Okay, so I’m not going to post assignments every single day this month. I don’t have time for that. What I will do is set you up with a three-act story structure and give you some ideas for what types of scenes you should be writing at various stages of your novel. Hopefully you wrote chapter one yesterday, and now you are ready to develop your first act in more detail.
Can you imagine attempting NaNoWriMo on this behemoth? | Underwood No. 5, in the collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s amazing how often logistical issues can get in the way of our writing. I, like many writers, have tried a variety of techniques in an attempt to make writing – wherever I may be – as easy as possible. Because we all know, the easier it is, the more likely we are to do it. If it seems like too much trouble to haul your ancient, seven-pound laptop along when running errands, then you probably will end up just not doing it.
Yeah, I said seven pounds. I am a starving artist, after all. Of course I don’t have an iPad!
If you were writing a novel a century ago, your choices of communication modes were probably quite limited. You basically either wrote your novel out longhand, or you tapped it out on a bulky typewriter. Did they even have portable typewriters yet a century ago? Continue reading “NaNoWriMo logistics: How are you planning ahead?”→
In case you wondered, this is the image that launched today’s NaNoWriMo writing prompt. I saw it on Facebook. I don’t know who it belongs to. If it’s yours, please let me know so I can add an attribution and throw you a link from my site.
What do you do if you want to participate in NaNoWriMo this year but you don’t know what to write and trashy romance novels just aren’t your thing? Why not try a writing prompt? I came up with one this morning that is completely different than the romance novel prompt I gave you a few days ago. If you like zombies, this one might be right up your alley! Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Writing Prompt: Rock ‘n Roll Zombie”→
Yesterday we had some fun with our trashy romance novel characters. Today we will get to know them on a somewhat deeper level (okay, maybe not too deep. Just one level deeper than yesterday.)
So, you have figured out what your two main characters don’t like about each other on first impression. Now let’s think about how you can develop these two opposing characters into people who might believably come to like one another later in the novel. Maybe the slick lawyer secretly loves dogs and has a pregnant pooch back home in NYC that she’s worried sick about. Perhaps the grumpy cowboy is secretly writing a business plan that will turn his failing family ranch into an organic vegetable farm that will supply several high-brow restaurants in the nearest big city. Continue reading “Get to know your characters a little better”→
Yesterday, we spent a few minutes thinking up dreamy names for our characters. Today, let’s take a few minutes to get to know them better, shall we? Romance hero/heroines are typically exact opposites. Maybe he’s a rugged cowboy, and she’s the slick lawyer whose company wants to buy out his ranch and develop it into a tacky tourist trap.
These are my fancy romance novel teaspoons. I got four free novels with each spoon!
Can it be mid-October already? NaNoWriMo is right around the corner, and I am just now getting around to thinking about it. As usual, my original plan for this year was to just skip it. But as November draws near, I find myself once again itching to see if I can knock out a novel in thirty days.
Last year, I did not. While I did manage to conquer the quest for 50,000 words, my NaNoWriMo project was not, in any way, a novel. Last year, I proved to myself that I am capable of writing 50,000 words in one month. This year, I think it’s time to step it up and write 50,000 words of an actual novel. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Novel Challenge”→
Let me lend you a novel idea. | A Novel Idea (Photo credit: Jennifer Pickens)
I don’t know about you, but I get far more novel ideas than I could ever hope to write in one lifetime. I get so many story ideas, sometimes I just let them fly by and disappear into the never-written without ever bothering to stop and write them down. This morning, while reading a blog post on generating story ideas, I couldn’t help wondering if someone out there might one day be interested in taking one of my extra ideas and running with it.
Right now, I have four different novels in progress that I am determined to complete before starting any new projects. My notebook of new ideas is filling up as fast as my novel notebooks are. I couldn’t possibly write all of these novels, even if I lived three extra-long lifetimes. So, why not share some of my extra story ideas? Continue reading “Free novel idea: Three-Quarter Classified”→
I have about a million of these floppy discs containing business and management essays from both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in business and management. I’m considering editing all of them and putting them up on an informational website (complete with ads to generate revenue.) If only I had a floppy disc drive. | English: Spiral made of Floppy discs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you’re like me, you probably have at least a couple of projects laying around unfinished. If so, then like me, your major goal for 2014 might just be to get shit done. Seriously.
I get a little overwhelmed when I consider all of the projects I started in 2013 and didn’t finish. I want to finish them all. I want to finish writing my current WIP and the one I started for thesis last spring. I want to revise the novel I completed for the summer writing challenge in 2013. I want to publish everything (even all of those business essays I wrote so long ago that they are sitting around on floppy discs.)
When I think about it, I have many great projects that are not only started, but are also nearing completion. For me, 2014 will be more about completing projects than it will be about starting something new. Although, I suppose actually finishing something will be new for me. HA!
Zemanta offered this image up in response to my blog post. I love it! Could anything (even writing) be more fanciful than selling balloons on the street? How is that somehow more acceptable than investing in a writing business? | BALLOON SALESMAN ON SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO’S 47TH STREET MANY OF THE CITY’S BLACK BUSINESS OWNERS STARTED WITH… – NARA – 556217 (Photo and description credit: Wikipedia)
Have you ever considered taking time off work to write? Did you then decide not to because you couldn’t “afford it?” How do you justify the time spent on an activity that may or may not pay out in the long term? Well, let me ask you this: How do most small business owners justify the time and expense sunk into the more than half a million small businesses opened in the U.S. each year? When you consider the odds, how can anyone believe they can afford to open a small business? Continue reading “Writing is your business: justify the investment”→
Write on the World 