It's Steelers Week!

So I had been planning a followup post to my very first Ravens game and professional football game in general, but after suffering through that dismal performance in Jacksonville, I didn't feel up to it.

After yesterday's comeback win against the Arizona Cardinals, while still disappointed with our inconsistent play, at least I feel a little more confident going into the Steelers game Sunday night.

Given that nanowrimo starts tonight at midnight, and I want to get a good jump on it this first week, I thought I'd make an early post about the game.

So I am by no means an expert in football, but I have a few of the ever-popular "keys" to the game. We know that the Ravens defense is amazing and the offense has a lot of potential, but the Steelers offense right now is playing at a more consistently high level, so most of these deal with the offense.

1. Run the ball successfully. A lot. The Steelers have a great defense, but right now their pass defense is strangely enough a better this season. And we have Ray Rice, who can make something out of what looks like nothing. Running the ball lessens the chance for turnover and has the potential of running a lot of time off the clock while the Steelers offense is off the field.

2. Get Joe Flacco into a good rhythm early. Yesterday we saw Joe play very well out of the shotgun (don't ask me what that actually means…seriously) and with a "sugar huddle." I don't know if we need to do either of those things right off the bat, or just get a few short completions in whatever formation to start, but getting his confidence and rhythm going early should help with possible longer passes later.

The run and the pass can feed off each other. If that can happen, I think we can be dangerous.

3. Rack up the sacks. And hits. And hurries. We are great against the run and Big Ben and the Steelers are becoming more and more pass focused. If we can get to him and disrupt his rhythm, we can neutralize some of their effectiveness as an offense. But as always we need to beware of his ability to extend and make a big play.

4. CUT DOWN ON MISTAKES AND PENALTIES!!!!!! The offense especially (but all phases have been guilty) of making stupid mistakes, not focusing and committing penalties. How many false starts did we have Sunday at home? Penalties will kill a drive. They will make the opposing offense's job that much easier and have huge impact on field position. This is something that really needs cleaned up. I don't expect the Ravens to play perfectly, but they need to be focused and smart.

4b. Protect the ball. It's possible that the team with the fewest turnovers will win the game. No fumbles. No interceptions. 

Honorable mention: Protect Joe Flacco. The reason this is not one of my keys is that I'm not sure our O-line is capable of protecting Joe for sustained, long periods of time. That's why running the ball and getting the ball out quick is so important, it lessens the pressure on the line, who will be facing the crazy blitzes and the serious pass rushers of the very solid Steelers D.

Pounding the ball, getting Joe in rhythm so shots down field will have a better chance of being successful, and keeping the Big Ben in check so the game remains close is what i think we need to do. This might be obvious to some, but keys to the game usually are.

Whatever the game plan turns out to be, hopefully it turns out to be an epic, hard-fought game. GO RAVENS!!!!!!        

Breakthrough

The breakthrough I had last week really helped me move forward with my outline. I concentrated on what was happening with the villain's perspective. I started with what was going on behind the actions he had already taken within what I had already written and also moved his plans forward, which really helps me add complications for Dakota in the next part of the book.

I also made plans to change some things within what was already written to tighten things up. By tightening up what I really mean is connecting more things together. Whatever I can do to make elements of the plot and different characters overlap and weave together makes the story that much better, in my opinion.

So I have what the villain is doing mapped out, but not much about what Dakota will be doing beyond some broad threads. Next step: break these broad threads into possible scenes. Once I do that I can move them around and see what order seems to work best and weaves everything together the best way. I can also look if there are any that can serve double duty (be combined into one scene instead of two). Scrivener is a great tool for this.

Finally, once November rolls around next week, I can actually start writing the scenes. Actually I could start writing now since I'm not starting at the beginning of a story--as long as I don't count the words toward my nanowrimo total--but I want to save the wordcount for November so I can get as close to 50k as possible, so even if the book doesn't end up being 100k, I'll still be in pretty good shape to win.  

Getting from here to there

After two posts about sports I thought I'd better get something about writing up. So nanowrimo is coming up fast and I'm starting to get a little worried. The same problems that have plagued since I stopped writing this novel after nanowrimo last year are still issues. I'm not sure how to get from where I am to where I want to go. In other words, I know how the book ends, but what happens next is a little fuzzy.

I've brainstormed about it a couple times and it's starting to work itself out, but it's slow going and I don't have a lot of time left before November. Still, I'll be stuck on a plane this weekend so maybe I'll make some progress then. I'm also thinking about working through some of the Breakout Novel exercises appropriate for this stage of the process.

What do I mean by brainstorming? Basically I'm ask myself a lot of questions. A lot of it can be repetitive because I like to lay the foundation again and again as I decide things and then ask more questions to build on that. From that I frequently think of random points that impact other aspects of the story and make leaps of intuition that help me solve my problem (especially after coming back to my thoughts after taking a break). For example, I've been working on figuring out how the magic behind the villain's actions works, so I can get my climax figured out. After a day or two break, I came back to my notes and realized something that can really help tie everything together.

I'm looking forward to being trapped on a plane this weekend. Hopefully I can get a lot of work done. I need to figure out how to do more work on my droid phone and be able to sync it up with scrivener, although I'll probably keep quite a bit of what I do in my notebooks.

Maryland Madness: Players don't change

I meant to put up a post sooner after the event, but I think I had to let my thoughts settle a bit. I had the awesome opportunity to go to UMD's Midnight Madness event with my brother Friday night and we had a great time. Here are my completely random thoughts about the experience.

1. For those of you who don't know, the whole midnight madness phenomena was started at Maryland by Lefty Dreisell 40 years ago.

2. Why didn't someone tell me Gymkana was competing on America's Got Talent? I would have watched and voted. From what I saw of the clip shown, they looked beautiful and amazing! Congrats to them.

3. Apparently, just like all-star games, defense is not required for these alumni games.

4. I believe Lynetta Kizer (women's team) has developed into a seriously well-rounded player from the time she started here. In my admittedly amateur viewpoint (and judging only from a scrimmage), she looks scary-good.

5. That Alex Len kid is insanely tall. I hope he makes it through waivers.

6. I reserve judgement on the men's team until I can see them actually play.

And finally, what actually struck me most is how much players don't change. They are who they are, I guess. Although given that that there was no defense, perhaps it's foolish of me to judge. Still, Vasquez still chucks up shots like there's no tomorrow, Byron Mouton still has a motor that never quits, Chris Wilcox is still extremely gifted athletically (but perhaps lacking in focus) and Steve Blake still distributes the ball before looking for his own shot. I wish Juan Dixon hadn't missed his plane. It was awesome seeing them all again especially Blake (probably my favorite Terp ever) and GV, who almost gave us a shimmy.

So we meet again

Veteran Mason seeking fresh start with Texans

This week former Raven Derrik Mason was traded to the Texans from the Jets. It will be interesting to see if he can make a go of it there after a rocky stay in New York. Although I have mixed feelings, I wish him well (just not this week against us).

As a frequent listener (and by frequent I mean every day on my way to and from work) of 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore, I listened to Mason every week of the season during his segment on Norris and Davis so I'm relatively familiar with him and he's a good guy.

So here's my mixed feelings:

1. He's a good guy, dependable receiver and leader in the locker room, but perhaps his voice was too strong. His catches did go up after the incident with Joe on the sidelines last season. And honestly, I just don't want to see anyone, especially one of our own players, grab our quarterback's facemask for any reason!

2. He plays like a Raven. He played with one arm, for a time he was our only legit receiver and he's the Raven's all time leading receiver (12th in NFL history), but his career can't last forever and he doesn't have that element of speed that we've been lacking to go with Joe's arm. It's too bad that we had to let him go, especially since he's still hunting that ring the Ravens have a chance at this season, but it opened the door for Lee Evans and Torrey Smith--I can't wait to see what they can do in tandem with Boldin.

3. Like I said, I wish him well in Houston, but the Jets? Come on! Really? We probably won't ever know if Derrik turned down a pretty good offer from the Ravens to come back after being cut or if the Ravens just didn't pursue him hard, but despite some rockiness on offense so far, I don't think anyone can doubt that the Ravens made the right decision. In Ozzie we trust!

So good luck, Mase. I hope this fresh start works out better than the last one, but this week... GO RAVENS!!! Maybe Kruger will tug your leg again. :-)

Willpower and Creative Process

[I actually wrote this over a year ago at a point when I thought I was going to start posting again. I pulled it out to see if I could use it now and I was surprised at myself... I think I did pretty good on it. Too bad I wasn't able to remember most of my own advice this year. Enjoy!]


Thanks to Nathan Bransford for writing such a great blog post and inspiring me enough to devote a whole entry to my thoughts on the subject.  There are also quite a few awesome and insightful comments.

In his awesome blog entry, Nathan Bransford talks a little about people’s misconceptions about the writing process and how non-writers (or aspiring writers who haven’t actually tried to write yet) think that all you need is a great idea and then whoosh! Type type type in an inspired and flowing burst of energy and creativity. Bam! Your novel is complete.

Um, no. That’s not how it works.

The idea is only the very first step. And inspiration is a fickle mistress. Writing only when inspired is a recipe for 1. Never finishing or 2. Finishing, but ending up with a disjointed mess (this I learned from personal experience).

This brings us (and Nathan) to willpower. The only way to finish a novel at all, let alone one in I-can-work-with-this-condition is to write. And that takes willpower. Some days the words flow easily, a scene feels like it’s practically writing itself or sleep is avoided not because of reading a good book, but because of writing one! But those days aren’t every day. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are even every week. In fact, they may only occur two points in the writing process: the beginning when everything is still new and exciting and the end when everything is rushing toward a climax and THE END is near.

Most days it’s easy to procrastinate. The words don’t come easily. In fact it’s almost painful to pull them out and onto the page. Finding the willpower to keep writing on these days, consistently, is why writing is hard.

To quote Nathan again: If writing is always fun you may be doing it wrong.

However, even on days that are hard, if I sit and write at the computer long enough, the words do start to come more easily (usually when I hit the conflict of whatever scene I’m writing), but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, the whole time I’m writing every sentence is a struggle (and not because I’m trying to get them perfect—I’m never in any danger of having perfect sentences!).

Welcome to being a writer—where actually writing is the only job requirement.

(Being a published writer is a whole different thing, one that I haven’t figured out yet.)

It's Been Awhile

I haven't been posting here the past couple of years, but I hope to chronicle my experience with NaNoWriMo this year. I've been meaning to do that for the past few years, but never quite managed it.

What is NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. That's not quite long enough word count for most novels (especially fantasy), but actually great for young adult.

How have I done in the past? I've been a winner (ie I made it to 50k words) for the past three years. Yay me! However, the second year I rewrote the first year's novel in first person POV instead of third so I'm not sure how much anyone should really credit me for that one! And it still needs some major revisions--deciding to add two new characters will do that.

So what's the plan for this year? So last year I started a new fantasy novel with mystery/thriller elements, regency-type manners and a clash of cultures. It follows a lost prince (after he's been found) as he navigates the treacherous waters of court while unraveling a series of mysterious deaths. I got to 50k words, but right after that I got stuck and I haven't done much since then. I've got a lot of threads coming together and am having a hard time figuring out how to tie them all together. To finally answer my own question: I will attempt to write the rest!

I think it will turn out to be more difficult for me than starting at the beginning of something. But what I do NOT need is another semi-finished or semi-polished manuscript. I need to work on what I have and get them ready to submit! Hopefully next year I'll be at a point where I can start something new again.  

So wish me luck and check back for updates.