Pre-Writing Jitters!

Note to self: Planning on working on just about anything after working at the booksale all day is a DUMB idea. Dumb dumb dumb. The brain, she is dead. Plus, while the getting books and being around books is indeed inspiring, it's inspiring only so far as to encourage the pursuit of writing in a general sense rather than a specific get your butt in gear sense.

So, tonight I must do the outline as the tricking costumed folk come by. After I go to the book sale AGAIN. Once I figure out how to get to the booksale. Since Visual Boy (that's the husband) is working there again this afternoon and needs me to rescue him from their clutches.

I've printed out a slew of campus maps from different sized universities, so I think I'm in pretty good shape to cobble one together. Same with the dorm rooms, I've gotten a bunch of floor plans for them which is good. It seems like there's a standard style of the layouts between three options, which is also good. It'll mean that the descriptions will be kind of universal on the way the room is put together.

I also need to come up with a little bit of area history to help with naming the buildings, though some of that I can just do on the fly I think. As long as I keep it consistant.

But, tomorrow's the big day! The sitting down and starting day! Hopefully I'll get the rest of this stuff done in time. :p

The Lessons of the Flu

Well, here we are again, like in olden days. Happy golden days of yore. Or something.

Our cautionary tale today regards what happens to your writing schedule when you get the flu.

I ended up getting behind this weekend because the people that I was supposed to be workshopping with weren't at the point that I was on their projects. So, instead of getting to the outlining point that I needed to be at, we ended up just being at the brainstorming point for getting things going for them. What lesson did I learn from this adventure... I should have broken off and done my own thing. Since we'd decided in advance what we were supposed to be at the point of doing, and I was the only one there, I obviously wasn't going to be able to get the help from them that I wanted. Or, at least, I should've known that that was a definite possibility. I was glad to help them out, and that's part of the fun of workshopping, but in the end I didn't feel like I really got very far.

It wasn't a total loss, what we ended up doing was another Holly Lisle workshop on outlining which approached it from a different angle than my earlier synopsis workshop and helped add in a couple of things. The idea of 'candy bar' scenes was really great for the novel I'm working on.

Then, I caught the flu. This was bad enough that it meant I stayed home from work on Monday all day, only came in for a partial day on Tuesday, and then was home all day on Wednesday as well. I'm doing much better now. Just in time for the public library booksale that I'm a volunteer at all weekend long. The good news is that being surrounded by books generally means that I get inspired, so hopefully since the sale doesn't run too late (in fact it's probably more like I'm at work for a half day really) I'll still be able to get plenty done this weekend. But, I'm way behind.

Lesson learned from this, it's good to plan in that wiggle room so that when you get sick, you aren't behind. Now, I'm behind. I'm not so far behind that I think it's going to eat my lunch, but I'm enough behind that it's starting to worry me. I've got some pretty basic stuff left to figure out yet, and hopefully they'll fly by, but if they don't...

One of the things I need is a name for my book! So, here's my mini pitch:

Tilly is a freshman off to the big city to start at the U with her cousin. Everything seems to be going great until she wrecks her car over fall break, ends up in the hospital, and wakes up with super powers! It was bad enough when all she had to figure out was how to make it from one side of campus to the other, get a date with the cute guy from Bio lab, and nail her audition for her first college production, but now she's got to figure out how not to flood her dorm room when she has a nightmare on top of it!

The ones I've got so far are:

A Boy, a Girl, and Her Superpowers
Your Average Super Hero Freshman

This is, of course, just a working title. But, I'm horrible with working titles. So, thoughts?

TGIF!

We made it to the end of the week, my little novel and I. Last night was a tough one. We went over to my mother-in-law's for dinner and with full tummies they went to look at stuff on the interweb and I sat down with my notebook to put some stuff into it with a trusty holepuncher.

The good part of this was, I had done research at work during the day for some things I needed to puzzle out, and had gotten some good stuff that I wanted to file in my trusty notebook. And, since they have an 'Experts' board over on NaNoWriMo I found two people to answer my genetics questions that have been worrying in the back of my mind about putting together my book. So, I got to ask people who have a chance of knowing the answers some questions that I'll hopefully get answers to in the next few days.

Bad side, I got to turn on the idiot box and watch HGTV, which is like my reality show addiction. "I just want to see how this room comes out!" It's horrible. It's also a good thing I don't have it at home to distract me. What that meant was, when they got done working on stuff on the computer and asked if I wanted to watch more Battlestar Galactica, I had to be the party pooper and say that I needed to go home and get some work done.

However, my wonderful husband supported me and got right up and said that I was right and we should go. So I collected my writing implements and we said our goodbyes and headed home. To where I then had to set up again and get ready to get down to it. Starting was tricky. I was already pretty tired, and my tummy was still full, and I just wanted to go lay down on the couch and watch tv.

But, I didn't.

Instead not only did I get through my Carmichael Plotting/Synopsis Workshop and end up with a basic outline, but I also did the family tree for my characters that I'm going to need for later. I'll want to enter in some information into my mom's geneology program from what I've figured out so far, but I don't have to do that right away.

So for the weekend, my plan is to have a more expansive outine session on Sunday with the post-it notes workshop thing, and work on my conflicts a little more to flesh them out.

Moving Right Along

Last night was more of the same. I finished up the character profiles on the girls and the villain, so hopefully tonight I'll be able to get into my plotting templates.

Ideas for stuff come up at the weirdest places though. I did this quiz about telling the difference between a serial killer and a computer programmer based on their pictures (of which I got a 7 out of 10) this morning. Then when I went back to empty my bulk email, I found a message about sending away for 'A bunch of Halloween goodies'. So... this got me to thinking. What if there was a serial killer who went trolling for people by sending out spam emails about free giveaways, got their addresses and profiles, and then went to their houses on Halloween... *shudder* So, there you go. Halloween creepies for everyone to share!

Characteristically

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to try and work on my five point outline and characterization if I needed it. Well, I needed it. I realized as I was working through the really cool workshop by Kathy Carmichael (which I'll talk about more when I finish it), I didn't know enough about why my characters were doing what they were doing.

What's Tilly's major? What's the boyfriend doing in the sciences? What kinds of reactions is Tilly's cousin going to have to things?

Ergo, I started off on the outline workshop crib sheets and went directly to the much longer characterization worksheets instead. I started off with the boyfriend because for some reason he seemed easier than either of the cousins or the professor. Which he was for the most part. I got through the lion's share of his questions and since that took me an hour, I decided to take a shower before moving on to the next one.

Pondering things in the shower, my mind ended up turning to my villain, which was good because I hadn't really figured his angle out yet. That meant that when I was done with the shower, getting through his questions took about half the time it had taken before. I also came up with Tilly's major, which I think is going to make things interesting and helps out a lot to figure out where she's coming from.

Now I have most of Tilly's stuff left and her cousin's stuff all together that I'll work on tonight. The boy (who's also trying to do NaNoWriMo) and I have set Sunday aside as a group prewriting day, so I want to have some major scene points figured out by then so that I can do the post-it outline system to fill in things that Nancy Cochran came up with (or at least that's where I heard it from). That'll leave me the week before Halloween weekend for research.

T Minus 13 Days

So, we're at the 13 day mark. I'm not going to say I'm positive that I can get through all the prewriting I want to so I can sit right down on the first and kick on my novel writing playlist, but I'm certainly getting closer. And I don't feel like I'm not going to make it. Maybe I won't have absolutely everything done, but maybe I plan too much.

So.

Last night I worked through Holly Lilse's Pre-Writing Questions. If you haven't gotten to look at any of her workshops, you might check them out. Not all of her stuff works for me, but a lot of it is designed for fantasy writing, which isn't what I'm doing right now.

I'm also not as visual a thinker as she is, and I don't cluster well. So I did the same questions in an outline format instead. They worked out pretty well, and gave me some insight into things that are going to be helpful I think. I need to go through and do some of the questions for one more character, though, I realized this morning. I left off Tilly's cousin who's going to be her partner in crime through the whole novel. So she'll be good to flesh out a lot more.

I also named everybody. Well, the characters I know about so far. And while the names may not stick, they'll be helpful for when I'm plotting and stuff. It's much easier to write "Peter" rather than "The Biology lab tech Tilly gets a crush on that works with the evil professor" over and over again.

I think tonight I'm going to either work on a five point outline, or characterization. I also might end up bouncing back and forth since I think I've got a handle on a lot of my character elements, but I don't have the details nailed down. So as I'm plotting I might need bits. But, I might get into it and not.

The Best Laid Plans

Alrighty, so since someone is quite interested in seeing a post about this weekend, I'd best get it written up.

This weekend my plan was to work on my more detailed outline and get started on character information. So, I dutifully went home on Friday afternoon and pulled out my Prewriting Notebook with all my Prewriting Articles and Forms (With tabs organizing them no less. And information indexes. There's a theory here that I'll get to sometime, but it isn't particularly exciting and I have other things to say today.)

Inside my file was a great article by Jennifer Crusie about doing a prewriting collage. I'd copied it out of the magazine I have it in so that when I was doing my next prewriting project I wouldn't have to find it, it'd be right there in my prewriting folder.

"Wow!" I thought, "This is perfect! I'm doing this highly visual superhero thing with my next project, what else could be better for prewriting than doing a collage?!?"

So, I reread my article, found my cheap board book that I had kept in reserve for my next collage project, and pulled out my boxes of collage magazines. I got all set up on the floor, spreading the boxes out and getting my trusty scissors as well as a plastic envelope to keep all my clippings in until I had enough to start arranging them and gluing them down.

Nothing.

I found a handful of images in the copious magazines that I had on hand. And that's including a pile of comic book catalogues that I had left over from my days as a comic schiller.

"That's okay," I thought, "I'll just go to the library and look at some different magazines since these seem to be for a different demographic than the one my novel seems to be working in. Then I can pick out some to buy at the store if I need to."

Nada.

I looked at entertainment magazines, fashion magazines, stuff with bright colors. None of it jumped out at me as something that would go with my book.

So, apparently, the collage for this book is not meant to be. Which is too bad, because I think it'd be really helpful. But, that's just the way it goes sometimes I guess. Instead, I think I'll try doing a blocking technique after I've gotten my outline drawn up that I read about in a couple books on writing for comics, giving a snapshot of the scenes kind of like the boards for a movie before it starts shooting.

What I did get done, however:

I started naming my characters: Our heroine is named Tilly which is short for Matilda, a good German name that she received in honor of her paternal grandmother. The woman she adores, the name she hates. I came up with a couple other names for some of the cast that I have written down at home as well, but don't have character significance at this moment.

I got a cool idea for a completely different book series when I went to see my best friend at her reading table at the psychic fair. Which I did not allow to derail me from my current project and instead just wrote down on a notecard for my ideas folder.

I went to see Serenity again, which is fast becoming my favorite movie even though I'm grumpy about people having bad things happen that can't be fixed later. If you've seen it, you can probably guess who.

Tonight: Helping with the Romance section of the Library Book Sale setup, and then going home and trying to get more of my plot questions answered while my husband cooks dinner.

In the Beginning...

So far my need to write something down to have something to write about has been a success. Of course, we're only on the first day.

Last night I came up with the basic plot outline for my book. It's not all filled in yet, but it's got a beginning and a middle and an end. And even some character points. The characters all still need names, though. I'll have to work on that.

This weekend the plan is to do the five point outline, and then start on the character stuff. We'll see how this goes.

I'll hopefully have something to report on Monday.

What's the Big Idea?

Well, it's this. I've decided this month to participate in National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. Or, in my house, Book in a Month because it's shorter and for some reason easier for me to say. I think it's the Ns. Anyway. I've decided to help chronicle my process on a blog, so when I look back later on and say, 'Oh, that was so easy!' I'll remember the days of agony. Or, if it turns out to be a breeze, help keep myself from getting excuses and not doing it again!

But, you may notice, that NaNoWriMo doesn't actually start until November. Which is not October. I worked that out myself. Well, I decided that October would be prewriting month. Because unlike some of my illustrious (and already published) colleagues, I can't pants. If I don't have an outline, I sit in front of the blank computer screen like a drooling idiot for a long while and/or mess around with my playlist on my RealPlayer and don't actually get anything accomplished before the dinner bell rings. (I don't actually have a bell for dinner. But, we did when I was growing up. Anyway.)

So, I decided this back in August. Which is also not October. Nor is it September. But, today is nearly the middle of October, so I best get myself in gear. Because 'Incomplete prewriting will not excuse you!' as Prof. Snape would say. So, here we go. I went through and put together my prewriting notebook with my prewriting forms (yes, I'm that OCD) last night. Tonight, I'm going to sit down and at least get going with them, filling in what I've got so far.

We'll just say it's Super.