I discovered this while I was going through some old files. David got into Prezi, and it looked so lovely and non-linear I had to try my hand at one, too. Here’s the one I made for Quartz (sadly enough, my books are the only thing I’m qualified to make presentations about) more than a year ago. This was a lot more fun than writing a query.
sunday update
February 13, 2011 4 Comments
Kai’s book (total): 69,616 words
Kai’s book (new): 1,494 words
I’m taking a break from writing Kai’s book to work on other things. I wrote a 1600-word short story, tweaked the synopsis of Quartz, and began writing an outline of Kai’s book as a road map for getting to THE END. We’re taking the upcoming week off from school (if the public schools are doing it, so will we!) and my writing plan is a healthy mix of submission-type things and for-fun things. More on this later.
Also, some folks over on the HtTS/HTRYN boards have started a Write a Book With Me blog, where you can post your daily wordcounts, and get support and accountability from other writers. They’re holding a contest with a fun prize to inaugurate the new blog, so check it out.
sunday update
January 30, 2011 7 Comments
We’ve been passing a cold around our family this past half-week. It’s my turn now, blech.
However, in spite of it all, I did get words!
Kai’s novel (total): 63,872 words
Kai’s novel (new): 4, 158 words
I also got 700+ words worth of notes on a story idea (not Secret Project, but another project—Secret Project 2?) when a character popped into my head and started talking. When Right Brain dictates, I transcribe. Simple as that.
I took yet another stab at writing a synopsis of Quartz. This time I went hunting for some how-to tips, and came upon this post by Diana Peterfreund which led me to these workshops by Kathy Carmichael, and the result is that I’m much happier with my current draft. It still needs a lot of work–which I was going to do tonight–but *sigh* I might just stay in bed and nurse my cold and save my energy for school tomorrow.
How’s your writing coming along?
o christmas tree
December 19, 2010 5 Comments
I love it when we get our Christmas tree. Because we don’t want to overdose on Christmas *before* December 25th, we wait until the second weekend of the month to get it. I love its spicy green scent. I love the way the ornaments glint and glitter among the branches. I love sitting in the rocking chair next to it, enjoy its peaceful beauty, the red ribbon, the small fairy lights.
Everyone has their own special ornaments and Christmas tree traditions. We drink egg nog and sing carols after our decorating. It’s specially fun now because the olders are able to join the singalong, too. There are several ornaments that are dear to me: the handmade ones that my kids have made, from painted wooden letters to child-stitched felt ones; the one survivor of a set of four a cousin gave us; a glass ball with a painted panda in a Santa hat from Hong Kong; a porcelain Celtic cross from Ireland.
Thinking about my traditions has made me wonder how my characters would decorate their trees. You know, if they had trees in the first place and celebrated the same holidays.
Kai, for one, would say she didn’t want a tree, but really? She does. She wants to belong, she wants to be part of her people’s traditions. She’d find the most imperfect tree in the lot though; the lopsided one, or the thin and scraggly one, or the one with a crooked top. She’d bring that tree home and she’d decorate it with old and imperfect things she’d find in thrift shops, and natural things like pinecones and winter berries and acorns. She’d string popcorn and drape it around the tree, and put oranges under it. And a pyramid of canned food, which is what she lives on.
The Marquis of Rocquespur (from Quartz)–well, he’d get the biggest showiest tree around. He’d dress the tree up the same way he dresses himself, in shades of purple and gold. His tree would grand, but prickly, with scratchy purple tinsel-y stuff. He’d pick glittery ornaments, like miniature disco balls, covered in mirrors, or sequined stars. Hard, reflective, glitzy, rough-textured. Lots of sharp angles.
Oh, and he’d have colored lights on his tree, too. Annoying blinky colored lights. In randomized patterns. The sort that induce epileptic fits.
Rafe is too busy working to have a tree. Knowing his luck–and dedication to duty–he’d spend Christmas being chased through sewers by bad guys and war machines. But, I have the sneaking suspicion, he’d like to have a family and one day go out, cut down a tree, bring it home and stand it up in the tree stand thingy while the littles danced around excitedly. He’d get the ornament boxes out of the basement, and untangle the lights, and put hooks on all the balls that mysteriously lost theirs. He wouldn’t care what the decorations were—if his family wants all cow ornaments, or just pink ones–that’d be okay with him. He’d just want to see their faces shining with excitement.
I haven’t mentioned Christmas trees to Isabella, though. I might get The Look.
Your turn. How would your characters decorate their Christmas trees?
i discovered i’m a discovery writer
November 6, 2010 8 Comments
I’ve always sorta known that I’m a discovery writer. You know, the kind of writer who starts off with a premise, a handful of characters, a beginning scene and then has to actually write the darn story to figure out the rest?
Today I really KNOW that I’m that sort of writer. And it blows my mind.
One aspect of Quartz had been giving me conniptions. Even at this late date, even after lots of brainstorming and scribbling copious notes, I didn’t have a handle on it. I have this non-POV wicked-cool character (that would be Isabella) with special abilities who fights against these wicked-wicked baddies, who also have also special abilities. My POV character stumbles into one of these battles and that scene never worked for me because I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly Isabella *does* in her fights with the baddies. Yeah, I knew she has *these* super powers, and they have *those* super powers, and she has these cool weapons, and they have… well, they don’t need cool weapons because they’re almost impossible to deal with on their own anyway, without giving them extra help, thankyouverymuch! But how all these things interacted and played out–well that part was still murky.
And watching this battle through Rafe’s eyes was not making things clearer (considering he doesn’t have much of a clue of what’s going on and his presence changes the dynamics).
So, today I wrote an extra-canonical fight scene between Isabella and one of these Baddies. Just her (and her cool weapons) and It. No Rafe, no story pressure. So, tell me, Isabella, what does a normal battle with these Baddies look like? From your first person POV? What exactly is it doing, and what exactly are you doing?
And the revelations started pouring in.
Now I know the limitations of the special abilities and the weapons. Now I know why Isabella and the Baddie are evenly-matched. Now I know the various fronts on which the Baddie attacks and how Isabella defends. Now I know why she uses her weapons in a particular way, and why she doesn’t [insert spoilers].
This has big implications for the sequel (that would be Flare *grin*). And in clarifying what happens in that one battle Rafe gate-crashes. I’m so excited, I could… bounce.
*bounce!*
AND, not only all that, I’ve figured out one way my storytelling process works. I have one more tool to add to my toolbox.
Win-win-win all around.
november comes with snap and sizzle
November 1, 2010 6 Comments
The wind blew all the lovely yellow leaves off the maples trees and dumped them all over the yard. They’re piled up against the stone wall, the play house, the sandbox. Once they dry–if they dry–they’ll be lots of fun to throw up, kick around, jump into.
Last night we went trick or treating in a snowfall. Soft delicate flakes perched in hair, on cloaks and tiaras and winter jackets. Kids clutched handles in cold-numbed fingers, hid their costumes under coats. Jack o’ lanterns booed and grinned and winked, and one haunted house was declared too “spookery” by Miss M. to go up to.
And, today its November. The year may be dying, but November roars in with a crackle of mad energy. It’s NaNoWriMo, dontchaknow! My blog reader is abuzz with NaNo-related posts. I’m afraid to go to my writing forums in case all that fervor causes a wildfire. And NaNo’s not the only thing going on–there are also NaNoJouMo and Art Every Day for those of us who are more into visual arts (via daisy yellow).
And there’s Sir I’s birthday (six! he’s going to be six!), Thanksgiving, and Christmas winking at me from the end of December (got THREE Christmas catalogs in the mail today).
AND the Best Writing Buddy Ever (TM) got back to me with comments on Quartz (she liked it! she really liked it! BUT…). Personal goal for the month? Do a last pass on Quartz (that’ll be version 3) and get a submission package together before Thanksgiving. No more drifting, floating, lazing.
Ready or not, November’s here!
i have a plan! and this is the plan
October 23, 2010 4 Comments
So, after spending several weeks flitting from project to project (*ooh, shiny new story!* *ooh, diamond-in-the-rough old story!* *eek, getting away from me story-that-needs-complete-overhaul!*), I have a plan!
(Yes, I love making plans.)
Kai’s book (aka Riven) won the Me-first! Story Contest. The grand prize is that I write 500 words a day. Easy-peasy, right? I can do 500 measly little words. I got back into it yesterday with 261 words, and already all this cool stuff came out that I hadn’t expected. You would think I’d have learned by now to let RB just get on with working on the first draft instead of insisting on having all the worldbuilding and plot answers beforehand.
There will also be Query Writing. My SOP for writing queries is write iteration after iteration, coming at the query from all different angles, until it all clicks together.
This plan should tide me over until the sadly-mangled ms. of Quartz lands in my Inbox.
Share your current writing plans?
sunday progress update
October 10, 2010 9 Comments
Picked and poked at Quartz. Sent it off to Jo.
Started working on a query letter. Beat head against wall a few times.
Updated agent/publisher list.
Er… and that’s pretty much it.
You?
TBR pile
October 5, 2010 3 Comments
I cleaned off my side table and swapped out the old books for a fresh pile. Ahh. Just that little change has made a big difference to my spirits.
Here’s my TBR pile:
Several homeschooling books: Homeschooling for Excellence by David and Micki Colfax, Teaching Primaries by Ruth Beechik, Exploring Landscape Art With Children by Gladys S. Blizzard
Fiction: Carol Berg’s Flesh and Spirit, fantasy anthology inspired by little-used cultures and historical periods (Ages of Wonder), Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (picked up because I enjoyed The Eyre Affair way back when).
Other non-fiction: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (this will make me smart!) and Spiritual Depression by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones (been meaning to read it for years, got into the first chapter, and really enjoying it—underlining, drawing arrows, scribbling notes).
Oh, I think Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin biography is still lurking in there somewhere, too.
***
In other exciting news (aren’t you all just on the edge of you seats?), David powered through Quartz and his marked-up version landed in my Inbox last night. So, yay for him and now I can stop this endless dithering, thank-you-very-much!
sunday progress update
October 3, 2010 4 Comments
Since I finished the typein I have:
* poked and prodded at a short story I started writing a few weeks ago. decided to leave it alone
* read and backed away from a 8K novelette-wannabe short story in need of massive revisions
* found (yay!) and read through all my notes on Kai’s book to refresh my (poor) (aged) memory
* started work on (re)creating the language of Ain (Kai’s homeworld) and fallen asleep to consonant blends and diphthongs floating around my head. also got very stressed out about proper names, though that was probably exhaustion talking.
* and tried very very hard not to peer over David’s shoulder as he’s reading Quartz and ask, “Where are you? Do you like it? Do you really like it or are you just saying that? If you like it, why aren’t you more enthusiastic about it?” and other such unhelpful questions
