Sunday, 20 May 2001

Noodling around on a new story idea. Actually, the core of the situation comes from a piece I was working on years ago. But it wasn't really a story--just a character and a situation and a couple of neat ideas. But I'm doing some thinking to see what story wants to grow out of this situation. I've got part of it figured out, but I want a bit more. The story grows naturally out of one of the ideas, but I want it to have roots in the other idea as well.

I do a lot of writing that comes to nothing. This isn't wholly bad--all the words count as practice, including the ones that don't end up in a final draft. But it takes a lot of time. It would be better to skip those bits and focus more on the words that the story needs. I'm thinking of trying to plan the stories more in advance, trying to understand the conflict and how it will play out, in terms of scenes that I need to write. Then I could just write those scenes. I don't know if it will work, but it seems harmless to try.

Slept in, staying in bed until 7:00. Had a leisurely early morning, then got out and ran. I'm back into pathetic running mode. Sad how quickly I decondition when I don't get all my runs in. Still, I pushed on for 2.5 miles, even if I did have to walk a good bit of it. It'll come back quickly, as long as I keep running 3 or 4 times a week. After running we lifted weights. We've actually been doing a good job of getting the lifting in, pretty close to our 3-times-a-week goal.

I'm reading Steven Barnes's Blood Brothers. It's interesting. It has a fantastic element, but it reads more like a thriller than sf or fantasy. I think the key reason is that the fantastic element doesn't have much effect on other people (besides the characters in the story). I'm enjoying it, though. It builds tension well.

Jackie and I just watched "Flashdance," which I saw in the early 80s, but not since, and Jackie had never seen. It is interesting to think about how the dramatic structure of that movie works.