NaNo Day 7!

Oh my God! I've been so busy! School has taken up most of my time and I went two days without writing a word!! But! Last night/this morning I wrote about 3700 words! If I can write about 3k more words today, I'll be caught up.

And! Well, I decided to kinda start over with my story. Remember how last post I was talking about how the main character was talking to this stranger that had come to his village? Yeah. Well, now I've sorta rewound the story back to the beginning and am now writing from that strangers perspective instead of Drae's. And, it's been more interesting. Like, the words have been pretty much flowing from my fingers. AND! I've even gotten the first idea of what the magic in the world could be like! Where I had no idea before (and in past Nanoing years have pretty much done a vague, generic magic 'system') I now have something a bit less generic! It just came out of nowhere. I was reading the sentence I had just wrote and was like, "If that word was capitalized it could mean something different," and, well, it's kinda awesome.

So, I currently find myself with about an hour and a half of unexpected free time with nothing to do. Let's see how much I can write! :)

Good luck everyone!

NaNo Days 1 and 2

Whew!

I made it! Kinda.

Day one was a bit of a failure. I had to get up early and go to class. I wrote about a hundred words before class and then didn't get home until around seven o'clock. I didn't get to write anything else until right before bed. I only managed 800 words, I was so tired.

Today, I managed to catch up. I'm currently at 3421 words! I almost gave up when I got to around 2k words and had to motivate myself by promising that I'd play a video when I finished. It worked. ;)

I'm going into this story with a very, very vague idea, it's pretty much a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants thing going on. I have a good idea of the world and some of the characters but not really much about the plot.

So far, I'm starting out with main character Drae. He's currently seven years old. He's the son of a horse breeder in a small village that doesn't get many travelers, but when they do, Drae is all over it. Asking questions and what not. He wants to get out of the village and go to a city.

Where I left off in the story, Drae is talking to a stranger that just got to the village. The stranger is showing Drae a map of the continent which he's never seen before and is probably about to show him where's he's been and where he's going.

Anyway, it's still just the beginning. I've got to get Drae out of the village. I'll probably fast forward a little to where he's older between fourteen and seventeen somewhere.

So far so good! :)

I hope everyone else is off to a decent start! I'm having a blast so far! :D

NaNo Day 10

Argh!

Today has been sloooow goooing. I've written 1,222 words so far, giving me a total of 7,735. I'm still hoping to get in maybe 3k today. There's still a few hours left of the day!

The good part is that I'm almost to the more exciting bits of the story. My character Emily is about to have to fend for herself with little money that will quickly dwindle into nothing.

But an unexpected character has snuck her way into the story. Emily's maid, Clavre. Clavre was completely unexpected but in the beginning it made sense that a rich person back in the day would have a servant of some sort. So in came Clavre and now she's gotten left with Emily in another country. Except, for Clavre this country is the place of her birth and in her country she is considered free and not a slave to anyone (unless she signed up for it anyway). I'm not really sure what Clavre is going to do. So far she is helping Emily but she could leave in a heartbeat if Emily treats her wrong.

I had planned for it to just be Emily on her own, but with Clavre I'm not really sure what to do now. perhaps something will happen to her. . . I don't know. Guess I'll find out if I get back to written eh?

Days 1-9 in NaNoLand

I'd meant to post everyday this month for NaNo but I ended up moving on the 1st this month and have been neglecting my writing. Plus, since I just moved to this new house the internet didn't get set up until today.

My mom and dad have decided to try getting back together and see how things go so we've moved into the house dad has rented. So far so good. I've already got most of room brought over and set up except for my books and book cases. Me and my dad are going to build some custom walnut bookcases this weekend to fit around my closet. They're going to be awesome :D And my room is finally a decent size so that I can fit a coffee table and armchair in here. It's really great, and my parents seem to be getting along fine. There hasn't been arguing or anything so far.

I only got to write about 1400 words at midnight on the 1st. I was writing on some story that was from the POV of a dog but I have since given up on that story. I just wasn't feeling it and had no solid direction to go in.

The day before yesterday I was thinking about what story I should write on, if I should start on the Chronicles or The Journalist or Sun Touched again, or if I should start writing on one of two ideas I came across while digging through some old documents searching for something new to write. They were some pretty good ideas too, one of which I was kinda excited about but when I opened a fresh new page and it was time to start writing, something completely and utterly different popped into my head.

It only started out as a couple sentences but as I kept writing the story evolved into something more solid, with a direction. I've since gone with it.

I've written a total of 3342 words on this story so far and am still intrigued by it. It is unlike anything I've thought of so far. It's about a woman named Emily who marries a man she doesn't love and her husband becomes increasingly resentful of this fact over the years until he abandons her in a foreign country with little money. Emily, who has lived in luxury all her life and believes herself to be the most beautiful and wealthy of women, now has to learn to make a living for herself and ends up dirt poor and living on the streets.

So far so good I think! I hope this idea turns into a good story. I imagine the world that she comes from similar to Victorian but the country she is left in is something completely different. A different language, a different culture, she'll have to relearn everything.

And there's going to be magic in here somewhere. Probably not as dominant as it usually is in my stories but I have some ideas for things that happen in later.

 So, I'm painfully behind on my word count, only 4772 so far, but I plan to catch up!! I can do this! :D

Gearin Up to Get an Agent Blogfest Week Two

Week two of the Gearin Up to Get an Agent blogfest!

This week is a story chain! For the part before mine go here.

My assignment: Show us a serious moment
Your words are: moon, plant, fight.

The Rocky Tale of Dio Franklin

Dio could do nothing when her mother passed out while she flew towards their house. What coud she do? A slip of her concentration and they could be falling instead of flying. She just hoped that her mother would be fine. Surely she’d be fine she didn’t kill Roddern for no reason.

Her heart clenched. She’d killed him. With her own hands. She felt the blood on her hands, dry now but sticky. Her hands seemed to burn.

She remembered what Roddern had said, “Remember, I will find you again, Dio.” But she just couldn’t see how anyone could come back after that. But he wasn’t just anyone. He was Roddern and he’d come back from death already.

She quit thinking. If her thoughts kept going this way she’d brake down or something and she couldn't afford to do that right now.

She finally made it to the house. At this time the moon was already high and huge. A full moon tonight. She got into the house using the key under the potted plant and laid her mom on the couch in the living room. Her mom was still breathing and still fevered and she got a damp wash cloth and managed to get some flu medicine in her but there was nothing else she could do.

So she found the phone book and looked up the club Tony worked at and dialed the number. As she stood there, phone to her ear, she finally noticed just how miserable she felt. Her body ached her head was pounding with a head ache- she looked at her right hand which was resting on the counter, bloody. With a start she looked down at herself and saw the bloodstains all over. She looked like she’d been in a fight! But it was all Roddern’s blood. All his.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring- “Hello?”

It was Tony.



There it is! Hope you guys enjoyed it! :)

For the part after mine go here.

Camp NaNoWriMo!!

Camp NaNoWrimo! I totally forgot to post about it cause things were happening. It was my brothers birthday yesterday and the day before was spent preparing for it so I didn't find much time to post about but anyway.

I'm so excited about this! I've written about 4k words so far. I'm getting stuff done and it's awesome! Gosh I've missed this! There's people back on the forums, there's word sprints going on at twitter (though I tend to miss most of them) and the energy's great.

For me though, Campnano seems a bit more relaxed and casual then Nano in November. I don't feel the need to push myself so far above and beyond like I did last year where for the first 11 days I wrote 5k words everyday. This time around I just feel like writing at a nice pace, making sure to keep with the minimum daily goal and not pushing myself too hard. I don't know if this sort of tactic will make for a better or worse novel but whatever, I'm going with it.

Also, I've got an outline for my story! I tried using index cards. It seemed sort of cool so I started writing down little sentences representing a scene or something on an index card. The awesome part is that I can move the cards around! Oh, that person should die later in the story? Alright then *move card* it's so easy. I used to read about people doing this sort of thing and moving their scenes around and I never imagined how anyone could possibly just move a scene. But now I get it. I didn't get it until I had some of the index outline written and was all like, 'Wait a minute. That shouldn't happen yet, it wouldn't make sense!' *move*

An odd thing is that I thought my story would be written in third person limited. There's a bit more freedom that way. But as I wrote I somehow slipped into first person without even noticing! When I noticed I was just like 'It's fine. It's a first draft. Maybe first person will be better for this story.' And then, somehow I slipped back into third person limited without noticing. It's really weird. Some parts sound awesome in first person and others in third person and I automatically just switch narrative POV. I've also noticed, reading over the first person things I wrote that sometimes things are in present tense and other times in past tense. That was really, really odd for me because I haven't hardly read any books in present tense except for the Hunger Games. And one time I thought about trying to write it and couldn't really figure it out properly. So. . . That's weird.

Anyway's I'm just going to go with it at this point since I don't really know what POV to use. Hopefully one of them will stick by the time July's over.

And now, I've got to get writing! Is anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo?

POV's

That whole archery thing has cooled down enough for me to want to write again. I've jumped back to writing The Chronicles now, glad too, I missed it! The Journalist wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I couldn't figure out a proper way to start it without making writing it boring, so I'm taking a brake from that.

I'm doing a bit of experimenting with The Chronicles on POV. I mean, the main character is still the same but I'm messing around with first person POV, where before I was doing third person limited. I'm wondering if first person will be better or not for the story since I've got a major character arc to follow. I'll have to see which one works better, it's too early to tell anything.

I know that third person is supposed to give more freedom for the author, and I like the way third person reads with a narrator telling the story, but I also like first person because it's more intimate with the character, hearing the story straight from the character instead of having the story told to you by a third party. But there's also those annoying things like every paragraph seeming to start with 'I' and the character sometimes seeming to act whiny and stuff.

I have read first person done well though. The Name of the Wind, for example, was in first person and was, in my opinion, done incredibly well (plus it was awesome).

But I think, when you look at all the books, most of the good books are written in third person. Is that because it's more accessible for people to read? Is it because first person is harder to write well in? Do readers, in general, like having the story told to them opposed to living through the character themselves?

And when I think about it, it seems to me like first person should be the easier POV to write in, because it's the POV everyone lives in. When we talk about ourselves we say things like: "I went to the store today and got. . ." or "My sister told me I should go try this great restaurant. . ." Not: "Mrs. Black went to the store that day and decided to get. . ." or "Her sister had told her to try a great restaurant. . ." So shouldn't it be easier to write in first person?

I'll have to try and figure out exactly why third person is more popular than first person.

What do you guys think? What's the pros and cons for first person and third person, and why does third person seem more popular than first person?

I'm sending good writing vibes your way!

The Other Side

I found this cool blog post over at Write-or-Die that talks about the antagonist of the story and how important they are because they're what's really driving the story by giving the protagonist something to do. And she had a cool idea.

Somehow it had never really occurred to me to really get into what my antagonist is doing while the story goes on centered on the protagonist. I mean, I have vague ideas on what my villain is doing behind the scenes, but most of the time it's really blurry. The stories not centered on the villain so why bother, right?

I'm starting to rethink this. Outlining what the villain is doing throughout the story could bring up some good stuff that I hadn't realized before, and could add more depth to the story when I know precisely what's going on with both sides. Not to mention it could be downright interesting. And fun.

I wouldn't let this take over into a book of it's own (try not to, anyway) cause it would only be for reference on what's going on over there.

So what do you guys think of this? Writing about what's going on on the other side, what they're doing to get at the protagonist, how they're planning they're stuff and just general stuff like that? Only to know what they're doing throughout the book while your protagonist is doing his/her thing?

Just Writing

I have been terribly sidetracked from writing by some other hobbies. Thus, my writing is progressing slowly. I can only wonder how long my interest in this stuff will last before I return solely to writing again.

But, despite this, I have written nearly 5k so far, have three different versions of the prologue, and the first chapter. I'll soon be re-writing the first chapter to fit with the prologue I've chosen, though.

I'm really excited about writing this, I love writing it and wonder when this feeling will go away. Will it be like Nanowrimo, and three weeks into this I'll be all like 'Oh no! What have I done?! It's horrible!!!! D:' I sure hope not.

But, I don't think that will happen. Since, this time around, I'm not just focusing on quantity, but quality as well, giving into that inner editor some. It's really quite pleasant to actually think about the words I'm about to write before I start spitting them out. And going back through to reread and fix errors when I see them, satisfying and stress free. Well, mostly stress free. Lets not get into the actual plotting and planning.

And you know what makes me really happy? When I write a chapter and realize it was in the wrong POV or needs to be written in a future time frame or whatever, and I rewrite it, it all still counts towards my word count for the year and it's what I want! It's a win-win!

So in conclusion, while I dearly love Nanowrimo for the deadline and excitement and all, it's just been so wonderful to write without deadline or word count only in mind.

Do you guys feel the same way?

The Mission of a Chapter

Something should happen in every single chapter to further the plot.

Now, I already knew this before, but it's quite easy to slip your mind when you're actually writing a story. You get caught up in your character, the world, the story and just the general awesomeness of writing your book, and totally forget that this chapter is supposed to have something important in it. Happens to me all the time, happened to me earlier today. I was writing along and then was all like "Oh, wait. What's furthering the plot here?"

Now, I went to one of my most favorite books of all time to scan through the chapters and see does something very important happen every single chapter. I went through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And something important does happen every single chapter. Something that furthers the plot. Now, when I was writing earlier I was pretty much just thinking, "Okay, introduce characters, setting etc. until I get to the first twist, however many chapters that takes."

I can't do that though. I can't have chapters there just to be there. They have to do something for the plot. I can't have a chapter in my book just because it's interesting or funny, unless it furthers the plot. It's a bit frustrating for me but at the same time it makes things easier cause I know that each chapter has their own individual mission of getting the plot a bit further, instead of just acting as separators within the book.

When I forget this kind of stuff it makes me feel a lot like this:

Good day!

Plan First, Write Later

Well, I started writing The Chronicles today, starting with the prologue of course. So, I write 1,000 words of this prologue and am finding that. . . it's not needed. I mean, not in the way I was writing it. I introduced a character that would pretty much never come back into the book - not in the flesh anyway - instead of someone else. Which, I have heard more than once, isn't a good idea. People usually say you should introduce the main character at first. Makes sense. And, my MC is kinda in the prologue, but it's being told from another POV - or omnipresent - at a point before the real story starts.

I love the idea of this prologue but I'm wondering if it's necessary. Still, I think it is, it just needs to be done differently. Coming from a different POV, and set in the very near future from where I had originally written the prologue.

Anyway, this got me to reread some stuff on StoryFix.com, namely the structure stuff. And, well, it reminded me of something I had forgotten. I have no idea why, but I was thinking that one of my early plot twists was the first plot point. Just a few weeks ago I knew exactly what the first plot point was but I had somehow forgotten. Good thing I remembered now, before I got passed the prologue.

I have to admit that I feel a bit foolish for running into some problems the first day I decide to write my book. But, if anything, this has reinforced my new 'plan first' strategy of writing, which I am admittedly struggling to follow. So, what am I going to do tomorrow? Why, go back to planning of course.

Hopefully though, it'll just be for tomorrow and I can get back to writing on Friday.

A word of advice: Don't do what I just did.

Using Writing as an Excuse to do Anything

Seriously. I do this all the time. You probably do it too. You see some book in a store about some kind of questionable content that you're curious about but wouldn't want people to know you're curious about it because they'd give you funny/worried/disgusted looks and question you're sanity/morality. But you get it anyway, firmly telling yourself it's research for your book.

Or maybe you decide to take karate lessons, not because you're just interested but because that side character in your book that shows up for one scene does some pretty awesome kicks and stuff and you need to know how to describe such things! So you have to take lessons!

Or you know that place in New Zealand where you're book takes place? How are you ever going to describe such scenery without having been there first!?

And that stuff you read on the internet in the name of research for your book. . .  Goodness help you and the poor soul who decides to look at you browsing history. They'd be sure to send you to a mental hospital despite your pleas of, "It was for my book!"

And it is for your book, really. A little. But not wholly. Lots of times it's purely excuse, others it's only part that. Like my reading up on witchcraft and alchemy. I had found myself wanting to glance around at those two subject in the bookstore but never did. Until I found the perfect excuse. You see, having trouble coming up with a magic system I saw that section of books in the book store and it hit me: witchcraft. Alchemy. Those might help me with my magic system problems!

See? The perfect excuse. I really am reading them for that purpose, but not wholly, some of me is just genuinely curious about it, and I'm using writing as the excuse to not get those funny looks.

But hey, it works.

So what have you used writing as an excuse for? Vacations? Musical instruments? Some really really old and expensive book so you know what paper and book binding was like back in the day because of that scene where you have to explain that?

:D