December IWSG 2014 Revisions

Hey IWSGers! Hope you’re all doing well as Christmas and New Year’s grows ever closer. The Holiday season is upon us and in full swing! :D Have you gotten started on your Christmas list yet or are you one of those early birds that’s already got it done and has been done for weeks now. (If you’re one of the latter, what’s your secret? ;D )
Anywho, it’s the first Wednesday of the month and coincidentally, also the last IWSG Post of the year. It also happens to be…my Birthday! Yay! *confetti* ^^ :D So onto matters of the writer! I am working on revisions of my ICL novel and I am learning how much a different creature it is than writing. I absolutely hate the opening of my book, but I am finding spots where I can fine tune it, but I think that’s part of my problem as I get going here. I am fine tuning when I should be…doing something broader? I am not sure. Where does one start when diving into revisions? Do you read over the whole manuscript and then work on chunks? Do you start at the beginning? Work backwards since you’re characters are more defined at the end?

What do you do when you start revisions? Do you have a system or method that helps you keep on track? Let me know in the comments below! :)

Merry Christmas and Happy Writing! ^^ :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

November IWSG Small Victories

Hey IWSGers! Hope you guys and gals had a fantastic Halloween are doing good! October absolutely flew by! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s November already! Oh well. Time flies when you’re having fun so it couldn’t have been too bad can it? ;D

Well a lot has been going on since my last IWSG Post. Before I mentioned that I was working on two different pieces; a novel for my Institute of Children’s Literature class and another for the Harvest Contest organized by the Central Oregon Writer’s guild. I’m very happy to announce that, not only did I finish the first draft of my novel a whole month ahead of schedule, but I also placed in the top ten of the Harvest Contest! There were 52 entries in the contest and it was a tight race. The Awards Night was held October 18^th at the New Hampton Inn in Bend and all of the top ten came and read their pieces. It was great getting to listen to all of them. There was a lot talent and creativity present and it was a lot of fun getting to talk to the other winners afterwards and learn more about them. :)

Now that the contest is over, it’s back to work! ;D I’m going to start on editing and revising my novel and while I’m working on that, I’m hoping to finally finish another short piece for a different contest. Lots of fun stuff coming up! :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

September IWSG Systems

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all doing fantastic! Today is the first Wednesday of a new month so it’s time again for another IWSG. :D

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of success books and I’ve noticed they talk a lot about systems and habits and how they can make or break you in the long run. I’ve also heard from other very successful writers that they make time to write every day so I decided to create my own system and hopefully in the process, create a habit. I’ve always been a sporadic writer and so for the month of August, I wrote out a chart on my dry erase board with a slot for each day from Sunday to Saturday and told myself that every day I was going to write down a word count of 200 words or more and then record it all on my calendar. The first week I wrote 1,838 words, averaging at about 262 words a day. Not too bad. Then the next week I totaled 1,876 words, averaging at about 268 words a day. Admittedly I did miss a day that week to work on edits, but overall, still not too bad. Then the third week I started gaining a little ground. I wrote 1,992 words and averaged about 285 words. I missed another day for editing, but there was still a pretty good jump in my word counts. Week four saw a big jump. I wrote a total of 2,758 words and averaged 394 words a day! Woohoo! Now for those marathon writers out there that pull in about 3,000 words a day, this might look like nothing, but for me, it was huge! After all was said and totaled up, for the entire month of August I wrote 8,809 words and I’m pulling in more every day. I also find that when I sit down to write, the story comes easier, I’m not fighting myself as much to get the word counts in and I’m mostly stopping for the day because I have to go to bed and get up at a decent time the next day. (Don’t underestimate the importance of a good night’s sleep! It can make all the difference!) Now I’m bumping my goals up a little higher. I’m trying to do no less than 400 words a day and climbing all the time. I no longer feel so behind on my course novel and am feeling pretty good about where I’m at. I also finally submitted to my local writer’s guild’s contest  that I’ve promised myself I’d do for the past two years(hence the two days missed for editing J).

So how about you? Do you have any systems you put in place to help your writing out? Let me know in the comments below! ;D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

August 2014 IWSG

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all doing fantastic! Today is the first Wednesday of a new month so it’s time again for another IWSG. :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

So I’ve been intermittently working on a Young Adult Faery novel for a couple months now and I’m about a third of the way through the novel and I hate it. All of it. I want to light it on fire and watch it burn. My main character seems to lack a drive to do anything and the story feels flat. The beginning came very easily, but I have to admit beginnings are probably the easiest part for me. I also have a deadline on this project since it is for a class I’m working on so I can’t afford to set it aside for now. What did you do when you completely fell out of love on a project? Was there anything you did that helped you reignite that spark and helped you finish the project you were working on?

Let me know in the comments below! :D

July 2014 IWSG A Tale of Two…Tales

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all doing fantastic! Today is the first Wednesday of a new month so it’s time again for another IWSG. :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

So I’ve been working hard on a couple of pieces lately, one being my novel assignment for the Institute of Children’s Literature and the other being a short contest piece for the Central Oregon Writer’s Guild’s Annual Contest (which just opened up state wide! :D Woohoo!). They’re both coming along great and I’m really excited about both, but they both also have some upcoming deadlines. The first third of my novel’s rough draft is due in a week or so and my contest piece is due on the first of September. I’ve almost got my novel’s first third done and I’m really close to having my contest piece fully written out, but the editing process is going to take a while. I’ve been having a bit of difficulty switching back and forth between the two; I get focused and then I have to switch back to the other piece. When you’re working on multiple pieces, how do you juggle them? Do you have a system that helps you better manage your time? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by! ^^ :D

 

May 2014 IWSG

Hey Guys! So seeing as how it is the first Wednesday of the Month, it must be IWSG! So I’ve been a little hiatus lately, but don’t worry, I’m still writing in the background! ;) What I wanted to ask all you writers out there is how you respond when people ask you about ideas you have that you may be currently working on. I was trying to explain one of my ideas out loud the other day and the more I tried to describe it, the more I thought, Woooow that sounds sooo stupid. And the more I talked about it, the more my idea started to lose that magic glimmer that had convinced me to write about it in the first place.

How do all you other writers out there deal with this?

Thanks guys! ^^ :D

 The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

Gotta love that Aftershock

Do you ever get that feeling after reading a particularly good book, that if you don’t move, you’ll absolutely explode??? That if you remain sitting for just one more second, you’ll absolutely pass out from the sheer epic-ness? I just finished reading The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas and there are no words. What an amazing read that leads into a spectacular series. I think I’ve been slowly picked apart and pieced back together. And I loved it!!! This. This is why I decided to become a writer. Because books can so utterly move you and in one fell swoop, utterly destroy you. And without even realizing it, they can pick you up, dust you off and put you back together. I ran across a video a year or so ago that I think absolutely nails it on the head. Enjoy! ^^

 

Writitng Exercises

Hi everyone! It’s been quite a while hasn’t it? I hope you’re all doing well and getting plenty of good writing in. J So today I want to share with you a writing exercise I came up with while doing some brainstorming for my current WIP. I recently had the opportunity to do a group interview at one of the local retail stores here in town. They brought in six people, including myself, and had us all interview together taking turns answering questions and one of the questions they asked us was, “What two words would you use to describe yourself?” I thought, Oh this’ll be easy! Piece of cake! ^^ Not so. Have you ever tried to come up with only two words that would wholly encompass who you are and still do justice to your character? Well it wasn’t exactly easy, but while sitting at my desk thinking about my WIP, I thought, What if I tried to use just two words to describe my characters? It was actually a great exercise. I’m still working on it for a couple more characters, but it really makes you think about them and dig deep into what makes each character uniquely who they are. I’ll share a couple examples just so that you can see a few of mine.

 

Charming and Elusive

Swarthy and Cunning

Adventurous and Delicate

 

Of course these could be a little stronger, but you get the idea. Plus as you keep working on your story and your characters change, sometimes so should some of their words, but not all the time. In fact, because these words should describe the core of your character, these words will rarely change, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fine tune them a little more, not to mention that if you’ve got a seriously dynamic character who changes during the course of the story, his core could change a little too.

Try it out and see what you think. If you want, share one or two of yours in the comments below! ^^ :D