Random Writing Rants

History is written by writers

"Maison tournante aérienne": drawing...
Image via Wikipedia

“They” say history is written by the winners of wars. But really, history is written by writers. Writers often write to observe humanity and preserve a space in time. Seconds, minutes, years, all can be preserved by the pen. Seconds may be experienced as hours, hours as minutes. Time can be manipulated by the skilled writer, shortened and expanded at will.

And so too, can humanity be manipulated. A writer’s work leaves a mark. Whether a history book, a trashy romance novel, a dollar store paperback western, or a classic tome, all tell the story of the time in which they were written, as well as the time which they are written about. All writing serves a purpose. Sometimes our writing serves the purpose we intend. Continue reading “History is written by writers”

NaNoWriMo, Novel Writing

NaNoWriMo Wrap-up

As another National Novel Writing Month wraps up, and NaNoWriMo participants around the globe rush to validate their completed novels, it is time for me to admit the fact there will be no NaNoWriMo “win” in my near future. But while my current 11,654 words do not a novel make, I am not quite ready to concede defeat.

NaNoWriMo Day 3

Regardless of the fact that I will not have 50,000 words of a novel written within the next 2 days, I still view this year’s NaNoWriMo event as a success. In fact, I’m quite certain I got far more from the event this year than I have put into it.

For example, NaNoWriMo inspired me to get organized and create a complete novel outline, something I have never before managed to accomplish. So even though my novel is nowhere near complete, I have a solid outline to work with in the coming months. What I got out of NaNoWriMo this year is the knowledge that I do have what it takes to sit down and plan a full and complete novel, including a beginning, middle, and end. I also feel like I have worked out a process that I can use again and again for future novels. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Wrap-up”

NaNoWriMo, Novel Writing

NaNoWriMo: Starting from scratch on Day 1

NaNoWriMo 2011 Notebook
This is my actual notebook where I began my novel!

Isn’t it just like me to change my mind at the last minute and start over from scratch? Well, that’s exactly what I am looking at, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo. After all the preparation I did, planning for my original novel, I was having a very hard time being passionate about the story. I think I had some good ideas, but I really wasn’t happy with where the story was going. I was dreading getting up this morning to start working that outline into a novel. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo: Starting from scratch on Day 1”

NaNoWriMo, Novel Writing

Gentlemen (and ladies,) we have a NaNoWriMo novel outline!

For the first time ever in my writing career, I have developed a full and complete outline for a novel (shocking, I know.) How many times have I just sat down and started writing without giving much thought to where I am taking my characters? At least as many times as I have abandoned manuscripts in drawers and on hard drives, that’s for sure! But I want to be really prepared for NaNoWriMo, so I decided yesterday to do a little research and remind myself of the story structure lessons I learned when I took my novel writing class a few semesters ago.

In my research, I found the following video on storyboarding from Mary Carroll Moore, an award-winning author and master writing instructor:

The “W Storyboard structure” Moore details in her video was tremendously helpful. I had already decided on the characters I wanted to use for my NaNoWriMo novel, and even had a short story written about them. But I need to decide on an appropriate conflict to set my story in motion and then determine the trajectory of the story.  Continue reading “Gentlemen (and ladies,) we have a NaNoWriMo novel outline!”

NaNoWriMo, Novel Writing

Preparing for NaNoWriMo: Day 2

nanowrimo
Image by evilnick via Flickr

Last spring, I wrote a short story for a course I was taking on literature and humor. It’s the story of a girl who is told by a boy that he spray painted something on a train trestle; something she would be very interested in seeing. So this girl and her best friend decide to ride their bikes out to see what he wrote and, as with any good work of humor, hilarity ensues.  Continue reading “Preparing for NaNoWriMo: Day 2”

Novel Writing

It’s time to narrow my focus

Collection Les historiques de Harlequin
Image via Wikipedia

So, I’ve decided to choose one specific story to write and devote the rest of the year to getting it done. My next step is to narrow it down to just one. Which story do I really want to tell most? I have several manuscripts in various stages of unfinish to choose from. How to decide?

These are the stories I am currently contemplating:

  • A trashy, cheesy romance novel that is fun to write, but not exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life. It’s one of those things I pull out and work on once in a while when I feel like having fun without working too hard to write the next great American novel; the type of thing I would definitely publish under a pen name! Continue reading “It’s time to narrow my focus”