Serial Rensai

ArchiveMay 2018

The Enemy: A Reminder

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
4 Min read
T

You think that the enemy is is that other person. Or that group or culture or instance that is out there fighting against the very thing you care about. Or the idea that is the antithesis to that certain thing you believe in and carry with you. Or maybe the enemy isn’t something so black and white. Maybe it’s the absence of the thing you’re striving for, the gaping hole where joy needs to be brought, or the pitch darkness that guards over the ignorance. The place where, when finished, the very thing you’re living for fits in and fills, as if it had always been there.

Maybe you think you can win, and maybe you think you can’t win. Those are powerful forces arrayed against you, you say, and only the luckiest of you are fighting wars that can even be won. After all, what can you do against the onslaught of real terror, real violence, real hate, on any scale beyond a grumpy turtle with a gummy overbite? Any real danger, hate, violence, maybe you can forestall it, escape it this time, but if it faces you head on, sooner or later it’ll getcha. The greatest soldiers still fall in battle, the most intelligent still get stumped, and those of us of the greatest virtue can still be dragged through the muck by any schmo off the street given enough reason to and a little luck. Compared to the greats, what are you?

But, sure, let’s go with it for a moment. You are facing real challenges. You don’t have to justify it this time. Because you’re thinking, whether or not it is the greatest challenge to the world, it is your challenge, and you are taking on an enemy out there. Win or lose, you’ll fight against them.

You fucking numbnuts.

Let me repeat that.

You are a goddamnable fool of human if you believe for a moment that is your enemy, you utterly stupid fuck.

There is only one real enemy, and it is the same for you as everyone else.

You.

You, the weak part of you.

Your exhaustion, your ignorance, your self-devotion, your lack of courage to face actual danger. Your weak side is your enemy, and whatever else you face, whatever else in the world rises against you is nothing compared to this. You will never move mountains, let alone molehills, without defeating that.

That is your enemy. Fight it. Every day, every hour, every moment, with everything you have. You must be good, not contemptible. You must be virtuous, not lazy. You must push, instead of drift. You must open yourself up to the dangers of the rest of reality, of being wrong, of failing, of being insufficient, of death, of life, or — even worse — oblivion, to crush the weak you before it uses those dangers to shut down anything of value you actually have to give.

That you in the mirror is your foe. It will grant you no quarter, it follows no international agreements, and it will do anything but give up. Fight it with tooth and nail, pen and sword, concentrated fire and a cold shoulder. Whatever it tells you, even when it is telling the truth, it is a fucking liar. Because it’s telling the truth to kill you dead, because it’s found a way to even make the good of the world hurt you.

At least you have one ally. You. The good of you is there too. Use it, and beat your own weaknesses. When you’re tired, keep going. When you’re sad, keep going. When you’re struggling, keep going. When you’re winning, keep going. When there is nowhere else to go, keep going. When the path is leading you to a cliff, and the weak you is screaming for you to stop, keep going the right way. You won’t understand that at first. You need to really know your own side before that last one will be clear. But once you know, it’ll be clear. And the real mountains and valleys of difficulty will truly be in view. It will hurt. But once you get there, it will be so much clearer.

You are not one side of a coin, and the weak you the other. you are simply the coin, and it is one side. You will never escape it. You will never achieve final victory. You will never put it in the ground hard enough to keep it from coming back. It will always come back. But that doesn’t mean you must lose. You can win the battles, and you can even win the ones that matter. Never let that thought go.

That will lead your true enemy to ruin.

Read on

First, an Ending

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
5 Min read
F

I’ve been thinking about what to do to speed up my writing. Every writer does, I’m sure. My own plans, as ephemeral and unstated as they are, involve a lot of speed, but more than speed, we cannot waste time. As per our previous criteria, of course.

If we are going to do some design work on the story before drafting (more soon), it is best to start with the ending.

That doesn’t necessarily mean write the ending first or know exactly how it ends. Instead, we should know what the end is and, most of the time, why it ends that way. What will be the final climax, what will be the general resolution, and when will the story stop? We need to know that last one most of all. Unless we begin at the creation of the universe and end at the last gasps of entropy, there is always more before the start and more after the end. There may be more before and after even then.

What we want to know is where the goal post is. Our job is now to reach that spot. In the first story I’m preparing to publishing serialized, I know what the final battle is. I know who is fighting, who will win, and why. How, I don’t know yet, and considering the contenders, it will be one insane pile of ridiculousness. But that’s the end of the story. That’s the final climax before things come to an end. I would hope it’s at least entertaining.

I know what the stopping point is, and despite that distance (god help me it is very, very far off), it feels real. I can imagine stories about what happens afterwards, and other things that could be said, but the narrative as a whole has a nice, clean, final moment there.

Knowing the the ending means I know what the arc of the people involved in that ending will be. After all, I have to bring the two combatants to that point, and if I have any idea what they are like, I know what kind of events and ideas will have to strike them to get them ready for the showdow.

And now, knowing that arc tells me where I need to begin it: I need a point where all the interesting parts of the arc come after, but as much of the boring stuff is before. With that, I now have the whole story. To end here, with this arc, starting at this point. The middle may be mushy and muddled, but that’s going to leave room to grow.

One could also work the other direction, and after starting with the ending, first decide the beginning. We want to reach that climax: where is the most impactful and emotional moment where we could start from? What starting point gives us the most to work with to drive home what we want to say to get to that ending? With that, we simple draw in a path between the points that seems interesting.

I’ve said before we’re not here to be literary, but a good story involves themes, foreshadowing, and grand ideas implied and explicitly shown through metaphor and symbolism. Hey look, foreshadowing involves knowing where the ending is, and then putting in moments earlier on that reference that. We can do that now. Themes and ideas and symbolism? If we know where to end, we know the climax. That will almost certainly push forward some ideas. Why this person wins the final showdown over the other really does capture a lot of what I want to say. So I will say those things a lot. We almost look literary.

Of course if we wrote the whole story first, we would be in the same boat. We could include all those things knowing full well where we’re going. But serials don’t have that luxury. We need to get the first section right before even thinking about writing the fifth, let alone the last. Besides, why not save ourselves more revision work? Build the ideas in earlier.

I know this works for me, and I understand how that isn’t exactly going to work for everyone. But there is another, small scale value to this. To use a fighting example again, I never want to sit down to write a conflict anymore without knowing who wins. It’s a failsafe: if I know the winner but they can’t pull it out, that’s going to set off warning flags immediately. Did I overlook something? Is the reason they’re going to win not powerful enough? Or does what I think happen in the story conflict with my more subconscious understanding of the story? Sometimes I’m wrong. But deciding first, and then watching my own reactions turns my unconscious from bias to tool.

More on that, too, in a bit.

Read on

Searching For Momentum

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
4 Min read
S

This is the eighth time, because I’m getting frustrated at this very opening, and it got silly. Along with six other failures besides.

It’s probably been almost two months since I wrote consistently. I wish I had some epiphany to share, or something that would make the entire idea more palatable. There’s not. All there is is the same as every time before.

I’m not here to hate myself, or to complain. I have to actually remind myself about that, which is pathetic in it’s own way.

At the same time, that is part of the lesson my life is trying to teach me. This is hard. We will fail. Get back up, get back to work. I’ve had the misfortune at being good at a lot of things I hate doing, and struggling with the things I love. I become enamored with whatever I find difficult and choose that path because the easy one is boring. While I loved making stories, I didn’t get interested in writing until I got my teeth kicked in four English papers in a row. I am more desperate to learn Japanese because people were doubtful it would be worth doing.

Perhaps that is why I want to learn to be an independent writer. Getting published normally isn’t easy, but it’s simpler. Write the greatest possible thing you can, send it to dozens of people, and keep doing that over and over until it gets published. Certainly not easy, I know. Here, though, everything is on me. (Or maybe I don’t want to talk to other people.)

So, what to do? Even if I’m tired, even if I’m lost, there is nothing else to do but move forward. At the moment, a few things come to mind.

First of all! Write and post consistently. Every week, at least, on the same day, at a quality level I have to push to achieve. No more time off. No more evasions. I need to get back in and get going.

I am here, and I want this to be something more than a hobby. That means I need to convert this writing skill into something which can earn me money, and I need to position myself so a business based around it can thrive and grow. Showing up every day is central.

Second, fiction. I am not a non-fiction writer. I am a fiction writer, though it would be hard to tell from this place. It is time to correct that.

My plan calls for at least two: a weekly, shorter, highly serialized story, and a monthly short-story series. It may not be clear what the difference is, but I’ll try to explain quickly. The weekly series does not need to settle the narrative arc that it covers in a single issue. The monthly one will have complete stories, while characters and situations carry from issue to issue. A better explanation is forthcoming.

I almost know which story to use for each one. Expect the weekly to start up first, though it’s more drawn out than that. Also expect a thoroough description of this to buy myself time to build up enough fiction to publish.

Third, knowledge and skills. I don’t have a ton of research for the stories I want to write at this point, byt there is a lot to learn and implement for this blog. Better writing skills, search engines, emails, publishing, editing, guest posting, standards, legal requirements, and god knows what else. I have plenty I want to talk about, but I need to know more before I have something worthwile to say.

…Sometimes, it feels like there is too much to do. But the other side is, if there is too much to do, then I better start now, or nothing will ever get done. When there is too much, pick what has to get done and finish it. Maybe the momentum will solve things, or maybe it will all fall apart. But inaction is only making the problem worse.

Read on
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