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Post-Hiatus! Draft 6 Edit Process in review
Well, that was a lovely hiatus, but I figured I’d come back 😉 It’s been four months, after all! It was such a beautiful morning when I started writing this post, I had to wander into my yard and take some photos of daffodils glowing in the early, rising sun. It so beautifully represented a fresh start to an exciting new year, hence the flower picture for this post’s header. A lot has happened during my hiatus, even in the past few days (some good, some frustrating) but I’m happy to report that despite various time sucks and fluctuating motivation, my writing hiatus was very successful! Regardless of what I…
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Why NaNoWriMo is Awesome
November 1st marks a very auspicious day for writers around the world; it is the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a glorious month-long holiday that encourages everyone with a story inside of them to put it down on paper. The plan is to come out with 50,000 words by the end of the month, which is quite an endeavor, but with the encouragement of others on the internet, or even in your home city, it’s a worthy goal that leaves you with a great feeling of accomplishment. It’s been the most encouraging thing to happen to my writing in a long time. In college I didn’t have time…
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Infusing my Writing Process with More Technology
I’m super pleased with a new plot/story organizing software I found called SuperNotecard. It’s pretty much amazing and it’s helping me organize Book 2! Also, for some reason WordPress ate my awesome entry on “The Butterfly Circus.” Will remedy when I recover from the shock ;P
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Software of the Trade
Well, Mr. P. Phil, it’s flippin’ cold outside. I hope the weather starts acting its season, or no amount of April Showers will bring May Flowers. Cold weather just makes me want to go out LESS than I do anyway, but at least it’s sunny right now. Makes staying inside and writing more enticing, and since I finally had a breakthrough with my editor’s block, I no longer feel like my head will explode if I try to roll the plot around. This is a good thing ^_^ Well, I’ve been getting the emails again! It must be almost Screnzy season! Also, who is their designer? They rock! I won’t…
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New Years Resolutions for a Write-Tastic 2011
My writing resolutions for the new year. I also discuss the joys of Evernote and a video idea that is happily unfinished.
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Writing Dialogue Tips
Had this convo with a writer friend Ben, who I’ve collaborated with on blogs before, and figured I’d post up what I told him, for anyone else who’s curious about dialogue. PS: I’m planning a new vlog for posting on the 19th! Ben: How do you handle dialogue? Me: I write it as it comes out of my head, depending on what I believe a character would say, and then read it aloud later. Often I don’t read it aloud til [someone] reminds me, but it REALLY helps you figure out how it flows [to read it aloud]. Ben: I bet. That’s a good idea. I cringe at all my…
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Book Byte: Painless Learning!
Happy school year, guys! It’s the weekend and I’m posting an entry about SCHOOL! YAAAY! It’s just that the past few weeks I’ve been getting nostalgic flashbacks of buying school supplies and books, and the morning bustle of my dad, me and my sister getting ready for work and school as my mom rushed around helping all of us out get out the door on time. I remember on very rainy days the house seemed so cozy, and everything about our morning ritual just seemed…strangely perfect. There was a homey bustle to the start of school that I loved then and now. *happy sigh* Okay, so I haven’t been in…
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April LOLs Day (& some writer link spam)
Usually I avoid April Fool’s Day as much as possible, but for whatever reason, feeling cheeky today, I posted an April Fool’s joke telling all my personal Facebook friends that I was getting published by Random House. When I clarified that it was a joke, there was talk of medieval torture and witch burnings XD Had a fun instant message conversation with a friend about it that I wanted to share: Friend (F): Shouldn’t you be on a hawaiian yacht or something, celebrating your contract? 😛 I mean, you couldn’t have possibly been kidding, right? Me (C): ^_~ No! of course I couldn’t have possibly…trust me, I would have broadcast…
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Script Frenzy!!!
Today I got an email from the people who brought you such writing joys as NaNoWriMo, announcing their newest writing project! { SCRIPT FRENZY } Â Similar idea to the wildly successful National Novel Writing Month, but with script writing! You have 30 days to write a 100-page script about anything of your choice! As I am also writing a script for an upcoming webcomic, I jumped right in! I have a head start, but I figured writing 100 MORE pages would encourage me to get it all done faster! I’m picking up a few pointers in the way of a writing a comic strip script here. If you go…
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A Little Bit of Everything
Oh man, I’ve been meaning to post this entry last month! I’ve been thinking about/doing a lot of things lately, so I hope you’ll forgive the discombobulatedness of this entry! Blogging really is my favorite way to keep the writing alive when I’m not actually “writing,” but doing more “editing.” It makes me feel more productive when I have something published on my blog, or when I’m making plans for it ^_^ My story has been keeping me busy, but lately I’ve been doing much more job hunting, so I’ve made less time for it than I’d like. Speaking of blogging, one of my writer friends, Morgan Riley, mentioned to…
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The Show Must Go On
Lots of things to do today, and the brilliant writing ideas are lacking, so yeah, good timing, actually. The ideas should come once I have an opportunity to stay pretty much solely focused on writing. However, while waiting for that, I’ve discovered StoryCasting.com, where you can draw up a dream cast of your favorite actors to portray characters in your favorite books! Sadly, they don’t have a choice of obscure actors, but it’s really fun!
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Fun Things to Do On the NaNo Site
In addition to writing and updating my word count every day, there are a few little things that have been distracting me on the NaNoWriMo site: The Word Count Scoreboard A lot cooler than it sounds, you can see which world region is writing the most words per day. For example, today I am quite amused that #1 Germany; #2 Maryland, US; #3 Seattle, Washington, US is the lineup. Forums Not as recently, but it’s the best way to keep in touch with all the other NaNo-ers (I keep thinking “Nanoo-nanoo” from Mork & Mindy whenever I type “NaNo”). They have places where you can work out your ideas with…
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*Paces*
I have all the strict ideas down on paper: the ones that have refused to leave my head while I wrote the other one. The rest won’t come, I don’t think, until I start writing in November. How terribly frustrating. Sometimes you need to just write, the act of writing will somehow work everything out in the end. That alone can often do me more good than a planning session: things will fall out of the sky that I never suspected just because I am writing. Alas, I must bide my time til Nov. 1. Well, at least I won’t have time to mope about Halloween ending! {Edited 10/23/09} I…
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Southern Book Festival
Despite how unprepared I was for the chillier-than-expected weather, my two friends and I descended on the festival with high spirits! I came away with a few new books, accessories, and new contacts that I hope will pan out in the future! It really reminded me of all the work that is ahead of me. Getting published is no easy thing, yet, like an ever-optimistic character from an anime cartoon (glittery eyes and all) I whisper, “I can do it! I will do it!” before the title credits roll. I’ll just have to see how the next episode pans out. Vive les livres!
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Still Here, I Promise!
Twitter has eaten my proper blogging again! Writing Process Update: I’m onto Chapter 24!!!! The best part is, I forsee Ch. 25 being the last one in the book, so I am VERY close to being done! Things of Note: I’ve been doing a lot of web-wandering for writerly resources, and I found an awesome listing of 101 Best Websites for Writers from Writer’s Digest Magazine. This list is amazing, and it covers everything from databases of publishers, to sites that tell you about publishing scams, to little ways to spark your muse! Definitely worth checking out! And for all of you who have been wanting to start a blog,…
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When Characters Have a Mind of Their Own
I was talking with another writer friend last night, and he was telling me how frustrating it is when characters develop and change as you write them, and they mess up all your nice plans for the story’s direction. There can be nothing more frustrating, trust me :-), yet I like to look at it as a challenge. You really WANT to listen to your characters, or if you’d rather, your intuition about your characters. It’s so important if you want your story to be genuine, original and true. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, especially to creative types who like to plan ahead! Some of my characters start off one…
Artist, Author, Geek
