Woo Tuesday
Oct. 14th, 2003 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I didn't do a writer's report today because I barely wrote anything. I added a couple of notes and sentences just to say I'd worked on my story... but really I did nothing very constructive.
Most of last night was spent reading manga and ripping cds to my hard drive. At the end of the night I assembled a "blues mix" cd for my own amusement. I included some very old acoustic blues (Charley Patton, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James) and some of the more modern stuff from the 50's and 60's, and then even more modern stuff that crosses into blues rock -- La Grange from ZZ Top, One World by Dire Straits, some stuff from Blue Mountain and some stuff I downloaded off the net including a nice song by guitar wizard Eric Johnson.
Today I made another copy before going to work, and gave it to Laura who loves the blues. But she couldn't find her cd player... she thinks it might have been stolen from her car recently. She doesn't always lock it I guess, there's usually not much to steal.
I completed another of my long-time goals by leaving for work early and stopping at Ballard Market to buy some Top Pot donuts. Those are more expensive than I realized -- 99 cents per donut. But very very very good. I bought five and handed them out to my co-workers.
I hadn't been in Ballard Market since they remodelled, and man, do they ever have a salad bar. Actually it's two bars... one with regular leaf salads and all the fixings, and another with various other prepared salads. It's $5.99 per lb. which is not cheap but it all looked so good that I had to try it... got some penne pasta, some taboule, some cool mediterranean salad with tomatos, cucumbers, large chunks of celery, oil and feta cheese... and some oriental noodle salad of some sort. The far side of the bar had like 8 or 12 different kinds of olives, feta cheese, dolmas, olive tapenade spread, etc. so I picked out some olives and pepperocinis to top off my salad selections. The stuffed olives (almond I think) were some of the most flavorful I've ever tasted. It was more than $9 so I wouldn't want to do that often, but I might go back in a couple of weeks because it all tasted very good. ^_^
While at work here tonight I think I finally figured out what's wrong with my story... why it was bothering me plot-wise. After all of my rewrites I had:
Scene 1, in which my characters from the Winter's Dance (the ship Vashti arrives at the station on) are transporting freight to the Grandcamp.
Scene 2, where they encounter the Grandcamp and begin to exchange freight.
Scene 3, a card game in Fat Wu's afterwards with some of the characters from both ships.
Scene 4, Vashti's old manager sees her in the bar. Panic!
Scene 5, Where Vashti meets up with the members of Bitted Throug and winds up with the opportunity to jam with them and maybe even join the band.
Now the purpose of the first scene is to establish how hated the Captain of the Winter's Dance is. It works pretty well for that purpose. The second scene introduces Iktome characters and explains how Vashti and her companions wind up with them. The third scene develops some of my plot, such as the idea that Art might want to help "Klause" from the Winter's Dance kill his Captain.
What I realized tonight was that, while all of this is nice stuff that sets up things that need to be set up... my main plot is really about Vashti leaving the Winter's Dance and her opportunity to join Bitted Throug, and the secondary plot involves her old manager Lo-Pan Chau and how he gets in the way of this opportunity of hers. I've always known this, but I only just realized that I don't set either of these plots in motion for several scenes. The plot involving who wants to kill the Captain and who actually does... it's important to the story but is not the main plot, so I shouldn't be setting it up in scene one.
Right now, my actual plot starts in scene five, although scene four also sets an important part of my plot in motion. But my first three scenes don't really set my two main plots in motion, and scene one is the first to go... it's still an important scene, but I need to have it happen later in the story.
I think I could get away with removing scene 1 and modifying scene 2, and not really introducing the main plot for a couple of scenes... sort of a slow intro to what's going on... but it would be even better just to start with Lo-Pan Chau spotting Vashti, or even running into her. That sets something in motion right away, and gives me time to set the other half of the plot (and then the murder sub plot) in motion.
So basically... I didn't want to rewrite the begining again, but really I have to. It doesn't work as is. But this time I have a good idea on how to make it work. ^_^
Most of last night was spent reading manga and ripping cds to my hard drive. At the end of the night I assembled a "blues mix" cd for my own amusement. I included some very old acoustic blues (Charley Patton, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James) and some of the more modern stuff from the 50's and 60's, and then even more modern stuff that crosses into blues rock -- La Grange from ZZ Top, One World by Dire Straits, some stuff from Blue Mountain and some stuff I downloaded off the net including a nice song by guitar wizard Eric Johnson.
Today I made another copy before going to work, and gave it to Laura who loves the blues. But she couldn't find her cd player... she thinks it might have been stolen from her car recently. She doesn't always lock it I guess, there's usually not much to steal.
I completed another of my long-time goals by leaving for work early and stopping at Ballard Market to buy some Top Pot donuts. Those are more expensive than I realized -- 99 cents per donut. But very very very good. I bought five and handed them out to my co-workers.
I hadn't been in Ballard Market since they remodelled, and man, do they ever have a salad bar. Actually it's two bars... one with regular leaf salads and all the fixings, and another with various other prepared salads. It's $5.99 per lb. which is not cheap but it all looked so good that I had to try it... got some penne pasta, some taboule, some cool mediterranean salad with tomatos, cucumbers, large chunks of celery, oil and feta cheese... and some oriental noodle salad of some sort. The far side of the bar had like 8 or 12 different kinds of olives, feta cheese, dolmas, olive tapenade spread, etc. so I picked out some olives and pepperocinis to top off my salad selections. The stuffed olives (almond I think) were some of the most flavorful I've ever tasted. It was more than $9 so I wouldn't want to do that often, but I might go back in a couple of weeks because it all tasted very good. ^_^
While at work here tonight I think I finally figured out what's wrong with my story... why it was bothering me plot-wise. After all of my rewrites I had:
Scene 1, in which my characters from the Winter's Dance (the ship Vashti arrives at the station on) are transporting freight to the Grandcamp.
Scene 2, where they encounter the Grandcamp and begin to exchange freight.
Scene 3, a card game in Fat Wu's afterwards with some of the characters from both ships.
Scene 4, Vashti's old manager sees her in the bar. Panic!
Scene 5, Where Vashti meets up with the members of Bitted Throug and winds up with the opportunity to jam with them and maybe even join the band.
Now the purpose of the first scene is to establish how hated the Captain of the Winter's Dance is. It works pretty well for that purpose. The second scene introduces Iktome characters and explains how Vashti and her companions wind up with them. The third scene develops some of my plot, such as the idea that Art might want to help "Klause" from the Winter's Dance kill his Captain.
What I realized tonight was that, while all of this is nice stuff that sets up things that need to be set up... my main plot is really about Vashti leaving the Winter's Dance and her opportunity to join Bitted Throug, and the secondary plot involves her old manager Lo-Pan Chau and how he gets in the way of this opportunity of hers. I've always known this, but I only just realized that I don't set either of these plots in motion for several scenes. The plot involving who wants to kill the Captain and who actually does... it's important to the story but is not the main plot, so I shouldn't be setting it up in scene one.
Right now, my actual plot starts in scene five, although scene four also sets an important part of my plot in motion. But my first three scenes don't really set my two main plots in motion, and scene one is the first to go... it's still an important scene, but I need to have it happen later in the story.
I think I could get away with removing scene 1 and modifying scene 2, and not really introducing the main plot for a couple of scenes... sort of a slow intro to what's going on... but it would be even better just to start with Lo-Pan Chau spotting Vashti, or even running into her. That sets something in motion right away, and gives me time to set the other half of the plot (and then the murder sub plot) in motion.
So basically... I didn't want to rewrite the begining again, but really I have to. It doesn't work as is. But this time I have a good idea on how to make it work. ^_^
