One day to go

I'm still behind on my plot outline for NaNoWriMo. I'll write some more this evening and then it's time to write the real thing.

I'm a little bit nervous and a little bit excited. I have a good feeling about this year. I hope it works out. I'll aim for 5000 words a day, with the 1700 words as a minimum. I'll take most weekends off - probably. I can't ignore the family completely.

With luck and hard work, I'll end up with a reasonable first draft at the end. This time I'm going to work had to write in scenes for the most part and write a lot less of the narrative summary. If I'm not interested in a scene I tend to just summarize it quickly with the intent to go back to it, but somehow that never happens.

This year it will happen. (Maybe if I say/type it enough times I actually will do it.)

A few days off...

Plus some computer troubles, means I haven't posted in a while. So much for trying to post twice a week. I'm behind on my outline for NaNoWriMo, but I will get that done in time. In fact I could use what I have now, but I'd like to add a bit more detail if I can.

Salvaging my computer was good as it meant I didn't have to spend lots of money on a new one. It just took most of my time off to fix, which was not so good. I don't know how stable it will be, but I'm hoping for at least another six months, maybe a year if I'm lucky.

I just hope this year's plot clicks. By that I mean that I can connect with the plot and the characters. I seem to manage one or the other, but not both at the same time. This is annoying and the reason I have never bothered an agent to date. It would be a waste of time for both of us.

Instead I waste my own time trying to find the write novel to send out. If I write enough I'll get there. I know I will. (Don't you just love positive affirmations - well it might work.)

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…

I didn't write much at all over the weekend and yet I know I was busy the whole time. Well most of it anyway. Time seems to fly by at the moment. At this rate I won't even get my outline finished before NaNoWriMo.

That's not entirely true as the main story is outlined, but the subplots and extras have yet to be added. I might try to get the scenes worked out too, but that might be a step too far. I don't want to end up in the same situation as last year. I hope it goes better this time.

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-chain

I've joined the NaNo blog-chain. You can join too. The link is here, then just follow the simple instructions at the bottom of the list of blogs.

In case the above link fails to work, the correct URL is:-

http://ameliajune.net/the-nano-blogchain/

Annoyed

I don't seem to be able to paste text from the clipboard into the blogger editor. If anyone knows how to do this, let me know. It's starting to get annoying as I do quite a bit of writing off-line. In fact my main writing computer never connects to the Internet and I did this deliberately so that I wouldn't get distracted while writing.

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.

Plot

I've got the plot sort of worked out. No details yet, but a time line and a storyline. I have to work out the sub-plots and other details. I need to also do some research into dead bodies, time of death and that sort of thing. It's a murder mystery by the way. I mention this just in case you haven't worked it out yet.

I haven't got an updated word count, because it's all plot, time line or storyline. Still there is progress and it's not even October yet. And of course I've remembered to post again :)

Eek

I just realized it's almost 3 months since I posted. That's terrible. I just added a note to every Monday's to-do-list from now until November to write a post. In it I will say what I have or haven't done and I'll include a word count no matter what.

Today's word count is 259. That's how many I wrote yesterday. Today I hope to at least double that number.

It's been a very long time...

since I last posted. I went on holiday and did all the usual stuff, but the one thing I didn't do was write. Yesterday that changed.

For some weird and wonderful reason I thought NaNoWriMo was October - stupid I know. Of course it's November. However I had a slight panic attack when I thought it was only a couple of weeks away and I hadn't even thought about what to write.

My exact thought was 'I have no plot or even a single character...maybe that will work...damn complicated though...might work...let's see' and I started to write. OK not a huge amount, just a few hundred words, but it's more than I written in months.

I don't know why I stopped writing. Probably it was because it just seemed like too much trouble. By the end of the last school year I was getting very tired and stressed. Not a real excuse, but I think the break has done me some good.

What it all amounts to is a very complicated plot for NaNoWriMo, which will span 80 years, with five or six separate stories that will weave in and out of each other. Did I mention it's complicated. I have no idea if it'll work, but if it does it could be the best thing I've ever written.

Should be fun to find out. So back to writing the plot summary, which will be in the form of a time line spanning the eighty odd years that the book will span. The actual book will not follow the time line, but the stories will be revealed in flashbacks. Maybe flashbacks is not the right word, still the actual story line will move back and forth through the time line.

Hi, ho, hi, ho, it's off to write we go...

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.

writing

When I first started this blog, I was worried that I would write here more than anywhere else. In fact it's turning out to be the opposite. I'm actually writing my novel and I hardly ever write here. I never really think about it to be honest.

I suppose that's a good thing, though the purpose of this blog was to give me more accountability. Still my writing has improved no end and even though I'm still not writing as much as I like, I am writing.

Chapter 4 is currently being written. I won't say re-written as I am changing almost everything except the broad out line. Not much is left from the original version. I'm not allowing myself to write anything in narrative summary, which is about all my previous drafts have ever amounted to. OK, so there was dialogue, but not much else.

This version is in scenes with action, dialogue and descriptions - totally different from any previous version. At times I have to force myself to write, but it is working.

I'm bad.....

at writing blog posts. I can't believe it's been so long since I updated. I have done some writing and I can honestly say that the quality of my writing is much improved.

OK, I'm not going to win any awards, but I am writing scenes and not just narrative summaries, which was my favorite way of getting out of the bits I wasn't enjoying.

I am now up to 6000 words of a novel. Here's to many more.

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.

An update

I haven't been here for a while. A death followed by a health scare meant I just didn't have the energy to update the blog. Sorry.

Now all of that is over and I'm sort of catching up at work, so it is time to get back to writing or at least writing about not writing. I have my story. I know what's wrong with what I have written. Now all I need to do is make it right....

This should be interesting. I am attempting to get into the habit of writing every day, even if it is only for 5 minutes or so. I would love to write for an hour a day, but I'm not going to run before I can walk.

So time to finish the urgent stuff for work and then I will write. At least one sentence...