NaNoWriMo

Last week I became an official participant in this year’s National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th. I’m up for the challenge, but first I’m searching for the right story idea to work on in November. I have about 10 blurbs from my ideas folder to think about, and I may use some free writing time to see if something interesting comes along. Here’s a link to the NaNoWriMo website if you are interested in finding out more or signing up: http://www.nanowrimo.org

Has anyone else participated in NaNoWriMo before? Did you meet the goal? Did you work up a plot and develop characters beforehand or did you fly by the seat of your pants?

 

Brain Drain

Revisions drain my brain.  Everyday I end my revision work feeling exhausted and unable to concentrate on anything too intense.  If you think the actual writing of a story is tough wait until you start revising.  When starting a new project I take some time to get to know a little something about my characters and their past.  I also put together a loose plot.  Here is where we start. Here is where we will end up. And here are a few of the major attractions to visit along the way. After that I put the car and drive and see where the road takes me.  The writing flows along until the end of the trip.

Revising is like looking at your pictures of your trip and deciding which ones to include in your slide show. I look over each scene and analyze the good and not so good in each.  Would this picture be better with a little cropping or should it just be discarded?  Should the scenes be placed in the order in which they were written or should I mix it up a bit? Does the scene have the right objective, but the wrong outcome?  Are the obstacles too big to overcome or are they too small to be of interest?  Using all of these observation and analysis skills drain my brain of energy and I walk away feeling it.  But in the end I hope to have a manuscript that makes the exhaustion and the headaches seem trivial, and a story ten times more interesting than any vacation slide show I’ve ever seen.

 

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to all.  I hope that everyone can take time today to remember those who have fought for our country as well as those in our families who are no longer with us.  Revising on my first book is progressing, but today is a day off.  We have a parade this morning and then I will spend some time with family afterwards.  I hope your day is filled with fun, good memories and peace.

 

Organization

On another blog that I follow the discussion centered around how to organize the disorganized.  The subject got me looking around my own space and I decided a little spring cleaning and reorganizing needed to be done.  Truthfully the dusting and cleaning was needed more than the organization, but while I was removing books and trinkets from their shelves I decided to move and reorganize some it.  I am on my second day and will probably take a third day to complete.  Along with the reorganization I am also cataloguing my books.  After that I want to learn to more efficiently use my OneNote Program.  It makes me wonder, when will I get to my revisions?  How about you is your desk neat and tidy or do you function best in an organized chaos?

 

New Puppy

This week we welcomed a new member to our family.  His name is Max and he is 6 month old labradoodle.  He is definitely more active than our Newfs were when they were puppies.  His addition to our household has interrupted my writing this week, but I am still making progress.  I have recruited another friend to be part of my reading team and as soon as my critique partner Alice has read through my revisions I will be able to get my new reader some of my chapters.  I am still working out my revision process as I work with my first book.  I have never revised a novel length piece of writing.  I hope that by the start of revisions on my second book that my process will be set, and revisions will take less time with better results.  With 8 people, 5 cats, the older Newf and the new puppy it will be tricky.  Wish me luck.

 

April Update

Today is my daughter Rachel’s birthday.  She turns 25 which is unusual since I am only 29.  I have been working through a cold since early March and have finally beaten it.  My cough kept me busy and away from my typing and revisions, and then I had muscle pain that resulted from all the coughing.  My revising is back on track though and I plan to get to some typing today.  I hand write everything, and then transcribe it into my computer which means that I still have a few pages of story #2 left to type.  Why do I write everything long hand?  The answer is flow.  My writing flows better when I connect hand to pen and pen to paper.   When I type my thoughts come out in letters and does not flow very well. I get caught up in going back and fixing every typo and fragment that my computer flags.  I am also super conscious of my fingers typing a wrong letter and I am compelled to go back and correct it immediately.  All of these things stall the flow of the story so I am stuck with doing double duty for now.  How about the rest of you writers, do you write everything out long hand or do you compose right into the computer?  I am always fascinated to learn about other writers’ techniques.

 

Finish Story # 2

Last Friday I finished the first draft of my second story.  All this week I have been working on transcribing my handwritten story into my computer.  It will be at least another week until I have it all typed in, but I am enjoying the hard work.  I am also reading over story #1 in an effort to start the revision process.  The read through will take me several days as well, but after that I will get down the serious work of revising.  One of the tasks I am doing while I  reread my story is to make notes about the revision, making notes to insure continuity between the two stories since they are part of a series and lastly I am writing down a list of the terms that are specific to the time and setting of the stories.  Since finishing the writing of story #2 I have felt as if my routine has been disrupted, but I am trying to adapt to the changes.  It is either adapt or start writing another story to fill in my routine.  I have several ideas to ponder.   Hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

I’m Smokin’

I have been smokin’ through my mss.  I have already written 26 pages this week which is above my average weekly goal.  I plan to wrap up Draft #1 of historical romance #2 by the end of February, and then it is revise, revise, revise.  Both mss need to go through revisions, and after that I will have a couple of people read and give feedback.  Maybe by this summer I can go shopping for an agent or publisher.  I still have a long way to go to reach a publishing goal, but this month my tires are smokin’ hot.  Hope the cops don’t pull me over.

 

Rolling Along

I had a mild setback at the end of last week and I came up 2 pages short of my weekly goal.  Today is a new day and a new week.  I wrote 3 pages so far today and plan more for later.  My husband and son started their Spring Semester today so my time will once again grow a little tight, but I am on a good schedule that allows me to write my pages before the house wakes up.  I would also like to update my blog more often and will try to get in here on a more regular basis.  I now have 3/4 of my second mss finished.  I plan to finish it by the end of February and then I have revisions to do.

 

Writing Again

The Holidays are over and I have started to get back on my writing schedule.  So far I have written almost as many pages in January as I did in the whole month of December.  Switching my writing time and my journaling time around has worked well.  I will keep on this schedule and hope that it continues to increase my productivity.