The Many Adventures of Rich Inman

Being behind on NaNoWriMo and my school work for almost three weeks, I had forgotten what it feels like to be responsible and complete work on time. I just spent the evening (after getting home from work) catching up on school work. While I wasn’t nearly as far behind as I thought that I was, it felt really good to get myself back on track, and even set up to get some assignments done early.

I realized through all of this that writing isn’t any different than this. It’s easy to shirk off things that will make your writing better (outlining, character outlining and development, proper editing, ect.), but taking the time to do those things right makes you feel better. Better about your writing and better about what you’ve produced. So, I’m going to make sure that I don’t put off those things that will make my writing better, just for the sake of doing it faster. Besides, right now I’m not getting paid for it anyway.

- Rich

Since I haven’t been writing like a mad man, I’ve actually had a lot of time to think about the main character of my fantasy book, which made me realize that I only really had a cursory understanding of who he really was. The most important concept that I was missing was why. Why did he become the person he ends up to be in the story. What events lead him there? So, since I’ve got a lot more time to figure that out, I’m going to go back to my sci-fi novel and work on finishing that again. It’ll give me plenty of time figure everything out, and since I’ve been talking about how important characters are, that’s probably the most important thing to do.

- Rich

It’s amazing how many times in our lives we don’t help the people around us who need it. Is it because it’s too hard? Or maybe it’s because it’s inconvenient for us… Whatever the reason, it’s something that we could all stand to do a little more (okay, a lot more). Encouragement, foundation, stability; these are a few things that we all need in our lives and they are the things that we should be giving to others.

So, my challenge to anyone who happens by this blog message. Be a foundation for someone; give them encouragement; provide them some stability in their lives. Whatever it is that someone needs, help them by giving it to them. Because sometime in your life, you’ll need these things too. And when that time comes, who will you look to for them?

- Rich

I’ve realized how much I have been neglecting my family recently (and my blog apparently) because the last three days my wife has been getting me to sit and watch shows with her, but that’s not exactly why I’ve come to this conclusion. It’s because today, when I had to buckle down and catch up on school work, my wife started acting neglected. So, I’m going to take some time today – time that I should be writing – hanging out with my wife.

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So, I’ve not been able to keep up with the NaNoWriMo, which is the main reason why I’ve gotten behind on school and neglected my family. Because of this I’m going to stop writing so religiously and try again when I finish school.

- Rich

Well, it’s been a few days since I’ve posted anything and that’s both because I didn’t have anything to post about and that I did have something to post about, but that thing kept me from posting. You see, some things have happened in my family that have caused me to think a lot about my marriage and what kind of husband I am. I’ve been married for six years now, and we’ve gone through some tough financial times and some tough marriage times but have always come through them. I would like to think that it’s because I talk to my wife about things, and she talks to me. I’ve never felt like I couldn’t talked to her about something, and I’ve never gone to someone else to talk about our problems before I talked to her about them. But what do you do when the other person’s been saying all the right things to you but thinking all the wrong things?

I don’t know the answer to that and it’s made me think about what kind of husband I am. I grew up being taught that you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself. That’s good advice because any time I’ve tried to change other people, they always fight against it. Let’s now go into whether I had the right to try and change someone, or whether I even know whats best for them, because I don’t and that’s another post on another day. Today I’m talking about me and contemplating what things that I can do to be a better husband.

Usually I’m thinking about this a lot. I mean, I’m always trying to be a better person; stronger, smarter, wiser, have more integrity… You know, better. I guess I hope that, in my efforts to better myself, I haven’t neglected becoming a better husband and father.

Well, I don’t have any answers right now, but if I find some, I’ll let you know.

-Rich

Since I’ve been watching Glee, I’ve been thinking about how people beg for the arts and yet, look down on them. As a writer it’s extremely common for people to look down on what I’m doing. Maybe they don’t think that I could possibly be any good, or maybe they think that artists are fools who don’t have real jobs. No matter what, they always come back for more, begging for it and criticizing it when it’s not to their liking. So, I decided to do something different and write a haiku about it.

-Rich

I’m sitting in the break room at work right now, waiting for my shift to start, thinking about the weather. You see, in Spokane, Washington the temperature is currently, cold. Of course Weather.com shows the temperature as 35 degrees, but when there’s snow and ice firmly set to the ground, it’s much colder than that.

This makes me think of the rumors that were going around about how Washington State wasn’t going to get any snow this winter, nor would the temperature get below 40 degrees. Well, after the last two years of snowmaggedon, I only wished that this was true. Alas, global warming has not reached Spokane Washington as of yet.

-Rich

After reading books on writing fiction almost ceaselessly over the last few months, I’ve been really looking at my own writing and recently I’ve come to a conclusion that I have been circling for about a month now. That is: Characters are your story. If you aren’t prepared to create characters that people care about; complicated characters with histories, motivations and that change throughout your story, then you’re not willing to do what it takes to write a good story.

I have been thinking about this a lot more lately because, even though I planned to have my main character be a deeply complicated character, I haven’t been able to put him down on paper to my own satisfaction. I guess this just shows how important a second draft is.

-Rich

Alright, time to admit that it’s currently 6:35 am and I still haven’t slept. It amazes me that even after years of working a normal 9-5 work day, I still revert back to night owl status when my schedule frees up. I suppose that I’ll always be a night person, exactly why that is though I can’t really put my finger on. Tonight I spent a lot of time trying to write, a even more time not writing, so all that late night oil I burnt seemed to be for nothing. I guess that I’ll have to wake up earlier than I really want to so that I give myself ample time for writing later on today. So, until later…

-Rich

So I was just deep into my writing for the NoNoWriMo when the call of nature hit me. Wait… I should preface this with a thought that I had last night. The thought went something like this: When I write a first draft, I’m just trying to make sure that later ,while I’m doing my first draft that I understand what I was writing. This thought was amazingly freeing. It meant that all the bad grammar and excessive wordiness that plagues my first drafts were okay.

Alright, so back to the call of nature. I was on the can, reading Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of  the Craft when I came across this nugget (wrong nugget sicko) that made me say, holy crap (pun intended)! It said, “when you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story… When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.” Rarely do I come to some sort of revelation through sheer experience and then have my revelation resounded back at me through the words of a master.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, when you’re writing a first draft, let it be wordy. Let there be bad word choices or too long scenes. Because it’s the second draft where you’ll go through and tighten that all up. And if you’re trying to get published like I am, you’re going to do at least three drafts before a submission anyway.

-Rich