Warrior Monk

What Are Your Favourite Books?

2009-10-05T20:54:00.008+01:00

This is Killiney beach in Ireland, just south of Dublin city.

Hello friends,

I'll keep today's blog short.

What books would you consider to be your favourite? Is there one book or several books that you read repeatedly?

Here are some of my recent favourites:

The Ballad of Lee Cotton by Christopher Wilson.
Hercules Barefoot by Carl-Johan Vallgren.
Duma Key by Stephen King.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
The Histories by Herodotus (meant to be historical but Herodotus takes lots of fictional liberties!).
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon.

I've read some of the titles above more than five times.

What is it about your favourite book and what is it that makes you want to read it again?

Character?

2009-10-04T21:27:00.007+01:00

This photo is taken at dusk at Sandycove harbour near my home. James Joyce wrote (and based) some of his book "Ulysses" here.

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well.

Story comes naturally to a lot of writers but I'm aware that I really need to work at character. The believability of your characters' actions is important and can only be achieved by knowing your characters thoroughly. In one of the books I mentioned in my last post (The Art of Dramatic Writing) there is a character structure form to help you to establish the different facets to each of your characters.

Do you use a structure like the list below? Or do you write a character description in prose? I find that I use both. The prose flows more naturally but the structured list is useful for things that I have not thought of. Do you find character more difficult than story? I know I do.

If you have a writing blog please let me know so I can follow you too. I want to know how others write and what they experience in the process too.

Please keep the comments, suggestions and criticisms coming in!

Warrior Monk

Physiology

1.Sex -
2.Age –
3.Height & Weight –
4.Color of hair, eyes, skin –
5.Posture -
6.Appearance: good looking, over- or underweight, clean, neat, pleasant, untidy. Shape of head, face limbs -
7.Defects: deformities, abnormalities, birthmarks, diseases –
8.Heredity

Sociology

1.Class: working, ruling, middle -
2.Occupation: type of work, hours of work, income, condition of work, attitude toward organization, suitability for work –
3.Education: amount, kind of schools, grades, favorite subjects, poorest subjects, aptitudes –
4.Home Life: parents living, earning power, orphan, parents separated or divorced, parents' habits, parents' mental development, parents' vices, neglect, Character's marital status –
5.Religion –
6.Race, nationality –
7.Place in community: leader among friends, clubs, sports –
8.Political affiliations -
9.Amusements, hobbies: books, newspapers, magazines, sports played –

Psychology

1.Sex life, moral standards -
2.Personal premise, ambition –
3.Frustrations, chief disappointments -
4.Temperament: easygoing, pessimistic, optmistic –
5.Attitude toward life: resigned, militant, defeatist –
6.Complexes: obsessions, inhibitions, superstitions, manias, phobias –
7.Extrovert, introvert, ambivert -
8.Abilities: languages, talents –
9.Qualities: imagination, judgment, taste, poise -
10.I.Q. -

What do you read when you're writing?

2009-10-02T20:40:00.015+01:00

This tree is over 700 years old and is thought to be the oldest oak tree in Ireland. It's so warped, it looks like a giant mishapen insect.

Word Count: 830

I'm writing more on my mobile/cell phone now than I am at my computer. I resisted writing on the phone for so long but for me it makes much more sense. Happily I have an OpenOffice compatible phone so it's easy to transfer the text to my computer (I stopped using Microsoft products last year, they bore me with their slowness).

Did some more work on the step outline and clarified some aspects that were bugging me.

Thanks for the suggestions/comments. There's some really good stuff there, I'd recommend having a look at them. Pete, Natalie, Sam and Andrew generously supplied advice from their own experience.

Pete suggested reading a book called Emotional Structure by Peter Dunne. I intend to read that book in the near future.

Other Books I Recommend to Writers:

Story by Robert McKee
The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
On Writing by Stephen King

Do you have any other suggestions? Have you read any of the books mentioned above? What did you think of them?

I just keep reading and re-reading Story and The Art of Dramatic Writing. They contain so much wisdom it's difficult to retain much on a single read.

Step Outline & Focus

2009-09-30T20:47:00.009+01:00

Word count: 500 (not so hot!)

The photo above is of a tree trunk which washed up on the beach near where I live. This is unusual as there are no trees for many miles near the shore. However, doing some local history research I discovered that there is an "underwater forest" nearby. Now, I am quite skeptical of that and until I get to go snorkeling or scuba diving to check it out I will not fully believe it but Queens University in Belfast claim to be in possession of some of the pine cones and branches from this aquatic forest. Check it out yourself, it's in Dublin Bay near Shankill. I think there's some stuff online about it. Hmm... enough boring natural history. Back to the book...

Today I mainly worked on the step outline. It helps to consolidate the structure of the plot. So I have more of the events in order now. I hadn't anticipated how messy it gets when you have multiple characters and a main plot intertwined with several sub plots which you try your best to tie in together by the end of the story. The way I see it, I'm still learning and I'm on a steep learning curve, tough going but worth the effort.

What do you find works best for organising all the elements of your plot? Do you use a mind map or post-its? Or do you just use a step outline?

I'm feeling really good about the direction the story is in. I feel it's conveying a message that I feel strongly about and that motivates me to keep going.

I have some ideas written down for the next book but I won't do any more than scribble them down until I am finished this book. I know from experience that it is way too tempting to shuffle between multiple projects. The thing is that you then lose focus on the main project and it falls apart.

Do you have any tips for keeping focus? My focus is really good right now but I know that it can easily slip with all the additional complications of life. What do you do to keep focus?

Still reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. Stoker is from Dublin, Ireland, same as me. The book is so much more than just a creepy old guy in a castle in Transylvania. Really enjoying it and I would highly recommend it as an engaging read. If you read it you might notice that many of Stoker's plot devices are emulated by modern writers.

Please leave comments and thank you for following me. I hope that we can all learn something from this.

PS. Check out UK based Helen Beal's excellent writing blog: http://www.helenjbeal.com/

What's it about?

2009-09-29T21:08:00.011+01:00

I've been receiving lots of questions about the novel. I thought I might answer them as I go along. The most asked question is "what is your novel about?"...

My novel is set in modern day Ireland. It follows the life of Malachy Buckley who lives in the town of Ashford, County Kildare (this is a fictional town, although there is at least one other Ashford somewhere else in Ireland). The story is about Malachy being forced to face his past because of what is happening now in the town. The past is painful for Malachy and contains unsettling revelations about who he is and who his family are. The story involves his interaction with something which is prevalent in Irish folklore. The story is also about belief and what that means to people and its potential for good and for evil. In addition, I've been reading lots of Neil Gaiman and Stephen King during the last two years so I'm sure their work has influence. That said I am only a beginner. Those guys are masters at what they do and if I ever reach anywhere near their level of talent, it will take many years.

I hope this gives you some idea of what it's about. I'm wary of describing it in too much detail right now but I will give more information closer to completion.

Thank you so much to everyone who's left comments and/or joined as a follower of my blog. Your effort is helping to spur me on with this book.

Do you have any suggestions for other authors I should read based on what I've described?

Please leave a comment if you have any advice, criticism or just want to shoot the breeze about writing.

Heartfelt regards,
Warrior Monk

Understanding the Bad Guy

2009-09-28T19:19:00.009+01:00

Today I finally isolated exactly what my antagonist's motive is, and the full reasoning behind the motive. I'd had a idea of it since I began writing the novel 12 months ago but now it's finally crystallised. This was a key element missing until now.

As a result I can now forge ahead into the final straight of this story. So yeh, it's been a good day!

As of now, I have approx 60,000 words written. Chapters 2,3 and 4 I wrote on my mobile (cell) phone but I have transferred them to my pc. I have had detailed character structures in place for months now but I am still fine tuning them as I learn more about the reality in which my story is based.

I got some great advice from some of the new visitors to my blog. Thank you very, very much. All suggestions are greatly appreciated and deserving of my highest respect. It's people like you, my readers, who reaffirm my faith in others (since my day to day work life, my crappy 9 - 5, had damaged that faith) and it's brilliant to have that back.

One of the nuggets of advice was from published author Michelle O' Leary who suggested that I should avoid publishing a sample/chapter of the story online as publishers do not like any part of a prospective book being online. I will follow this advice. Thanks very much Michelle. Check out her website at http://www.michelle-oleary.com/. And thanks very much to everyone who has had a read of this blog so far. Please leave comments and forward the link to others who you think my be interested in following my blog. Also, if you have any advice for me please leave a comment.

ps. All of the photos (bar one) on this blog are photos I've taken in the last 12 months which are related to my story. I find that they help to keep me focused on the story. The same trick may work for you too. Try to guess which of the photos I did not take. Clue: It's the photo that's actually good!

Warrior Monk

Difficult Weekend

2009-09-27T16:42:00.009+01:00

This weekend has been difficult for writing. My mind is cluttered with my plot but I can't just sit down and type it. Prose constipation.

Once I'm finished I might stick a chapter up here on my blog to give a taster. Is that a good idea? I know I will need promote it at some stage so that would be one way to do it.

I read recently that finishing your first novel is easy compared with the next step of getting it published. Is this true? If so, I'm sure this is even more the case now that all the publishers have had their budgets for new talent cut. That said, the more I write the more confident I am that it will be good and likely to be published and hopefully enjoyed by lots of people. However I don't want anyone to get the impression that I think I'm writing some kind of amazing literature or a modern classic. I'm certain that I'm much, much closer to Dan Brown than Dante with my writing style and although I do want as many people as possible to read my work, I don't want to write it quite like Dan Brown. Brown is obviously a very talented guy. His work is clearly very accessible and simple yet at the same time no one can have his level of success without having talent even if that talent isn't a high degree of literary skill. He's certainly doing something right.

The trick is to write something that is as accessible (or almost as accessible) as Brown's books but to also have a message and to appeal to people who like to read books. That's what I'm aiming for but I'm aware it's a lofty ideal and it's not simply a matter of acknowledging the above but actioning it too. That's the tough part. Should I just hammer out this draft and get it down with and worry about perfecting it later? That makes sense. I must stop agonising about having it perfect first time around. Just keep writing. Thanks for taking the time to read. Please leave comments!

Dracula

2009-09-25T21:36:00.015+01:00

I began reading Dracula last night. I may have read it a long time ago but was probably put off by the snobbish writing style which was inherent in all writing at that time (1897). But it's easier to see past that now. Also, Bram Stoker was Irish and I should take more interest in Irish writers. I have read only a tiny bit of Irish literature (I attempted Ulysses a few times as a teenager, who hasn't?, but gave up 100 pages in each time). I can't think offhand of any other Irish novels that I've read... The Silent People by...hmm...Walter Macken. I enjoyed that but I read it 16 years ago.

Continuing to write on the mobile phone. I just want to finish it. I'm really enjoying writing but I want to get to the next project. I want to put this story to rest, completed, and stop thinking about it. Every minute I think about it, in work, while sleeping, walking, on the train. Although I have completed 2 screenplays in the past I do have a tendency to hold out on actually finishing a project. I will finish this before I move on. Although I know what I want to write about next I have kept it on the sideline until TSF is complete...and in the hands of a good publisher.

If you are working on a writing project I'd love to hear about it. I don't know enough other writers and I would like to change that.

The Title

2009-09-23T20:25:00.007+01:00

I've had the title for this book for years, maybe 8 or 9 years. The story has changed dramatically over this time but has been more or less the same concept for the last 14 months.

Most of the writing I'm doing recently is on my mobile phone. Due to work arrangements I have a limited amount of time Monday to Friday. Surprisingly, it's working out very well using the phone. As I write more each day, the gaps in the plot seem to resolve themselves without any effort from me. I want to always be writing like this. It doesn't have to be 4,000 words a day, every day but some words consistently every day.

Please leave your comments on this blog and keep reading!

See you soon,

Warrior Monk

Every Day

2009-09-22T21:18:00.006+01:00

Feeling good, really good. I'm writing every day now (+ two days in a row on this blog). To be clear, this is the only blog I am writing.

Yes, the words just keep coming. My story is almost complete. Just a bunch more typing and we're done. It's really been a haphazard process since the beginning but I'm learning how to better structure my approach so hopefully the second novel will flow well from the first page till the last.

The photos I'm using to accompany my blog posts are the type of images which will be prevalent in my novel. That said, it's not a depressing story but an uplifting one (I think anyway!). I suppose that pure happiness is in greater focus when contrasted with darkness, sorrow and evil...That was heavy, the story isn't though. It just touches on some heavy themes but the plot itself is fast paced and exciting (to me at least). Also, all the photos are taken in colour but some of them were taken in mid winter where the light was so murky and dull that they appear to be in black and white. No photoshop, I promise.

If you've happened upon this blog please subscribe and keep up with me. I hope to use it to speak to a large audience in the near future.

With kind regards,

Warrior Monk

Writing

2009-09-21T20:34:00.008+01:00

My writing is flowing. I'm getting a few words in here and there on a smoke break or during lunch or even on the train. It's giving me more enthusiasm to write even more. I read a statistic the other day. I'm not confident of its accuracy but I believe it could be quite true. Out of everyone who starts their first novel, only 3% finish it. I find this really encouraging because I know that I'm going to finish, and that I'm going to finish quite soon too.

Reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I love it. There are some themes in this story which are similar to themes in my story. I wish I could find more books like it (and as well written too). If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

I think I'm productive right now for two reasons. One: I'm recovering from a long time illness and feeling better each day and two: I have built up momentum. It's so much easier to write when you're writing already.

Also reading Neil Gaiman's short story collection: Smoke and Mirrors and still reading Stephen King's short story collection: Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

For reasons I'll discuss later I have not advertised this blog and I also haven't told anybody about it. It will be interesting to get people's opinions on it later when I'm ready to show it. In the meantime it is possible that people may stumble upon it randomly so I'll leave it to fate for now. If you do happen to find this blog please leave a comment and/or give me some suggestions on the questions I've asked.

I'll keep the posts frequent from here on (at least one a week).

Thanks for reading,
Warrior Monk

After a long break...

2009-09-15T11:03:00.008+01:00

Today's word count: 2730.

Hi all, it's been one really crappy summer. This was the third year in row in Ireland where the weather was absolutely terrible. I was also unwell but am recovering now and feeling more healthy each day.

I was in France to see a friend last week and had two days to myself in a hotel in Grenoble where I got some good writing done. The story is so much stronger. Today I called in sick because I have the symptoms of a cold/flu/swine flu. I'm sure I'll be fine but in big companies like the one I work in they have to be cautious about this kind of thing. I intend to go in tomorrow as I expect to feeling much, much better by then.

The book: It's really made huge leaps in terms of both character and plot. I hope to do some writing today rather than lying in bed.

Over the last year since I began working on my first book I have collected many images and photos to help focus my attention on the mood and themes of the story. The photo above is a photo I took on New Year's Day 2009. I'll litter my posts with these pictures from now on. Please let me know what you think of them.

Here's a list of my main characters (for no discernible reason): Malachy Buckley, Charles Buckley, Deirdre Buckley, Angela Buckley, Ewan Buckley, Fr. Joseph Mulvey, Bob Samuels, Gerry Langan, Samantha O' Connor & Sean Gerraghty.

Reading a lot of Stephen King these last twelve months. Currently reading his third collection of short stories: Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Very enjoyable.

I'm gonna keep it short today but will post more frequently.

Talk soon!

First Blog

2009-06-27T23:45:00.004+01:00

Hi, this is the first blog I have ever written. I decided to start a blog in order to help me keep focus on a project I undertook 9 months ago. I'm writing my first book and this blog will document my progress and include other elements of my life.

I just watched the Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Excellent. It's a simple story (I'm sure the novel has more elements to it) but it works well. I was lucky enough to meet the author of the book a few months ago at a book launch... but I still haven't read the Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I will some day soon.

Here's the skinny: Last September I went on a 2 week holiday by myself in order to concentrate on my writing. During those 2 weeks I wrote the first 35,000 words of my book. I haven't had productivity at that level since then but I think the characters and plot have developed far beyond where they were at that point.

My challenge is firstly that this is my first book. Secondly, in order TEXT REMOVED.

Back to the book. I'm working on the structure right now. I have broken down the structure of that great book by Carl-johan Vallgren, Hercule Barefoot. The 2nd book I'm studying is Angels & Demons by Dan Brown which I'm 50 pages into. I'm making lists of the scenes in these books to get a sense of how many relevant scenes occur. Hercule Barefoot came to a total of 49 scenes. Angels & Demons has 10 scenes by page 50 (of 620 pages). From this it's clear that the pace of Dan Brown's book is much faster (the pages have far less words too) than Vallgren's book.

Stay tuned for the next update...