Writing Time

Alright, I've procrastinated this post long enough. I didn't post first thing after work today and the evening seamed to slip by. Of course it doesn't help that I could have dozed on the sofa before 8 tonight. I didn't sleep to well for whatever reason last night.

Thinking about time gave me an idea for today's post. Scheduling writing time. This is something I need to be better with. Right now I'm trying to find a routine that works for me. Once I have that it is so much easier to write regularly.

A few years back I was working part time after college. On the days I was home I would get a fair amount of writing in. I would get up around 9am, check various websites until about 10, then I would write until noon. Sometimes when I would be working on a more exciting part of a draft I wouldn't realize it was lunch time until the younger cat would paw my leg and meow at me. My lunch hour was split with me eating under her watchful eye, then a rousing game of fetch the puffy. Once she would settle down I could get some more writing in over the afternoon. Sure sometimes it would be rough to stay focused but in general that schedule had worked for me. And I enjoyed the writing time.

Now with my full time job I need to figure out a new routine. I've tried getting up early, I've tried writing on campus in my extra hour, I've even tried writing in the evenings. Each has it's positives and negatives. The quiet time first thing in the morning is wonderful, but for me I need to go to sleep earlier so I can make it out of bed in time the next morning. When I've managed it, writing right after work is alright. Though after a tough day fighting with databases or whatever else I need to unwind before trying to focus on something else. Evening writing works out so long as I start right after dinner. Any TV time and I'm ready to veg out.

I think though that I am going to make another effort at morning writing. Maybe I'll ease into it by getting up ten minutes earlier this week, then another ten the next. Short free writing exercises would be good for the stage I'm at with my revision preparation anyways.

So how do you fit time in for writing? Are certain times of day more preferable? Are specific places helpful? Are times grabbed whenever they can be fit in? Do you want more writing time? Happy with the time already?

Muse Prompting Monday

A walk down a pine needle peppered path. I thought this would be a fun photograph to use for my Muse Prompting series. I like some of the other photographs from this area better, but the roots in this shot look like they are waiting to trip an unsuspecting character. And without the sky seen the time of day is a little more ambiguous, leaving more to the imagination.

Imagine character(s) on this path. Is someone walking alone? Running away from someone else? Or perhaps a romantic stroll?

Shopping Sunday

Ya, it's alliterative. And technically I was shopping yesterday, but today I wanted to post about shopping. At least the writing/reading related parts. Well, maybe I'll mention that I found mix berry Pocky in the candy store. I was glad to see they had some Japanese snacks and I've never had the mix berry flavor before. I love stopping in the candy store. In addition to the sweets, the owner also has her cat in the store. How great is it that the candy store has a cat named Caramel. One of my fictional towns needs a bookstore with a store cat.

I missed posting yesterday with all the shopping with being out and about for 5 hours. In addition to the candy store we went to a local hardware store, Home Depot, J C Penny's, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, and the grocery store. The writing/reading part I wanted to blog about is the laptop/netbook search and the ebook reader.

Laptop wise I want something for the internet and writing. I'm not looking to replace my desktop machine. I know various models of ebook readers have the internet, but I would like to be able to blog, tweet, and post to other web communities. I need something to handle a fair amount of typing. It would be nice to write outside on good weather days, or simply have a laptop for writing on vacation or in other areas of the house.

I've also been considering netbooks for awhile as a laptop alternative. A few months back I had decided that I wouldn't like typing on them. Then with some of the models I was looking at yesterday I found a few that have keyboards set up just right so that my fingers won't feel squished together while typing. One model in particular has island-style keys, which help differentiate one key from the next for touch typing. (Some laptops have them to).

With the ebook readers my husband and I have been looking at various models for a little while now. Yesterday we checked them out at Best Buy then we went to Barnes and Noble for a closer look at the nook. The display on the nook is nice, and it also can browse the web. The store model also had a few PDF files already on it so we could see how the nook displayed them. I was pretty impressed with that part of the nook. With wanting a laptop or a netbook I probably won't buy an ebook reader for awhile. I don't want to spend to much money on electronics.

So what tech gadgets do you have? Or want? And any likes/dislikes in a gadget? There are some sweet devices out there that do have a heavier price tag attached.

Happy October

It's October, which means two things to me currently:

NaBlogWriMo. I'm participating in this event for the first time the object being to write a post a day for the month of October. It looked like fun so I figured I would give it a try. I could use the motivation to update my blog more.

NaNoWriMo.  Short for National Novel Writing Month. It's a writing challenge to write 50,000 words for a novel (the novel draft doesn't have to be finished, only the actual 50k word count) first draft. Now I'm going to do something different this year and be a "rebel". Instead of writing something new I'm going to revise a completed novel draft. I'll be doing prep work this month and come November I'll set a goal for myself based on how October goes. If the NaNo site was online right now I'd link to my profile there.

Also a note, I enjoyed the Great Blogging Experiment. I'm still planning on responding to comments on my blog along with continuing to check out other posts.

So what plans do you all have for this month? Rest of the year? Writing or otherwise. :)

Creating Compelling Characters

I'm participating in the Great Blogging Experiment writing about creating compelling characters.

When it comes to making a character compelling I think the most important part is to have the character's stakes in their conflict be clear to the reader. A major character can be likable or not, but either way there needs to be a clear understanding of what the character has vested into the story's conflict and what they stand to loose. This applies to the protagonist and the antagonist. 

The character's stakes don't have to be life and death. What they can risk loosing through various choices is related to their main conflict. This does relate back to character driving plot. What a character doesn't have and is trying to attain becomes the conflict for the story. From this conflict comes the plot. Without compelling characters plot can fall flat. 

Another part of a character's stakes are the choices they make through the story. When writing these choices it helps to understand what the benefits and costs of each option are for the character. What will happen to the protagonist if she decides not to challenge what a former friend is saying about her? What about if she says something to this person? Or about this person?

In real life we all face choices and risk loosing or gaining things. As a reader seeing this in characters makes them more interesting and almost real in a way. Plus to feeling that risk that a character faces helps keep an interest in the story. We read on to find out what choices the character makes to work out their conflict and how it is all resolved. Does the character loose what's important to them? Do they solve what they need to?

Character Visualization: Their space

I use Excel for various writing organizational tasks and I also like to play around with the different options/tools. While playing with the insert-shapes I  discovered a frame shape. After putting frames around random pictures I thought this might be a good exercise to visualize what a character's space could look like. It's another dimension for getting to know characters better.

In addition to figuring out what your character might have in their space it is also fun to figure out where various things came from. It's almost like brainstorming in a way to tease out more details about a character and their relationships.

For example, with this bird picture maybe it belongs to a young woman and she has hung on her living room wall. Well most of the time. Maybe she really dislikes birds but the framed picture was a gift from her boyfriend the budding nature photographer so she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. She keeps it in a drawer most of the time then makes sure it's displayed when he's coming over. And maybe he notices the little amount of dust on it compared to her other nick-knacks. He could wonder if she's hiding it, or he could think that she's taking extra special care of it because it's from him.

The bird picture is one I took this spring, the texture on the frame is a default pattern in Excel, and the purple around the picture is supposed to be wall color. The frame shape isn't curved by default, I transformed it to a free-form shape then edited the points. I'm thinking of putting together a little walk through post on some of the Excel options I used here.

Story Taking Shape

This post idea has been knocking around for awhile and is one of those gardening pondering topics. Starting in the spring I've been pulling out a multitude of seedlings. We have a maple tree in our front yard along with two Roses of Sharon "shrubs". I use the term shrub loosely here the one "Sharon" is taller than our house.

With both the maple and Sharon seedlings I noticed that the first set of leaves are unique from the rest of the plant's leaves. At first I wasn't sure what the plants were until I saw more leaves grow. The picture in this post has Roses of Sharon seedlings, which I took back in May. Two of the plants in the picture only have their sprout leaves, which are wide and rounded. The plant in the front has it's first true leaf, which has a narrower shape and the little ridges. This true leaf is a small version of the leaves on the adult plant.

Yes, a little gardening mention to transition into the writing related thought I had while gardening. Seedlings are like stories. In that the first set of leaves are the start of a story idea and that the true leaf is the story all polished and found.

For me my first draft is the sprout leaves. I do some light outlines, but my novel drafts are still rather rough and exploratory. I'm currently working on notes in preparation for revision in which I want to get my novel closer to it's true form. I know where I want to take it, what its true leaf looks like. My process currently is working out the details and deciding various character and world traits that will make my story arrive there.

For other people who have more details figured out ahead of time, they could be closer to their true leaf in the first draft then I am. Or maybe the first draft is really exploratory.

Where would you say your sprout leaves are for your process? What helps you flesh out your idea enough so that the writing stands up to your true leaf idea? Or have I been spending to much time pulling weeds?

Time and days off

Why do days off meander away from relaxing to a multitude of things to do? Here I have this nice block of time but I keep switching from task to task to random amusement trying to fit things in. Though I haven't started the Wii up yet today, yesterday I spent some time on Mario Cart. I wanted to update my blog, the dishes can wait for later.

I want to be more regular with my blog. I do enjoy blogging and it's a nice way to keep up with other bloggers. Plus writing regularly is a good thing. I've been pondering the direction of my blog recently and I came to a realization this weekend. I like the general content I've been posting, and I'm still looking forward to the character conflict series I mentioned awhile back. I even have a post started saved as a draft. The tricky part is I have some really great thoughts while away from the computer for post wording that seam to evaporate once I'm at the keyboard. I'm tempted to buy a voice recorder to save said thoughts. That would be handy for things like cleaning and gardening.

I also decided that it would be fun to blog about books on occasion. I have a "to-read" list on Goodreads and it would be nice to share my reviews in my blog to. And it would be extra nice to read/review books by people I've met through blogging and online communities.

Then there are my cats. I'm thinking they might be mentioned on occasion in my blog, and mostly from the perspective of including pets into a work of fiction. I love animals, especially cats. If I'm not careful I could easily right too much about them.

Well, that's my post. I'm still participating in the Blog BBQ so I will be hanging around blogs today.

Blog BBQ party

Coming Down the Mountain: From Reclusive Writer to Published Author: Are You Ready to Find a Bunch of Awesome New Followers...: "It's time for the Blog Party BBQ to begin! I've jazzed up my blog with some new color, how about you? Are you ready for a bunch of new visi..."

This is my first time using the "Blog This" button from another blog, so hopefully the formatting looks alright.

I'm participating in Karen's Blog BBQ event and I wanted to mention it in my blog. I also figured it would be a good chance to have a more recent post here. If you don't already read her blog go over and check it out.

I've already received some comments from other BBQ people (yay) on an older post which unfortunately that post is old enough for comments to go to the moderation queue. Blogger e-mails me so I saw them shortly thereafter.

For anyone wandering over here from the party feel free to say hi on this post or my previous one. Either post works. I'd meant to have a more recent post, but with taking my one cat to the vet twice this week it's been a little hectic.

I am planning on visiting other BBQ blogs this weekend. I don't have any constraints on my time all weekend. Well, aside from making sure kitty gets lots of attention.

Conflict Breakthrough

As I've mentioned before I am currently in the process of working with my fantasy novel so I can start revising soon. Before I even look at my draft I want to flesh out both the world and the characters more, which can be a daunting process. But as I was reading one of Holly Lisle's more recent e-mails her answering a question on conflict really got me thinking.  I know how conflict works in novel writing, but my thoughts after reading the e-mail gave me my own epiphany. It was almost like a cartoon light bulb moment. I saw my main character's various conflicts and how they moved the plot forward.

This got me thinking further about character choices as relating to conflict. Whatever conflict big or small a character is currently facing they can choose how to try and solve that conflict. I thought it might be fun to draw up a conflict and choices flow chart. It would be good to flesh out what the various choices could cause for the character, which of course would introduce more conflicts which would then have their own options for a character to choose. The important part in all this is understanding why my character will choose what she does and what are the stakes.

Character drives plot. One can have an interesting idea for a novel or short story, but for the writing process the plot forms around the actions the characters take while trying to overcome the conflict. With my fantasy novel I have been struggling with the level of conflict for my character which in turn has been making planning/writing this novel difficult. Now thanks to the thought process after reading Holly's message I can better see the main conflict for my character along with how it will tie in with other conflicts.

Even though this post is about conflict my breakthrough will help with the worldbuilding as well. With analyzing the various conflicts it will give me a good way to break down different facets of the world and I will be able to figure out what exactly I need to flesh out more for the world.

I am still planning on starting my character challenge series soon, sometime this week. I figure this post is related to that in a ground work sort of way. Looking at various personality traits for a character can help understand why they react a certain way to a specific conflict.

(I hope this isn't to disjointed. This post has been ruminating in my mind since my breakthrough last weekend when I took 3 pages on handwritten notes on the subject. I wanted to get this posted before today gets away from me. I want to go through some boxes around the house in preparation for some work that's going to be done. I'm aiming to avoid the last minute shuffle of stuff that inevitably leads to misplacing items).