July 11th, 2011 by J C Bronsted
It’s probably obvious to anyone paying attention (which is likely no one) that I’m terrible at keeping up this Journal. I don’t anticipate that changing, primarily because (as I noted in my last entry) I’m not concentrating on writing at the moment, but on graduate school, which involves too much reading.
Anyway, my first year of grad school did not end as expected. Just before finals week a tornado destroyed a broad swath of ground through the middle of town and the semester was over. I had to finish writing papers for class, but school was effectively over at that point as we all set about the task of recovering. My house had relatively minimal damage, and my landlord was quick with the repairs. Most of the beautiful old trees that once shaded our street are gone, so the view outside is irrevocably changed. My immediate neighbor’s house was smashed, and another house beyond that was demolished soon afterward. And slowly the city rebuilds.
I’ve been reading this summer and relaxing a bit, and I’ve even done a bit of writing on Death and Life, though nothing substantial. I’m programming a webpage for the English Department, so that keeps me busy (and paid). For the rest of the summer (in addition to more website work) I’m going to begin a directed reading that will last through the end of the year. It’s supposed to be for the fall semester, but because there is so very much to read, my professor and I agreed to start the readings now.
I do not expect to update this Journal very much or at all for a while. The MA program is complete after next Spring, at which time I should graduate, so perhaps I’ll have more time then. However, if I am accepted into another program after that, who knows how long that will last.
Despite having said that, I know that I will write here again, and I will definitely write more on my various projects.
Posted in Death and Life, Life, Writing
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July 31st, 2010 by J C Bronsted
It might be obvious that I haven’t made any progress since my last entry. The problem has been that my attention is scattered. I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing, in that I have not really been idle, but have made progress (however limited) on many projects—no less than seven in total.
I think I made the most textual progress on Death and Life and Samantha, which I have discussed in this journal. But I also made some progress with a stage play titled (for now), “What do you want?” In fact, at my wife’s advising, I took a single scene out of that play and tried to strengthen it as a stand-alone ten-minute play, which is easier to get produced, and for which format there are numerous contests.
Additionally, I did some planning and a little bit of writing on a few other novels: The Death of Aaron Jamison, which is an expansion of a short story I wrote in 1998, itself only a sketch of an intended longer work; The Assassination of Prince Rolin en Qarriel, which was intended to be a light and easy work just to give me a bit of freedom—I started writing it because I was annoyed with my more “literary” ambitions and decided to write something purely plot-driven, based on all the tired tropes of pop literature—and instead, it has turned into an attempt at writing a Greek-styled tragedy.
Between the Stars I worked on just a little bit, but the story hasn’t come together for me quite yet. But also this summer an old story I’ve been thinking about for several years got a new bit of inspiration—working title, Immortality—and I wrote just a little bit of that and have a rough framework developed. A new story occurred to me, about a serial killer, but it needs something more, a second piece that eludes me. I sketched a bit of it and wrote a bare introductory chapter, but got no further.
And last, I did quite a bit of work on an essay titled “A Philosophy for Writing Fiction,” which was a response to my experiences on the website “Authonomy.” I will probably continue to touch up that essay for the next few years, and at some point I will post it on my website.
In the meantime, I am about to start grad school. So my current project is now Graduate School, and it is also my primary focus. I do not expect to write very much fiction while I am enrolled. I want to give school as much focus as I can, and to that end, I will not work on fiction with any regularity. Obviously inspiration in such a fecund environment as academia will be ongoing, and once in a while I will probably touch a project or two. I will update this space.
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May 24th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
I’ve made a ‘Projects’ section on the main page of the website. This comes out of uncertainty in my next project. I’ve worked through quite a bit of Samantha, but I’ve reached a point where I need to reconsider the structure of the narrative. While I let that problem stew in the background, I’ve started planning The Death of Aaron Jamison, which is based on a Short Story I wrote in 1999 called ‘Funeral’. I’m not sure if I can expand that story into a full novel, but it’s something I’ve wanted to write for a very long time. So I’ve added it to my list of projects. I also included Between the Stars because I intend to work on that as well.
In the future, I will update progress on each of those projects and I will add to the list as I spread my attention. At some point one of those will become my ‘Primary’ project, and that will be reflected. There may come a time when some item on the list will be set aside, put in a drawer, as it were. I cannot predict that, but every once in a while a story dies. It’s happened a hundred times and more through the course of my writing life.
In the mean time, progress is varied and slight. Distractions abound.
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April 21st, 2010 by J C Bronsted
So I’ve updated the main page to reflect the fact that I’m no longer working on Death and Life and instead have returned to a story that has been calling to me for more than ten years—Samantha. I actually made the switch at the end of March, but I wanted to make sure I would make progress on Samantha before I updated the page to reflect it. Since I have now reached 10,000 words in that book, I think it’s safe to say that Samantha is my current project. I anticipate the book being complete somewhere between 60-80k: much, much shorter than Death and Life will be.
There are two primary reasons for making this switch. First, in February and March I was faced with quite a daunting bit of writer’s block (the writing only dribbled, a few hundred words a day). It wasn’t until mid-April that it finally started to crack open. The second reason is that I have been accepted into the Graduate Program in English at the University of Alabama with a Teaching Assistantship. So starting in August, my life will be completely taken over by pursuit of an MA degree. Death and Life is such a large work that I’m not sure I could have finished it by summer’s end—in fact, I never expected to do so. I’m not sure I’ll finish Samantha by August, but the chances are much greater, since it’s likely to be less than half the length of Death and Life. In any case, I should at least have a rough draft.
After we moved to Tuscaloosa so Jenny could get her MFA, I decided to sign up and take the GRE. I’ve thought about returning to school for a long time, but my undergraduate grades were so bad I never thought it was a realistic goal. Having scored fairly well on the GRE, however, I applied to UA (and only UA—I can’t go to school anywhere else while Jenny is going to school here). The next few months were painful anticipation as my life was being decided by strangers (though I’m accustomed to that, having sent out Queries and Manuscripts to hundreds of strangers). In February, I finally got the letter that I was being accepted. Last week I signed up for the classes I will take in the fall. I’m on my way. I intend to eventually try for a PhD., but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
Meanwhile, I will devote the summer to Samantha, and I also have a notion (time permitting) of taking another look at a stage play I started last year (working title: ‘What do you want?’). Jenny will be working an internship in Illinois, while I stay here in Alabama working at the University library and writing—until August, when everything will change…forever.
Posted in Death and Life, Life, Samantha
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February 18th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
I struggled to reach 10,000 words in Death and Life, and since reaching it I haven’t written much new. I’ve been reading the old drafts of The Invasion (earlier version of the story) and spending some time plotting the way forward. The narrative voice has been difficult for me, as I am deliberately working against my instincts, writing in a way that is not usual for me—or trying to anyway. I am sure that it is more ‘me’ than I really care to admit, but it is different enough that I’m having trouble with it. Also, the narrator himself is a difficult personality to get down. I’m still trying to figure him out, and until I do it is likely that progress will be fitful.
However, I have rewritten the first 10,000 words so many times that I think these chapters have are fairly well polished already. Barring any dramatic changes, they will likely keep their current form more or less intact during future revision. Well, I say that now, but likely when I go back after finishing the book I will want to tear it all apart. Meanwhile I press on.
Posted in Death and Life
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January 27th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
I have put up new text for Angie and for Looming Thunderheads. The new teaser text reflects my revisions to the Query letters for each.
Feedback is welcome.
Posted in Uncategorized
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January 20th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
I read the book How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N Frey over the past two days. It was a gift a year or two ago, and I had not yet read it.
I didn’t have high hopes for the book, as my initial impressions of it were of a ‘popular’ novel-writing guide, but I was pleasantly surprised that it had a lot of good things to say. Although in general I consider myself more an artistic novelist than a mere slogger of books, as I pointed out in my discussion of my aesthetic, there is something fundamentally appealing in popular novels, and knowing what it is and how to recreate it can only help, no matter my artistic ambition.
So, like other sources of writing advice I go to, this book helped me focus my desire to write, to guide my thinking just a little bit, and gave me a bit of encouragement that I am not completely deluded. However, I have now picked up John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction for a reminder of the true artistry that novels can reach for, that I want to reach for.
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January 13th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
Considering my recent book review made me think about other Fantasy (and Science Fiction) books I have read in the past few years. Here is a list from memory:
2009: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson; Contact by Carl Sagan
2008: The Children of Hurin by J R R Tolkien; The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien [reread]; The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer; The Claw of the Conciliator; The Sword of the Lictor; The Citadel of the Autarch)
2007: Runes of the Earth by Stephen R Donaldson [reread]; Fatal Revenant by Stephen R Donaldson; Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell
2006: The Gap Cycle by Stephen R Donaldson [reread] (The Real Story; Forbidden Knowledge; A Dark and Hungry God Arises; Chaos and Order; This Day All Gods Die)
2005: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin (A Game of Thrones [reread]; A Clash of Kings [reread]; A Storm of Swords [reread]; A Feast for Crows)
2002-4: The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars; Green Mars; Blue Mars); Enchantment by Orson Scott Card; Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer; (this was also the time when I first read Runes of the Earth, The Gap Cycle, and the Martin books, reread the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and yet another rereading of The Lord of the Rings)
Posted in Thoughts
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January 10th, 2010 by J C Bronsted
I have written a review of Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker and put it up in the ‘essays’ section of my website. Find it here.
The review does not spoil the plot of the novel. If you read it, I would appreciate feedback.
Posted in Website
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January 2nd, 2010 by J C Bronsted
Recently rereading Stephen King’s On Writing, and I came upon his thoughts on plot-driven vs. character-driven stories. I’m always on the lookout for individual thoughts on the matter because I have strong ideas myself (read my essays discussing Narrative Art and Fiction). Here is what Stephen King said:
[likening writing a story to digging a fossil] Plot is a far bigger tool [than most], the writer’s jackhammer. You can liberate a fossil from hard ground with a jackhammer, no argument there, but you know as well as I do that the jackhammer is going to break almost as much stuff as it liberates. It’s clumsy, mechanical, anticreative. Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.
[…] [M]y books tend to be based on situation rather than story. […] I want to put a group of characters […] in some sort of predicament and then watch them try to work themselves free. My job isn’t to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety—those are jobs which require the noisy jackhammer of plot—but to watch what happens and then write it down.
Yet another [apparent] agreement to my conviction that character should at all times rule plot.
Posted in Writing
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