Weekly Targets #4

I only managed about half of them this week.  Note to self: Make less targets!

I have had lots of fun fiddling with the various Wiki’s I’ve set up for each of the ideas I’m working on though (if I stuck to just one I’d more than likely get bored and give up – with 3, I can just switch).  So I have been productive (world building and plotting), I just haven’t met those specific goals.

The book I’m reading keeps making me want to write, so next week – well this week now – there will be word count goals!  It’s faaaar harder to shirk those bad boys!

Targets

I had 3 main goals this weekend:

1. Hit 2,500 words on my new opening scene to my fairy novella – Done, I’m currently at 2,838 and I might write some more before going to bed.  I think the whole scene should end up being somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 words.
2. Do a character profile for Beth, the heroine of my book for NaNoWriMo – I did a bit, I have a better idea of who she is but I’m not done by a long stretch.  I think I might work through Holly Lisle’s Create a Character Clinic for her too.
3. Plot out one of my short story ideas – Half way through.

I don’t think I’ve done too bad considering how rubbish I normally am with meeting my targets.  And I didn’t do any writing Saturday so I’m fairly pleased with myself.

Things I’m Working On

1. The story I mentioned a while back about Fairies doesn’t seem to want to be just a short story. It wants to be longer and I think I need to do some more character development and plotting – and by more I mean some at all. I got a basic concept, then came up with some characters I thought rocked, got overexcited and waded straight in, only to get caught up in fuzzy where-is-this-going, story hell. Must plot!

   This is where I went wrong with my many, many attempts to write before. I go completely against my character in the rest of my life – where I plan things to oblivion and make lists for absolutely everything – and start writing without a plan and then I just sort of flounder. I know I do it and I’ve spent a lot of time pre-writing DW to prevent the same thing happening there so I don’t know why I did it with my short story.

   So my main goal for this week is to plot that out and do a little more character development. Ooh and world-building, I’ve really enjoyed the world-building I’ve done for this story so far so I might do a bit more. Reading through what I’ve already written I think some of it is salvageable but the beginning is absolute dross and I’ve deleted my entire first scene. I want to rewrite that this week, starting the story a little sooner.

2. I need to write down all the ideas I keep having for the novel I’m planning to write for NaNoWriMo and work on twisting them into some sort of plot. Concentrate on developing my characters too, especially my main character and her mum.
3. Then have a look at DW and see how I can work in the idea I had for it last night. I’ve had quite a break from it so should be able to look at my ideas and characters with fresh eyes, see if I still think they’re as good.
4. I also want to try and plot some of my other short story ideas.

New Toys

I’m typing this blog entry on my teeny tiny laptop. It’s even smalller than I was expecting. I’ts so cute! It is taking me a while to get used to typing on it but I have got better.

I’m sat out in the sun on my lunchbreak, listening to a couple arguing while their cute little dog sniffs around my leftover sandwich.

My whiteboard came last night too, so I spent last night brainstorming on that. I think I came up with more questions than answers but it was still quite handy to have. I copied my index cards of scene ideas onto post its and have plastered the back of it with them so I could move them around and try to work out some sort of order.

I think I’ve decided on my opening scene now so I should be able to start writing at the weekend.  Although I still haven’t decided on what POV I’m going to write from, which would obviously be helpful!

Ideas VS Decisions

I’m getting myself all tied up in a knot again over where I’m going with my WIP (I should really give it a name but I quite like calling it that, makes it sound like I’ve actually written something).  I keep getting more and more ideas and I’m really not sure which of them to follow.

I need someone I can bounce my ideas off really.  I’ve tried asking my mum what she thinks of a couple of things but she just tends to agree with me or tell me what she thinks I want to hear, without giving me anything constructive.  The one person who I think would actually be good to run ideas past, I don’t want to because we talked a while back about writing a book together and I don’t want to remind her of that.

I really need to stop book shopping too.  For a start I haven’t got time to read as much as I normally do now that I’m trying to do some writing of my own.  Secondly, every idea I’ve had that I think is great and a bit different I keep finding books where someones done it first.  Sort of.  Usually just vaguely but enough to put a dampener on me thinking I had something special.

No one has done all of my ideas rolled into one though and I still think they’re really good – even if I am getting more than slightly confused by all the different directions I could go.  I really want to tell this story, I think it has a lot of potential and that’s all that matters.  I’m writing it mainly for me anyway.  Because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and to prove to myself that I can.

I want to start writing!

I’ve made a deal with myself, I am going to start writing my first draft on the 1st June, regardless of whether or not I’ve got the whole story outlined, and I have permission to write crap.  But before then I have to try and get as much worked out as I can, stop getting distracted by other things and work harder.

I’ve been alternately working on character development, world building (which seems to keep getting more important) and plotting.  I’ve been using Holly Lisle’s notecarding method, which seems to work quite well for me.  It’s good to get all my random ideas down without worrying about whether they fit anywhere – before they flit away never to be seen again.  It also seems to spark other ideas and I’ll have little flurries of activity, then a pause and then another burst of creativity.

I came across these posts on Rachel Vincent’s blog where she talks about using a similar technique but with different coloured post its on a white board, which I must admit does appeal to the stationary addict in me – and has lead to me plastering my notes and index cards in coloured stickers.

I was planning on writing from multiple POV but I don’t seem to have produced any plot cards from the hero’s POV, about 3 from the villain’s POV and all the rest are the heroine, so that idea might be scrubbed.  But I don’t know because I do have a couple of hero POV scenes in my head, they just don’t seem to serve that much purpose, other than to find out some more about him.

Really, I’m itching to start writing but I know that I need more figured out before I start.  I still have a few glaring questions in my mind I need to answer before putting pen to paper.  So I’m going to spend the rest of this week and next week answering them, getting a better grip on my characters, arranging my plot cards into some semblance of a logical order and preparing to start the writing.  Where the real fun/stress begins!

Isn’t stationary great?

Love of stationary seems to be some sort of inherently girly thing.  Pretty much every female I know shares my enthusiasm for buying pens, paper, notebooks, post-its, binders and anything else that comes under that wonderful heading of office supplies in every colour under the sun.

I went and practically wiped out Partners yesterday and I’ve spent my evenings since, frantically scrawling scene ideas on index cards, highlighting my notes (with the cutest, teeny tiny little highlighters you’ve ever seen – they’re only just 2 inches including the cap!) and trying to figure out some sort of colour coded cross referencing system to justify buying multicoloured index cards and a bumper pack of coloured stickers.  Needless to say, I’m drawing a blank on that – but I kind of knew that was going to happen.

I think I’m getting somewhere, I had an idea I really like last night and it’s made one of my ending ideas edge into the lead slightly as my favourite.  It’s also given me lots of extra little ideas that I think are quite good, I’m going to have to do quite a lot of research to pull it all together but armed with my trusty highlighters and stickers that shouldn’t be too bad.

So yeah, I am positive at the moment.

Why I keep things to myself

I asked a friend if she’d get me some index cards while she was out at lunch because I want to use them to help me plot and I got mocked.

She thinks that my deciding to write a novel is going to be a bit like when I decided I was going to start painting.  I think she’s wrong because I was only really painting to prove a point (a colleague scanned one of his watercolour paintings, printed it out and pinned it up on the office wall – I was going to do the same to show what a knob like thing that was to do – and mine was obviously going to be better!)

I was asked, “why don’t you just start writing?”  Umm, because if I did then it would be exactly like when I decided I was going to take up painting and I would quit after about 10 pages when I didn’t have a clue what was happening next.

First Snag

Last night I started having a go at working out a detailed novel outline.  Unfortunately, it sparked a few questions about my hero and I may have to give him a bit of a rethink.  I’ve already changed him quite a bit from what I originally envisaged (he started off as an American detective but somehow mutated into a British Doctor) but I think I’m going to have to fiddle again.

So I’m off on my lunchbreak with my notebook and pen to scrawl notes and try and work things through on paper.

The beginning

It’s all supposed to start with an idea isn’t it?  Well I’ve got one of them.  Several actually, but only one has the delicious hero and the slightly scatty comic relief respectively smouldering and bouncing around my head, (the heroine is still a little hazy but she’s getting closer).  It’s also the only story that I’ve got much more than a concept – this one has a beginning, a bit of a middle and quite a few endings (I’m indecisive!) – so it was the obvious choice really.

At the moment, I am very much in the research, planning and outlining stage.  I stumbled upon Paperback Writer, Lynn Viehl’s blog, and it has been invaluable to me.  Her advice and links to other resources have been just the sort of thing I need.  I am very much a planner and just jumping straight into something isn’t for me, I like to know where I’m going.  So, the advice on plotting and outlining has been extremely helpful and I can see it being the difference between me writing a few pages, not being able to decide where to go next so giving up; and following it through to the end.