Out Of Bounds progress report, and skater standings.

[icarus]

I'm not going to finish all of Out Of Bounds today.

Most of it.

But not all of it.

I have roughly six scenes (with ongoing expansions....) left to write. Vacation's over tomorrow, had family stuff last night. Came home exhausted and distracted (that's family for you). Got edits but no core writing done afterward.

Looks like I'll be working on the last of Out Of Bounds through this coming week.

For those who are curious... the names and standings of John's competitors at Nationals, because, yes, I am that anal.

Last year's National Champions (they have a bye through Regionals and Sectionals)

Gold - Kyle Fletcher (reigning champion for a couple years)
Silver - Mike Estey (injured, not having a good season)
Bronze - Jeff Kulka (considered Kyle's most likely competitor this year)
Pewter - William Haas (who retired, and then unretired)

East Coast Sectional (this year)

Gold - David Bellamy (5th at Nats last year)
Silver - Pete Wynne
Bronze - Andrew Reinhardt
Pewter - Raymond Aguilar (14th at Nats last year)

Pacific Sectional

Gold - Christian Yong Suk (7th at Nats last year)
Silver - Francis Caliaro
Bronze - Elijah Wong (just moved up from Juniors)
Pewter - Trey Watkins (10th at Nats last year)

Midwestern Sectional (Mids)

Gold - John Sheppard (9th at Nats last year)
Silver - Nathaniel Peters (just moved up from Juniors)
Bronze - Benjamin Lamato
Pewter - Mark Svick (8th at Nats last year)

Comments

Process? Part 1.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Writing process?

mad_maudlin asked me about this.

1 - Get the ball rolling.

I get a chunk of the story going. This has happened with all of my longer fics. Usually, I think a longer fic is a short story or drabble series, so it takes me a while to realize I might have something bigger.

I use a "write it while it's hot" process. If a scene far down the line pops up and wants to be written -- hey, who am I to argue? I'll write it, or at least write it in bullet points in my notebook, and slot it in later.

2 - Make a mess.

In Out Of Bounds I wrote most of it "by the seat of my pants." I was deliberately breaking with a process to get me out of any comfort zones, writing in an uncontrolled way with no goal in mind. So I'd write a scene, then go, "Hmm. What do I feel like writing next?" and let the mood take me strange places. At one point the story leaped back in time to a disco in Germany. At another point Zelenka turned up when I didn't plan to have him there at all. At another point I got into stuff about Rodney's feelings about very young skaters.

It made quite a mess. I'm all for making a mess of your story. I had a lot to resolve at that point -- and a ton of research to do.

3 - Research

This is a whole topic in itself, but I've never skated on a rink before. Obviously I had a lot to learn. At one point I had to delve into the figure skating world. I went to skating events. I went to skeevy rinks. I watched skating videos on YouTube. I went to competitions. I read books by skaters. I started talking to skaters online.

4 - Find the meaning.

About a third of the way in, I could no longer re-read the entire story to get myself back into it. I couldn't keep the whole story in mind. I told perfica that I felt like I was trying to balance marbles on a tray... yiiiii.

That's when I got anal.

I went back and looked at my story, talked it over with perfica and figured out what it was all about. I had started out with a general "let's write a cliche sports victory story." But it wasn't that anymore. I don't think it ever was, because we had Rodney's defeat in the very first drabble. I started it with skier Bode Miller in mind. It was never just victory. It was recovery from defeat and the fame that goes with both victory and defeat.

5 - Outline, outline, outline.

Once I knew what story I was telling, I broke it down into two variations on the theme: one in Rodney's past, one in John's present, and the central theme of John and Rodney's relationship which wove through John's training sessions.

I created a spreadsheet with three columns:

John's present | John and Rodney | Rodney's past

I typed a brief description of each scene I'd written so far, with the POV character (to make sure I balanced POVs), and sorted each scene into the appropriate column. That revealed some imbalances in the story and some holes (Zelenka was not integrated into the story originally), so I wrote the additional scenes I needed.

Then I went through and put the skating scenes in bold, scenes in blue, and scenes in red. This was to keep me from getting distracted from writing the core point of the story: the skating.

Then I slotted in all the scenes that were in my notebook for the future.