Process Blog 1

As of the time of this process blog, my project is at 8 pages of single-spaced material, consisting of 3 "chapters" or sections. The first chapter follows Maverick in his indignance over a political decision that begins his descent into political and violent radicalization throughout the story. He is re-affirmed by his second in command, fueling his belief that his ideas are correct. It also places the two main factions against which his rage is building into the spotlight, the nations of Tletl and Ociphar. In the second section he awakes from a dark, possibly prophetic dream of fire and ruin, and expresses his fear of the oncoming storm to his wife. She tries to reaffirm him, but he again ends the scene with the thought that "something must be done." This motif will be echoed throughout the story. The final piece is the longest so far, and gets into the meat and potatoes of Maverick's government (of which he is the leader of the military) opposing the decision to help their ally who is being attacked by the nations of Tletl and Goshë. This of course sends maverick into a blind rage, which will be very important. This latest part really was a breakthrough, it felt like coming out of some challenging filler and into the main part of the story where you really get a chance to see Maverick trying to fight for what he truly, passionately believes is right, and being turned down. In the next sections we'll get to see him start doing all the wrong things for the right reasons (one of my favorite tropes).

I love how we started our process in class with the "seeds" activites. Even though these abstractions were no longer directly related to my project I found that the poetry I wrote describing Maverick and some of the situations he was in helped open a door to help me get past the "blank room" jitters. I will be using this strategy again in the future. Its mine. I am stealing it.

That being said the rest of my process is definitely very unpolished. For starters, I was working too many hours a week between my two part-time jobs at the start of the semester to be able to start my draft. What I did have time for was meditation on my different seeds and by visualization for where I wanted the story to go. This is an academic way of saying listening to cinematic music and daydreaming about Maverick's mental decline and inevitable, incredible violence. Is that healthy? Probably not but that has been my process for writing since I was quite young. Perhaps it needs an update.

I wrote about one paragraph before the first maker's circle meeting took place, and the only reason that happened was that I would have something more than an outline to show during the meeting. After this I did have a little more planned out, and coinciding with a convenient reduction of work hours I was able to begin making progress in my draft. During this time these visualization (daydreaming) session started to pick up momentum as well as I really gained a feeling for who my character was and what his motivations and beliefs were. This culminated in a single two-ish hour session in which I hyper-fixated on the "Tidefall" chapter and wrote nearly 2,300 words in one go. I have another strategy I have employed in my writing practice, and that is confiding my story with close friends. Two in particular have been very helpful this year, my friends Caleb and Nikola. Neither of them live in Laramie, but I have ran ideas or bits of story past both of them to gain feedback and guidance. It has also been helpful to get the external feedback from the makers' circle meetings. My group gave some excellent feedback, like to trim down my original concept, and it was very helpful to hear their encouraging words. I am looking forward to Alyson Hagy's feedback this upcoming week. (I am also terrified but I assume that comes with the business).

Seed #1

This was art made by me probably around the age of 11 or 12, trying to depict an early version of Maverick. I used it as one of my main seeds for the seed abstraction projects. What it lacks in artistic skill it makes up for, for me, in depth of memory and inspiration that has been boiling away for over a decade in my creative center.

For my interdisciplinary component in this project I did some research across several different sources, starting with a clip from a podcast by Andrew Bustamante, a former CIA agent. He described "levels of radicalization" that were "steps in a ladder", that he encountered in the middle east when it came to how people were spurred onto political and religious violence. This concept was my starting point, and since I have watched quite a few videos on the subject and read two research papers that corroborated some similar theories as described by Bustamante. These ideas and concepts have been woven into the structure of my story as well as the story itself. The reason my story is separated into distinct segments, is that they follow each step in Maverick's "ladder" of radicalization. My process has also been helped by some of the readings we have done for the class, especially Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Her way of describing drafting really helped me get out of the white room syndrome and actually start making progress on my story. The idea of just starting whether or not it feels like I am ready has been beneficial both in this class and in my other classes this semester! I have been able to motivate myself, instead of pressuring myself with expectations of perfection. Pressure does NOT equal motivation for me. I expect that my process will also be challenged once I start editing. I have little experience editing my own work as I rarely produce a finished product. I will be interested to see how the second part of the class affect how I operate.

The feedback I have received has been very useful for this project. Initially I got some feedback from my Maker's circle, when I had a very big, wide ranging idea that was overcomplicated. They informed me of this and I worked to pair down my idea into something more workable. The feedback from presentation day at class was also very useful and was such a big encouragement. I smiled all of Thursday because of the kind words they shared about the snippet they got. I have not yet heard back from my mentor, Alyson Hagy, but I will this coming Monday. I am somewhat nervous to hear what she will say but I did send her some specific areas of feedback that I am looking for. Similar to what I requested in class, I requested feedback on whether or not the story is comprehensible, her first impressions of the characters, settings, and flow/pacing of the story. I also allowed room for whatever other feedback she had. I also have shared the draft with my friend Caleb, as I mentioned, and he often will ask thought provoking questions that help me think about where the plot is going. Our discussions are usually nuanced and related to several other projects, as we have been helping eachother with our creative pursuits for quite some time. Not much iteration has happened so far, because I am still on the first draft. I did start the third section "Tidefall" and then restart it, but I retained the initial attempt but just crossed it out if I want to review it later on.

I have three to four more sections to write in the story. "Rashness and Oversight", "Beginning of the Fall". "Maverick Torches a City and Fights a god" and "The Hunt and the Reconning". I say three to four because I might combine "Rashness and Oversight" and "Beginning of the Fall". The vague idea I had for the former is not forming the way I want it to and it may be better to scrap it, but I plan to come up with something of a draft for it so I can determine whether or not it is necessary for the story's flow. I also will need to decide how Maverick dies. It is important that he dies at the end of the story, future stories depend on that, however, I am trying to decide whether he dies in a duel with his brother, or whether it comes down to Capitol punishment back in his home country for the many, many war crimes that he commits. I think the duel with his brother is a better end but I don't know if it is inside his brother's character to actually follow through in that scenario. Once this drafting process is complete then we get to read back over the whole thing and make content changes and grammatical edits and work on refining the piece until I have a finished product.