Arachne's Spindle

Who Else Wants to Win Nano 2011?

2011-10-12T18:22:00.001-07:00

I do! I do! *Raising and waving hand wildly*

And after two consecutive years of failing Nano, I am stepping up and following a training plan. Nothing complicated or scary. Just three simple steps.

1. Organize Story Ideas.

I bought a bunch of cheap notebooks during the Back-To-School sales and labeled them all for separate plots that have come up over the months. Then I just jot down notes in the appropriate notebook whenever I think of of something that can go in one of them. It has helped my organization of plotting immensely.

On November 1st, I will choose a notebook of plot notes and begin my story!

2. Train to Write Early and Everyday

In my meandering across the web looking for a good kick in the butt to get motivated to write every day, I came across the perfect tool for the occasion: http://750words.com/ .

The link will explain itself best, even without my help. It's a place to write 750 words a day, no matter what they are about. It won't post it or send it anywhere. The only person who sees it is you. The point is to get into your creative mode and start a habit that will get easier the more you do it.

I have my settings sent to send me a reminder email every day at 8 o' clock to write 750 words. My email is the first thing I check when I get on my computer in the morning, so I go right from there to 750words.com and pound them out. So far so good!

3. Plan ahead for Time

If you are like me, then you know well the feeling of last minute cramming in words as fast as you can before midnight, because you've been busy, or put it off, or took too many breaks. This year, I have vowed to myself that it is not going to happen. Because this year, I'm planning my time.

First, is making a plan for when and how long I'm going to write. I am currently practicing waking up early and getting my writing done in the morning. I have two major distractions past 8 o'clock in the morning. One is two years old, and the other is four. They are adorable little writing banes. So the plan is to get up and start writing at 7am. I will get as much writing done as I can before the little boogers wake up.

Second, I'm planning "Catch-Up" days. If I am always on track, these can also be "Forge Ahead" days. I've already talked to my husband about it. So the plan is that on Sunday, he takes the kids out of the house for a couple hours. I will then have the house to myself; peaceful and quiet with nothing for me to do but write.

And Concluding... So there it is. I am planning on following up this plan after November to post about how well it worked for me. If this works, it is totally going to be my personal mantra.

Bring it on Nanowrimo!

Time for the reboot of Nanowrimo!

2011-10-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Nanowrimo finally released their website reboot! It looks awesome and it gets me stoked to start preparing for the 2011 Nanowrimo again! Just for the mood, I'm posting my new 2011 badge!

So it's time to collect all the ideas that have been milling around in my head for the past year and pick a story seed to grow into a novel. I'll come back with a list!

2011-06-10T19:50:00.000-07:00

Old Stories, New Stories.

I get Randy Ingermanson's regular emails about writing, organizing and publishing and I often learn new things about writing that didn't occur to me before.

The most recent one I received talked about how a story often doesn't start from nowhere, it starts in the middle of another less interesting story. Ingermanson explains it better. Basically that people aren't waiting around doing nothing before the story begins, they have thoughts, ambitions, and lives that they are already in the middle of. Little Red Riding Hood was going to her Grandmother's house to have tea when she meets the Wolf; David Copperfield lived in a little house with his mother in a loving home until his mother married and her new husband expected Davy to go to Boarding school; Lucy Pevensie was at a mansion because of the war with her siblings and playing a game of hide and seek when she discovered Narnia.

The main point is that the characters have a purpose and an idea of how their world works and what their future looks like before the new story begins. The character's old story is the world as they understand it. The new story begins as their world becomes upset. And when they launch into the new story, their old story influences their thoughts and decisions.

Of course after I read about it, I knew it wasn't any extraordinary secret. Obviously you see it everywhere when you're paying attention. But I realized that this could be a big help for me in writing beginnings. Because I have a really hard time pin-pointing a place to start my stories, a lot of times I start going back further and further into backstory trying to figure out where to begin. Honestly, I most often have to do some free-writing about what I want to say in the story in order to start comfortably writing the actual story.

In Practice.

I am developing a story about a man who is traveling and comes upon a village on the side of a mountain. The sun is setting soon so he decides to stay for the night and continue the following morning. Throughout the evening however, he gets the feeling he is being watched by the villagers whenever he isn't looking. He tries to ask the serving woman about it, but she merely dismisses it as normal for people in a small place to stare at strangers. He agrees, until he realizes later that night that there are very few men in the village near his age, and none that look to be older. His first impulse is to leave, but after learning about the town's curse, he begins to believe his only hope is to stay.

Now I need to separate the old story and the new story. Obviously the new story begins when he feels there is something strange about the way people are acting in this town. The old story is where I begin, however, and it's the part I'm not sure of. So here's for a short summary.

Old Story	New Story
Man is traveling a long distance. Why? He stops in a village he's never been to before.What is his original destination? He is alone, who are the people that he knows and is familiar with?	Man feels people are staring at him. He asks about it. His concerns are discounted, but then he realizes some disconcerting things.

HTML Tables

I don't know anything about where my character is coming from or what his initial purpose is. It's a block because I need to know where he's coming from to write his point of view.

New Nano Year coming up

2010-09-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

Its September, and Nano is right around the corner of October. This means this month is dedicated to plotting, characters and background!

Heigh ho, heigh ho...

Lagging with Nano

2009-11-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Just an update to mention that I haven't given up on Nano, even though I'm super duper behind cause I got frustrated with my main plot. Now I realize that I'm much more into my minor characters subplots than my main plot. I think it's because I know what the conflict is in my subplot, and I haven't really unearthed it in my main plot. Mostly because my main character is all angsty and moody all the time. She doesn't talk enough to other people around her to actually conflict with them yet.

NEED Conflict!

Nano widgets and progress

2009-11-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

Well, my widgets are finally working! yay! Unfortunately, they show how horribly behind I am. So basically my goal is to make one of those days in November green.

How far am I into the story? Chapter 2. Yep. I'm still in the expositional phase of the story. And this post is a shameless procrastination.

So yeah. Back to writing I go!

Happy Halloween, and Nano's Eve!

2009-10-31T17:59:00.001-07:00

Yes! Only 3 more hours until It begins! The mad marathon of writing called Nanowrimo. I'm jumping in again this year with my 2yn story idea, since I never really did start it. I've been doing some plotting in the past couple weeks though, so hopefully it goes smoothly.

Last year I participated in Nanowrimo, starting off with nothing more than a plot idea. It was a fun crazy random story and I didn't finish it, but I had a blast! I won the 50K goal even if I couldn't end it, and I learned a ton about noveling in the process.

So this year I'm going to make a further goal beyond just reaching 50K. This year, I'm going to finish the story! This is pretty significant, because even though I've been writing since I was 12 or 13, I've only finished the story I was writing about 3 or 4 times. So that makes about a dozen years of unfinished storylines! I'm going to do it this year! I will!

1st or 3rd person narrative? That is the question.

2009-06-29T20:22:00.001-07:00

At the moment I'm sussing out whether I should go with 1st person or 3rd person on my Rebound novel project. So I'm writing up a blurb of each to see how natural they feel. You can expect them both in another day or two depending on how busy I am the next couple days. Will post both soon!

Lillith finds a home

2009-06-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

So I've decided my 2YN character lives in Iowa. I think this is removed enough from me, but close enough to be the same kind of lifestyle that I would know for her. She's a mid-west gal from small to mid-sized town America.

So her high school is not horrible, but its no private school. It would be the place that good and ambitious kids come out of and make the town papers, the unmotivated slackers come across as "rebels" and cool within their own groups for being so, and the middle of the road kids graduate with little notice outside of their own lives. The local Universities and colleges are cheaper, and one is most likely to come across a good number of people they already know or are acquainted when going there. There are several big cities within 3-5 hours driving time that have colleges and universities that one who would leave town would be more apt to go to.

That's what I'm going on so far.

Teen Vs Gov Plot

2009-01-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

I'm nicknaming my tale of the adolescent who defies the government "Teen Vs Gov". This is NOT going to be any kind of a title for it, but I need something to refer to to it by. I'm posting my progress on this plot also.

One-Line summary:

A Junior High student goes up against the government when her parents' conspiracy theories turn out to be both true and deadly.

Expanded Version

Celia Brodie is in Junior High, and just trying to gain some good grades and a little popularity in spite of her slighty wacky conspiracy theorist parents. These efforts are dwarfed when a horrifying series of terrorist events leave the President and Vice-president of the United States dead and the whole country dissolves in chaos. A new government emerges with dark suppositions and she begins to realize some truths of her parents theories. It is too late for going back however, when the New Government agents shut down her school and begin hunting people on their “Green List”. That last normal day Celia looked out her classroom window and saw the lines of Nova Military vehicles turning into the school parking lot, she knew it was time to run…

Genre: Young Adult, Social Science Fiction?, Subplot may have some elements of romance, mystery, and thriller

Theme: Self-Discovery amid Rebellion

Before normal life collapsed for her, Celia was happy to be just whatever people around her wanted her to be. What she really wanted was people to like her. When her life is turned upside down she finds herself forced to try and find out who she is and what she believes in the midst of becoming a government rebel.

Symbolism- to be determined as Plot progresses.

Yay! I'm going somewhere with this!

2YN- Rebound

2009-01-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make a post for my 2Yn even though I said I wouldn't be following that story here. Mostly because I've chosen a name for my main character! Her name is Lilith, but she often goes by 'Lil'. Sometimes she gets called Lily, but she hates it...

I'm excited about this a lot, because I was kind of apprehensive about not having a name for her even though everything I could think of just didn't seem to fit. Today I was giving thought to some of the interesting stories of names in legends and myths. I was intrigued by both Lilith's and Lorelei's stories.

Both of them would fit as part of my theme and symbolism for my story, but as I was trying them out Lorelei only brought up thoughts of the Gilmore Girls, and I wanted a name that didn't constantly make me think of a wholly different story. The more I thought of Lilith, the more it started to fit. Now I can't think of anything different. Yay!

Jane Doe, I hereby christen you Lilith.

Now off to find a last name...

Nano Idea Condensed

2009-01-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

So I've thought about my nano quite a bit the past couple of days and came up with the core idea for my story. Here we go...

Main Idea:

Tragic events cause Emerald to flee her world, bringing her across dimensions to Earth; She merely wants to find a place in this new world but someone is pushing her towards a series of events that appear to culminate in the destruction of the world. It seems to her like she's being manipulated into place by the destroyer to stop this from happening, but why would someone make a plan to destroy the world just to put her in place to stop it? Something sinister is happening around her that has to do with the world she left and she has little time left to figure it out.

That's still pretty complex, but I'm having problems condensing it more than that. how about this?

A woman from different world finds herself trying to save the world again and again when it occurs to her that she is being set up to stop the destruction by the mastermind behind the apocalyptic threats .

Its still kind of long for a single sentence summary. But better, I think. That will have to do for my long and short summaries of my plot.

Genre is Science Fiction inclined. I started out thinking of it as fantasy, but it doesn't have very much fantasy elements except that my MC is from a different world and the energy that keeps her alive is strong and supernatural. And the reason for that is because of the world that she came from, not because of any special capabilities. Also my villain is a scientist who is trying to harness her energy, so there is some scientific ethical conflict there.

Revamping the Nano Novel

2009-01-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

As I had earlier said in this recent post I had only completed half of my Nano project when I quit shortly after passing the 50,000 mark. I've barely touched it all December.

The reason I couldn't get back to it was because I had so many plot holes. I couldn't figure out what the villain really wanted, or what his main flaw was, or what my main character's driving force was, she just kind of meandered throughout the story line reacting to whatever happened in the storyline. Chapter after chapter went by only creating more plot problems like this, rather then solving them. Then of course, I had to figure out how exactly things worked in the world of my story, because there are some pretty fantastical elements in the story that need some kind of logic.

So today was devoted to looking at what I have and don't have in my Nano. I started to jot down background information, flesh out details of a motive, and I figured out what my novel was leading up to in the climax.

What I have left:

Villain's use for the object of his ultimate desire- What does he plan on doing with his power once he attains it?
What was Villain's hopes and dreams before he was set down the path of "evil?" Were they thwarted and how?
What convinces Villain of the necessity to endanger the world?
How does Emerald's energy work? Is she tied to the life of her own world?

It is mostly research on the part of my villain. I've been looking up the seven deadly sins as a start, as many of my favorite villains have had such flaws that drove their intentions. The first that comes to my mind is Iago, and the envy that drives his actions to bring down Othello.

The main synopsis of my novel has changed so many times, its hard to keep up. I'm trying to actually outline it now, and maybe come up with the summary in a single sentence. When I do that, I'll be back.

My Plotting Problem

2009-01-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

So as I was saying, I have this other idea that I want to go ahead with alongside my 2YN novel that I'm doing with forward motion.

So here is my problem. I am attempting to condense my Idea into a single sentence that tells the basic synopsis of the plot and reveals the main conflict. But every time I come up with the single sentence it feels like something important is left out. So I have many different versions and I'm not sure which one would be the most acceptable. I'm posting them all here, and maybe I can come to a decision here by the by.

Here are the summary sentences I've come up with so far:

-Adolescent girl finds herself on her own against the government as a series of disasters cause it to morph into a tyrannous structure.

-Adolescent girl realizes her parents conspiracy theories had some truth in them when the US government becomes tyrannous and controlling following a series of disasters to the American way of life.

-Adolescent girl finds herself at odds with the new tyrannical government put in place after a social upheaval.

-Adolescent girl who thought her problems only involved growing up and getting good grades finds out that her parents conspiracy theories were all too accurate when the new government begins to hunt down her family with accusations of treason and expatriotism.

-Adolescent girl realizes grades and growing up popular are the least of her worries when her family is arrested and she is pursued by the government with charges of conspiracy and treason.

It is important that she is an adolescent girl, because the story will have a "coming of age" element to it. It is important that her parents were involved in some groups that could be labeled conspiracy theorists, or *militia*. More specifically, gun rights militia with heavy conspiracy theories about the government. And its important the government is pursuing her, by herself, not her with her family.

From that I need to figure out a simple plot sentence!

2009-01-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

After writing half a novel last year for Nanowrimo and then getting stuck on many plot bumps and holes, I want to be able to write from a more structured start(My Nano was a kind of plot-as-you-write kind of mess).

So to start off my year, I've entered the online class 2YN, or 2 Year Novel at Forward Motion. I'm going to attempt a chick lit story for the class, a type I've never tried before. I'm pretty excited about it though. I have another idea stewing in my head also though, so I am planning on using the same principles that I apply in the class to my other idea.

For now I'll post my 2YN idea as an example, but for the most part that's all going to be dealt with on Forward Motion. What I really want to flesh out here is that "other" idea in the back of my head.

2YN Idea short version:
After several months of break-up blues, Jane Doe* decides that to get over her ex-boyfriend she has to find a rebound guy to "love and leave".

2YN Idea expanded version:
Jane Doe's first boyfriend of eight months had been funny, sweet and completely perfect; That is, until he dumped her out of the blue with fuzzy excuses that left her confused, hurt and depressed for months on end. When her friends ask her when she is going to get over him, she comes to the conclusion that she needs to find a rebound guy to make her forget about her ex. She only wants to make a guy fall in love with her for a few months... Why should guys do all the dumping?

Now, when I get my other idea set up into this structure, I'll post it up here as my start. :)