A lot of scene writing advice will talk about the Goal to Decision cycle - they call it a lot of different things actually, but it comes down to a scene needs a point or it shouldn't be there. E.G. character or group of characters trying to achieve something, something goes awry, plan fails, next plan. Sounds pretty straightforward, but I've discovered that it can be more challenging than it first appears.
In the midst of all this, I had my own goal-conflict-disaster happen. The system I've been using for my scene drafting, which automatically saves regularly and that I had been pushing the save button on regularly (like this foreshadowing?) Well, it crashed on me and when I opened it up, a days worth of work was gone. What they don't tell you in this scene advice is just how fast a character (or the author in this case) can manage to make it through the seven stages of grief - I think I managed it in about twelve minutes. I am happy to say that while I really wanted to cry and then go to bed, possibly chucking the whole project on the way, I in fact stayed up another half hour or so, re-blocked the scenes I'd worked on and generally came out of the disaster about even. My goal was to get whatever I could remember about what I'd already planned back down so I didn't forget it after I slept, and overall, I did ok. Not all the words are the same, but I think I got the gist of everything. The loser in all this is the program that I'd been using up to this point to work on the project. I realized when I approached my work today that I no longer trusted the platform to work as it should and that was interfering with my writing. I have been waffling back and forth between two systems - the one that failed me was much more structured and walked you through the process, step by step, with lots of automation and hand holding. This is great, but can be a little too much, when sometime you want to skip around or the steps seem too small to be practical. Think trying to actually follow a recipe that looks like those writing experiments we did in middle school where we had to, very precisely, write out the exact instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich. I've owned Scrivener for a while and it was always a little TOO open, you could do too much with a lot less guidance and that was overwhelming. So today, I cheated. I walked through the old system's hand holding steps and took notes, then created Scrivener templates to help me remember those steps in the future. Plus, I gotta say I REALLY prefer Scrivener's interface - so much easier to see and visualize everything. So yea, no words today, but hopefully good steps to keep the words flowing in the future.
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Had a little bit of a mental hiccup in the past 24 hours regarding short fiction - is it for me. I've always been pretty negative on short fiction, neither being called to read or write it, however, so many articles and advice seems to start with short fiction. Why? Because it gets your feet wet in the writing world in something a little more on the bite-sized scale. Publishing too - you can go through a lot of the same trials, getting an editor, getting in front of people, etc without the intense investment of time and energy in the project. Short fiction, in theory should help you tighten your prose and really focus on what's important, because, well, it's short! You have a lot less room to dick about getting to the point. hHis will then translate later when you start moving to longer formats - that's the theory anyway; I mean, it sounds legit enough. Plus, you can use it to build your platform/CV to make it easier to sell larger works down the line. So the dilemma then became, should I be working on short fiction instead of my novel? This, however, felt like my little skeptical side trying to stall on me tackling the novel and all and I'm leery of going there. When I asked around, I got mixed messages. Half the people totally agreed that starting with short form was a good way to go; everyone else said go with what speaks to you, which of course I like because it's how I was headed, but also feels a little artsy-hippie to be practical. Not entirely so, but maybe just a wee bit. So... I think I'm going to stick with my current plan. 45,000 words in April, breathe in May, figure out any plot holes and major issues, etc. Another 45,000 in June and HOPEFULLY that should round out a VERY ROUGH first draft. Then I can spend the Summer of Short Fiction (has a nice ring to it) working on story prompts, etc. This time should give me some good practice to work on sharpening my writing and, let's face it, asking someone to read and critique a 2000 word story is WAY easier than at 90,000 word novel! I'm taking a bit of advice straight from Stephen King's On Writing, where he endorses finishing the draft and then putting it away for a while. Don't think about it or read it and definitely don't show it to anyone. Just let is rest, like bread dough. Then later, when you've almost forgotten all the details and such, go back and read it. This will give you the ability to be a little more critical with it, and see ita for what it is, not for what it was when it was still just voices in your head. This is my summer plan.
Given that my genres of interest (at this point) are romance and fantasy, I think I'll probably work on some short form fantasy since short form romance feels a little... tantric, ifyou know what I mean. What will be interesting, is that I don't really know how short fiction works, since the idea of putting down a fully-formed story in just a page or two is beyond me. Guess I'll have to include some reading in that Summer of Short Fiction plan as well... maybe a little in May just to kick things off. Of course, one of the other frustrating things I'm getting, beyond I may very well be starting in the wrong format, is the general consensus is that your first work, regardless of genre or format, is almost ALWAYS AWFUL. That's a little disheartening. I mean, I really like my idea and I hate the idea that I will be wasting it by using it now. But then again, who wants to write about something they don't care about? That pretty much guarantees it's going to suck, doesn't it? But still, I'm hopeful that after all is said and done that maybe there will be something there to salvage and I can still make it work... eventually. As I mentioned in my first post, I discovered 4thewords through a check-in post on the Virtual Shut Up and Write! chapter. Someone mentioned that they used it for their word sprints and such and that the premise was that you had limited time to get so many words down to defeat creatures, gather loot, level up your character, complete quests, etc. much like a video game. Without even seeing it, I was hooked. You mean I can get in my video game fix AND write my words for the day? No feeling guilty for playing when I knew I should be working? No attempting to work when I really wanted to be playing?? I really could have the best of both!
And here I am. I'm not quite to a place with my WIP that I can sit down and just go to town with the words yet. (This whole planning out a story is new for me and a the stuff of another post.) So what does a girl with a new toy do? She improvises! Nothing says that the words I write have to be for my WIP, what about my blog posts? That's writing. And thus these first blog posts (and I imagine many MANY more to come) are born in 4thewords. For any writer/gamers (or anyone for that matter) looking to find out more, I will tell you, it's pretty simplistic, but then again, so are all those typing games like Shark Fingers and Typing attack, but it's WAY more fun than not! The idea is that you defeat monsters by typing X number of words in Y minutes - different monsters have different word counts and time limits, some even are sprints where it's an endurance race to type for, say, 15 minutes. You get loot dropped by monsters that can be used to craft equipment or complete quests. There are also wing bonuses for streaks - yes, you heard me right, wings. You literally get wings for your avatar for writing every day for so long in a row. The longer your write, the cooler the wings. Not kidding, after just two weeks you get your first set and if you write every day for a year, you get angel wings! Not super-complex or anything, but it's an added nudge to get me writing so I'll take it. Beyond the game, they do have forums with resources on editing, writing, marketing, etc plus special limited time events to complete quests and get cool stuff. As with so many things, the first taste is free. You get 30 days free, then you buy more time by spending crystals, and you get crystals through cash, but it's not terrible - works out to about $4 per month if you buy monthly, less than $40 for the year so if you're into that sort of thing and it helps motivate you get to words on paper, then cool. Annnnnd.... on the off change you are interested and wanna help a girl out, there are referral codes you can enter when you sign up to give me a little credit. (BNCHC31096) If you do sign up, be sure to let me know! I wanna give you a thank you shout out! This blog isn't starting a the beginning of my writing or even at the beginning of my writing of my current WIP (work in progress) but it's starting now. Why now? Well, I was SUPPOSED to be on my dream vacation to India for two weeks for my husband, in celebration of our twenty fifth wedding anniversary and my fiftieth birthday. However, almost forty eight hours to the minute before we were supposed to arrive at the Dallas airport to start our adventure, I get a call from our tour company that India has just revoked all tourist visas until at least April 15th in an effort to combat the current Corona virus (COVID-19) growing pandemic.
Heartbroken, we opted for a long weekend in the Texas hill country on a mini-vacation to try and get over the disappointment. Over the course of the four days in this idyllic setting, we've watched the growing numbers and mounting panic with insane runs on toilet paper and bottled water (not sure WHY those are in short supply), gotten reports on friends who will certainly be effected by closures and cancellations of events and gathering, had calls to discuss what this means for family finances for all the siblings and parents and tried to avoid Facebook as much as possible (I have been much more successful than the hubby.) There have been bright spots for me, however, as well. I joined a Virtual chapter of Shut Up and Write!, where a Daily Check-in post mentioned a fun site called 4thewords (I'll talk about that later.) Also spent a ton of time watching the various podcasts from the Self Publishing Conference that was moved from in person in London, to online (which I was guiltily pleased about since I got to participate that way) and I actually got a lot of work done on my WIP, with inspiration coming sometimes in the middle of the night - causing me to get out of bed, trek through the house in the dark to the laptop to jot down my thoughts since I KNEW they'd be gone by morning; and sometimes post-nap - I literally work up from a nap on Friday to discover I'd figured out how to end my book while sleeping! If only that worked all the time! In general, it's been a rough week with SO many changes and upheavals, it's hard to know where to land. However, with working from home a strong suggestion from all sides, and the vacation that was my mile marker for so much of my writing journey (I'll start on X AFTER we get back from India...) now postponed indefinitely this seems like the perfect time to double down and start working on this new adventure in earnest. Taking a page from a number of the speakers in the SelfPubCon who suggest starting with goals, here we go...
Finally, we come to branding/platform/name, whatever you want to call it - getting my name out there. Hence, me starting this blog/website to talk about my writing journey with this first (and hopefully many subsequent books), my research, the publishing arena, other resources, etc. I know there is a lot that I've taken notes on or downloaded a e-book about that I need to think about and work on, but that's for tomorrow. Looking forward to sharing this journey |
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