NaNoWriSe Day 9 (Predicaments galore)

Funny enough, only a day after posting my break through post, it turned out that a lot of people liked my prologue and first chapter. I don't know how much I like it but they liked it.
However, I want to continue to see what my editing group thinks of my book as is before changing everything.
The main issue that comes with my book, Children of Ink, is POV. I hate confining POV to one character but I like the intamacy that a first person POV provides. The result is me choosing one character for first person and everyone else's POV being in third person. This is a bit unorthodox but that is how Children of Ink is written. it really can't be confined to one POV to tell the story it needs to. If all else fails I'll have to make it straight third person or straight first person. Both will be difficult for me.
For now, let's see how my editing group takes the odd POV mash up. Maybe they'll like it. Who knows?
Now off to editing! (This really is turning into a month of more editing than writing. Ah well... as long as something is getting done.)

NaNoWriSe Day 5 (World building)

Oh, editing. You are such an untamable monster that hides behind corners and waits to gobble me up. You snicker in the shadows saying "Authoress, you forgot to think about this. Authoress, your world building needs work!"
The latter item was the issue today as I discovered I don't have a clear timeline for past events that happened before my book is set. The years are kind of important because they have to coincide with the ages of characters and their jobs and education and all of that good stuff.
Fortunately I nailed down my timeline today. The problem will be implementing it and making sure all of my dates are consistent.
That will be for tomorrow though. On the plus side I've joined a writing group for Speculative Fiction so I hope to get some editing done on some of my first chapters of my books. I'm excited about that. That will help me through the editing process a bit and allow me to focus on the writing part of NaNoWriSe.
Another only semi productive day down. And now, it's time for sleep. Happy NaNoWriSe everyone!

NaNoWriSe (A New Adventure in Writing)

Hello everyone,
It has been quite awhile since I've posted and you can chalk all that up to life. However, with the Summer finally here I find myself reinvigorated and ready to embark on a rather lengthy and difficult writing quest that may or may not rid me of my remaining sanity.
I experienced an untold of amount of productivity during National Novel Writing Month and instead of 1,667 words a day I wrote 5,000 words a day and had hit my deadline 10 days into the month. I wondered how this could have happened, especially since I was very busy at the time with other pursuits, including tech week for a musical. Anyone who has ever experienced tech week, knows how difficult and long rehearsals can be. I decided that this is because I work well under pressure. Specifically, I work well under deadlines.
So since I'm not doing much this summer outside of a lot of reading and anime watching, I decided to invent my own, "National Novel Writing" event which I am probably the only one insane enough to participate in. I call it "National Novel Writing Season" or "NaNoWriSe". The perimeters are as follows:
- I will write two novel rough drafts each month in the months of June, July and August
- I will edit one previously completed rough draft each month
- I will not completely lose my mind.
Best case scenario, I leave the summer armed with six new rough drafts and three polished novels so that I can pick and choose based on the market which I should try to query. Worst case I will only have three new rough drafts and one polished novel. I will not allow myself to leave the summer with less than that.
Am I crazy? Absolutely. But, I am determined to be held accountable so I turn to you, my loyal readers (If I have any that is) for help. I shall be reporting on my progress throughout the summer and I will blog every day, if possible.
Wish me luck... and let NaNoWriSe begin!

Death Scenes (And my love hate relationship with them)

Since I'm back from the lovely writing workshop I suppose I'd better blog about what I've learned I'm good at. You know, my greatest strengths in writing. I have a lot of weaknesses too but there are a few things that just flow more easily onto the page when I type.

One of those things is death scenes.

Ah, death scenes. How I both love and despise you. What is it about you that makes me such a time bomb of emotional instability?

Well it's the reader and writer at war inside me of course. The reader in me is screaming, "HOW COULD YOU?! YOU ARE A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING AND YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE!" But the writer is saying, "Good, good! Make your readers cry! Squeeze every drop of depressing you possibly can out of these words. Dance puppets, dance!"

This is all going on at the same time while I write death scenes. I can't help but feel both self hatred and joy when I write because I am good at death scenes. I don't know what that says about me as a person but I'm good at making people cry.

So this year at the workshop I decided to try an experiment. I met a friend while I was there who was very empathetic and easily prone to tears. She cried at everything... well not everything... but she got easily invested in characters so when it came time for them to die she was sobbing. It was a kind of empathy that I really admired in her (Being a cold, heartless, cynic myself)

So I decided to try an experiment. I had written a death scene for my current project that was undoubtedly the saddest thing I ever wrote. It was so brutal I was crying when I wrote it and I don't really cry at books. So I wanted to take this scene that my friend had no prior emotional investment in and see if she would cry.

She did. Hard. And she screamed at me. Even though she didn't know this character. And I couldn't stop smiling because, well, SUCCESS!

Now, that's just my empathetic friend but imagine if she had been with these characters for four books. The reaction would be much more intense.

It's interesting that this is my talent because I've never witnessed death. The people I've known who have died I haven't been particularly close to. I don't know what it's like to feel that empty and can't right from experience. I just create it in my head somehow. I imagine the feeling. According to people who have read my stuff I'm pretty close.

Death scenes are also difficult for me to write in an emotional sense because I always seem to kill off my favorite characters. In fact in my top ten characters for my book every single one of them dies, almost dies or is psychologically tortured. Or sometimes more than one of these. It's just because I love them that much I guess.

What are your strengths in writing? What scenes come the easiest to you?

-Authoress Anonymous

Creative explosions (What happens in a void of creativity)

So I've been gone for the past... oh... three weeks. I didn't intend for that to happen at all. I was fully planning on updating at least every two days. Clearly that didn't happen.

You see for the last three weeks I have been entrapped in a void where time and space have no meaning; a void where reality doesn't exist. I was at a two week long creative writing workshop and then at a close friend's house for the next four days. I just got in last night.

In this workshop, which shall remain nameless in hopes of protecting my identity (An endeavor that I doubt will succeed for long), about fifty five aspiring writers were split into five groups of eleven. The first week we created our very own fantasy world together. And I mean the whole thing. Religion, species, gods, environment, cultures, politics, economy, fashion. Everything all in one week. And it's not like we were locked in to our groups either. When we weren't in our groups we were listening to lectures by visiting writers, eating meals and talking non stop with each other, taking trips to the local book store etc. And of course we were writing in our spare time.

In the second week, we began writing our short stories. They had to be 3,500 to 8,000 words. Which may seem like plenty of room but in two days, I hit 9,200 words and I had to cut 1,200 words out of my story. Exactly that amount. In the end my work was exactly 8,000 words.

The short stories were then critiqued in a few days by the visiting authors and we got some wonderful feedback on our strengths and weakness. I made so many wonderful and true friends there that I was very sad to leave. It's a good sign when you feel like you've known the people for months rather than days.

So, as you can see, I was in a creativity void, in which I am often prone to creative explosions. I pumped out over 9,000 words in two days which is much faster than my usual rate. Everyone else thought I was psycho too.

"So how much do you have so far?"

"Oh I just broke the minimum."

"I've got 4,000 now!"

"Oh that's good! What about you?"

"I have 9,200."

"...Seriously?"

"...Yeah..."

Usually I'm more of a 2,000 words a day kind of girl but that's what this workshop does to me.

My point is, workshops are wonderful opportunities. Opportunities to form lifelong relationships, opportunities to connect on what you love to do (Because even though a lot of us are quiet, when someone is listening to us we love to babble on and on) and an opportunity to really let yourself go. You can't worry about outside distractions so you just write.

It's definitely worth the money.

-Authoress Anonymous

J.K. Rowling (And why I admire her)

First of all, thanks to my second follower! I gave a little cheer when I saw that!

Second of all, I think I've got the query letter down. I'm sending it to a few people before I officially send it to an agent though, just to make sure it makes sense.

Third of all: J.K. Rowling.

Every author or aspiring author in the world should look up to this fantastic woman. (And envy her of course because she's the greatest publishing success story in the world) Mostly because she never asked for fame, fortune or huge book sales. She just wanted to be published and at the time of her writing the first Harry Potter books she was nearly homeless. The publication of the books turned her life around.

Such an inspiring story. And it's just interesting to hear her talk about her books. She truly understands her characters and her story and she's fascinating to listen to.

I've always been a die hard fan of the Harry Potter books. I grew up with them and I've read them countless times because they never get old. But it's interesting to look at them from a writer's perspective.

I admire Jo's spirit, her persistence and how everything turned out for her. She's still very humbled by it and very generous with her money. And yes I'm a little jealous too.

In fact, what are you even doing here? Go watch some of these videos. They're fascinating:

A year in the life of JK Rowling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6-6zaa4NI4

And the women of Harry Potter (Part 1, 2 and 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPbGIqcFh00&feature=related
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T53ufc6ovOk&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rS05lLePDM&feature=relmfu

Yeah, go watch them. Truly fascinating, especially for writers.

-Authoress Anonymous