A Revelation

Hey all! How’s your writing coming along?  I’d like to say that mine is going pretty well, but yesterday turned out to be a huge let down.  After working 7-3 and going to get my hair done, then dinner at my boyfriend’s parent’s house, I was completely wiped.  And I had started my day colossally early—4:45 AM.  And so I slept when I came home with the intention of getting up to do more work.  I woke up, deliberated on what I should do and then chose to sleep some more.  When I finally decided enough was enough, I dragged myself out of bed at 4 this morning to try to make up for yesterday’s debacle.  And the result was almost as pitiful as my stinging, sleep-deprived eyes.  I managed to meet my 200 word count for one fifteen minute session, but I was none too pleased with the words I strung together on the page.  I packed it in, feeling angry with myself for not being able to follow-up Monday’s success with another.  I went to bed in shame, wishing I had pushed through.

Today at work, as I reflected on it, I realized I was expecting a lot from myself considering I had an early day and hadn’t had the chance to nap.  Often when I have bad days such as these, I shut down or hustle to make up for what I missed.  This of course causes undue stress on my part and leads to the burnouts I experience that fuel my unwillingness to write and perhaps even a bit of writer’s block meant to prevent myself from completely breaking down.  Knowing all this, I wanted to try something different, and that’s to simply LET IT GO . . .

You can’t even imagine how much of a battle it was for me to finally settle on that decision and I’m still not 100% happy with it.  I normally like to follow through with things, but at the same time I knew that taking the route I usually take to solve the problem would not help me in the long run.  I realize that it’s more lucrative to let it go and move on to the next day, than it is to dwell on the past and mull over what wasn’t accomplished the day before.  I should be focusing on my future writing, which won’t get done if I spend all of my time depressed and angry with myself.

So for all you writers out there that may be in the same situation as me, try to keep an open mind, give yourself some slack (not too much mind you or you run the risk of not writing at all) and keep your spirits high.  Motivation through accomplishment is what will propel you to the end and you need to keep in mind that every little bit helps, even the instances where you feel you’ve missed your goal.  And, of course, every word counts!

Best of luck my fellow writers!

Marlena

A Cause for Celebration

Hey all! I'm back and for good this time! I wanted to share all the hard work I put into my recent book project, which kept me away for a month.  In case you haven't read the previous posts, the working title for my manuscript is As Fate Would Have it; it's a romantic suspense.  Here's a snapshot summary about what it's about:

     Naomi Boudreaux, an aspiring investigative journalist, adamant in her pursuit of career advancement, is given the opportunity of a lifetime. She makes an impulsive decision to publish her story before submitting it to her editor, which leads her on a fast track to unemployment.  As if that weren't bad enough, the personal attacks begin.  It's up to Ray Salvador to keep her alive long enough to solve the case.

Not the best summary out there, but you get the idea (I hope . . .).  Below is my cast of characters:

Naomi Boudreaux

                     Raymundo Salvador

      
          Damion Bryson










 



                        Jeannette Boudreax

          Gene Boudreaux

                                                                                                  

          Charlene O'Shea    

           Zachary Ryder











       

                                                               



                            Pedro Almonte






                            

                     Isaac Cottrell

                                                                            


                         Athena Cottrell

                  Trevor Angelo












 


                        Lyle Cottrell

               Jonathan Adderson








And that's my cast of characters! I hope they look realistic enough.  In any case, these sims I've created help me to visualize them as I write my scenes, which is a plus.  It's a wonderful tool.

Speaking of tools, I would  like to recommend two that I've found invaluable now that I've started writing: yWriter and yEdit.  These free software programs makes the job of a writer so much easier.  yWriter is excellent for organizing your outline notes and yEdit is a great place to type your work if you're working toward a target word count.  I used yEdit today for my writing today.  I simply put in the target number of words I wanted to type and just went to work.  When I was done, I copied and pasted it into a MS Word document, fixed the font and formatting and double-checked the word count (it counts tabs and spaces you put between paragraphs).  As for yWriter, I used it to type in my character sketches, add the pictures of my characters created in the Sims 3 and added scenes to chapters.  I even added a few locations and applied them to the scenes I was working on.

Go here to download them:

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

http://www.spacejock.com/yEdit2.html

And here's a tutorial for yWriter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5HNVVIV1w&noredirect=1

The tutorial above was done by K.M. Weiland and it was her recommendation to download the yWriter software in Outline Your Novel that inspired me to check it out.  I am certainly not disappointed.  I then found yEdit, which suited my need of reaching a target word count each day.  Much love to Simon Haynes for creating such useful software for writers!

Well, after a month's time spent working, I finally got down to the nitty gritty: writing!  I met my goal today of writing 1,600 words and thensome (2,413 to be exact). *Insert epic happy dance*  Now I just have to keep it up for tomorrow.  I've found that working in 15 minute intervals keeps me motivated, focused and eager to do more.  And tea, 1001 Nights tea to be exact, gives me the boost I need when I start to drag during the day.

I wish all of you luck with your writing ambitions!

Marlena

I'm Back!

I’m back! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  As you probably know (or don’t, whatever the case may be), I’ve been hard at work on my novel As Fate Would Have it.  I’ve made some interesting progress this past month and hope to share what I’ve done before the end of this month.

            Some things I’ve learned on my journey are that prep time for a novel takes time—lots of it.  This is especially true if you like to outline some key components before you start putting your ideas to paper.  In Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K.M. Weiland, I’ve learned that outlining should be looked at as a road map, one that guides you through the nuances of your plot, characters, setting and other key elements of your story.  However, just because it’s a road map doesn’t mean that you should follow it to the letter.  You can deviate, take detours and explore interesting places along the way so long as you reach the end goal of your scene and ultimately the end of your manuscript.

            I’ve found that this is a healthy way to look at outlining and somewhat trumps the idea that outlining can potentially ruin the creative process.  In actuality, outlining should be seen as a method of getting to the creative process by allowing you to research and brainstorm key components that may take up much of your writing time.  By this I mean, why write a whole chapter in which you have no idea where it’s going and have no conception of the characters, their motivations and so forth? It’s much easier to go in with an idea of these things so you spend less time in block mode and more time putting your creativity to paper.  

            Outlining should be used to organize your thoughts, conduct research and to garner a deeper understanding of the inner workings of your story idea.  I’ve attempted writing without an outline and it proved to be an inordinate waste of my time.  Sure I wanted to get my words down on paper, but I went in knowing very little of what was going to happen and simply made things up as I went along.  In those cases, I barely made it past chapter one.  For me, outlining is my way of making sense of my story idea and developing it so that I can apply my knowledge and research to the creative product.  In the long run, it shaves off a lot of time spent understanding your story idea, which should be reserved for writing.

How do you feel about outlining?  In what ways do you feel your writing process makes use of this tool?

Reflection on Me as a Writer

Reflection on Me as a Writer

            I’m halfway between a good cry and a rage fest.  This is how I’ve felt all week, but it wasn’t until just yesterday that it solidified into something recognizable.  I’d been out the entire week dashing between work and family responsibilities.  I wish I could say I accomplished all that I wanted to this week, but the only way I could even think about doing something like that is to completely shut myself away for a month so I can work on my novel and feel truly accomplished in all that I do.  I’m discovering slowly but surely that I have an upward battle to fight and I’m losing rather quickly to outside forces and the biggest one of all: absolute exhaustion after every day’s end.

            To put it shortly, I’m frustrated with my circumstances and can’t stand that there’s nothing I can do to control it.  I just want to let go of everything and distance myself from all the stress.  On Saturday, I didn’t want to come home after work; I didn’t want to be surrounded by noise, inquiries and entreaties for my time.  I just honestly wanted to be alone, outside, enjoying the fresh air and quiet breeze.  It was the most amount of peace I felt in one sitting and I wish I could have it more often. 

            But enough about my internal and external woes, here are two pictures of my main character Naomi Boudreaux from my work-in-progress novel As Fate Would Have it:

     I used Sims 3 to create her and this is about the only accomplishment I managed this week.  Perhaps as I writer I need to work at a slower pace, which will mean pushing back my intended start day to further along in July.

Does she look realistic? Please let me know in the comment's box below.

Thanks, as always for your support.

Marlena

Postponement of Blog Posts

Hey all! I'm going to be MIA until the end of this month.  I'm taking some time to focus on the prep-work for my novel.  I've been majorly stressed lately trying to post here, while also making time for prep work, which thus far has failed miserably.  So to help with the process of making time, I'll be cutting down on the posts until July, but I will post updates on my prepping progress Sunday and Wednesday.

Thanks for your support.

Marlena

Monday - 6/18/2012 (Late Post)

Words of the Day

1.      Cull – (v- used with object) Origin: 1300–50; Middle English coilen, cuilen, cullen  < Anglo-French, Old French cuillir  < Latin colligere  to gather; see collect¹ ; to choose; select; pick; to gather the choice things or parts from; to collect; gather; pluck

Link: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cull?s=t

2.      Conciliating – (v-used with object) Origin: 1540–50;  < Latin conciliātus  (past participle of conciliāre  to bring together, unite, equivalent to concili ( um ) council  + -ātus -ate¹ ; to overcome the distrust or hostility of; placate; win over: to conciliate an angry competitor; to win or gain (goodwill, regard, or favor); to make compatible; reconcile.

Link: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Conciliating?s=t

A Slice of Life

Inspiration: My frustration of being called in on Monday to cover for “a mistake.”  Enjoy! This one’s going to be a short one.

A Mistake, Huh?

7:30 A.M.

            The chiming of my alarm tore me from the depths of a restful slumber.  Light had just started filtering through the blinds, pleasant and not blinding.

            Time to work . . .

            I dismissed my alarm and that’s when I noticed the three missed calls from earlier that morning—from my boss. 

            Maybe he wants me to pick up my tips . . . It’s not like I didn’t try like four times over the weekend . . .

            I dial his number and waited, heart thumping in my chest.  Something told me this wasn’t about my tips.

            “Hello.” 

            Oh boy . . . not a pleasant greeting.

            “Good morning, Adrian.  You called me?”

            “Yeah, Malina.  Are you coming in today?”

            Wait . . . What?

            “I don’t work today.  I double-checked with you last Friday and you told me that I was back to my regular schedule.”

            “No, Malina . . .”

            The rest was a garbled mess; his reception was terrible, but there was one word I held onto: mistake.  Ha! It sure as hell wasn’t a mistake on my part.  I did the right thing, but he did not and I knew instantly why I was coming in.  Two of my co-workers that I knew weren’t supposed to work the weekends were there.  I was covering for his screw up that happened over the weekend that had nothing to do with me.

            “How does 8 o’clock sound?”

            Awful . . .

            “What time do you need me to work until?”

            “You can work until 1.”

            “Fine.  I’ll be there.”

            “See you then.”

            I ended the call, skin crawling with a burning anger and body protesting the sudden change in plans.  I had it all worked out.  I intended to play catch up with my preparation for my book project, work on my blog post and read my writing reference books.  Now all those plans were trashed as I hastily dressed and mentally prepared myself for work. 

            Every time . . . It never fails . . .

            I greeted everyone as politely as possible and even managed not to growl at my boss and the customers.  I was not supposed to be there.  I was supposed to be home working hard on my book project.

            My shift ended, but it didn’t seem like it could have ended soon enough.  I tore off my apron and hat, clocked out and threw the detestable swatches of brown in my bag in a huff.  I collected my tips—the ones I should have collected over the weekend—and headed for the door.

            “Bye everyone.”

            “Bye, Malina.  Tomorrow, 7-3, right?”

            “Yeah . . .”

            A gunshot went off in my head and I decided that was a nice way to put an end to unnecessary stress from external forces . . .

-THE END-

           

Writer’s Corner

            How well do you know your characters? Do you often have trouble figuring out what your characters’ motivations and personality are?  I know I do, but I’m happy to share with you a nifty tidbit that I recently learned from reading Writing Fiction for Dummies.  First, to understand your characters’ motivations you should begin by defining their values, ambition and story goal.  Your characters’ values should be something that they believe to be true; something they strongly believe that defines who they are.  For example, your character could believe that money is an essential part of their lives and they don’t necessarily have to give a reason other than “Just because.”  This in itself gives you an idea of what this character is most concerned about and gives you some cues as to how they will behave in money related situations.  It might even give you a glimpse of their personality, though not always. 

Your characters can have multiple values that define their actions, behavior, thoughts, etc.  However, they should only have one ambition.  An ambition is an abstract thing or idea that your character longs for and wishes to fulfill by the end of your novel or story.  An example that WFD outlines is the typical “Miss America” response of world peace.  Ingermanson and Economy make it clear that world peace is an abstract idea that isn’t tangible, therefore it’s abstract.  Defining an ambition for your character is important because this defines what they hope to achieve over the course of your novel or story and is the driving force of their actions.  However, it’s important that your characters have values that match their ambition. 

This is also true for a story goal, which is the concrete action that your character will take to achieve their ambition.  Ingermanson and Economy suggest that a great story goal should be: objective (reader will know that your character has achieved their goal), simple (reader will know what successful completion of the goal will look like), important (reader will understand the importance of the goal), achievable (reader believes that the character has a chance of reaching their goal) and difficult (reader believes that there is a chance that the character may fail in their endeavors).  All of these characteristics make for what they define as a great story goal and give a reason for your character to continue on the path they have chosen.

            A character’s values, ambition and story goal should be interconnected and work together to create your character’s motivation for progressing through your novel.  For example, if one of your character’s values is the importance of being herself in a relationship with the one she loves then, perhaps her ambition can be her search for true love.  Notice how it is not easy to define or imagine what true love looks like; everyone will likely have different answers.  The story goal should then be how she plans to go about it: going out on “blind dates” until she finds “the one.”

            If you are having trouble with developing, your character’s values and ambition try interviewing them.  Sounds strange, right?  But actually it’s quite effective.  Not only does it help you to define the aforementioned things, it also gives you a chance to start writing in that character’s voice.  To do this, start with the main plot point (also known as your story goal) of your story and begin asking questions.  For example, Ingermanson and Economy illustrate the process by using J.R.R. Tolkien’s character Frodo.  They keep asking why until “[Frodo] throws up his hands and shouts, ‘Just because!’”  Since you’re the one doing the interview, you should stop when you cannot come up with a rational answer to the question you’ve asked.  Review what you come up with and nail down those values and that core ambition that will drive your story.

Best of luck my fellow writers!

Marlena

Useful Links

1.      Description: An example of a successful query letter plus the Agent’s comments on it. (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/successful-queries-agent-jenny-bent-and-oh-my-gods?et_mid=521086&rid=232935610)

2.      Description: A guide to getting published. (http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/your-straight-forward-guide-to-publication?et_mid=519234&rid=232935610)

3.      Description: Six signs that you are getting closer to publication. (http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sell-my-work/6-signs-you%E2%80%99re-getting-closer-to-publication?et_mid=519234&rid=232935610)