A Little Less Conversation
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
No time to chat, but do boogie along:
A little more action:
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Are We There Yet?
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
I’m at the stage of the game where I have to work to think positively, which I have to do to keep working. I could be cleaning the house for our pre-Thanksgiving pie smorgasbord! I could be reading overdue library books! Instead I will keep typing.
One positive bit is the continued learning experience and comes with sticking with it. I’m discovering that perhaps the end of the first quarter of any story is hard for me, not just this point in this particular one. The end of the first quarter is the point after I’ve introduced the characters and set up the situation; now they’re dealing with the tests of the plot and so am I.
Another experience I will now generalize is that some of my outline problems I’m just not going to figure out until I start writing—I won’t see that they’re there at all, let alone how to fix them. Something about being in the thick of things is when I can see it’s not going to work. It’s easy to feel virtuous about a method—some way of preparing and researching and proceeding—and end up not doing much writing. (more…)
A Note to Our Sponsors
Monday, November 15th, 2010
We need a quick inspirational word with Yolanda, to remind her which subgenre we’re working in:
Maybe a scene in a graveyard . . .
NaNo, Nonette; or, I Didn’t Think That Would Happen
Friday, November 12th, 2010
A couple of the things swirling around lately:
| My standard (Freudian) typo for what’s happening this month is NoNoWriMo. | The song “Tea for Two,” from the musical No, No, Nanette, came up. | ||
My kids had never heard the song (they have heard of my typos), so we dialed it up on YouTube and came up with this link to a scene in a French movie. Go on, click it and watch—it’s worth it, and I couldn’t embed it.
I start these things out with a dry, cliched notion of what the trouble is or who’s responsible and the knowledge that I have to write something out to arrive at more understanding. I can’t make myself “make something up”; I need a pen in my hand, some swirling-around space, and pages of bantering dialogue while the characters wrestle my mental fog and turn it into something verbal. (more…)
One Step after Another
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
I read something once where Eudora Welty talked about process. She said that what was hard could be the little things, something along the lines of “I have the most trouble getting people in and out of rooms.” In off moments, I keep my eyes out for for the source and the exact quote, but I haven’t found it. Then I read this:
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is getting the characters out of the pub and into the cab.
—Kingsley Amis
Someone else with the problem of just how complete do you make the play-by-play! It’s from day 7 of a set of posts by Scott Westerfield about NaNoWriMo. Westerfield was mostly quoting Raymond Chandler in that post, whose little mechanics problem was stated thusly:
I couldn’t get the characters in and out of rooms. They lost their hats and so did I.
Week 2
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
I’ve checked off a lot of work stuff.
I’ve had meals that didn’t include pizza or Halloween candy.
I’ve fought off the drama queen (her name is Yolanda): “Oh my God, I’m drinking Irish breakfast tea and this character is English. I feel blocked.”
I’ve had some more than 1,000 word days, so I’m starting to feel the NaNo immersion vibe. I’m still figuring out an outline about four scenes ahead of where I’m writing the actual play-by-play. If I paused to wonder what the big climax is, I could get a good fret on, but I’ve managed to stay away from that.
When I switch from work to writing, I put on the duchess rings to help me shift mind-sets. They are big and chunky and frankly a little irritating to wear while typing; being a
duchess has its burdens as well as privileges.
I’ve also been using voice recognition software to give my wrists a break. (more…)
Getting Unstuck
Sunday, November 7th, 2010
Need a push? Try a writing prompt. There are some posts about prompts on this site, and more on my Tumblr page.
The point of prompts is to get you out of your brain and on paper. Don’t worry too much about whether this bit of writing is necessary to your main story; it’s to get you moving along the page instead of through the neurons.
I scheduled this to post on November 7 because Doyce Testerman says Day 7 is one of the days we’re likely to bail out of a new habit.
Don’t quit. Write something down, right now.
Now leave for a couple of hours. Take a bath, take a nap, play with a kid.
Then write some more things down. Tomorrow’s going to be easier.
NaNoWriMo Day 2
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Current theme music:
It turns out I have some major work deadlines this week. I’ve written about resistance before, I’ve written a novel before, and I’ve even won NaNo before, so I know because I’ve experienced it that the beginning of a project is a rough time for me.
One thing I’ve noticed this time around (more…)
And We’re Off . . .
Monday, November 1st, 2010
NaNoWriMo #2 for me. I have a lot of ideas crowding my brain, I want to get better at blasting past the internal editor, I love the feeling of finishing (but not like this). I’m out of practice to sit still and write for an hour, so in classic “we’re not actually jocks” Gamble fashion, I’m going to get back in shape during the trip (although I did break in the shoes in advance).
The mission: 1,667 words a day. So save this prose style for the edit.
The story: the third Proxy book, the thrillerish problems of Rosalind Prescott-Evenbridge, eighth duchess of Cumberland, and Nick Darville, reporter.
The method: Nick made his first appearance during my first NaNo, “Deception by Proxy,” and ended up getting shot in the shoulder. (more…)
Why NaNoWriMo?
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
National Novel Writing Month is coming back around, and I’m gearing up to go. There are plenty of blogs and books out there with advice about how to approach the marathon, or how it feels to actually do it (my favorites include Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem and Doyce Testerman’s day-by-day posts). There are many, many other helpful books about writing a novel. and which books are good—which would actually be helpful to you—is why I recommend participating in NaNoWriMo. You figure out how you work and what help you need by trying things, that is to say, by writing.
I wrote a post a while back about how writing is like jogging, and the metaphor still works here. You can read about stride length, breathing, and so on, but at some point you have run to really get it. (more…)
