Dull and Boring on the Outside

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. ~Neil Gaiman

Sometimes the Wednesday ROW80 check-in comes a little too fast...

So far this week I've done a bit of journaling.  Lots and lots of reading--I cannot put down these Shadow Unit stories! Most of my writing has been letters for an event I'm working on, but I've also been working on notes for my new story. 

Shan Jeniah Burton asked the other day if I could work on two stories at once.  (Thank you for asking that!) I did a little writing and a lot of contemplating about that and then realized that I don't actually have to make that decision.  The new idea isn't ready for writing yet.  I have a couple of characters and lots of ideas for types of characters I need to add in.  I have some place ideas and ideas for monsters/bad guys.  I also have a growing list of things I need to research.  So this story (stories!) idea isn't ready for writing at all just now.  It's just ready for lots of fun researching and brainstorming and planning.

As for Ordinary Girl,  I was trying to get back into the writing but had to admit that I've let myself get away from it for too long.  I'm completely out of the story right now, so I'm starting a read through of what I have so far (no editing or revising, just reading) so I can get back into the story.  And then I'm just going to write.  I have a feeling the part I'm in right now is going to take a lot of random writing that will have to be cut later to get me to the next scene, but I think that's okay.  I think if that's what's going to get me moving and on to the next part, then so be it.  I'll do what I can now and fix it later.  This freezing up when I don't have an idea for what's supposed to happen isn't helping anything.  At least if I'm writing something I have a chance of figuring out what's really going on in this scene so I can wrap it up. 

I didn't manage to get to anyone's blogs since Sunday. I'm so sorry, everyone!  I feel like a complete slacker.  But really, these stories are keeping me up way too late every night.  I'm stealing bits of time during the day to read a page or two.  It's been ages since I've had this much fun with stories I'm reading, so while I do feel bad for shirking my supporter duties, it's really been pretty awesome.  And they're really feeding my inner storyteller, so that's an added bonus.

Progress, No Pilgrims Involved

Yes, I *was* just thinking about Little Women. How did you know?  And no, it doesn't have anything to do with my ROW80 check-in.  It's just on my mind right now--Christmas always reminds me of that book.

I'm pretty well on target this week.  Yesterday I wrote 1,651 words, and I plan to do a little writing along with my planning to day to get me to at least 2,500 before tomorrow's writing session.  I wrote 1,557 on Sunday so actually managed a decent day's writing after all my procrastination.  So really not bad.

I need to put more effort into my planning today than I did on Monday.  Monday I just made some notes about what was going to happen in the scene I started writing yesterday, but I didn't dig in to the Act II scenes.  I think I'm a little intimidated by the middle section of my novel, so today I'm going to arm myself with a couple of craft books before diving in.  Maybe one of Larry Brooks' books, and probably K.M. Weiland's Outlining Your Novel.  I'm going to figure out what needs to happen in that middle section, and I'm going to write it!  My past failures to get past the first act are not going to hold me back anymore.

So that's where I am today.  Feisty and plucky and ready to forge ahead. (I tell myself these things because I think if I keep saying them, they'll become true.)

Oh, in related news before I head back to the planning fields, one other thing happened to me this week.  I blame Emily Dickinson.  No, really, I do.  It's her fault.  I know she's there seeming so innocent, all dead and whatnot as she is, but this new development is her fault.  Yesterday, my favorite Dickinson poem landed in my inbox.  "There's a certain slant of light/on winter afternoons..." As always when this poem crosses my path, I stopped to enjoy it.  And it planted a new, distracting story idea in my head (a horror story, too)!  That Emily, such a prankster.  So I took some time last night to write down the idea with a few notes, and I'm hoping it will leave me be and let me deal with my WIP.  Who knows, maybe having a new story to play with just waiting there for me will encourage me to push through this middle section.  I'll take any help with that I can get.

The Calm Before the Storm

Two days 'til the start of NaNoWriMo 2011.  I don't feel ready!  I've stalled on my planning the past two weeks, and now I'm feeling frantic.  I also know feeling frantic won't be useful, so I'm going to get my head on straight here so I can do something useful with these last hours before November 1.

I'm clearly not going to get much more of an outline done than what I already have.  And what I have is not that bad, really.  I have a fifteen point, sketchy, start-to-finish outline.  That really is pretty good. So what I'm going to do tonight and tomorrow is just write out some questions for each of those points, things that I'll need to figure out in each section. I'm going to read through a couple of article's in Writer's Digest's Write Your Novel in 30 Days.  I'm going to make a list of things I want to have happen in my first scene.  And then I'm going to stay calm and let the words flow as they will.

Writing, Writers, Written

Has it been a month?  I have no idea where the time went!  Actually, that's not true.  The time went to working on novel plans, reading about novel planning and outlining, gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and many other noveling type activities:

Yep, it's that time of year again, lots of words and lots of event planning as one of the MLs for my region.

Oh, and I had a birthday in there with a fun outing to take photos at historic cemeteries: 

Historic Columbian Cemetery, Portland, Oregon

I also had something of an epiphany over the course of the last month.  I realized that I really enjoy the coaching work I've been learning.  I want to be a creativity coach.  But it isn't my number one passion.  My number one passion is writing, and I haven't been giving it the attention it deserves in part because I somehow gave myself the idea that to be a coach that had to be my number one passion and get almost all of my time and attention with everything else--including writing--getting what was left over.

And I realized that this isn't working for me. Really, I knew for a while that how I'm doing things isn't working for me.  But I didn't quite realize that I had this attitude about coaching and writing and their places in my life.  When this came fully into my consciousness, I was so surprised!  I knew right away this wasn't the right way of thinking about this and running things, not for me.  So I have given myself permission to do what needs to be done for my coaching--take classes, write my newsletter, start building up my website, open things up for clients.  But I also gave myself permission to read all of the writing books and excellent stories I want--all the ones that inspire me and make me want to grab a pen and write things down.  I get to spend as much time as I want playing with my writing.  This feels so exciting!  I am happy with this.

This time of year, the writing is easy, too, so that makes all of this even more exciting.  But as always I'm thinking ahead to the non-NaNo parts of the year and wondering what to do when my enthusiasm flags.  And I think I might have found something for that.  It's a writing challenge called A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80).  You get to set your goal for the 80 day time period.  You check in twice a week to report your progress and see how everyone else is doing.  And this challenge repeats throughout the year, so there's always someone to check in with and help with that motivation thing.

Writing and ROW80 Goals

First my overall writing goal:  I intend to write and revise my current novel, Ordinary Girl, get it to readers for feedback and do more revisions (repeating that two or three times as needed), and have it ready to pitch to one of the agents at next year's Willamette Writer's Conference which is August 3-5, 2012.

For this round of ROW80 which ends December 22: I intend to write 65,000 words between now and then.  My hope is that this will give me a complete if somewhat sketchy first draft to add to and revise come January. After NaNoWriMo is over, I intend to write 5,000 words a week.  Some weeks I may write five days, some I may only write three.  My schedule tends to be shifty, so I'm going to try out a weekly word count goal instead of a daily writing goal.

On a final note, I've stopped reading The Artist's Way.  I am continuing the daily pages as I find those really useful, but I still can't get into the exercises like affirmations and some of the other things.  So once again I will set it aside with the possibility of a revisit at some point down the road.

Thanks for sticking with me 'til the end here everyone.  Stay tuned for novel updates--they will be coming!

Plotting Along

I'm a writer.  I'm sure somewhere in the fine print it says that I get to make bad puns and plays on words.

Seriously, though, I am plotting right along.  Slowly, in and amongst other things going on in my world, but I am managing to return to my story on a regular basis.  And this isn't a frenzied, NaNoWriMo sort of immersion, either.  It's becoming part of what I do every week.  "This is what I do--I go to work, grocery shop, plan and cook dinners, work on my story."  It's nice, having my writing start to turn into one of my regular things.

Right now, I'm working on my major plot points and twists.  I've used Aristotle's Incline and the three act structure in the past.  Right now, I'm working with Dan Wells' 7-point System (you can get a Power Point presentation or watch a video presentation of it--both are linked from that page).  I'm liking this because it's helping me put a few more important things in place, but I'm still not getting so bogged down in planning that there's no story left to write.

My basic idea for the story is good.  A few of the things that I thought of and wrote down are still going to be in the story.  But I'm really starting this over from scratch, from the ground up, and that's exciting.  I think this time I know more about what this story needs, so I think I can make it good.  But not if I keep writing this blog post instead of working on the story, so I'm out of here.

It's All In My Head

One of my favorite things that happens when I'm writing is when the story really takes hold and is in my head all the time.

My head

That's happening right now with Ordinary Girl.  I've been going over what I wrote four years ago.  Some of it is story, none of it is anything I want to keep so far, so I've started looking at it as more of pre-writing, discovery writing material.  And that seems to be working.  I'm thinking about my characters almost all of the time, even when I'm doing other things.  Little story tidbits keep popping into my head.  And today I woke up almost two hours before my alarm because I suddenly knew what I needed to be doing with the old writing and my current writing to get it all flowing together so I can start actually writing the story.  Very exciting!

I am tempted to just jump right in and write what I know so far, but it's not really that much.  I know if I put more effort in over the next few days, I'll actually have a solid base to take off from.  But I am definitely champing at the bit and ready to go!

Before I move on to today's work, though, here's a nifty list of links to blog posts and a podcast all about using collage as part of your story planning.  It's something I've wanted to play with but haven't done too much.  With this inspiration, though, I think I'm going to use it for OG, especially for the parts that are about Greenvale (my personal, made up city) because I intend to set other stories there.

• An article from Jennifer Crusie about using collage for planning and inspiration
• Storywonk podcast about using collage for planning
• Another post from Jennifer Cruisie, this time about someone else's collage and planning process
• Pictures of the collages Ms. Crusie has created for her books

Progress!

I've been working on the Ordinary Girl project notes and plans, and I had a major breakthrough yesterday (thank you Stan Lee and X-Men: The Last Stand!). 

Finally, I figured out why my main antagonist is such an evil wench.  I mean, she's still just a bitch, but there's more of a reason behind her really evil, antagonistic actions now.  She has a purpose to her actions besides just being mean and contrary and spiteful.  Finally, she is the hero of her own story, and that makes all of her actions make sense and have meaning and helps me know what other things she needs to be doing.  Her meanness for no reason has been a problem with the story all along, so this is huge for me, so I just had to celebrate here.  Hurray!

Wishcasting Wednesday--Stepping In

I really need to get back to blogging more than just on Wednesdays! Meanwhile, though, it's Wednesday again, and Jamie has asked us a really good question (I know I always say that--she asks really good questions!)--What do you wish to step into?

I wish to step into a place of calm, awake, energized enthusiasm.  I want to wake up looking forward to my days and move forward on my list of things I want to do without procrastinating and stressing myself out because I'm late.

I also wish to step fully into being a writer.  To that end, I've put up a word count bar over there on the side. This one is for Ordinary Girl, and I know I won't be getting back to that story until the first of the year after NaNoWriMo is over and this year's NaNo story is put to rest, but I'm putting it up now to give me a solid, visual reminder and affirmation that I am a writer.

**Please know that as you all wish, so I wish for you as well!  I'm on a tight deadline, so it will probably take me a couple of days to visit all of your blogs, so I just wanted you to know I'm wishing right there with you even before I comment.

Leaps and bounds

You know how sometimes you're slogging along through something and you're sure you're never going to make any real progress and you're starting to feel hopeless? And then something small happens, and suddenly you leap forward and start racing along, cruising smoothly through things that just yesterday seemed like great, impassable barriers?

Yep, that's me right now. In pulling out Ordinary Girl and starting to work on it again, I decided to take a look forward in the Think Sideways course to see how my working style matched up to things talked about in the course. And it meshed! And it all made sense! And I'm so excited now about the course and my book! And I realized that I was having such a hard time moving through the early parts of planning in the course because I'm actually good at those early stages, my system works very well and does the same thing (some of it is even identical). So, I am working through the plotting section of the course, using what I already have for Ordinary Girl and adding to it.

So right now I'm not writing new words, but I am working on the book, I'm excited by it, I'm getting some good insights (although I found a sticky point early on that I need a better plan for--more on the later). I'm finishing this book. I believe I will have a full first draft finished by the end of September, although I may revise that as I get a better feel for this system I'm putting in place.

Now, about that sticky point...Early in my story, my main character comes across a group of faeries in a derelict section of the city. The faeries see her, too, and the main faerie takes offense and decides to make MC's life miserable. Now granted, the MF is malicious and spiteful and generally a bitch. But would just having a human see her accidentally set her off enough to start being a stalker? I changed it so that my MC saw her doing something ungraceful, maybe stumbling over debris in the alley or something mildly embarrassing like that. But I don't know if even a malicious faerie would bother stalking a human over that. So what is it that MC sees that causes MF to be out to get her? That's what I'm working on tonight. I'm going to get back to it now, do some freewriting and see what I can come up with.

Day Two

447 words today. I fell a bit short of my 500 word goal for the day, but it's been crazy and hectic and full of interruptions over here, so I'm just going to be glad I got some writing done at all.

I also started putting my Think Sideways course printouts into a big three ring binder so I can have everything organized and in one place for my planned read through of the course. Did I mention that here? I am going to read it all and then go back and do the actual steps. This plan works much better with the way my brain works. So, I am glad to be started on the organizing part so I can do the reading part.

And now, since I can tell that last sentence was barely coherent, I am going to put myself to bed. I've been exhausted all day. I think I'll just give in to it.

Day One

I am trying something new for my writing. I'm working on Ordinary Girl, a novel I started during NaNoWriMo 2006. I am using some of the things I've learned so far from the Think Sideways course, but I'm also using some ideas I've pulled from other places. I'm using the Think Sideways ideas for coming up with conflicts, etc.

Right now, I'm going through the 60K or so words I've already written to get character and place names and descriptions. That's just listing stuff, though, so I'm not counting it toward my word count. I am also writing character essays, and since some of this will get inserted in the actual novel, I am counting these words. The major bit I'm working on write now is writing a summary outline--basically writing out everything that's going to happen (as much of it as I know) without the details. So "first she did this, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened." And so on. And I am counting these words because this is going to be the bare bones of the novel, and once I reach the end of this bit, I will go back and start adding details and description and dialogue to turn it into an actual story.

Today's word count: 680 (the even number was completely unintentional!)