Slow Down, October!

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 4) weekend update: With only two weeks left in October, I’ve been working frantically all week trying to put together a workable story-outline that I can take into NaNoWriMo.  I have a basic idea of a story with a simple plot, but it feels like it needs so much more than I have time to give it.  I went through several “what if” scenarios with my story-idea, trying to find my premise and theme while working on a log-line.  I like some of the ideas, but they still need a lot of work.  My hero and villain are well-matched, but I’m still working on their goals.  I know that the villain will drive the conflict and the hero will react to that conflict, but I still need to know their motivations and internal needs.  I have a mentor and ally in mind, but no details.  I know how I want my story to end, so I’ve focused all my energy there, working on that emotionally satisfying ending.  By defining my ending, I can work backwards to figure out how the story might begin.  Then from the beginning, I’ll know what each scene needs to accomplish to get me one step closer to my ending.  Knowing my ending gives me a destination to aim for.  My hero is strong and skilled in the end, so he needs to be weaker and unskilled in the beginning if I’m to have a proper character-arc.  Since people don’t usually change on their own, I’ll need to introduce a mentor and an ally.  I have a few scenes in mind, but I’m having trouble stringing them together.  I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress this week, but it doesn’t feel like I’m making the progress fast enough.  Slow down, October, I need more time…

That’s enough blogging for now.  I need to get back to my story-outlining.
Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Quick Update

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 4) mid-week update: 
Wow, it’s hard to believe that the month of October is half-over already.  Where does the time go?  I’m already starting to feel that familiar time-pressure building with each passing day as I frantically try to prepare for the imminent NaNoWriMo onslaught.  At this point, my NaNo-Novel outline needs a lot of work.  Each evening after work,  I’ve been diligently trying to piece together a coherent story-outline for NaNoWriMo.  I’m making progress, but I only have a vague idea about my story so far, and I keep questioning which of my story-ideas I want to work on during November.  I’ve got one strong story-candidate, and two alternative story-candidates that I’m considering, but I need to decide soon so that I can focus all my energy into that one project.  I’ll let you know more about this decision this weekend when I have more time.  For now, just know that I’ve been organizing my outlines, reading books on story structure, reviewing my notes and going through my previous story-ideas every night this week.  As a matter of fact, I’m going to keep this post very short because I need to get back to my outline before bedtime.  Like I said, I’ll have a more detailed update for you this weekend.

That’s all for now. Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Making Steady Progress

After one full-week of ROW80 (Round 4), I’ve made some steady progress towards my writing goals.  It feels so good to be writing with determination and consistency again.  At first, I was worried that my month-long hiatus from writing might be a hindrance, but ever since the round started I’ve been energized and driven again, as if I never missed a beat.  Maybe I just needed a break.  Or maybe the enthusiasm comes from starting anew with clearly-stated writing goals (see right column).  Regardless the reason, I’ll need every ounce of optimism and determination I can muster, because this round is going to be very challenging, mainly due to the definitive deadlines imposed by NaNoWriMo during this round.  As you can see, the month of October is dedicated to outlining my NaNo-Novel, which I must have ready in three weeks if I am to succeed this November.  Last year during NaNoWriMo, I wrote over 50,000 words (winner!) towards my “Sword & Sorcery” universe, using it as an opportunity to brainstorm future story-ideas.  So, instead of writing a complete story last year (as is traditional in NaNoWriMo), I worked on the fragmented story-ideas that I had in my head, writing imagined characters into random scenes as I explored and discovered my story-world.  Because of that writing exercise, I now have multiple story ideas to choose from this year as I prepare to go the traditional route of NaNoWriMo (actually write a complete story form beginning to end).  But that’s gonna take a lot of planning, so from now until the end of this month, I will be frantically putting together a coherent (hopefully exciting) story-plan so that I can go into November confident and prepared.  Over the past few days I’ve been perusing through books on outlining and plotting, jotting down notes and setting up my Scrivener file.  I’ve divided my story file into acts, created files within those acts for the important plot-points and pinch-points, and files evenly distributed between them for story development.  I use the index-cards and document notes inside Scrivener to plan out the major story milestones and to keep track of all the elements that need to be in each scene.  I’m really enjoying this plotting process right now, but with only three weeks to go, I need to light a fire under myself to get this done before time runs out (ah, yes — the “ticking time-bomb” analogy).  Speaking of which, I need to get back to my outline (…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…)

Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Mid-Week Check-in

Publishing words to a deadline is a habit that all authors (including myself) must acquire.  So, here it is, my  ROW80 (Round 4) mid-week update, on-time and on-schedule (barely).  Even though I don’t have much progress to report, I wanted to make a point to check-in mid-week as scheduled, if for no other reason than to stay on track with my goals.  As you can see on the right column, one of those goals is to get back into the habit of writing to this blog twice a week.  This is important for me because it keeps me disciplined and teaches me to be accountable to myself and the world.  Discipline and accountability are two attributes that I need most in myself if I’m ever going to become a professional author. 

Since my last post, I accomplished a few things towards my writing goals.  I went to the NaNoWriMo website and announced my intention to participate this year.  I gave my novel a generic title for now, and will update the synopsis later once I have a better grasp of my story.  I spent a couple of hours designing a cover for My NaNo Novel.  I created the cover using Poser (a character posing program for artists) and Photoshop.  It’s nothing special — just a 3-D character posed heroically with dramatic lighting — but it helps me visualize what my novel might look like if published, keeping me motivated, excited and focused.  I also created a Scrivener file for my NaNoWriMo project and started organizing it already.  I’ll have more to say about that in my weekend post.  Oh yeah, I also wrote over five hundred words, as you can see by the word-count meter in the upper right of the page.  Measurable goals — that’s Kait’s advice.  

Whoa — two blog posts in two days.  I must be on a roll or something.

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

My “Autumn Round” Goals

The “Autumn Round” of ROW80 is finally here!  I’ve had this date marked on my calendar for over a month now, waiting for this day to come so I could re-start a new round of words.  The “Summer Round” didn’t go as smoothly as I’d expected it would, as I “crashed-and-burned” halfway through the round.  Not sure exactly what caused it, but one skipped post led to another, and before I knew it I was finding it more and more difficult to jump back into the rhythm of writing and posting.  I had been faithfully posting to this blog twice a week, every week, since February, but in mid-August I faltered.  For whatever reason, I stumbled and fell, and for the remainder of the round, I just laid there on the warm ground, exhausted and dispirited.  But part of falling down is getting back up.  This blog post is my attempt of getting myself up and into the flow of writing consistently again.  With the beginning of this fourth round, I can start anew.

My “Autumn Round” Goals
Here is a quick overview of my ROW80 (Round 4) Goals.  During this round, I plan on writing 80,000 words towards my “Sword & Sorcery” novel.  A thousand words a day may sound ambitious, especially after my “Summer Round” debacle, but I think I can do it this round due to my previous success with completing NaNoWriMo last year, which I’m also participating in this year (My NaNo Page).  If I can do the 50,000 words in the month of November, then what’s another 30,000 words during the 80-day round?  A thousand words-per-day average seems doable under these conditions, so I’m going with 80,000 words in 80-days.  For the month of October, I will be working on my story-outline in preparation for November.  I have a single story-idea that I’ve been working on and want to see this story to completion.  Last year’s NaNoWriMo was an exercise in world-building, where I came up with a lot of story-ideas for my “Sword & Sorcery” universe as I just let my imagination run wild.  But this year I intend to actually focus on one story, which is the original purpose of this particular writing challenge.  After the madness of NaNo, I should have a 50,000 word first-draft (mess).  I plan on writing and editing my novel after November up until the last day of Round 4, which this year falls of the Eve of Christmas Eve.  I will, of course, be documenting my progress here on this blog twice a week, which is also part of my goal of discipline and accountability.  My blog posts may be shorter due to the workload, and may not include the usual excerpts of past posts, but they will be focused on my actual writing progress and they will come regularly twice a week.  I’ll go into more detail in my Wednesday blog-post, so I’ll continue this conversation there…

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…