Novel Writing – Page 19 – Write on the World

It’s time to write a book! | Books (Photo credit: vasta)

Last week was my first week back to teaching after having the summer off. I needed to take a little break from writing to get my sh*t together so I can make a living. I have now made it through week two of classes and am about as settled in as I am going to get. Sure, I still have lesson planning to accomplish each week, and soon I will have composition papers to grade as well. However, all of my front-end preparation is complete, and I am ready to get back to writing.

These past few weeks, I have felt as if I was holding back a dam of words. I tried to squeeze in a few minutes of writing here and there, but life was pretty busy. It’s like, once I had gotten into the habit of writing every day, it was hard to stop. Now I am faced with the fact that I have written little for two weeks, and now I have to get back in the habit. Continue reading “It is time to get back to the writing” →

Education, Essays, Novel Writing

Make teaching and learning part of your writing process.

August 29, 2013 Mandy Webster

The Longman Writer: Rhetoric, Reader, Research Guide, and Handbook (8th Edition) — This semester, I am teaching out of The Longman Writer: Rhetoric, Reader, Research Guide, and Handbook (8th Edition.) You can buy a copy here.

This semester, I am teaching one section of English Composition I at my local technical college. This is not a course I particularly care to teach. The first semester I taught it was a disaster. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I definitely didn’t know the material well enough to teach it. It was a horrible experience for everyone involved. This semester, I finally feel like I kinda know what I am doing. And it’s having a positive impact on my writing.

Tuesday was our first day of class, and I killed it. I was well prepared, I knew what I was talking about and best of all, the students were engaged. I left class that afternoon thinking, “Where the hell did that come from?” Continue reading “Make teaching and learning part of your writing process.” →

Novel Writing

You need to write a cheap, crappy novel. No, seriously. I mean it.

August 19, 2013 Mandy Webster

Writers write. It’s that simple. | English: penulis = writer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lately, I have been feeling hopelessly stuck on the *Great American Novel* I have been writing for the past year. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I wasn’t writing much of anything. I was feeling like I should stop referring to myself as a writer since I wasn’t writing anything. Then I decided to take a break from my *real* novel and knock out a cheap piece of crud just for the fun of it. I needed to write SOMETHING.

And so, I spit out a 16 chapter teen/dystopian story in 16 days and called it a finished first draft. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s only 22,935 words, so it’s full of holes and pretty crappy. But I think I can pound it into something worth reading at the beach. It may not be the Great American Novel, but it feels like a win to me. Continue reading “You need to write a cheap, crappy novel. No, seriously. I mean it.” →

Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 8 | I DID IT!!!!

August 16, 2013August 15, 2013 Mandy Webster

Well, I did it. I set myself a goal to write a fifteen-chapter novel in fifteen days. I ended up needing an extra chapter, so I wrote a sixteen-chapter novel in sixteen days. I have officially completed the Write Your Novel This Summer Challenge!

At 83 pages and 22,935 words, my first draft is (obviously) full of holes. However, the important thing is that I finished it. The entire story is on the page. I have a beginning, middle, and an end. I did not write a single unnecessary scene. I wrote only the pieces that absolutely had to be there to hold the puzzle together. Now, on to draft #2!

What’s next for me? Continue reading “Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 8 | I DID IT!!!!” →

Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 7 | Are we there yet?

August 9, 2013 Mandy Webster

I have been on a writing roll this past week. I continued with the experiment I started last week and have managed to write one full chapter every single day!

I almost didn’t make it yesterday. I had suffered a bout of insomnia the night before and hadn’t fallen asleep until after 2 a.m. When I woke at 8:00 yesterday morning, I was so exhausted, I just couldn’t seem to function. I spent the first half of the day crashed out on the couch beating myself up over the fact that I hadn’t written my day’s chapter yet. Then I spent the afternoon thinking about it while hanging out with my kids, looking through old photo albums. Continue reading “Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 7 | Are we there yet?” →

Novel Writing

It’s okay to write a crappy chapter once in a while

August 8, 2013August 7, 2013 Mandy Webster

The other day, I wrote a terrible chapter. I had reached the “All hope is lost lull” in the final quarter of my current project. It was time to write a chapter in which my protagonist loses all hope of escaping her hopeless situation. She was trapped in a cellar, with no way out. I wrote a couple of pages of her chasing a mouse around the cellar and counting her food supply. But it was really boring. Nothing was happening.

I pushed through it. I had shown my protagonist losing hope, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that absolutely nothing had “happened” in the chapter. It was about as crappy as a chapter can get. But I didn’t know what else to do with it, so I let it stand and went about my business. Continue reading “It’s okay to write a crappy chapter once in a while” →

Blogging, Novel Writing

10 Day Writing Blogger Challenge: Day 9

August 6, 2013August 1, 2013 Mandy Webster

Day 9 Prompt: Post either a setting or character profile from your latest fiction project, a chapter summary of your non-fiction book, or a discussion of the theme or object inspiring a poem, article, or other writing project.

I did a combination:

Valley was born along the banks of the Little Wabash River in Effingham County, Illinois. The story takes place in a distance future where much of the world is full of ghost towns left empty by famines that were the result of bees dying off. Valley’s ancestors not only survived the famines, but also thrived for several generations by growing their crops in the river bottoms where it was easier for them to maintain their own bees. Continue reading “10 Day Writing Blogger Challenge: Day 9” →

Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 6 | Breaking the rules, starting a new project

August 2, 2013 Mandy Webster

"Writing", 22 November 2008 — I actually had a very productive writing week. | “Writing”, 22 November 2008 (Photo credit: ed_needs_a_bicycle)

This week, I am breaking one of those fundamental writing rules. You know the one about how you should finish one project before starting the next? Yeah, well, I totally broke it.

My existing work in progress (WIP) seems hopelessly stalled at the moment. I know what the problem is. My focus is too broad. I need to start cutting, but I can’t decide where to start. I decided to do some experimenting with a simplified story line to gain some perspective on my problem. Next thing I knew, I’d mapped out an entire new novel project and written a first chapter to go with it.

Yes, I broke the rule.

At least I am writing again. Continue reading “Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 6 | Breaking the rules, starting a new project” →

Write Your Novel this Summer Challenge

Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 5 | I just don’t know how to say no

July 26, 2013 Mandy Webster

my new kitten lulu la gata — This is my new baby kitty. Her name is Lulu La Gata. (La Gata is Spanish for “the cat.)

I should consider changing my Friday Writing Challenge Check-in series to “This Week’s Excuse for Not Writing.” Seriously, people, if I keep this up, I’m going to have to stop calling myself a writer. Maybe I should change my title to “blogger” since I can at least manage that.

Anyway, last Friday I headed out to Illinois for a huge family campout (huge as in somewhere around 60 to 70 family members showed up.) Of course, I brought my notebooks. Of course, I was too busy camping and visiting with family to write in them.

We camped until Sunday morning, then went to my parents’ house for a couple of days. Then I made a stop at my sister’s house a couple of hours north of my parents. I was planning to come home Wednesday, but she begged me to stay another day since she was off Wednesday and we could actually hang out and see each other. Once school starts, I’ll hardly get to see any of my family at all until next summer, so I couldn’t say no. Continue reading “Summer Writing Challenge Check-in: Week 5 | I just don’t know how to say no” →

Novel Writing

Narrowing my focus: Choosing a niche and a time frame for my story

July 21, 2013July 18, 2013 Mandy Webster

Since I began writing my current novel almost one full year ago, I have often struggled with determining which genre my story falls into. My thesis adviser pushed me (a lot!) in the direction of Young Adult (YA,) but it just never felt right to me. Although my protagonist is seventeen years old at the outset of the novel, the story will unfold over the course of several years and will include a failed marriage and other “adult” themes that rule out the possibility of selling this novel to a YA audience.

Another element I am struggling with is my time line. Exactly how many years should my protagonist be married to her jerk husband before she escapes? I need her to stick it out for at least a few years. But then, how do I write her through those years and get to the next big event without boring my reader?

This morning, I was reading a blog post by David Fernandez of DLFWriting titled, Becoming a Storyteller: New Adult, or, Wizards and Vampires and Sex! Oh My! that gave me one of those Aha! moments where everything suddenly becomes so clear. In this post, Fernandez discusses the growth of New Adult (NA) fiction, which is aimed at the previously ignored age group of 18 – 25 year olds. Continue reading “Narrowing my focus: Choosing a niche and a time frame for my story” →

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