ROW80 Update 8/10

Things are going great so far. I keep trying to world build and keep up with camp nano (which my wordcount is a bit behind at the moment). And I keep hitting world building snags that I need to work on like, why do they were clothes like that? And why do their houses look like that? And stuff like that.

Actually, the writing is going really good. I'm finally getting to the meat of the story where the things start to happen and I didn't rush it like I usually do when I start writing. I'm usually so anxious to get to the part where the MC goes places that I just skip the other important things. But I didn't this time.

There's still so much I have to figure out though, even though I've started writing. Like I still don't know how the magic should work, really. I mean, should they use wands or staffs? Not need those? Is it ritual like? Do they have to say certain words or no? Movement?

And then there's the laws  of the magic I have to figure out. What are the limits? I don't have a clue. But I'll just have to figure it out somehow.

I'm trying to look around at mythology and - believe it or not - science to get ideas for the magic in my books but so far I've still got nothing.

But otherwise, thing are going great. :)

To find other ROW80-ers, go here.

ROW80 Update

Things are going really good! Actually better than good. I found something that totally makes world building easier.

I made a wiki about my world.

Yep, that's right. I wiki'd it.

I got the idea from the Wicked and Tricksy blog where they recommended tiddlywiki. And while I initially liked it I began to dislike the way it looked and worked and there was no way I could find to at least changed the color of the font. So I instead found Google Sites where you can make a pretty awesome wiki. And it's easy to link from one page to another and when you're writing you can instantly create a new page right from where your writing so you can link a word, even if there's no info on the page.

And every subject gets it's own page if you want it that way. And you can keep your wiki private to just yourself or share it with a handful of people you want to share it with. And it's free. That's always a plus ;)

So, it makes it so easy to keep all the information about your world, or even your plot, all in one organized place. No longer in journals where you have to endlessly flip through things and rediscover things you've forgotten. No more piling it in one or more computer documents. It's all in one place. In your world wiki! :D (If you can't tell, I absolutely love this thing :D)

And I've been keeping up with this August's Camp Nano, except for the first day, it sort of snuck up on me and I was all amped up about the pottermore thing. Well, scratch that, I'm still amped up about the pottermore thing :D

To find other ROW80 participants:

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?