Monday, November 24, 2014

Nanowrimo 2014 Win!

Yes, I won yet again.  Did you?  Anything written (even if not 50K) should be a personal win, after all it's more than you may normally have written this month. 

I reached 50,099 words yesterday and yet, after 9 Nanowrimo wins I have yet to be proud of a story that I'd share with others. 

Why is that? 

Editing is the key and I've yet to commit to edit through one of my drafts.  I did give it a go one year but still was not comfortable with the final story. 

Maybe I'll change things up this year and re-write my life story to reflect a guy who actually publishes a story one day.  It's all up to us to change things up. 

Good luck.  I hope there are a lot of other writers out there who have won whether at Nanowrimo or elsewhere. 

There is still time in the month to win at Nano. 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Hang in there.

It's the 10th day of Nanowrimo and I'm still ahead in my word count. 

Mustn't jinx myself but I'm doing okay with my story.  Again Hiveword has been a great help and I have learnt a lot from pbackwriter too (an actual multi-book author who has lots of learning guides and posts for those of us not quite there yet). 

I remind myself constantly to keep writing every day, especially when competing in Nano.  My problem, among the many, is that once I hit 50K I tend to lose focus on my story. 

Maybe this year I will actually edit and fine tune a story into something publishable.  What a nice dream. 

Maybe this year will finally be different. 

Friday, October 31, 2014

Countdown to Nanowrimo

Argh, we are almost ready to write for Nano and I feel like I'm not... ready. 

I managed to pull an outline together (thank you Hiveword) but my character motives, my settings, my story world could use a lot of thinking today. 

A few of my friends tell me that a lot of people must cheat to win during Nanowrimo.  And what if they do?  It's more important for me to know that I don't cheat as participants are allowed to prep with outlines, etc as long as no actual story writing is done till tomorrow. 

I'll be using paperback writer's 3 questions technique to develop my characters. 

The idea of Nanowrimo is to have lots of fun. 

I'll need to repeat this to myself all through the first week of November and then it'll be easy (easier?) to get through the month. 

Good luck. 

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Story Structure post on YouTube

Dan Wells has a some great YouTube videos on Story Structure.

If you need help with figuring out the acts of your story check this out.  It's helped me and got me excited about taking the Nawrimo plunge once again.

Wish I'd found Dan's videos last year.  Better late than... you know.   

Note to self:  read one of Dan's books and see just how he works this structure magic. 

Nanowrimo. Do I or don't I?

It's that time of year and once again I am doubting my abilities to compete in Nanowrimo

It's not that I don't want to write but it's more a sense of frustration knowing that I am unlikely to take the time to properly edit my first draft I will be spewing into the world.  Maybe it's just that I'm lazy or maybe I just doubt my ability to come up with a decent story. 

I know I can write and win the word count but...  Hmm, but wait!  Should I really be hoping for more than a first draft?  Only I can change my future. 

I used to say to friends that I'm going to write my future the way I want it to be.  When did I forget I had the power to do that? 

Nanowrimo will be a DO this year.  Guess I just needed to see this in print. 

Good luck to everyone that competes and remember it's up to you if you actually want to get your story edited one day and into the big bad world.  Spewing a story out is one thing, getting a decent novel out of it is the step after. 

Thursday, January 9, 2014

The Big Cut: Editing Your Novel

I do enjoy creating creating fictional worlds.  Now my worlds are not that wonderful nor do I think I am by any means a good writer.  Look how I struggle to write a simple blog. 

Nanowrimo 2013 was the 8th Nano novel (novelette?) I've written and only one of those novels did I ever attempt to edit.  It was during the year I convinced myself to sign up for an online class with Holly Lisle, How to Revise a Novel

I'm not an affiliate of Holly, nor perhaps would she want me to be because I really sucked at her class.  I managed to keep focus on the class for a few months and then allowed myself to be distracted yet again by all the glories and distractions of the web. 

You would have thought I'd learned from my previous online class (the year before?) which was Holly's, How to Think Sideways.  By the way I do think both classes are very good (if you actually follow through) and have great forums that I still visit when I'm being all writer-like, which I admit is not often these days. 

Self confidence is what it boils down to for me.  I was not confident in sharing the stories I had written but I did learn how to churn them out.   I think I was scared, and am scared, to succeed. 

There are lots of comments out there about how horrid Nanowrimo is but to get you to do something you've always wanted (like write a novel) it worked for me but my follow through, editing my novels, has not happened quite yet.  Fine I did partially edit the one novel and maybe it's time I got back to it.   

To succeed in writing you have to spit out your story and then edit it and that's the way it works.  You must get something on paper/online first so you have something to mold into shape.  I will see none of my stories be the way I want them to be if I do not edit and mold them. 

So I've got my free winner code from Nanowrimo again and I wonder will I get yet another free printed book, unedited, as I have before?  Last year I gave my free code away because I wasn't willing to inflict that kind of torture on my bookshelf yet again.

Besides Holly's class there are some good books out there too.

Self Editing for Fiction Writers would probably be even better if one did the exercises in it.  Right?  What's stopping you?   

Have you trained yourself to edit?  Do you bother to edit?  Are you one of those who have trained themselves to spit out a perfect story/post without nary an edit?

Don't lose focus, edit, and if you don't know how read up on it or join a class.  Let yourself succeed and maybe I'll follow through too.