Worderella Writes

NaNoWriMo

How many of you are doing NaNoWriMo this year? I did it last year, my first time ever, and I loved it. I won, which was exciting, and it inspired me to go back and start First Draft B of working!title Trentwood’s Orphan. I don’t have time to do it this year, which I’m sad about, but I’m being extra crazy and doing it again this year, to motivate me through the last half of my WIP. I started browsing the website and, not so surprisingly, I was sucked back in. I also want the following from their store: the “Can’t talk, noveling” mug and the 2007 t-shirt.

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Storyboarding

I am an alpha personality: I live by lists, I like things ordered a certain way, I like to be in charge, I like to be on time. So you would think I use storyboarding to plot my novels, right?

Wrong! This past weekend was the first time I ever attempted a storyboard. And let me tell you: It was wonderful. I started out by drawing a line across an 11 x 24 sheet of paper for a timeline. I’ve always loved timelines, so it made sense for me to do it this way. Plus, my story has a backstory spanning ten years.

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A Recent Conversation

Mina: So how is the new work-in-progress going?
Me: Really well! I mean, I got up to chapter 18 and I was flowing and everything. Wrote a couple thousand words last month, but then… (sigh)
Mina: …?

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Leg/Back Pain

There is a good side to this experience: I know the exquisite pain that comes from using your body incorrectly. I have some idea of how a person would walk, would change their habits, in order to accommodate something that will most likely never go away. And it just so happens that I have a character (or had a character since he’s dead) that, while his accident happened much differently, has many of the same symptoms.

Do you use your personal experiences to flesh out your characters? If you do, does it ever hurt to relive those memories in order to write it on your character’s behalf?

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Hurting Our Characters

Well, it’s Finals Week™, so we all know what that means: I get to start writing again! At the end of every quarter as assignments trickle to a halt and I’m left with more free time, all those little nuggets of inspiration that came to me earlier (but I couldn’t encourage because I had to be in school-mode) are now free to take over. What does this mean, Worderella? What are you trying to tell us?

It means that I’ve written another couple of thousand words over the last few days, which is a cause for celebration. Assuming I keep my overall goal of approximately 85 000 words (the range for a full-length novel is anywhere from 80 000 to 100 000+), then I can safely say I am 39.5% complete with this draft.

But I’ve hit a slight roadblock.

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An Update

So. How is the WIP going? Fairly well, I would say. It’s a new month, which means I’ve printed out the previous month’s (incomplete) draft, kissed it, set it aside, and convinced my mind that I’m starting this month with a new inspired view of the WIP. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it seems to work for me. I’m 29% complete with this draft that I call The Rewrite of Novel # 2 ™. …

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Procrastination

I should be studying for my finite automata exam. Really, I should. However, I find myself procrastinating. Which is funny, because usually I use my studying and classwork as a way to procrastinate from my writing. Now, I’m procrastinating from the very thing that allows me to procrastinate.

Why am I procrastinating from my writing? Well, because when I look at the page, I sigh and my shoulders slump, rather than smile and put my eager fingers to the keyboard. Like I said before, I know where I want to go next. What I don’t know, what the characters refuse to tell me, is what path to take in order to get there. And no, I am not schizophrenic, though sometimes my mother worries I might be when I start talking about my characters as if they were alive.

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Shameful Admission

All right kiddos, it’s admission time: I have let life get in the way of my writing. I know, I know, one should always make time to write. That’s been my personal mantra the last couple months, anyway. However, there have been extenuating circumstances, such as my health, school…basically, the sources of big bummers in my writing life.

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Can’t Slow Down

I can’t remember if I mentioned this already (and I’m too lazy to look at the last couple entries to find out), so let me say this now: school is back in session. This surely explains the lack of posts and the reason why it is taking me three weeks to finish one book when normally, I finish three books in one week.

That aside, I am fighting for my right to write.

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Re-Writing Woes

So. I’ve begun working on the prequel again, after taking a seven week hiatus to participate in NaNoWriMo and then study for Finals Week. I’m glad I took all that time off, because after reading the first three chapters I realized chapters 1 needs to be cut, chapter 2 if kept should be put after chapter 3, and chapter 3 should be the new chapter 1, but only after an extensive re-write.

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