Just Plain 'Break'

Not a hour after I penned yesterday's post on Monday afternoon, I slammed headfirst into a large and very painful brick wall. Okay, I had an ending to my book, I had large portions of the plot worked out, things came to a conclusion...

But it was a conclusion I hated. Somehow, the entire moral of the story morphed to: Don't kill innocents, but please do commit murder for revenge.

Don't know about you, but that's not exactly what I wanted out of this story. Not quite o.O And because of this now-twisted moral, the MC became someone I hated. How could she do this? All those morals she stood up for, all the right she fought for - she's just going to let it all go at the end and ignore everything? Um, excuse me?

I hated her. I fell into a bitter pit of despair, and was quite literally ready to rip the plot cards that lay on the floor in front of me up into little tiny shreds.

I didn't. See me be good.

See, this exact thing happened with the last novel: I had an idea of where I wanted to go with the novel, but the story became such that in order to get there, my protag had to turn into a Not Nice PersonTM. So I scrapped The Project, because with that story, I couldn't see my way out of it, and there wasn't enough else that was compelling about the story to make me want to try.

This time was different. This time it's Jess. I loved this story. And somewhere in there still was a kernel of the story I'd wanted to write - and I was determined to find it.

I spent the whole day being miserable, which was a great end to my long weekend, and didn't sleep much at all on Monday night. But sometime during my tossing and turnings, an answer came to me. I'm not going to plot-spoilerise here, but besides the fact that Jess's motivation for her 'final attack' at the climax has changed (yay, no more revenge attacks!), I can show you this.

This is what my novel currently looks like, as plotted out to the end:



The red and blue are the two MCs, and the pink and orange are the two subplots. As you can see, it's quite a mess - unbalanced, messy, and random.

Here's what I've realised (in a *facepalm* moment) what it ought to look like:



Doesn't that look much better?

So, after several heart-stopping, heart-wrenching, sleep-depriving hours on Monday afternoon, I think I can say I'm back on track, and raring to go again. I still need to finish the darn draft, which is as messy as the first diagram, which makes me want to tear my hair out, but I can at least now look forward to the pleasure of knowing what I need to fix in revision - and that nagging sense that something was wrong has finally left me, and I'm free to write. :)

The Late 2008 - Shine in 2009

Like my cheesy title? *grin*

So, given it's what everyone else is doing*, I thought now would be a good time for my 2008 recap.

Raw stats first.

In 2008, I:

* wrote 161,207 words of fiction.
* finished a draft of TBAEO.
* did preliminary edits and replotting of TBAEO.
* worked on The Black Gates, then retired it at about chapter 5 - the plot Needs Work.
* started Logan. Wrote 10 chapters only to realise the story started at chapter 11. Put aside, as the MC was too boring.
* learned how to write short stories - hoorah! Total of 8 in various stages.
* edited my first 'proper' play. Wrote several others, including an 8 act one to be performed in a week's time.
* began The Project. Wrote half, outlined the rest, realised I hated the MC and put it aside.
* signed up to write a self-pubbed non-fic ebook, to be completed this month.
* began several MG novels for nano, none of which behaved, so they've been temporarily put aside.
* started Jesscapades, which I adore, and which at this point I'm planning to be my debut novel.

My main goals for the year were to make 10 submissions and have 3 complete manuscripts. Sadly, the year has been fraught with false starts, so I have only one :( As for submissions, I've done 12 :) So that's a success. Granted, a lot have been resubs, and I've had no bites yet though a couple of commendations and personalised rejections, but hey - I did more than 10 subs :) Rah!

Although on the one hand I feel like the year has been a bit of a failure - I haven't completed any novels that I'm happy with - on the other hand, my total word count is up by 60% on last year's count. And more importantly, I've learned a lot. Sure, I've had a lot of false starts - but I know why they were false starts, and each time, they've been for a different reason - which means I'm learning.

And now I've hit on a novel that I like, with a reasonably strong voice, a fun plot, a great MC... Mind you, I'm not halfway yet, so I'm hoping like mad that I like the book because it really is good (this is what the beta readers are saying) and not because I just haven't hit the wall yet (what my brain is saying).

So, this is what I've learned from each of my false starts this year:

1) TBAEO - not a false start, but something that DEFINITELY needs work before it can see the light of day. From this I learned perhaps my biggest lesson of the year - that I can finish a complete novel, and that I can dissect it and replot it to make it stronger.

2) The Black Gates - this is actually my first novel. I've been working on it off and on for years - and because of this, it's fraught with beginner mistakes - not least of which was a lack of original, interesting plot. I fixed that by introducing some great twists - but I'm yet to figure out how on earth it all goes together. It's not complex enough - but it's too complex. Gack.

3) Logan - heh. From this, I relearned the importance of having not only a strong MC, but one who has enough tension and internal conflict to drive the plot. Logan, the MC, was not strong enough to be a driving force - instead, he was someone who was driven, being forced and manipulated into making his decisions instead of reacting to the situation himself - and so he was boring. It was about now that I also realised that I didn't actually want to write traditional-style fantasy after all...

4) The Project. If TBAEO could be called an exercise in character development, then TP is its opposite: an exercise in plot. I set out to write this deliberately as a pot-boiler, simply to force myself to learn how to keep up the pace and tension, how to introduce stumbling blocks and small problems - in short, how to keep the middle from sagging. I succeeded pretty well, but unfortunately in doing so sacrificed character, and the MC turned into someone whom I didn't like, couldn't identify with, and just plain didn't want to write about.

5) The Edge and Gem series - I only made a tiny start on these at the beginning of Nano, but it reinforced for me the necessity of knowing your character's voice before writing the book.

6) Jesscapades. With luck, this one won't be a false start. So far (about 1/4 of the way in) it's got a great combination of character AND plot, and I'm excited to see just how much better this is than anything I've done before.

And that, my friends, was 2008. I know, I haven't talked about my goals for 2009 yet - but to be honest, I can't really get my head around the idea of new goals until this big camp (Jan 16-24) is over, and the dog book is written. I'll think about goals, and post them either in the final week of Jan, or in early Feb.

In the meantime - what's the biggest thing you learned in 2008?


* I was going to do it anyway. It just seemed like a good excuse O:)

Following a Weathered Outline...

So, you'll have to excuse the multitude of puns in today's title O:) Puns, you ask? What puns? Ahh. Bear with me but a moment, and I shall reveal all *looks wise and knowing*

Firstly, following: I'm sure a lot of you are aware, but blogger has developed this nifty little concept called 'following', whereby you can elect to follow a blog and thence have it appear on your blogger dashboard, conveniently letting you check all blogs you're following at once, and see at a glance who's updated and who hasn't. Consider this your official *poke* to FOLLOW MEEEEEEE! :) There's a handy link over there in the sidebar, right below Works In Progress, if you'd like to become a follower.

(As an aside, don't you just love how secret-cult-shall-rule-the-world that sounds? Hello, everyone, this is my blog, and these are my followers......)

Next, weather. This is completely unrelated to the blog, but it's just so jolly unfair I feel compelled to mention it. I live in Australia. AUS-TRA-LI-A. It is November. NO-VEM-BER. This, dear weather gods, means it's nearly Summer. This is NOT the appropriate time to start dumping the best snow of the year. \:|

Right. Which brings me to outlines, and the following of them :D As every tactician knows, no plan survives first contact with the enemy; and as every writer knows, no outline survives first contact with the story.

When I started writing The Project, I had a vague idea of where it was going, and that was all. It didn't matter too much: the entire object of writing it was an exercise in plot, in learning to race from one troublesome situation to whatever problem my muse came up with next. But there came a point when the time travel and multiple subplots got the better of me, and I outlined. Just one sentence per scene, in a pretty little table in a word document.

It was good enough to get me through to over halfway, but naturally, it couldn't remain intact. So, when I decided to start rewriting TP in order to get the characters right, since I knew the plot and twists etc, I broke out my outlining tools to give the book a bit more oomph, and to make sure I had everything covered. Hence, it's my weathered outline ;) It's weathered the storm of most of a first draft, and is still a bit rough (weathered, ha ha) around the edges! Gwa! *is proud of puns* O:)

This is the complete outline:



Yeah, I know, you can't see a thing. If you could, though, what you'd see would be something like this:



That's nice, you say, but what does it all mean? Well, each card has a sentence on it (roughly; work with me here ;)) that corresponds to a scene. The letter in the circle at the top right of each card is the POV; the green stripe or lack thereof at the top left indicates to me which timeline the card is in (past, present or future). The colours down the right hand side indicate which plot threads the scene relates to, selected from the following:



Don't know if you can read that or not, but it basically says pink is developing sympathy for the girl, blue is solving the mystery (the main thrust of the story), yellow is revealing past events, orange is a third party subplot, and purple is 'Angela', the second POV character.

So, why did I go to all the effort of writing this down on cards, and colour-coding, etc? Isn't that an awful lot of work for something that - again - may not survive first contact?

Well, yes... But no. Writing out the outline like this* has lots of advantages. Firstly, there's the visual aspect - you can see everything at once, all out in front of you, and it's dead easy to pick up the cards and shuffle them around and see what happens to your timeline - and your story. All sorts of connections can be formed that you'd never have found otherwise.

Secondly, you can immediately identify the weak spots in the plot: sentences that drag, that have no conflict, or that are just plain boring are usually indicative of scenes that do the same. Conflict is the meat of any writing, and this is a quick way to spot places you might be lacking.

Thirdly, the whole colour-coordination thing: subplots. Unless you're writing YA, MG, or really short books, you absolutely need subplots. My current wip, Jesscapades, has no less than 11 plot strands at present. And the easiest way I've found to keep track of them all is colour coding. Once again, it's a visual thing: you can see it all there in front of you, and you can tell at a glance how much of the book is devoted to which plot threads, places where perhaps you've ignored a thread for too long, and places where you might be able to introduce a new one - or even ways which you can combine threads if you have too many for the book you're writing. It's also a great way to make sure you've tied up all your threads. That's what the big black dot on card 35 above means: I've tied off plot threads pink and purple.

Not everyone likes outlining, and most outlines end up looking nothing like the finished book. But that doesn't mean there's no use for them, as I hope I've demonstrated. And not only can you use this to do a check of how you're going, getting the cards out and shuffling them around can be a great way to unstick yourself if the story feels like it's getting out of hand; a handful of white squares seems so much more manageable than nebulous story concepts colliding in your head.

So, do you outline? Why or why not? How far do you go? And would you ever consider this method?

* If you're a pantser, who absolutely cannot outline before writing, consider using this method for editing and revising instead. If you're an outliner, you can use this method then too.

Unsticking The Project

Yes, you're getting an overload of posts this week :) I do hope that's okay with you. I'm running on the theory that it's making up for all the weeks I've missed posts O:)

It's about now that I'm due to do a Think Sideways: Month Three review. I'll do that properly some time next week, but for now, I need to squee a bit :D

For the last month, I have been majorly stuck on The Project. I've forced a few chapters out, because I felt I should, but I'm well and truly in the mire of the middle. I'm sick of the whole thing: the plot seems contrived, the characters I know are thin, and I just can't see the point of plugging through the first draft when the final product is going to be so rubbish.

Enter Think Sideways, week 13.

The title, most appropriately, is "Can't I Just Kill Them All? How To Fall In Love With Your Novel A Second Time." Boy, was this what I needed this week.

Oddly, one of the main things I got out of it was something I've read before in Holly's free workshops; but it's something that bears repeating. If you're stuck, it's usually for a reason; listen to what your muse is trying to say.

In my case, dear Musey is sick of writing about characters that neither of us like or care about. Heather is flat, boring, and undeveloped. I knew that. This story was an exercise in creating a plot (much like TBAEO turned out to be an exercise in character), and I realised very early on that I had no idea who Heather was; but I kept writing anyway.

Now, in the mirey middle, that strategy isn't working any more.

But now, thanks to Think Sideways, I know how to fix it. I know how to retrace my steps to the point where things were last working well, and I know how I'm going to write the ensuing chapter differently this time.

And this time, it's going to work.

I think I might just have fallen in love again :)

September: A Month in Review

So, it has been a month of Not Getting Terribly Much Done in the way of writing, but on the other hand it was also the month of Lots of Assessment, and that was mostly all Done, so it's not like I've been slacking :)

While I haven't written much, my word count for the month is more than the month I set my minimum standard by (last December, 6119 words), so I'm happy :)

This month I have:

* Written a total of 6,700 and something words. This has included:
* 3 complete chapters of The Project, plus bits and pieces in other chapters
* The first chapter of (temporary title) Night in the Shards, the second book in my secret assassin series. (No, book one is not written yet *rolls eyes* I'm going to work on it for some of NaNo)
* Some initial work on a non-fic book I'm writing - more on that later this month :)

I have also:

* Submitted a short story to a Christmas anthology
* Begun plotting the first Edge and Gem book, now titled Sanctuary, in preparation for NaNo
* And completely reorganised, sorted, and pared down my stories, creating a new system of tracking progress that's much more efficient, and streamlines the whole process for me :) *happyhappy*
* Oh yeah, and I got an honourable mention in Allegory for Sea Foam and Blood B-)

And now, blessedly, it is October, bringing me one step closer to my longed-for November, which shall contain both NaNoWriMo, and the End of Uni Woes for another four months :) May October fly speedily on shiny gilt wings!

Think Sideways: The Dot and The Line

I was supposed to write this last week, but I realised as I was looking at it that, in a way, the dot and the line is Holly's way of looking at significance. So I decided to write the article on significance first. If you haven't read it yet, it's here.

So, first of all, what is the dot and the line? What on earth am I talking about? :)

This principle comes from week five of the Think Sideways course. By this point, I have my basic idea, I have my Sentence (logline) with the MC and their major problem, in an interesting setting, with a twist - and I'm ready to continue. What do I do next? The dot. And the line.

The Dot

The basic principle of the dot is that it's small, defined, and contained. It's different (and in some ways opposite) to the blank space around it; it's special. Extraordinary. Stop, it says. Look. Something important happens here.

The most obvious application of this is in maps - you draw a rough sketch, and you let your subconscious pepper it with dots. Then you ask the questions - why there? What happened? What's extraordinary about that place?

Extraordinary is the key word here; an important principle of pre-planning that helps you avoid over-planning is to let the ordinary speak for itself. You only need to define the extraordinary. This is where the concept relates to what I said about significance: you only need to worry about things that are significant to your story. For now, nothing else matters.

This can apply equally well to characters as to settings: For Neighbourhood Watch I shoved a metaphorical dot on my MC and asked the question. Why him? What happened? What's extraordinary about this boy?

For this story, the MC's defining trait is his jealousy for his younger brother, who is cool, confident, and rules the neighbourhood. This is the trait that kicks the story into motion; this is the trait that provides the MC with all the motivation and tenacity he needs to get himself into Really Big Trouble - from whence he will have to find his way out.

Dots can also apply to conflicts: Why this conflict? What happens? What's so special about it? In my Evil Tree Story, the one I'm developing for the Think Sideways course, the major initial conflict is that my MC Jake has to decide between helping out his girlfriend, who gets into serious, life-threatening trouble, and preserving his reputation - no too-cool teenager wants his friends to know he's out hugging trees ;) Why this conflict? Because Jake has always struggled to fit in. Because it's something he's only acheived recently, and it's something he'll fight tooth and claw to hold onto.

Because he adores his girlfriend, and would sacrifice his life for her if he had to.

Thus the dot: Stop. Look. Something important happens here.

The Line

The line has a different power to the dot. The line shows not importance, but difference. Things on one side of the line are not the same as on the other. For me, this was an easier concept to grasp - lines, difference, makes sense :) And it applies to things other than setting much more intuitively, for me.

Setting is easy. Tomorrow, when I post my maps, I'll show you my primary setting 'lines', and give a quick explanation of them. Essentially, the world on one side of the line is different to things on the other side (big surprise there, huh).

So, characters. My MC in Neighbourhood Watch was easy: his line is the line that he draws between himself and his family. He is at once ashamed of them, their poverty and low-class mannerisms, and wishes nothing more than to be disassociated from them forever, and at the same time intensely jealous of his brother's ability to lead and blend in at will. But he would never, ever admit this - his line between his family and himself is (currently) absolute. They are not his, he is not theirs; they just happen to share a house because he has no other choice.

Applying the line to conflict is a bit different: rather than saying what is different on one side of the conflict to the other (although writing this I realise that that would be a perfectly valid approach, too; what is different before the conflict as opposed to after it? What changes?), I looked at what are the lines that cause conflict.

Lines between people are an easy place to start, because often it's the person's dot - the thing that makes them special is the thing that makes them different, which causes conflict, because difference = conflict...

Take Jake for example. On the one hand, he wants to rescue his girlfriend. On the other hand, his mates don't think he ought to have anything to do with tree-hugging hippies in the first place, let alone rescue them when they 'get themselves into trouble'.

Or Heather, my MC from The Project. On the left, we have Heather, who is going to do whatever it takes - whatEVER - to save that little girl, because of her own past. On the right, we have everyone else, who thinks she's getting way too involved, and ought to a) mind her own business, b) leave it to the police, or c) at the very least not make so much trouble over it.

Conflict. Differences. The line.

Remember, this is not the be-all and the end-all of planning. This is just a neat way to kick things off, to figure out what your focus should be, to understand what it is that makes this your story, an extraordinary story, something different and special and you. It's flexible, and I don't think there's any need to feel constrained by its boundaries: if one area isn't working for you, skip it. It's okay to not know every single detail going into a story :)

Tomorrow, when I figure out how to turn my PDF scans into postable images, I'll throw up my initial workings for the Evil Tree Story, and if you can decode my writing you'll see how a couple of sketchy maps sparked the entire conflict and gave me a name for my MC :)

August - It's Over!

And hoorah, I must say. Along with May, August and September are officially the worst months of this year :|

This month something particularly irritating has been occuring - my Office trial, which came with my computer and theoretically ought to last me for 60 days, has expired not once but TWICE in the last threes weeks since I bought my laptop. Not fun.

Anyway, on to the positives :)

This month I have:

* Written 7569 words. This is the second least amount of words I've written in a month so far this year, so it's a bit dismal... But on the other hand, given my word count as of the 17th was ~1100, I've pulled it together in a not too bad way. I really wanted to get to 9,500 at least, becauase that would mean I've done 100,000 for the year, but *sigh* thus is the Uni life.
* All the above words were on TP, which means I've added 4 chapters to it. That's one short of my goal, but chapter 22 is half written and I can probably finish it before bed tonight :o) I'm looking forward to having ch22 done, because it means I'll have passed the Halfway Mark in the novel! Much excitement :)
* Made 1 submission. Haven't written anything else to submit :S

That's about it. If you wanted the list of everything I've done for uni, the list would be quite a bit longer... Hehe.

Even though it's not as much as I usually acheive, I'm still happy with it. It's been a real struggle to get any writing done this month, and I'm sniffing halfway in TP, so all is well :)

Thanks to all of you who have read my blog this month, especially the newcomers. Thanks most particularly to those of you who leave comments - it's nice to know real people are reading :o)

Here's to a better month ahead!

Eeek! It's That Time Already?!

Well, July has fast come and gone, and it's time for an update again already :)

Here's what I've acheived this month:


* 16,461 words (10,199 on The Project)
* 2 submissions (Certified and With This Ring)
* 3 short stories (Certified, With This Ring and Licence to Fly)
* 2 beginnings of shorts (Guns and Ostriches, Diary of an Octopus)
* At least one other short awaiting time to be written (Afterwards)
* 3 contests entered (Are You Hooked?, Drop the Needle, ANU Short Story)
* 2 new novels ideas (Prodigal, Battersplotch: Without Magic)
* Developed a couple of other novel ideas that have been hanging around, and done a whole heap of worldbuilding (and associated book-borrowing O:))

In non-writing life, I also survived an 18th, a 29th, a weekend at the snow and extra work hours, applying for my own job, sewing various parts of 3 costume dresses, sorting out a timetable (utter fiasco), bought an awesome vacuum cleaner, started swing dance lessons, signed up for an audition in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: The Musical, started a drama club, and finally managed to extricate the data off my old harddrive.

Yes, for all that it was supposed to be holidays, this has been a VERY busy month.

And what with uni, August and September are set to be even worse....

Bring on October, I say :)

I also received a rather exciting piece of news regarding my writing - but you have to wait until September to hear about that :)

Analysis of Openings

Meant to do this at the end of last week, but alas, it is week two of uni and already I have an essay due. But better late than never.

The format I'm using here is totally theived from Liana Brooks over at Write or Right? - with her permission, naturally ;)

This was my opening:

"Heather, you have something of mine."
I stared at my brother. I had no idea what he meant.
He stared back in silence. The years hadn't been kind to him, that much was certain. I pursed my lips at his dark, sunken eyes, unkempt hair, and too-skinny frame. Dirt clung to his shirt, and his shoes were scuffed and nearly worn through at the toes.
I frowned. "Really, Andrew. It's nice to see you and all, but" – I glanced up and down the perfectly manicured street – "did you have to show up like this?"
He shrugged and maintained his stare. "You have something of mine."
I suppressed a sigh. Better let him in before the neighbours see. I stepped aside and jerked my head.
His eyes widened briefly, but he stepped inside eagerly enough. I wondered how long it had been since he'd been somewhere warm – his hands were mottled with cold.
He hovered in the hallway, and I stepped past him and led the way to the kitchen. "Drink?"
He nodded. "Something warm would be great."
He slid onto one of the stools that edged the bench, and I turned away to rummage for the mugs and hot chocolate. "So," I said, trying to keep my voice casual. "What brings you here?" I hadn't seen him in what, ten? Eleven years, now? As I turned, mugs in hand, I caught his eye. I inhaled, hit by the intensity of his gaze.
"You have something of mine."

Comments: 26, if we discount my two :)

Hooked? 24 plus one maybe. Hoorah, there is hope! :)

Problems Cited By Critters:
* Brother is more interesting that Heather
* Lots of people wobbled at the 'hands mottled with cold' bit
* Lots of sentences start with 'he'
* Issues with Heather's actions - why does she invite him in instead of just asking what he thinks she has?
* Too many repetitions of "You have something of mine." - makes him sound robotic.

What I Can Fix:
* Both characters need a major overhaul. I know this.
* The cold hands can easily go, and sentences can be reworded to avoid 'he'

What Won't Change:
* I seriously doubt she'll just confront him on the doorstep. I still don't know her very well, but I know enough to know that that's a conversation she's NOT going to have in public ;) Besides, if she did, it would ruin the plot %-)

So, the biggest thing that needs working on here is the characterisation, which ought to iron out interest issues and also quirks in their mannerisms, such as Heather inviting him in, and him being so repetitious (or not, depending on how his character turns out).

For a long time I've been a character-focused writer, and have struggle a LOT with plot and structure. When I started writing this, it was an exercise in Making Things Happen - in plot. Consequently, the characterisation is very hazy - it seems that at the moment I can work on one or the other, but not both.

But that's okay. I can clear that up in revisions, and this novel is teaching me a whole new way of writing - and that I /can/ plot, and structure, and have coherency result :)

Overall, I'm pretty stoked with the high proportion of positive comments, and can't wait to finish this dang draft so I can get to revising.

Of course, the fact that I discovered some rather interesting details about Heather and Andrew's past two days ago has nothing to do with it O:)

Absent Because of Beginnings

Today's title is somewhat non-sensical, but I like the sound of it, so it's staying :P As it suggests, I have been a little absent from the blog this past weekend because of beginnings - one hundred and fifteen first pages, to be precise, as posted over on Miss Snark's First Victim. I'm proud to say that I've read and commented on every one, and also read what no-longer-secret agent Holly Root had to say about them all. And I'm especially proud because with the ones that I commented on before she did, we agreed on nearly every one ;)

Why is this worthy of a post, you ask? Well, my good friend and Twin of Darkness and Good, who goes by the name Liana Brooks, posted a couple of days ago about which openings she liked and why. Which made me think I ought to do a similar post, since similar thoughts have been coruscating throughout my brain for the last few days. (Yes, coruscating. They're very shiny thoughts.) I'm amazed by how much this competition has taught me, and I know that once again my own writing will be made stronger because of it.

So, what struck me about the openings that I loved, versus the openings that were just so-so? Firstly, and mostly, voice. Stories that opened with a unique, identifiable voice that was in some way quirky had me immediately. It almost didn't matter what the subject of the story actually was, if the voice was great, I was hooked. (I say almost because there was this one that had a great voice, but was about a visit to the dentist... Others liked it, but I just couldn't feel that interested. Probably because I've never had a negative experience with a dentist, I'd say.)

And this is something that I know I need to work on for TP - Heather's characterisation is still all OVER the place, and she needs a solid character with a great voice to really make the book sing. But it has potential, and I'm glad of that much :)

Other things I noticed:

* Big paragraphs of description really suck. I skim. That even relates to paragraphs that may not actually be description, but look long and dense. Hoorah for small paragraphs!
* Punctuation, grammar, and spelling really, really, really count. Especially comma slices. (Death to splices! *waves pitchfork*)

And finally, the other biggie: conflict. You may recall that I wrote an article on conflict a while back, basically saying that there are lots of types and that it's the meat and bread of a story. Beginnings are no different. Even if the beginning has a good voice, is clear of mistakes and has nice sized paras, there has to be conflict. And more, the conflict has to be relevant. There has to be a sense that the conflict portrayed matters somehow within the context of the story.

So, personal checklist for beginnings: voice, conflict, bite-sized paragraphs, and no errors. Easy! :D

And A Slight Hyperventilation Of My Own...

The Are You Hooked? contest over at Miss Snark's First Victim is well and truly up and running, with an astounding 113 entries! If you have a spare second to pop over and comment even on one or two, I'm sure everyone would be greatly appreciative. All you have to do is say whether the beginning hooked you or not, and, if you're feeling verbose, why :)

Meanwhile, I'm having a bit of a 'squee' moment of my own. This is what Secret Agent had to say about my opening:

"Yes. I might tighten a few spots (strike second line, cut to "The years hadn't been kind to my brother, that much..."; lose the second line about his clothes) but I'd want to see where this is headed."

*bounces up and down* Words cannot describe how floatily excited I am right now :D

Progress

It seems I haven't done a progress report at all yet for July, which is good, because if I just had to report on the last week's work, there wouldn't be much to say O:)

The first third of the month was great - I wrote over 10k in 10 days. Lovely. However, to make up for it, I haven't written a thing in nearly a week. There are very good reasons for this (snow trips, birthdays), but still... Ack.

Those words have been:

* About 4 chapters added to TP. Way behind where I wanted to be, but a lot better than nothing. I've been stalling in chapter 15 because of some police procedural details - I really need to push past that. But I'm still excited about having a complete plot for this thing. :)
* Short story involving platykies, a new species of mine based somewhat on selkies. Currently titled With This Ring.
* My first ever flash fiction piece! Woo, am I excited about this! An entire story, in less than 600 words :D This one's called Certified, and was inspired by a line a friend dropped on the forums the other day about being certified to raise the dead (she's a doctor-in-training).

On top of the writing, I've polished both With This Ring and Certified and sent them out as my July submissions, and entered the first page of TP into the Are You Hooked? contest over at Miss Snark's First Victim :)

So, even though I feel like I've been slack writing-wise for the past week, I guess I can't really complain :o)

June in Review

So, happy July everyone! Already - can you believe it? I'm not sure I can. The year is half over, and it feels like it's only just begun.

Anyway. What did I accomplish in this last month of the first half of the year? Let's have a look:

* Finished 1 short story, Not Fantasy. Would like to have done more, but that's okay. It's been a busy month.
* Made two submissions, SFB and Shoe. SFB required MASSIVE rewrites to get it to a sub-able stage, and I'm awfully proud of how it's turned out :)
* Very, very nearly made my goal of 15k of writing, almost all of which was done on The Project.
* Outlined a story that's been bouncing around for a while, temporarily titled Fairy Tale Ending.
* Finally, after much struggle and heartache, pegged down an outline for The Project. Am immensely happy about this.
* Began a new play, Where Your Treasure Is.

As for the year as a whole, I'm rather proud of the work that I've done so far. I think I've come quite a long way from the writer I was at the end of December - some of the highlights being the completed first draft of my first ever novel, To Be An Evil Overlord... and my entry into the world of submissions - thus far I've made 5 submissions of plays and short stories :)

I've learnt important things about structure, I'm slowly learning to pare back my overwriting, and I've managed to write more than one short story that has not only stayed short, but that I'm actually quite proud of. My total word count for the year so far is nearly 74,000 words, which is fast approaching last year's total of 102,000, which included 50,000 for nano in November. I've got plans for Nano, outlines for novels, I'm learning to recognise which stories will work and which won't, and I've discovered that I really do have something to say after all - to which end I've started and been running with reasonable success (I think ;)) this lovely blog (yes, despite the archive record, this blog was only started at the very beginning of the year).

So, what would I like to achieve in the second half of the year?

* 2 submissions per month, which is what I've so far been achieving since I began submitting in late April.
* Finish and complete at least one revision of The Project. I'm working on a TP blitz at the moment and hope to have a draft done in mid-August.
* Pare back my writing even more - stop over-writing - learn to recognise what is significant to the story, and what is not.
* Win Nano again. I'm fairly sure I'll be starting my mid-grade fantasy series for this, as it will be a big incentive to actually be able to complete a novel in under 50k.

I'm sure I'll think of more goals month-by-month, but for now, those are the big things.

And more than anything, I hope I'll continue to grow both as a writer and as a person, and that I will never lose sight of the bigger picture and what I have to say.

Thanks to all of you who read my often-rambly comments here. Your support and comments make this endeavour worthwhile :)

This Week: A TP Update

Hello, everyone! I'm officially back! Very happy to be here again :)

Rest assured, I'm working on some more meaty articles to feed to you soon, but I thought that in the meantime I'd kick the week off with a nice, easy update.

Basically, the middle ten days of June were out of action for exams and assessment. Thankfully, that is all over and passed and went much better than expected (though this is usually the case, so you'd think I'd learn to raise my expectations!), and now I can use the last ten days of June for writing again. Ah, such symmetry! :D

Possibly the biggest news is that I'm thinking of entering a competition for a manuscript assessment. The only catch (besides trying to 'describe creatively' what makes my manuscript stand out from the rest in under 100 words *pulls face*) is that I don't actually have a manuscript. So I'm making a mad dash and aiming to get TP finished by the end of July. I'm currently just shy of 18,000 words, so that's another ~65,000 words in a little over four weeks. Can we all say 'eek!'?

Really, though, I can't wait to have the draft finished. I want to know what the story is /about/, already, and how it's going to work.

What?! (I can hear the screams from here.) You don't know what it's about?

:D

Yes, I know what it's about. But only in general terms. I love this description of the writing process that Lisa Shearin posted:

First drafts are for learning what your novel is about. Revisions are for working with that knowledge to enlarge or enhance an idea, or reform it.

I love it. But it also means that trying to figure out what makes my story 'stand out' is jolly difficult without a complete first draft. Unfortunately, I only have until July 4 to enter the competition... And I don't think I'm going to have a full draft by then.

However, I am aiming for 5 chapters a week, and another 10 chapters should put me nearly at the middle of the book. So that should give me at least something more to work with than I have now :D

Wish me luck!

Updatory Things: Changes of Direction

Two direction changes today. Firstly, I seem unable to resist the urge to give weekly updates, so my 'regularly scheduled' blogging will be thrice weekly: One serial piece, one Blog-Of-The-Week, and one update.

Two-thly. The Change of Direction. *sigh* Logan.

*shakes head and determines to cease being cryptic*

Logan. For those of you that have either been reading this blog for a while, or have access to my wips (critique circle...), you'll have heard of one of my wips, Logan. Logan is a prequel-by-several-hundred-years to the story variously termed (at different points in its life) Athara's Search, Search, Messiah, and The Black Gates.

And I've just realised: it's all wrong.

For quite some time now I've been having trouble getting enthused about it; in fact, pretty much since I read Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found. MLTF is such a great, pacy book (more on that in this week's serial post) that I found myself thinking - boy, my stories are so boring. They drag. Nothing exciting actually happens.

A few days after this, I found myself writing The Project, an incredibly fun little potboiler that I decided to write as a potboiler as an exercise in Making Things Happen. So far the feedback has been extremely positive, so it seems to be working.

And I got thinking about Logan. The MC, oddly enough called Logan, bores me. The chapters bore me. And I developed this sneaking suspicion that the nine chapters I've written, which equate to nearly fourteen thousand words, were all backstory. The story doesn't actually start until chapter ten, when Logan... er, is dragged off to school. (See, no spoilers O:)).

And besides that - did I mention this? - Logan as a character bores me.

So, after some thought and discussion with a critting partner, I have come to a conclusion. Bran, Logan's 'villainous' elder brother is far more intriguing. This means I ought to write the story from his point of view.

I'm yet to get my head around how the story will start from Bran's POV, but I can already feel the tingly excitement at the prospect of getting inside Bran's head. It's one dark, twisty place to be, but at least it's interesting.

And so my change in direction. Let us hope it's for the better. %-)

Evil, Word Counts and Housekeeping

I don't know if I've mentioned, but May is the Month of All That Is Evil.

If you can correctly translate that to: 'there is way too much assessment due in the month of May and exams are fast approaching', then congratulations, you are one of the few people in the world who speak Inkish :D

Despite this fact, my writing has not been lagging /too/ much. In fact, my pretty spreadsheet informs me that I have written 868 words on Logan, 3890 on The Project, and 3591 on short stories for the practice queue.

That's 8349 total. An average of 440 words per day. And given I've only actually written 7 days out of the last 18, I think that's not too bad.

I'm also doing some housekeeping. Very shortly you should notice both an increase in the number of links in my sidebar, and with luck a better organisation system for them.

Finally, I've just come back from the best weekend I've had in months, which involved some Really Cool Books. Expect to hear more about those soon :)

April in Review

This is a little late I know, and yes I am back dating this entry - but I have to at least pretend that I'm up-to-date with something in my life at the moment O:)

So, here's what I accomplished in the month of April:

* 17,388 words total. I am absolutely stoked about this - this is my best word count ever, apart from Nano :)
* Of which, 8,842 on Logan. A little shy of the 10k I'd hoped for, but the total w.c. is so shiny that I don't really mind.
* Edited 1.5 chapters of TBAEO. Pathetic. Really, I mean pathetic. I blame it on the fact that it was all-new material, so it was in effect first draft writing, not editing. :S
* Polished In Search of Freedom. FINALLY. This was on my to-do list for JANUARY. But, happiness, I also submitted it to a publisher - my first ever query.
* One of my CC friends, in a determine attempt to teach a few of us 'I Can't Write Anything Short' people how to write shorts, started a queue where we have weekly prompts and have to write 1 story per week to a maximum word count of 3000 words. I wrote 2 stories for this (The Dress and Murder, though Murder I'd started last year). I also finished Bran prior to the establishment of this queue, and...
* Wrote something that was supposed to be a short but has turned into a new novel, now called The Project. I'm summarising it as Huxley's Brave New World meets Wells's The Time Machine, plus magic. Much fun :D
* To top it all off, I critiqued an entire novel for a friend, and stayed on top of all my uni assessment.

So, all in all a very productive month :) Here's to May! :D