Writing Log

[Coryn]

Well they do say that music has an extremely strong tie to memory, in the same way that smells do. So if I'm listening to a song and it speaks inspiration into my mind, I form a pretty strong attachment between said song and memory. It's like listening to the music you liked in highschool, and having the memories flood back. Same concept.

I can sympathize with getting caught up with names. They are awfully difficult. I don't mess around with invented place names too much, but for characters, I have a method for both getting a name and moving on quickly. Assuming I know at least two basic criteria about a character, this is my method:

1. Determine their basic character traits: personal history, culture they're from, role in the story, etc. I'm talking the birds eye view. You don't need the nitty gritty personality details.

2. Go to this website: http://www.20000-names.com/

3. Pick the first one that broadly aligns with the above criteria, and slap it in there. You can always change it later, but as long as you don't hate it, you're probably fine keeping it. Your readers won't care.

My only other word of advice is to make sure it's not a nightmare to write. You don't want to write a name that's 15 characters long with a bunch of apostrophes unless there's a damn good reason to.

[Suuper-san]

So if I'm listening to a song and it speaks inspiration into my mind, I form a pretty strong attachment between said song and memory.

That makes a lot of sense, I can relate to that. Issue is when you have a small playlist you hear the same songs a lot and so you don't have so much of a unique association for each one.

Pick the first one that broadly aligns with the above criteria, and slap it in there.

I also do this for quick naming, and often enough as long as the name isn't crazy wrong it'll work as a final choice.
You can always use an autocorrect feature for complex names if you simply must have an annoying one. Not that I've ever done it but the feature exists. i.e. "Ga3" gets corrected to "Ga-reph-salome-napesh". I suggest using a number as that way you'll never mix it up with a normal word.

[Vacant]

Good shouts on naming. Another thing I use for when i need "fantasy" names is the license plates on any passing cars. In the UK the last three digits will be a random combo of letters and that can sometimes be shuffled about in my brain to make a name or the beginnings of one. so for example "XBN" = Xebian, "OKA"= Oukura.

On the writing front since last update I have:
-Completed full chapter notes and scenes.
-Then decided to gouge out the 2nd act and rewrite it.
-Then absolutely did not get sidetracked making maps on inkarnate for a few days
-I've also wanted to flex my actual writing muscles and began writing the 1st chapter. Hot damn Its been about 4 or 5 months and I am rusty! I hope to have the first draft of chapter 1 up on here when i've done and want to get some reviews done for others in the meantime. 

[Suuper-san]

Ah yeah the license plate thing...I've done that too :P
I made a little program ages ago that gave me random letter combos for inspiration...I'll have to dig that out again :P

[Coryn]

Last couple of weeks:

Slow but consistent War Arc progress. Almost done with the current monster chapter, and then at long last things should start moving at a good pace again. The next few things are going to be pretty sedate and dialogue heavy after the big action scenes of the current chapter. I'm much faster at those, so we should be in the home stretch before long.

[Suuper-san]

for the first time in about 2 years I actually did some writing, just a practice script for a random story idea. Did 3 iterations of a 2000 words script.
given writing's never been my thing the 2 year gap doesn't bother me too much (compared to if it had been art!), but I've got to get my writing going if I want to create a good manga. So every little helps.
Also I'm starting to get the idea of how to frame/describe my shots when I write my script, i.e. how I want certain shots to look/feel (sort of like a director of a film?). Previously I've just drawn a standard shot of whatever action is happening without considering layout or framing so I'm hoping this means I've improved a little.
I'm hoping to use these mini practice scripts as a stepping stone to rocket into my main project which is going a bit slowly at the moment.

I found listening to white noise/rain sounds works best for me, helps to reduce distractions. it also helps to drown out the sounds of me typing which can also be distracting. I'd love to have a quiet keyboard but for some unknown reason, the louder the keyboard the better? (much like cars!) Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but I cant even find the idea of a silent keyboard. silent mice though, are easy to find I have one already.

[Suuper-san]

finally started doing daily writing, at any quality.
small beginnings, mostly I take a random prompt which is a couple of nouns/adjectives and just muse over what sort of plot comes to mind. Aiming at 1000 words but no pressure at the moment to do anything other than a sentence minimum.
It's been a tad hit and miss but I'm incorporating it into my daily routine which has been quite successful in getting stuff done regularly so far.
I'm hoping as I gain a bit more experience and freedom with expressing my insecure ideas that I'll be able to lean into actual writing rather than planning, but I'm just happy to be actually trying to do stuff for once. Ultimately I'm aiming at a short story a day but that's long term.

[Coryn]

A worthy goal Suuper. I hope it goes well for you.

I'm still doing outline stuff myself. I'm at a slight impasse, but I'm sticking to a piece of Neil Gaiman advice which is simply asking yourself "what happens next?". It's keeping me moving forward, so even if I don't know if what I'm saying happens will happen in the final product, it's giving me the drive to keep putting words on the page.

I also spent some time working on a non-fiction piece, so to speak. Sort of a pseudo-autobiographical listing of ideas and concepts which I adhere to in life, along with some personal practices. It's really only for me, but it was really helpful in expressing some ideas I've had floating in my head for years but never really put into words. It was an affirmational experience, and will never be shared outright, but it was a nice way to sort of clear the mind. And don't worry, it's far more personal journal than manifesto, lol. I'm not high on my own idea supply here.

[Suuper-san]

asking yourself "what happens next?"

Yup very useful indeed, that's helped me through a couple of tough spots by working backwards from the desired end result of a scene or story.

That "pseudo-autobiographical" thing sounds a lot like my "art ramblings" and my diary combined. I log a lot of my thoughts and ideas about motivation, energy, planning, as well as art projects and to-do lists, and so on , although it's just a continuous stream rather than having any organization. I find it helps to move forward rather than being stuck on any one thought. I've written about 80k words so far on it, and sorted about 5% maybe XD

my daily writing is still in its infancy but it's becoming more regular. I've had quite a few interesting ideas that would make good stories, so I'm hoping to sort the good ideas and develop them a little, even if just into a short 1000 word story and leave it at that.