Category Archives: Novel

The Lamb’s Supper by Bryan Bustard

I’m in this painting!!!!! I’d have some sort of contest where the winner has to find out which person is me, but as I’m po’ folk, that ain’t gonna happen. 🙂

the-lambs-supper-bryan-bustard

I’m the guy with the bald-spot on my head, lower left corner, next to the hairy, bearded blond dude. (Who is one of my best friends, Jerry Gordon Kohlbrand, but I’m sure he’ll deny that till his dying day 😉 )

Courtesy: The Lamb’s Supper by Bryan Bustard.

Bryan is a talented artist, and frequently paints religious themes (mostly Catholic) as well as “geek” stuff like comic heroes, fantast literature and the like. From his Fine Arts America (FAA) bio:

“I consider myself primarily an illustrator. I never quite fit in with others, so I grew up isolated and found much of my comfort in movies, comic books, music, and books. My artistic influences include fantasy illustrators from the ‘Brandywine’ school of Howard Pyle to the best comic book artists of today. I get my inspiration from such widely diverse sources as the absurd, music, classic movies, myth, pin-up, fantasy literature, and my Catholic sensibilities.

More than willing to do commissions, I am adept at portraiture of people and pets, landscapes, painting buildings and other such standard fare. It is with greater pleasure that I use portraiture or landscape as a jumping off point for creating something more unique for a client according to the client’s interests…”

Bryan does commissions… perhaps if you’ve written a novel and need a good cover artist… contact Bryan! His Facebook Page: Portraits and illustration by Bryan and his FAA site: Bryan Bustard

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

working habits

In working on my novel, I have discovered that I have odd working habits. Not that they are getting in the way of progress, but it’s interesting to observe in myself. 😉 I’m sharing this only because I want to, and you can extract whatever value you can, especially as I’m not a published novelist yet; you should really pay more attention to the work habits of the successfully published ones. But this stuff “works for me” and has kept me from “giving up” on this particular work.

For example, I don’t outline beforehand. I outline after every few dozen pages or so to map where I’ve been and I outline the next several scenes. Otherwise the novel is all in my head and pours out in some manner.

I do keep a separate bulleted list of plotlines, just to keep track of all the disparate action and so that I don’t fall into the rookie novelist’s trap of forgetting to resolve a plot. This is also helping me to direct a convergence of many of them into a epic scene where the novel “finally gets going” in the minds of the millions of readers who will buy the book. 😉

I employ a heavy use of LibreOffice’s highlighting function to color-code ideas in these outlines and lists. I use LibreOffice for everything in writing; I don’t bother with commercial novel writing software or other fancy pieces of software like mindmapping and wikis and such that other writers report using to their great profit. I prefer to keep it simple (albeit messy) in a software that works equally well across operating systems (I use Mac OS X and Linux). I think I’m replicating what I would have used “back in the day” when typewriters and legal pads and notebooks –  the paper kind – were all the rage.

And recently I’ve sidestepped making actual progress on the draft by also doing something backwards: I am now writing up a backstory, actually a biography, of a character who is turning into a pivotal protagonist. In doing so I am also fleshing out ideas for the novel, giving it some meat for certain scenes I’ve already written and will be writing. From what I gather, many writers do much of this sort of thing beforehand. To me, it’s like a cross-pollination. I am developing new ideas for the character, while also incorporating ideas already used into the biography; it’s a synthesis of material.

It’s an interesting exploration of how i’m crafting this work.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Writing to discover

In my exploration of the culture of Catholic writing, I’ve been reading Flannery O’Connor.

I find much inspiration in her approach to writing as a Catholic and I’ve discovered two quotes of hers that I can relate to. I think all writers need inspiring quotes from other writers to keep themselves going. 😉

I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.

I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

Both are via QOTD.org.

I’ve discovered what Miss O’Connor talks about stir within me as I write. I sometimes do not know where I am going with the plot until the plot itself takes me there. This may sound odd, but I think other writers will understand this.

While I am writing, stuff from deep within me wells up from its dwelling place and pours forth into the story. It could be something autobiographical, some minor bit from my past brought out for character or plot development, or something I’ve read that is an interest of mine that fills a need for the story.

Like the novel that I’m working in that I mentioned in this post. The original story idea was to explore why something at work might have happened; but the story has borrowed heavily from my beliefs and interests. I had no idea that they’d have to be made manifest in it. This might make more sense if I discussed the particular story details, but I’m not going to for the moment. The story started out as one thing, and as I wondered about this or that, I just drew upon miscellaneous knowledge of mine, and finally they’ve fleshed out the plot to be something greater than the original intent. The original idea is still there and is at the crux of the plot. But the novel is becoming so much more than the original idea.

And I’m loving the fact that as the story is progressing, plotlines are now coalescing into a cohesive whole; there are coming together at an appropriate point to give the novel direction. Rather than a whole bunch of different plots all contained in the same file, they are now giving the novel its identity. Meaning, I think I’m at that point where readers will enter into the “meat” of the plot. All the main characters have been introduced, the plots laid down and now stuff is happening to drive it forward towards its conclusion.

Which I have no idea how it will end, but thats OK. Based upon what Miss O’Connor said up above, the ending is somewhere within me, waiting to be discovered.

To paraphrase Miss O’Connor: I will write the novel to discover what the ending is. I won’t know what the ending is until I see it. (And this next may fall under my belief that “writing is therapy”, and I won’t paraphrase her, but repeat the quote): I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

It wants to be a novel, but perhaps later

About a year ago I wrote this post on a short story that decided by way of creative inspiration that: It wants to be a novel.

It was going fairly well, then some things in life got to happening and it was set aside.

And then earlier this year I got a new real-world job, details to be disclosed at some other time.

And then… Something happened at this job that got me to thinking creatively. Someone did something that I thought was odd, and that there JUST HAD to be a story behind it. So I got to thinking about the possible story behind the event, and decided that it had to be explored. Writing about seemed to be the best way and so off I was, on to another story.

I didn’t think about length, at this stage in my life I don’t care too much about such things and am just happy that I’m inspired to get story ideas and the overwhelming desire to write them.

I guess it also means that as I’ve matured as a person (which is about time as I’m over 50) and am taking this maturity into my writing “career,” such things occurring could mean that “writing” is becoming a vocation (something meaningful to do as well as to earn a living from) and not an avocation (something meaningful to do, like volunteering).

Why? Because of the seriousness of it. It’s less and less that I’m an “aspiring” writer and more that I’m an “actual” writer.

This new story has taken possession of me. While not obsessed with it as I have marital and job duties, and so on, I am occupied with it. When not actually writing, I am thinking and plotting.

But, I am writing. And in doing so, I am learning more about the creative process and also about me.

More on the latter in another post (I have to look up a quote. a-HA! “Search is your friend.” I found the quote -actually turns out to be two of them as they’re related – and they deserve their own post).

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Flannery O’Connor—Catholic writer

Flannery O’Connor died fifty years ago today. She was, and remains, an American writer of great talent. I say “remains,” because she lives on in her work; she has achieved immortality and her work is alive and vibrant to this day. If you are an American Catholic with writing aspirations, or even writing accomplishments, please become acquainted with her stories if you are not already. You will learn quite a lot about the writing craft and what it means to be a Catholic writer.

Miss O’Connor said, “The Catholic novel is not necessarily about a Christianized or Catholicized world, but one in which the truth as Christians know it has been used as a light to see the world by.”

More on that here: Flannery O’Connor’s Religion and Literature: Dogma and its Implications for Art, by Tami England Flaum.

Her fiction is collected in three volumes, her two novels ‘Wise Blood” and “The Violent Bear It Away.” Her short stories are all collected now in one volume, titled appropriately, “The Complete Stories.” There are several collections of her non-fiction, most notably, “The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor.”

I have only recently become familiar with her. Despite having the above four books in my library for several years, I only just read “Wise Blood” this past week, and am now happily making my way through her “Complete Stories.” I won’t be doing reviews any time soon, I doubt I’m qualified. 😉

The point of this post is this: if one is a Catholic writer and is interested in building up and developing an authentic American Catholic culture, and follows Pope St. John Paul II’s suggestions that Christian art should infuse contemporary culture with the message of the Gospel, then one should study Miss O’Connor’s writings. She’s a good teacher.

If Catholic writers do participate in culture-building, we must look to what those who have gone before us have done. We learn from them, offer to the body of culture what we can uniquely contribute and in turn hope that our work survives on to enrich another generation. The living body of American Catholicism adds to the wonderful breath of diversity that is global Catholicism, offering people an alternative to the sterile materialistic secular order.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

It wants to be a novel

That short story/novellete that I’ve been working on, “Listening to the Lost Voices” has informed me that it wants to be a novel. And so I went through and did some major copy-and-pasting and inserting-of-pages for all the major scenes and sections.

Now it has been percolating, but I should be spending much more time on it, what with a three-day weekend coming up in North America. The weather for my area is calling for rain for all three days, which means extra time to write. (No yardwork.)

As I have been working on it, it seems to be requiring longer exposition of certain things. And I have come to the realization that for me to do it justice, I think a novel is called for.

I read somewhere that stories fall into the category they are best suited (short story, novella, novel, screenplay, stage play, whatever).

OK, off to do some rereading. 😉

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

About that novel

About that Novel I said I was writing.

I haven’t given up. But, as is perhaps common to all writers, I hit a snag. Although I was groovin’ along rather nicely, my main character had to get deep inside himself and dwell on the parents he never met and the reasons why he never met them, and how he felt about all that. Which meant that I had to do all that. And so I pondered.

After a while, this lead me to review the whole project and I decided that the novel was bland. I know that Ernest Hemingway said something to the effect that “The first draft of everything is crap,” (I paraphrase, he used a different word than “crap,” but this is a family blog 😉 ) I’m thinking that even if it was crap, it can still be interesting. This wasn’t.

And so I am shelving this particular venture. Not giving up on it at all, just this expression of it.

The novel was basically an autobiography. Not mine, obviously, but the main character’s. I had thought that writing it in character as an autobiography might be the most expedient way to jam out a novel. A life tells a story, and so I created an interesting life, and he was going to sit down and write it.

I had written a lot of backstory, the main character’s bio and character sketch, a history for the whole reality I created (world-building is fun), and little histories for various planets.

As I’m looking over this creation, I feel that perhaps individual episodes in this guy’s life could make for better standalone stories (short works and novels) as well as other elements in the project’s backstory not involving this guy.

And so we’ll see. I also was kinda drawn to look over an earlier project, which I had also written some backstory on (although not as much) and that looks interesting. I may switch to that, but I have to do some thinking as I have to commit to one of them, or else nothing is ever gonna get done!

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

A Novel, by Paul Sofranko

I have gotten a head start on a New Year’s resolution. As I do not usually bother with such things as they are often broken within days, this one was easy as I have not much of a commitment to keeping it. Since I recovered from alcoholism over 10 years ago, I’ve adopted the “One Day at a Time” philosophy of Twelve Step movements. So this “New Year’s Resolution” is just something to be renewed daily.

I can easily keep that commitment! (No pressure to keep it for the year, “just for today.”)

What is this commitment? To write a novel! And so begins one this blog’s main purposes: to be a writer’s blog.

Over the past year, I have spent some time plotting and planning a science fiction novel. Later I’ll get around to sharing the idea. I have never been too comfortable with doing that.

I have spent much of 2012 writing up character sketches, outlines, and other backstory kind of things to serve as a guide to writing the actual novel.

And so these past few days I’ve started writing it. I have a modest pace, at least 500 words a day. I’ll be happy with 1,000+. So far, I’ve hit the minimum goals,and come close to the 1000 words once. Hey, it’s a beginning.

My target? About 100,000 words. At about 250-300 words a page,which varies depending upon the amount of dialogue and narration, that should put me in the ballpark of a 350-400 word novel. Good approximation.

This particular novel will be one of an open ended series. In other words, there should be more that just this one novel in the world that I am building. In working out the histories of this world, I have even identified certain events which may serve as short stories. Kewl!

I have committed to spending 1-2 hours minimum to the writing of this. I have kept this, although it has only been a few days.

So, that’s that for now.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)