Week thirteen

I, unfortunately, wiped out on my bike, and at a very bad time as well. With the writing work due with in the next three weeks, it would have helped a lot if I didn't wipe out. My brakes locked right when I was at top speed coming down from a hill and I did a flip and took a pretty bad spill, so I couldn't get that much work done. Fortunately, thanks to Google spreadsheets, which are available for gmail users, I was able to keep working with Sheryl, but not so well since I could only use one hand (the other one was kinda swollen.) A google spreadsheet is some really handy feature for gmail users. This is how it works. You start a spreadsheet, and give it a name, and then add users to the spreadsheet. Those users can work on the same document as you, and every so often when you click the save button, they can see what you added to the document. With the help of a story outline which Sheryl and I wrote, we managed to get several pages done, and more pages are soon to be completed.

week twelve

During this meeting we read a few books, three of which I am taking home to read, caught up on a few posts in the blog, planned some of the story, and wrote about three paragraphs.

The books are titled Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn, which is a series of different stories and poems, How to Grow a Novel, which is all about the problems and mistakes that a writer has while trying to write a story, and how to overcome them, written by Sol Stein (it's really good) and the last book, Neuromancer, is written by a man in Vancouver, Canada named William Gibson.

One of the other things we talked about is dialogue. One thing I learned is to often be indirect when the characters are responding to each other, and there should be tension between the speakers. It should be kind of exciting. You also can't answer all the readers questions to build suspense (avoid questions.) One of the examples from how to grow a novel, from the section which talks about how the answers need to be indirect, as to surprise the reader, is as follows.

She: I see you're feeling better.
He: Since when can you see what I feel?
She:I thought this was going to be a peaceful discussion.
He: That was yesterday.

This is a good example of being surprising and oblique.

week eleven

We looked at a show called Deadwood. It has a great story, and we mainly looked at the dynamics between the characters. We were mainly looking at the main character, Swearingen. His movements, speech, and eye contact are all important, and the people who wrote the script made it so the person who is watching the show can tell most of what is happening through his body movement and the tone of his voice. We looked at characters, the way they act, how Swearingen controls everybody, and how he relates to the antagonist. We also looked at how the characters look and how their clothing corresponds to the way they act. For example, the dandy guy from New York in the show, Deadwood, acted all stuck up and thought he had all the cards on Swearingen because of an acquaintance of his from New York, and the way he acted kind of reminds you of one of those sort of characters because he has a tight collar and a bow tie.

What I found interesting about this show was the setting. It takes place in a western town called Deadwood, where many people have struck it rich. There is no police officers or law inforcers yet, so people can basically do what ever they please. Every character has their own deep story line just about them. Some people have known eachother since childhood and they are still good friends, others have almost died, some have killed people, some have reputations, and others have a past that makes them what they are now.

week ten

On this week I mainly just wrote on Sheryll's laptop. I was trying to figure out what to do with the character. Over time we have changed and improved the story, and we even took out one of the main parts because we felt it would be a much more interesting story if we did. While I was writing, I was trying to get Mike, the main character, to look like more of a tough guy, and I also tried to get him to meet his brother. In the end we took his brother out of the story entirely, but I thought I put his brother in quite well. He's browsing through some phone books because he wants to buy a pizza, when suddenly he recognizes a name at the top of the page. He and his brother have different last names, and the one on the top of the page was his brothers, so he looks down and there is his brothers name. He meets up with his brother and the conversation went ok, but I think doing something so big like that in such a short time is kind of dramatic, because his brother was going to be the main part of the story and that wouldn't exactly work.

week nine

We did some writing excersises on dialogue. The excersise went like this. Each character could only say three words everytime we spoke, and the point was to not get everything in, just get the basic message across. For example: John pulled the dog leash from a hanger, put it on his dog, and opened the door to give the dog a walk. Next sentence, simplified. John walked his dog. It improves your skills in dialogue because you get don't get to complicated in what you write, and you leave some for the reader to think about themselves. If you write something like a movie script, writing every single action, it might be annoying for the reader.

week eight

During this meeting, we were going to watch an episode of Deadwood, but the movie store had already rented all of the DVDs to other people. instead of watching it, I was given the book The Grapes of Wrath, by Steinback. His stlye of writing is really good, and I tried adapt some of the methods he used in the book. I got to take the book to read. I also added to my story.

week seven

During this week, I added to my story. We talked about a series called Deadwood which sort of relates to my story.

week six

During week six, I basically added to my story and did excersises for the entire time. Sheryl was in the states for a long time, so we didn't have any meetins for a while .This writing exercise was about mixing the feelings and the thoughts of the character together. You write it down like this.

Feelings

Mike is reluctant to wake up early and go to work. Until lunch break, he is hungry. On his job site its very dusty, and this is a big nuisance while he is trying to do his job. He also buys bottled water sometimes, because while working his throat is dry from breathing in all the dusty air. The dust causes him to cough. His job is over all very annoying, but his boss only makes things worse. His boss is constantly pestering him to do a better job. Mike has to cary big sheets of drywall which give him a bad back, he doesn't get a good amount of sleep and some of his lunch breaks are spent sleeping. If he doesn't work up to standards his boss lectures him. If its sunny he sweats, if its rainy hes freezing.

Thoughts

Today I had to wake up early, my boss will be mad at me if I don't. I'm so tiredI wish I could jump into my bed, but I can't get fired, I gotta make a living somehow. Crap, the bus is behind schedule. Look at the traffic! I'm gonna be late. Thank god, five minutes late isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Yumm.. I can't wait for my lunch break. Yesterday I picked up a sandwhich from the deli. Oh god I'm late, here comes my boss. If I weren't so tired, my job would be sooo much easier. Agh, they should water down the dust, I can't put this sheet down to get the dust out of my eyes. Yes! Lunch break is on. I can get outta this hole for an hour.

Combined

Mike awoke to the sound of his alarm clock and birds chirping outside. His body begged him to jump back into he warmth of his bed, but he foced himself to get ready. Outside the window, the sky was still a shade of purple. The sun was just beginning to rise in the sky. He pushed open the door leading to the stairs which brought him to the main entrance. Half a minute later he emerged from the cheap hotel into the fresh autumn air out doors. He keenly awaited the arrival of his bus. He was the only person at the bustop, likely because of the time. It was raining so hard, it was raining so hard, Mike imagined that the clouds were weeping. Atlast his bus arrived, and soon enough he was at the construction site. Great, he was five minutes early. He had picked up a sandwhich from the deli foods section of Safeway. He couldn't wit until lunch began and he could eat the sandwhich. Mike was so tired, he decided to lay his head down on his bag of tools and rest for five minutes until his job started. The rain dropped on his head. After a few minutes he fell asleep. Fifteen minutes later, ge awoke from his slumber, To his chagrine, he was now ten minutes late. he cursed his luck and made his way to the job site. The one good thing about this particular day was that the rain meant there would be no dust. He hadn't yet purchased ear plugs to deafen out the shrill noise of jackhammers and other tools, but until then he would have to deal with it. When he got home from work, his ears were usually ringing, so he thought it might be a good idea to buy earplugs soon. He noticed his boss coming towards hi to give him a hard tgime about being late.

Mike's boss seemed to get after Mike at any opportunity he had. He was slightly shorter than average, Mike was a bit taller than average, so Mike was always looking down at him when they talked. "So you're late again eh? You know, you've probably lost a few hours of work time with this schedule. You're lucky I haven't gotten rid of you yet." The boss chuckled but glared at the same time. Mike wondered if it was impossible for this man to have a normal conversation without being nasty to him in some sort of way. It was almost as though his boss was taunting him, or waiting for some sort of reaction. Mike couldn't risk it, as much as he hated his job and his boss, its what kept him from living on the streets again, and he needed the money. If he missed a days work, he'd have to go with out food for a day. He relied on his job. It got him just enough to eat and pay his rent at the same time, and he made just enough for only that and nothing else. While his boss continued to babble on, Mike had his mind on other things. He was thinking about his life, and different incidents that had occured. He didn't like people who tried to make his life harder, which meant he didn't like his boss. After a few minutes, Mike's boss left, and Mike resumed working. This particular day wasn't so bad, but he still couldn't wait for it to be over so he could get home and sleep. Four more excruciatingly long hours until his job was over. His break seemed to be over in a matter of minutes, while his job hours seemed to take triple the actual amount of time.

week five

This was the most eventful meeting I have ever had so far with Sheryl. First we went to Pacific Spirit Park, up by UBC, which was really interesting. We observed a tree which had been eaten by termites and walked for about 10 minutes from the entrance of the trail which we went into. We went across a couple that smiled and said hello, and as we later noticed people in the city never stop to talk or say hello. We looked at the trees and I noticed that some of the really old looking ones, all of which were huge, had holes in the side. This would be from a lumber-jack propping pieces of wood into the side, making it easier to climb. They used to do this because it was hard to chop from the bottom. Now days you don't need to with the new tools used to chop trees down. Sheryl took a few pictures with her camera, and it was raining so I worried if it might die from water leaking in.

Afterwards, we left and headed down to down-town east side. After observing an internal court yard of an apartment building and wondering if that could be where the character, Mike, would go to get some peace and quiet because he doesn't get if often. Our next stop walk nearby a rooming house which Sheryl explained had a very friendly owner, and she knew this because her brother was staying their. We looked at this because our character lives in a rooming house, and it might be interesting to take a look at some. Sheryl took a few shots of the city with her camera that show some of the areas the character we are making, Mike, might go.

After that, we went to a comic store, but not before putting a few extra quarters into the parking metre. The store had many graphic novels, as well as a few There were a few cats which were probably tired of people coming up and petting them because they didn't seem keen on the idea of being petted. The owner of the store didn't seem to be keen on the idea of social attention either, and after being asked a question and making eye contact once, looked at the ground and barely spoke. We looked at a few comics, and while in the store I noticed the newest book by Eoin Colfer, which I haven't read yet.

After staying in the comic store for quite a while, we decided to go to a store to get something to eat, and ended up going to a Starbucks Coffee shop. I got a hot chocolate, which tasted warm as opposed to hot, but still tasted good, as well as some banana bread. Sheryl had a coffee, and after I finished Sheryl showed me a very interesting novel, from which I got a few interesting ideas in my head which I can't remember. Afterwards, we left the coffee shop and started on our way home.

week four

On this particular week we got a lot of work done on making accounts for websites. We got an account at the site for bookmarking sharing, Magnolia, which is very useful, as well as an account for photo bucket, an account for Blogger\, and a G-Mail account.

After all that we wrote the blog, which I am writing in now, and then we edited some images on Adobe Photoshop, which is really fun.