An update...

I'm not doing so good in updating this blog, but here's one.
I've finally found a copy of a short story I wrote about two years ago. I found it on the back-up, stand alone, hard disk we have. Thank the lord for back ups. I'm going to submit this story to magazines etc. and see if anyone wants to publish it. I'm going to start with paying markets first and go down from there. :)

My new, desk-top computer is up and running and it is on this computer that I have put the story. I will put it onto a USB stick just as soon as I have one with some space. I have also re-installed yWriter5 on to this computer.

I have a nasty habit of using my desk top computer for games and I tend to pick playing games over writing. I also own a netbook, which I only use for writing. The idea is that I move the story to the netbook, re-read it, edit as necessary and then submit it for publication.

My work computer is dying, so at the moment the entire contents of its hard drive are on a variety of USB sticks and portable hard drives. Hence I have no space available for the story. (Though having said that and while editing this post, I found a small USB stick, which does have space. So tonight the story gets moved.) I will be getting a new, work laptop in a week or two.

I've started to make a new schedule for writing and I'm actually doing some. Not a lot, but it's a start. I need to get into the habit of writing and that habit needs to be substainable.

I need to move the files around. For NaNoWriMo, I kept the files on a USB stick, but now I want to concentrate on using my netbook and not to write at work if at all possible. Therefore I will copy all the files on to the netbook.

One publication I'm going to check out is 'The New Yorker', because if I'm going to be rejected, I want to be rejected by the best.

And I keep getting sick, which means I'm tired all the time. At the moment a normal day is wake-up, eat, go to work, get home, eat and sleep. Repeat for all working days. I'm starting to feel a bit better - touch wood.

My typing is much worse. I don't seem to be able to 1) put my hands in the right rest positions on the keyboard and 2) hit the right keys when typing. I always seem to be a letter or two off or I press too many of the right key.

Practice make perfect. Now all I need to do is practice.

It's been a while

But I am feeling much better and I have started to write again. At least sometimes.

I'm going to try to start writing a blog. Nothing to do with writing or related subject, so I won't mention it here. It is still in the planning stages. I don't have a title or anything at the moment. Just an idea.

I'm still planning on submitting the short story I wrote a couple of years ago. I need to find it again. I know it's on my home computer, I just have to dig it out.

After I've caught up with that, I'm going to start on my book again. I know it has potential, all I have to do is make it work.

Sounds so simple...

Christmas break

And it really was a break from everything except my family. I didn't write or read anything. Hopefully this weekend I will print out the entire NaNoWriMo manuscript, then I'll chop it into scenes and rearrange it all over the next few weeks.

As I move stuff around, I'll also rewrite the scenes - add or take away as necessary. I know that not all of them will be used. I put in extra background more for myself than anything else. The ending definitely needs work. I rushed it in November in order to finish on time.

The current version is almost two stories which don't quite come together. I need to make these two sides mesh a little better.

As usual I know what I need to do, I just haven't done it. Anyone noticing a theme here...

I also have a short story I wrote some time ago and as long as I can find it again, I'm going to edit it once more or at least read through it and then I'm going to submit it to magazines for publications. I still need to research this part, so at the moment I have no idea to which ones I will send it, but I will send it. That's my one resolution: to submit this one story for publication.

It would be nice if it is published, but I also want to get some experience in this area.

No more written

I've been busy, just not with writing. I've been catching up on other parts of my life.

Hopefully over Christmas, I will get a chance to work on my writing. I want to go through what I wrote for NaNoWriMo and rearrange the scenes and chapters. To do this I need to write an outline. Well to be fair, I have to do the 2 at the same time so that they match.

If I do get time, I will be able to start the second draft in January. If I don't get round to it, I won't start the second draft until March or later.

Time to get my act together.

Sick

I'm definitely sick and will go home soon. I still hope to do some writing today, but I don't think it will be as much as other days.

Day 2

And I'm currently at a total of 7246 words. So I've written 3213 words so far today.

I have changed my goals again. I still of course want to write the minimum. That is the basic goal, which won't change. However my daily goal is now 3000 words. If I do this every day then I will write 90000 words in November.

To be honest I don't think I will reach 90000 words, but I hope to get close to this total. I know I won't be able to write everyday, but I should manage to write most days. And some days I will write more than others.

I'm still finding it astonishingly easy to write at the moment and I still have lots of scenes lined up. I actually know what is going to happen next.

I will admit to only writing the backstory at the moment. It will be placed at appropriate points in the story to illustrate some points. But I'm writing the whole thing in chronological order at the moment and I'll move the scenes around later on. I'm also trying to write more than I actually need. I think this will help too.

So currently I'm very happy with my progress and excited by the project. Can this last?

Not starting off too well...

After being so tired last night that I forgot all about writing to being woken up twice in the night by a power failure and a mouse, I'm not getting off to a good start for NaNoWriMo.

I completely forgot my files as well. I'll start without them and hope that what I write now matches what I wrote then. It's mostly names that I forget and sometimes I transpose characters.

Still here's hoping I make it to 1700 words. Making it to 5000 words would be fantastic, but I'm not betting on that.

Characters

I love inventing characters. I find that it’s no work at all and it seems to come easily to me. I have no idea why, but it is also the reason that I always start off with characters and let the plot follow in its own good time.

All of my characters – at least I can’t think of an exception at the moment – are a result of many small bits of information and snippets of stories. All this merges together into one distinct character. I don’t use the normal ways of creating a character and background. I don’t write a biography and I don’t answer the 30/50/100 or more questions that some sites give to help produce a well-rounded character.

Instead I write little scenes. These are defining moments for the character. They may show how mean they are or how generous. They help explain what makes that character who they are. I do include some aspects of a biography, such roughly how old they are, but unless there is some need for it, I tend to leave that alone.

I will say that if something becomes important in a story, such as the heroine having red hair, green eyes and is exactly 24 years 3 months and 16 days old, then I do add these facts to the character sheet. And yes, I do have character sheets. They just don’t look like the examples you see on the internet or in books.

I normally outline four to five characters in detail for each story. There are far more than this in one novel, but the others don’t have such a detailed outline as I may only use one or two aspects of their character. But in these cases, they are noted in the minor character section of my notes. I do this because I have a nasty habit of using the same name more than once. I tend to forget these rather quickly.

I have fun creating characters and if I get really stuck I simply fall back to character creation. For some reason this is easier than some other aspects of writing, like sticking to a timeline…

Inspiration and writing

I have to admit that I have no problem finding inspiration. Every day there is something that gets my mind whirring. I don't always record it. If I don't think it stands out enough I leave it alone. If I wrote every thing done I wouldn't have room in my bookcases for books.

Some do make it into one of the three places I use to record things. The first is as a file on my computer. The second is my A4 student notepad, from which I can tear the pages so they can be added to a folder and the last is my small, hardback notebook that travels everywhere with me. In fact I have three small notebooks as I have a terrible habit of losing them. It takes a while to rediscover them.

Each of my characters gains something from these snippets. Perhaps not the full character comes from here, but everyone is affected somehow. And from my collection of characters, comes the plot. I write murder mysteries so the victim(s) and the murderer tend to develop naturally from the pool I have created.

Sometimes I find that it isn't working out at all, but if I replace a character or two then things start to go better... I don't delete characters. They go into a sort of hibernation, so that when I need one I take a look at what I have in stock and see if there's a good fit. Some characters seem to stay in my mind more than others and develop more. They tend to end up as either a victim or a killer.

I know that there are those who are all about plot and I did try this for last year's NaNoWriMo. I had a good, complicated plot all mapped out. All the subplots too and then I added the required characters. I hated the whole thing. It never seemed to flow and everything felt wrong. I know there were no plot holes, but to be honest, I would prefer them to the uninspired drivel I produced.

There was nothing wrong with it. There was nothing to make it stand out either. It was a story I've read before so many times. Only those were better written. I did finish NaNoWriMo, but only just and it was hard. This year I'm going back to what I do best - plot holes and the rest.

Now I'm not saying that plotting is wrong. I do now plot a bit more. But I can't plot and then add in characters. It just doesn't work for me. But no matter how you write, inspiration is out there just waiting for you to grab it.

blog posts

Instead of thinking about and writing the outline for NaNoWriMo, I've been thinking about and writing outlines for blog posts. Not exactly what I thought would happen, but I am writing a bit more. I'm slowly clearing my evenings and a bit on weekends so that I can write more.

I'll post another short post on Friday.

Plot of character? How is your writing driven?

I actually started off writing about inspiration, but I got sidetracked, so I decided to leave that for another day and write about plot versus character instead. Below is what I wrote...

I have thousands of ideas floating around in my head, some of which I write down. These are plots or people by prototypes, which can be expanded as needed. Part of this is due to how I write. I always start off with characters and the plot develops from there.

I find if I have interesting characters, I never have to make things happen, they will occur on their own. In fact, if I get stuck at all I put some or all of my characters in a room and see what happens.

For example, in my NaNoWriMo outline for this year, I started off with a character similar to one I had read about in a news story. It was about a man who's dead body had been lying for months in his flat. Not an unusual story except that the man had not been a recluse. He was in fact an obnoxious weirdo, who was disliked by everyone including he own family.

Most of the neighbours assumed he had been rehoused by the council, His family weren't talking to him and didn't really make a huge effort to contact him. It was only when a workman needed access to the flat to fix a leak that his body was discovered.

This started me thinking about all the horrible people I know and the victim of my NaNoWriMo was born, well died. She, in fact, starts off dead. But her nastiness leads to all sorts of possibilities and without her needing to go over the top in any of her actions. This gives me a large pool of suspects. It's a murder mystery in case you were wondering.

Everything I've written has always started with one or more characters. It's the only way I seem to be able to write. Last year I tried starting with a plot. I did write the 50 000 words, but it was a slog and not one I want to repeat. The result is incredibly bland. There aren't any plot holes, as in my other attempts, but it will send you to sleep quickly.

Not much...

has happened. I haven't written that much more on the plot. I need to, I don't have all the sub-plots yet, I just didn't do much this weekend. Instead I enjoyed a beautiful autumn day with my family. And did some housework.

Now back to writing...

Posting

I don't want to tempt fate or anything, but I'm hoping to start posting twice a week starting next week. The first post will be as is, an update on what if anything I have written towards a book or NaNoWriMo. The second post will be different and on a writing subject, such as inspiration or character vs. plot.

I'm not sure how long this will last, but it's worth a try.

long time, no blog

I've been writing scenes. Quite a few and new ones at that. I've also planned out a timeline, which means it is now easier to write some parts. I'm about halfway through and I am slightly stuck. I'm not sure which scenes should come next. I've been thinking about it for over a week now and I still can't get them in order.

I've decided to start writing the scenes from the first half and see if it all fits together, perhaps then I will see the second half more clearly. Of course the fact that I keep changing the climax of the story isn't helping. A little distance is needed.

update

I added approximately 1500 words last week. Not a huge amount, but not bad either. Currently, I write for just one hour a week. I know I need to write more. I just have trouble getting motivated. I'm so tired in the evenings that all I want to do is sit down and vegetate.

I worked out that if I continue at this rate, I will finish after one year. Better than never, but could be improved.

Yesterday

I had a good day writing. Wrote for just under an hour, but got a lot done. I am very happy with what I wrote and how much I wrote. Feeling much better because of it.

Tuesday's report

I forgot to write in my diary yesterday. I think I need to have it with me so I can write in it when I have the time or the inclination, rather than leaving it at home to write in it at 6pm.

However, I did write. I wrote a piece, which is part of my "novel" and I am using as a writing exercise. I'm trying a new way to create scenes. Hopefully it will work, but only time will tell. This method fits in well with my current writing style, so it's not like I have to make big changes. I will however have to go through my current draft and split it up differently and work on the individual parts. This is not a bad thing.

If I can get the individual parts to work, then I can put them back together and make the whole thing work. Well that's the plan anyway.

Yesterday

I didn't write. Well that's not entirely true. I wrote in my diary, but I didn't add to my novel.

What I did do is read about scenes. I found that I keep summarizing scenes and not actually writing them. If that makes any sense.

I summarise what the scene is about, maybe add in some dialogue, and that's it. I'm not describing the scene or moving people, not even allowing them to fidget or breathe. In fact some of my scenes are just talking heads, nothing more and I seem to be having trouble adding action or surroundings.

So I'm going to start some writing exercises in order to help with describing place and time and adding in actions. I start today. I have an hour free in which I will start.

Re-reading NaNoWriMo, I noticed that almost the entire thing is written in summary form. That is sad.

Bad end to the year

I did no writing in December 2010 due to personal reasons. Also, I was sick. Nothing went right.

Christmas was good when it finally happened as was old and new, which means New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Slowly I'm getting back into writing. Very slowly. I've been reading about writing at the moment. Today I need to start writing and I mean more than this post.

I'm thinking about writing a diary. That's something I've never done, but I know several writers who find it very useful. They begin with writing their diary entry and then find it easier to move to their work. I'm going to try this, starting tonight.

Not yet started.

So it's now 12:15pm and I haven't even started writing this years NaNoWriMo. I will start to day and hopefully complete the minimum (1700 words). I might even make it to 3000 words, which I hope will end up being my average for the month.

My excuse is that I was on holiday last week, from work at least. So now I have to catch up on all the missed emails and work I should have done.

Though I been waiting for NaNoWriMo to start, it feels more like an anticlimax than anything else. But then again, I normally do most of my writing in the last ten days when there's a greater sense of urgency. Maybe that's the problem.....