, Shadows - it's currently sitting at around 2000 words, which is more than could be said when I stalled a little with C2. So far the main focus has been on Eric after the hotel incident, while also giving the redhead some attention. It will also feature Marie and Jai (will probably be more focused on Marie as C1 almost ignored her), showing what happened at Building 12 after August's fall.

I'm pretty confident this will be a less confusing chapter than If You Have An Enemy, with further insight on what the city is like, as well as a bit of the history of calibre-related incidents. Hopefully by the end of the chapter, I would have killed the lagging timeline altogether so I can go further back in later chapters (which is something I hope to do in C4). I'm unsure if it will introduce any new characters, though, which is a bit of a bummer.

Right. I'm going to go in my room and try to do some writing (and probably fail). 'Night.

Thoughts

Here is what Jared has said about Come With Us and If You Have An Enemy:

Both chapters convey different moods and tones: C1 feels very morose with a hint of mystery and danger, whereas C2 gives off a 'calm before the storm' vibe and, with the exception of its jarring final scene, feels very retrospective.

When comparing both chapters Come With Us is very descriptive - you could possibly shorten some of the description and still tell the same story. I don't necessarily mean get rid of sentences, but to shorten or replace them with something a little snappier. Obviously it's incredibly well-written and one of the greatest things that can be said of it is that it doesn't end on a cliff-hanger.

If You Have An Enemy has perfect description yet feels a little bit like a kaleidoscope. It is more varied than C1 in its locations and events, so therefore quite a lot happens. In ways it is more interesting than C1, yet some things stand out for me: Calibre-bearer hunting being described as a "popular sport" feels cliché... and the use of blue smoke raises questions which I trust you'll address...

I like how C2 goes back in time and how the reader is thrown into the scenes; it is surprising and works brilliantly. Seth's portrayal in the two chapters is also strikingly different, yet believable - I liked this a lot.

The final scene is probably the most poorly handled thing in the entire chapter because, although interesting, jars completely with everything that previously occurred within the chapter. It's a massive shift in tone (a calibre capable of THAT, the others seemed relatively innocent). It's a good idea and the execution is by no means 'bad', the only problem is that it requires I continue reading C3 immediately after it to really appreciate it - which of course I cannot do yet. ;P Until I can this paragraph is more of an observation than a criticism.

To be honest there are no real problems to whine about... just keep on doing' what you're doing - you're onto something great here. ;)

Oh! Name a chapter after an Autechre title. XD (Haha… DON’T. !_!)

Needless to say, I am very pleased. ^^ Oh, and Chapter Two now stands at 6582 words after a revision.

Oh, and here is what Charles had to say about C2:

Another captivatin’ chapter. I did find the changing of scenes confusing, as well as the different characters - just working out who was saying and doing what at some points was a bit of a task. However, it’s always a good idea to explore the backgrounds of characters in the second chapter, and you’ve done so quite brilliantly.

C2 Writing and C1 Responses

I've just completed the first draft of Chapter Two, If You Have An Enemy. Indeed, I'm at least a week late in doing so, but it is pretty much done now. I have 11 days left on my Pages trial (the word processing software I am using), which means the first two chapters of Calibre took 19 days to complete. Considering I work full time and the chapters are rather long, that isn't too bad. Oh, and Chapter Two is 6352 words long at the moment.

While I do consider it to be complete, I am definitely going to revise it tomorrow when it is a suitable time - it just struck 3AM, and so I frankly cannot be assed to do something like that right now. It may or may not bump up the word count a little, as no doubt what I have written between 1AM and now is probably pretty sketchy, but the events won't change much.

Compared to Come With Us, If You Have An Enemy is less description intensive and has more dialogue than its predecessor. It follows Wyre, a new character, and Seth, who was introduced in C1, but not really developed at all.

Speaking of Chapter One, I have received a bit more feedback since my last post. I sent the chapter to Charlie, and in return had it sent back with a series of notes which have proven to be very useful (detailing things that the others didn't really mention, particularly consistency of writing style). Jared's "Kane is a God." response was very encouraging, to say the least.

Stephen also read it, responding with "I enjoyed Calibre. Action Jackson. V. nice." on my Facebook wall, although going on to argue that the end of Chapter One was rather terrible. However, as will hopefully become at least a little clearer in If You Have An Enemy, it was important for this to happen. The others just thought that that particular calibre may be a little overpowered. I'm still waiting on a response from Damian (www.oddscribblings.blogger.com) and Nicole.

As I've said before, chapters from now on are only going to be given to an exclusive few, and I probably won't be sharing Chapter Two until I am completely content with it (so, no, you won't see anything like herpy derpy in it).

So now... I'm going to sleep, damn it. 'Night, nobody.

So far...

If you've come across this blog and are facing this post, it is probably to my own misfortune, as I was not intending to really share it around until there was actually some decent material on it. This is really mostly for self-reference: I doubt Calibre will be a serial release, except to a select few. But nonetheless, my progress so far...

I have created a solid draft of Chapter One, titled Come With Us, which introduces calibre-bearing characters like Eric, who has a curious charm and a tongue of silver; August, a girl with an icy touch; Jai, who can walk on walls; and Marie, who can walk through them. It offers very little explanation of the workings of the city or what it consists of (it leaves out the name entirely), and mostly just alludes to the character's unique abilities. This chapter in it's current state (finished, but no doubt riddled with errors) is 7653 words. I have considered including a prologue, although I probably won't end up doing so.

I've sent this draft to a few people, and the two who got back to me were very positive and eager to see Chapter Two when it is complete (although I am not sure if I will share future chapters beyond the few people I am going to use for primary feedback, who are not yet completely determined).

Since then, I have started working on Chapter Two, as I have had a bad habit in the past of making a solid first chapter and then just ceasing writing. It is titled If You Have An Enemy and introduces a new character, General Sebastian Wyre, and that's all I really want to reveal at this point. It is currently sitting at 3858 words. I'm pretty sure it will be shorter than Chapter One, although I never expected Come With Us to be as long as it is, anyway.

The thing that has really motivated me so far with this attempt (and believe me, I have made many failed attempts at writing this story, which I am extremely precious about) is the fact that I have gone into it blind, enabling myself to take my time with each moment, and be fairly unaware what is going to happen with the characters I am creating.

Anyway, my lunch break is nearly over, and I doubt I will revisit this until a few more chapters are done... Christ, I sound so serious. Have fuuuuuuuuuuuun.