A question...

I've been thinking a lot about a particular question lately. If you were the only person left alive in the world, and there was no chance that anyone would ever read your writing, would it change how or how much you write?

Of course the pressure is on as writers to answer no. To say that we only write for the love of it, the we do it all for ourselves. But I think that if I am being entirely honest with myself, I would have to say that it would change in someways. I do write for myself, and I would never stop writing entirely. But a big reason of why I write is to share my thoughts and stories with other people. If I knew I would never be published or never make any money from it, it wouldn't change the way I wrote at all. I could still share my writing free over the Internet, or give it to family and friends. But if no one would ever read it, I don't know if I would really write novels the way I do now. I think I would keep a journal still, because that helps me sort through my thoughts and I might write a novel occasionally, but part of the fun of writing for me is figuring out what other people like to read in addition to what I like to write. It's honing my craft in a way that make others enjoy it more. If I was writing only for myself, I think I would lose so much of that it might not even be very much fun.

What about you? If no one would EVER read your writing, and you could know this for sure, would you still write the same way you do now?

New project!

So I wanted to start work on another book because several sites that I was looking at about getting an agent etc. said that often agents like to hear that you're working on another project so that they know that you are not just going to be a one-time client probably.

So anyway, I was starting to think about what I wanted to work on and I decided that "St. Dorothy's School for Girls" was no where near ready to work on so I decided to come up with another project. I skimmed through my little book of story ideas and thoughts that I keep and long story short, put together a rough outline for a mystery novel, which right now I'm calling "Klondike Killer" although that title is horribly cliche and meledramatic so I might change it. Anyhow, its the story of a woman who has to find the men who framed her husband for murder during the Klondike Gold Rush. Seattle has a rich gold rush history so part of it is going to be set in Seattle which will be cool.

Anyway, I'm just working on fleshing out my outline for the story and trying not to think about my manuscript being read by the agent. Its only been three days since I sent it and I already am checking my emails twenty times a day waiting for a response that will probably be a few more weeks away.

Novel Update

So after writing that last entry, I decided to be brave and take a look at my stats on the NaNo website, which I knew wouldn't be good since I have pretty much ignored my novel for almost a week.  Fortunatly I found that I was only about two thousand words behind schedule so I set to work to catch up.  As it stands now, I've written a total of 38,769 words, 2428 from today which puts me barelly back on schedule.  So I'm going to try to break 40,000 words before Aaron gets home from work to put myself ahead again.  Then tomorrow I'm off too, so that will leave me lots of time to get close to wrapping this thing up!

Some thoughts...

First off, an apology for the lack of creativity in the title. No excuse.

So the novel has been sitting on my hard drive for almost two days without any love from me, its beloved author.  Generally my only problem in writing comes from not knowing what to write next, but these days I know what to write, I know how to write it, I just don't want to.  Someone smack me upside the head, please.

As a slight excuse to the writing gods, I offer up the fact that I have worked 17 of the last 24 hours with three hours of sleep in there somewhere.  It's been pretty hectic.

On a different creative front, however, I have finished reading two books on screenwriting, and am slowly coming up with a plot to let me try my hand at screenwriting.  I think it will be a challenge for me in the sense that I write from a very emotional place, and screenwriting is a much more visual art form.  I am looking forward to how this new medium will challenge me and improve or change my novel-writing skills.  One of the books I have is entitled How Not to Write a Screenplay and the author points out some obvious mistakes that apparently novice screenwriters make.  Several of them are eye-opening to me regarding writing in general, particularly those dealing with overwriting and not leaving things to the readers imagination.  In a screenplay, obviously, this is derived from the fact that the director and actors will be interpreting the descriptions in their own way, but I think it has some correlations in standard prose writing as well.  It has been a fascinating and eye-opening journey through that book.

Often times I have wondered or pondered the difference between a thriller and a mystery.  Obviously some works fall distinctly on one side or the other of this line but often I've noticed some middle ground that seems a bit ambiguous.  The author of How Not to Write a Screenplay (forgive me, I'm too lazy right now to get up and grab the book to find out  his name) defines the difference as follows.  He says that in a thriller, the audience (or reader) knows what the hero or heroine is trying to find out.  Thus, they know who the bad guy is, where the bomb is, or who has the child before the protagonist finds out for him or herself.  In a mystery, the main character solves the problem or mystery before the reader does, and then reveals it to the reader or audience in some way.  I don't know how much this difference is accepted in literary circles, but it made a lot of sense to me and drew an interesting line between the way an audience or reader connects with the main character.  Given this definition, the audience would be protective or worried for the main character in a thriller, but in a mystery, they would identify with him or her more along the journey, and come out with more respect perhaps.  Just an interesting thought for me.

Other than that, I am discovering reading over this entry that I am highly contemplative on no sleep and too much caffeine.  And so, adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

NaNo and other writing projects update!

So I'd been getting a bit discouraged lately by my novel, not because it's bad, because I don't think it's that bad, not because my word count is low, which it isn't, but because I'm not sure I have enough story left.  Although 50,000 words is the requirement for NaNoWriMo, it is a bit low for an acutal novel, and I was hoping that I would have enough story to fill out 80,000 or more words.  As it stands, I think this book will end up around 60,000.  So I was a little disappointed that I wasn't going to be able to write a book of the length that I wanted, but I was doing some research online today and it looks like mystery novels, which mine could be considered, usually fall more in the range of 60,000 to 80,000, which is much more attainable to me at this point.  So I feel a little better, and I also know that there are parts of my novel which could be fleshed out a bit, although I hate doing that.  I prefer the action to the detail and tend to jump from action to action in my writing.  Mostly because that is the way I like to read; I hate reading boring filler scenes.  If something exciting isn't happening, I usually get bored.

So right now I am at 35,195 words, with plans to add a few thousand more before the day is over.  My characters escaped from jail and are now trying to figure out the next step in their plans.  I still have almost half the month left, so at the rate I'm going, I'll be done in time to spend the rest of the month outlining my next book, which I think will be a sequal to Runaway Train, which I need to finish editing and begin submitting to agents.

So my current projects or soon-to-be projects are:

1. Runaway Train.  Possibly young adult survival adventure romance which stands at 40,277 words and needs some more editing and adding before it is ready to submit to agents.

2. Finding Innisburg.  Currently at 35,195 words, needs to be finished, edited and submitted to agents.                                                                                                                                                                       
 3. As yet unnamed short story.  Probably will be an Old West rendition of Much Ado about Nothing, with no comic spoofiness to it and delving deeply into the characters of the original Shakespeare.

4. As yet unnamed sequals to Runaway Train.  Before I started, I planned a whole trilogy so I have rough outlines for two more books.

5. Unnamed screenplay.  Probably about a girl who embezzles a bunch of money from her work with no forethought and runs away to Guatemala just because she felt impulsive.  Will be writing that for Script Frenzy in April.

So that's what I'll be working on for probably another year or so.  Hows your life?

Script Frenzy and All Nighters

A quick blog entry, and then I'm going to work on my novel.  For reals.

Two things I wanted to share with you, dear readers.  The first is that I am planning on staying up all night to work on my novel/do other things unrelated to working on my novel.  Aaron has inventory at work tonight; he left about two hours ago and won't be home until 6 or 7 AM probably.  So being the supportive girlfriend that I am, I'm going to attempt to stay up for as much of that as I can, puttering away on my trusty laptop, so that I can sleep in with him tomorrow.  Not that sleeping in is usually a problem for me.  So as I embark on my own Night of Writing Dangerously, my word count stands at 22,660 and at bare minimum, I would like to hit the halfway point of 25,000.

The second thing I wanted to tell you about is that I am seriously considering doing Script Frenzy in April.  For those of you who do not know what this is, it is a sister operation of sorts of NaNoWriMo and is for writing screenplays, plays, TV scripts etc.  I have never participated in Script Frenzy but I've recently become intriegued by the idea of writing a screenplay.  I have a couple of ideas that wouldn't work great in a novel but I think would make a great movie.  So I'm bouncing that idea around in my head.  We'll see.

Well, Aaron just called and he forgot something here that he needs for inventory, so I'm going to run that down to him.  Then I'll start on the nightly word count when I get home.

National Novel Writing Month

I know I've mentioned NaNoWriMo a couple of times recently so I thought I should mention it a bit further. NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. It is held annually in November, and hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world participate by attempting to write a 50,000 word, semi-coherent novel from 12:01 AM on November 1st, until 11:59 PM on November 30th. The idea is to simply get your ideas on paper, and accept that the first draft will be bad whether you spend thirty days, or thirty years on it. Editing comes later.

Participants chat online at http://www.nanowrimo.com/ and discuss everything from grammar issues to favorite novel-writing snacks. In addition, local groups will meet up for "write-ins" at local coffee shops and libraries, where they work on their novels, chat, and have various contests for highest word count, etc. NaNoWriMo is all about the word counts. NaNoers have a million ways to boost their word count, from the fair (long stories told by one character to another) to the slightly unfair, but still doable (having a character with twelve middle names, which are all used every time they are spoken to, or having a character quote long passages of Scripture)

I participated for the first time in 2008, writing, and finishing, a 75,000 word novel based on my personal experience with online dating and the stigma that I felt from family and friends. In 2009, I was too busy and didn't participate but I'm going to go for it again in 2010. Every year, various regions (as small as a city or as large as a country) compete for highest total word count among everyone in their region. Seattle has consistently won, year after year.

This year, my novel is going to be a mystery/thriller novel about a young photojournalist who stumbles upon a village deep in the jungles of Venezuela where the people are living just as if they are in a 1950's New England village. He must attempt to find out the sinister scheme behind their disappearance from 1953 Pennsylvania and their re-appearance in 2010 Venezuela. Along the way he gains friends and a girlfriend, and possibly finds out some dark secrets in his family's history.

So starting in October I need to begin constructing an outline for it (outlining etc before November is fair game, as long as you don't start any actual writing) to be ready in time for November 1st. Then in November I need to average over 1600 words a day to "win" NaNoWriMo by completing my novel.

There's still time to sign up if anyone is interested. It's free and just for fun. Check out http://www.nanowrimo.com/ for more information.