Writing Exercise 157

Hello again!

Thi time I tumbled over a questionaire on twitter so chose ten questions out of those 31 for this week's writing exercise and answered them. So this is me. XD

2018/12/13 – Interview with a vampire writer

1. Introduce yourself!

I'm Asuka Ishimaru, a self-published science fiction and fantasy author, digital and traditional artist, law student and housewife.

2. What are your hobbies?

I love writing, drawing, painting, reading and video games. I miss sailing, but I'm looking into skiing.

3. Where do you most hope to visit?

The places where my dear writing buddies live so we can meet in person and geek about our characters and plots.

4. What I your most-used emoji?

XD, closely followed by a black heart and an upside down smiley.

5. What was your first job?

Our neighbour back when I was in school was a locally famous linoleum print artist. I helped out in his atelier.

6. Who was your biggest teacher in life?

My mother; she taught me to laugh and love and live and just be myself, come what may.

7. What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Stay true to yourself and keep doing what you do. Life is tough, but you end up being me.

8. What job would you be terrible at?

Professional road racing athlete. I hate cycling with a passion.

9. What is your favourite song?

I have many favourite songs, and they change with the characters or stories I'm writing. My favourite band however is Trivium.

10. Do you have any pets?

I have a bunch of cacti. Does that count? I may not be able to cuddle them but they have names and I talk to them.

Dembelo's discussions

As I've mentioned, I've been to the authors' bar camp at the Unperfekthaus in Essen last Saturday.

The Dembelo team, which I am part of, had a lot to set up before the event could start at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The workshop room had to be prepared, the buffet had to be organised, posters and logos had to be hung up, the reception had to be set up as well as the exhibition desk. But we managed everything on time!

When finally a total of 42 participants, coming from all over Germany, had arrived, the authors' bar camp could oficially start. At first we introduced our project, then explained how the bar camp functioned and collected the topics the participants wanted to address.
These topics were summed up into six workshops, two of them held parallelly each throughout the bar camp.
These workshops were:

• The future of reading and writing
• Writing skills
• Cooperative writing
• Readings
• Selfpublishing
• What to do after the first draft

During my shifts I moderated two of these workshops, Cooperative writing and Readings. I was very excited, but it worked out pretty awesomely. Together with the participants some interesting and intensive discussions unfolded; the important points were noted on a flip chart, so the results could be presented at the plenum at the end of the authors' bar camp and before the midnight writing workshop began at half past eleven.

And in between the authors could hold readings, which were broadcasted via life stream.

So later, when only the participants of the midnight writing workshop were left, we moved to the shared appartment hotel of the Unperfekthaus to write all night.
Well, I wrote until half past three, then I was totally exhausted. At least I managed to write one and a half decent chapters for one of my WIPs.

But after retreating to the room I shared with my fellow Dembelo teammates I couldn't sleep at all. Not even for a few minutes! So many impressions kept me awake, and the appartment hotel was also pretty badly soundproofed.
So the next morning during brunch I felt like a zombie. But still it was a very successful weekend for the Dembelo team, and for me personally. I would totally do it again and am looking forward to next year's authors' bar camp! :D

Midnight Writing

Next week, on the 29th and 30th to be exact, I'm going to participate in an authors' bar camp held by the Dembelo team, which I am part of, at the Unperfekthaus in Essen, and I'm pretty excited about it. :D
So what is this authors' bar camp?
This event is about everything writing related. Authors from all around the area meet and attend workshops where they discuss different topics ranging from the very first idea for a story to publishing and marketing, and everything in between. The bar camp lasts all Saturday, and a particular dozen may stay the night and attend a writing workshop and work on their stories. Pretty exciting, isn't it?
I am one of those few, and I'm relly looking forward to meet other authors, talk to them and polish our stories together. I am really happy I joined the Dembelo team. Anyhow, I'm sure I will return with a lot of impressions from that bar camp! Maybe I'll even meet you there? ;)

On the move...

I'm pretty late for an update. The reason is: I'm moving. Very excited about that. :D

Today I transported a total of 40 boxes from my old flat to the new one. And all of them were books and manga. Too much, you think? On the contrary, one can never have too many stuff to read. :D
I don't remember who said it, but I second the statement: "Nothing is as sexy as a room filled with books."

Be that as it may, I don't know if I'm going to be able to update my writing exercise on time or if I'm going to have internet access next week, but I'll try. Because writers should be able to make time to write, right?
Even if everything is packed up in boxes, which pile up to the ceiling, even if you hardly take a break from moving stuff, even if you're almost out the door and still not at your new home yet. Inspiration can still happen in between. Take that break -- because you need it -- and just sit down and let it flow. You might be surprised what you can achieve. ;)

Now what?

As the new year has started you might either be exhausted from all these holidays or energized with good intentions.

Either way, after completing NaNoWriMo in November your work isn't done yet. You may have a first draft but don't make the mistake to publish it as is. Please, don't! A draft is a draft, and it needs serious polishing to become the shining gem it is supposed to be.

January is the perfect time to do this polishing as it's often ugly outside and you usually feel both drained of creativity and motivated to start the year fresh.
You probably haven't touched your work in about a month. So when you open the document again you likely will be surprised what you have achieved to write in November. You will see your story with a fresh set of eyes.
Now read, and read carefully.
As you go, catch all those typos and puctuation errors, reword where necessary, cut too long paragraphs or add to them where they are lacking. You will see, there is much to do.

Be critical, but don't butcher your story.

Get help when you're stuck or story blind. You will want to introduce your draft to your betas soon. Let their comments help you edit. Don't take their criticism too much to heart, but learn from them, accept and adapt. Remember: they want to help you, not harm you.
And by the end of it you will have an improved new draft.

Something to read

As promised in another blog post, I'm going to bring you into the loop of what I'm currently up to:
recently I joined a German literature project called Dembelo.


So what is Dembelo?

The concept takes a different view on authors: they are not some genius in their quaint room conjuring up brilliant words, but service providers to their readers.

The idea is to provide episodical stories (text knots) with the length of approximately 20 minutes of reading -- something which shortens the time waiting on the bus or in an anteroom or on a train ride or when nothing is on TV an you don't want to read a whole book. At the end of the text the reader decides how the story should continue; they click on one of eight choices to keep on reading for another 20 minutes, and another, and another... if they so wish.

The readers fund the text knots they want to read via micro purchases and see their wishes come true as soon as the worth of another text knot is reached. Theoretically like this an endlessly deep-rooted tree of stories is created as more and more episodes are created and the possibilities branch further and further; the contents of these episodes are supposed to reflect the readers' demands. So everyone can read what they want to read instead of paging through something that doesn't interest them.

Any excess profit is invested in new jobs to support the author teams working on the stories. We believe in social growth rather than profit. The system also considers that authors are creative, so coworkers are paid according to their efforts instead of fixed working hours.


Isn't this exciting and new? Doesn't that sound like something you might want to see?
If you like the idea you can support us on Patreon so we can make it happen (the page is in German though).