Achievement Unlocked
Tonight, I drink. Tomorrow, I will blog.
NaNoWriMo 2012 Complete!
01 Dec 2012 4 Comments
in NaNoWriMo Tags: Architecture of the Novel, Awesome, Book Writing, finished, NaNoWriMo
Posted with Blogsy
Big News, A Warm Welcome, and other tales.
26 Oct 2012 11 Comments
in NaNoWriMo, October Tags: Awesome, Blog, NaNoWriMo, Personal, Writer Resources, Writing
So wow. Hi to all you NaNoWriMo people! There are…. Quite a lot of you. Enough to make me feel like I'm in one of those dreams where you've forgotten your clothing and are back in high school, only where the high school is a virtual auditorium, and it's filled with people you very much want to like you.
I can only hope that what I have here is something valuable or informative or at least good for a giggle. If there is anything you want addressed, any questions, anything at all you want to say, please feel free. It is lovely to have you….all….here. Make yourselves at home!
To everyone else: I'm welcoming new visitors because I have had the honor and pleasure to write a guest post for the Office of Letters and Light's blog! I've been sitting on this news for a week now, and is the reason the posts here slowed down for a few days.
For someone who prides herself on the number or words she can churn out, I am still speechless at what a humbling honor this has been. I don't even know what else to say. I am simply touched and so happy that they asked.
Like most of you, I am also gearing up for NaNoWriMo. I'm gathering ideas for NaNo tips posts, and I am also getting a little excited and nervous for my own November.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to write two novels next month.
The idea for the first of them came to me in the shower this morning (showers are magic), the next is yet to be found. I can't wait to finish this novel and move into the next one. Even after a year of this, November feels more like the real thing; the commiseration, the forums, the eager anticipation of finishing, and all of the caffeine-fueled sleep deprivation in between.
Anyone who wants to be writing buddies can find me under wrightwrongs. The more, the merrier!
Once again, thank you for stopping by! I hope you'll stay a while.
Guest Post: Your character may be a mugger if…
16 Oct 2012 3 Comments
in NaNoWriMo, October, Slightly off Kilter Tags: Awesome, character, Fiction, NaNoWriMo, nonsense, Outlining, Questions, Stuff from other people, Writer, Writing, writing craft, Writing Process
Written by irowboat
I was going to respond this comment from dawnstarpony, but it ran considerably long, and PartlyPixie made me turn it into a post. dawnstarpony asked:
Do you consider character planning/-izing/character personality sheets as outlining and wasting time?
I've encountered two general populations of writers when it comes to characters:
- Those who are caught off-guard and mugged by their characters in a dark alley, who wake up in cold sweats, imagining that the character is watching them from every shadow, scheming to take their plot to terrible, undreamt places;
- And those who are portrait photographers, casting the right character to tell the desired story, supplying props, dressing the set, controlling the lighting, and posing the character.
Neither of these are The Right Way™,but nor are they incorrect, for just as a photographer can still take a blurry photo even given the best circumstances and nearly unlimited control, those that are mugged can endlessly describe—in searingly vivid detail—the one or two distinguishing features they were able to make out in the dimmest of starlight and sodium-arc shadows.
There is promising research into the possibility of a third population, which has not yet been granted an official registration from the Writer Taxonomy Bureau; some argue it is simply a hybrid or mutant population and may be sterile. This population is the fashion photographer, who shares attributes of the two other populations: they control the lighting, provide props, cast the character, and provide minimal direction, but have little (or no) control of how the character actually interacts with the setting and props.
With a little luck (and the experience of the photographer), mediocre settings, marginal props, poor lighting, or the occasional blurry shot, the character can work the camera – producing unexpected and wonderful results that could never have been planned. Moments often noticed only when everything is done and examined in review.
Snapshots of serendipity.
Eight Down, Four (Five) to Go!
04 Sep 2012 11 Comments
in August Tags: Awesome, finished, Procrastination, Sleep deprivation, Writer Resources, Writers Resources, Writing
Like last month, I finished on time, but found that I needed a few days to recover. To be honest, I finished at four in the morning of the first after a long day of marathon writing, curled up on irowboat's sofa with a glass of bourbon and the UK version of Being Human playing in the background.
A lot happened this month that got in the way of writing – and that is why the blog has also been sparse. There were family health problems, sick cats, and I took several days off in a small mountain town about an hour away to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. Then, of course, several days to recover my brain cells after successfully celebrating my thirtieth birthday.
Regardless of the reasons and my best intentions, I ended up the month with a twenty thousand word deficit for the last day of August.
Of course, I did it. It was not pretty, but irowboat, coffee, and willpower managed to get me through.
It was a good win, a big win.
But what I count as the best part of all is that no one in my life, not my parents or friends (especially not irowboat), and not even I, had any doubts that I would finish.
It makes sense that at three quarters of the way through this year, I should have found a way to not doubt. And it makes me wonder if it was not an accident that I left so much for the end. I wonder if I wanted to test my resolve and my ability. Or maybe things just got hectic.
It's hard to tell, and I'm still too tired to think or write in anything but circles.
No matter what, I can be happy that I have written eight novels, most of which I am excited to continue editing and polishing. And I am positive now that I can handle writing two novels in November. I mean, twenty thousand words in a day, people.
Thirteen novels, here I come!
Cosmic Accidents
22 May 2012 4 Comments
in May Tags: Awesome, impossible thing, Personal, Writing
Me: Hey, God! Check this out! I’m totally making plans!
God: Lol! Good luck with that.
This month is starting to feel like the punch line to a long and drawn out joke. The pressure is on with this 12 novels project along with me characteristically biting off much more than I can chew, such as turning this month’s novel into a blog, and getting attacked by a facehugger novel, and starting martial arts training and deciding to clean my entire house really really well. All in the last month.
Also, I had an epiphany while watching Top Gear (UK – the American version kinda sucks). Next year, I want to take a stunt driving class. I want to know how to power slide and do 180s and 360s and make my tires billow plumes of blue smoke. It’s sort of hard to explain how much I want to do this, how much I love cars and driving, but this is something I just know I want.
I even googled and found the school I want to attend. I can’t wait – it will be my reward for finishing the year.
And then it hit me. Not an epiphany or a realization or a thought. A car. Which was also hit by a car. Luckily, I was in my trusty steed at the time. Even more luckily, I made a new writer friend out of it (Hi, Scott!).
The whole story of the accident is pretty uninspired. Here in Utah, when it doesn’t rain for a while the roads soak up lots of oil and stuff, and this all floats on the surface in a layer of slippery evil when if finally rains. It may do the same in your area, but I’ve only driven here enough to know.
The day it rains, accidents are everywhere, small groups of cars in little conga lines pulled to the side of the road, hazards flashing like it’s a rainy day paryt and they’re just waiting for a cop to come and break it all up. For the first time, I got invited to the party. I stopped, the guy behind me almost did the same, the girl behind him tried and hydroplaned into him, into me etc. Pull over the conga line and start up the blinking lights.
On a rainy day, it can take over an hour for a police officer to show up at an accident and get everyone going where they were headed to begin with. Most other days, it’s more like twenty minutes, because it’s small like that here.
That left us lots of time to chat. About writing, for one thing among many, and it all felt a little cosmic, at least for Scott the writer-not-writing, who I now realize is probably taking care of a newborn and not reading this. It was cosmic because he literally ran into someone who could tell him to write. And I was able to remember what it’s all about, the writing thing. Tell stories, churn out rough drafts, stick to and trust the process. I hope to hear from him soon about his new writing plans, so he doesn’t have to collide with his destiny again white so dramatically.
As for me? Stunt driving girl?
Did I mention this is my first accident in something like seven or eight years?
Also, did you know accidents hurt like hell?
Everything hurts now after I do it very long. My arm is tweaked, my back spasms at random intervals, my legs get tingly and numb when I walk around too much.
Pretty much everything but writing hurts.
And I just so happen to need to write like 40,000 words in the next ten days.
Yep. Cosmic.
That god, whomever or whatever it may be, has a wicked awful sense of humor. And I am grateful.
For the most part, anyway.
Inspiration #17
20 May 2012 3 Comments
in Inspiration, May, Writing Tools Tags: Awesome, Doubts, fear, FILDI, Getting started, perfectionism, Writers Resources, Writing, Ze Frank
Every Sunday, I choose a passage of wisdom from someone who knows better and much more than I do about writing, life, the universe and/or everything.
Share and enjoy!
I normally really dislike videos in blogs, but this one is a must-see. Please watch it. You will be glad you did.
And as a note, this is vaguely NSFW, so put on headphones if you’re around people who can’t handle a smidge of mild language.
“And God let me enjoy this! Life isn’t just a sequence of waiting for things to be done.”
~Ze Frank
Three Down, Nine To Go! (also, I wrote a novel in a week!)
17 Mar 2012 7 Comments
in March Tags: Awesome, iPad, NaNoWriMo, Tired, Writing
Day Seventeen: 50,011 of 50,000
So this happened…
It wasn’t pretty toward the end there, as you can tell by that snippet of my last line.
But I just wrote a novel in a week.
Now, I can have my iPad.
