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Welcome to this week's Novel Support Group (NSG). Anyone can join. If you're new, tell us a bit about who you are and what project you are working on. Feel free to update the NSG Work in Progress thread with your current projects. Although we can report on any number of things, here is a list of suggestions (suggestions welcomed).
What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them?
Describe what you worked on.
Set goals for next week.
Did you learn something during this week?
Here is a list of things that you can do each week as we work on our novels (suggestions welcomed).
Writing on a novel
Characterization
World Building
Relevant research
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Last Week's Goals
I'm still working on the basic brainstorming for this new book while my wife ... slowly ... reads Project: Life. I didn't make much progress on the outline / plot because I keep getting hung up on a point in the plot where I force progress. I call this Plot Pushing. In this case, I have a character do something that force the story to move forward but the action makes no sense and is only useful to push the plot. I need to evaluate that section and make it more logical and believable before going forward.
My goals for next week:
Brainstorm New Book Idea(s)
Basically, continue brainstorming the plot threads and see where they take me.
What did I learn this week?
I found some video recordings of Brandon Sanderson talking about "Description and View Point" and "Plotting" on YouTube from last years JordonCON. Good stuff, so I will say I learned something this week. Still processing all of that though.
On the Shelf: THE SHAMAN'S CURSE THE IGNORED PROPHECY
DREAMER'S ROSE: Nothing for this month. Such an easy goal.
MAGE STORM: Work on the query. Well, I looked at it and I've thought about it some, but I haven't made a single change, yet.
SEVEN STARS: Let it rest. Another easy goal.
BLOOD WILL TELL: Keep working through the revisions. Get through Chapter. Yep. I'm in the middle of Chapter 31 right now.
OTHER: Update my blog twice a week. I also have a couple of short stories I need to work on a little and get back out there. Yes to the blog, no to the stories.
Next Week's Goals:
On the Shelf: THE SHAMAN'S CURSE THE IGNORED PROPHECY
Keep jotting down ideas of how these two might be changed.
DREAMER'S ROSE: Nothing for this month.
MAGE STORM: Work on the query. Really.
SEVEN STARS: I hope to be starting the second draft by the end of the week.
BLOOD WILL TELL: Keep working through the revisions. Get through to the end.
OTHER: Update my blog twice a week. I still have those short stories I need to work on a little and get back out there.
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Time flies, another week is passed? Don't worry about it. Get done what I can and enjoy the imaginary rose's...what am I saying? Roses! That show's no imagination at all! What I meant was enjoy the Floating Moon Blossoms, which are parasites that stir in moonlight and flit from tree top to tree top dusting the leaves with glowing pollen.
Anyways,
[bold]Last goals:[/bold] Evangeline: Write 15 pages of new stuff. Not so much because I switched gears after more conclusive reviews to focus on amping up New Arbor Day's first 80 pages. But I did develop a couple of future points in my outline that helped tie some events up.
New Arbor Day: Edit 45 pages of stuff. Started over on the 'amping process', very depressing because I've just been so frustrated on how to make the opening hook. I think I've got the form of a pretty good hook now, but I'm going to have to wholesale slaughter words because I end up taking too many chapters on one act. Sadly though, I think one of the problems is the lack of connection to the characters so I may end up replacing those parts with more character development so the word count might not drop so much. Hard part for me is that usually when I try to show a character to get to know them, my reviews say nothing is going on. If I narrate from their head, it comes out as "telling." So I'm having trouble balancing that, it seems like it has to be about motivation because that's the one thing you cannot show. You can't simply flashback to show the origin of every behavior and if you did it would be even longer before you got into the "now."
[bold]New Goals[/bold]:
Evangeline: Write as a target of opportunity, visit every day to keep it fresh, but no focused writing.
New Arbor Day: Avenge yourself on those first 80 pages until they are fast and close up. But without losing the pov of ignorance and disbelief of the characters...in short work those first 80 pages this week.
THE NULL PROPHET: Let it rest, and continue with exchange. Yes
MINDWALKER: 1,000 words/day, 10,000 words for the week. I did better than last week, but still didn't quite hit my goal. I got to 1,000 words 4 days, 6,952 total.
Next Week:
THE NULL PROPHET: Let it rest, and continue with exchange.
MINDWALKER: 1,000 words/day, except today (I refuse to feel guilty for not writing on Easter). It would be nice to hit 10,000 words for the week, but I'm not making it a goal.
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note I replaced Epoch Orb Child of Time with Chrysalis. Info for chrysalis will be at the end.
Last week's Goals Didn't really make out a specific goal, I just wanted to write something.
This week's goals Write at least a 600 words a day to build the habit again. I'll be putting a lot of my time in Chrysalis. I'll still be focusing on Journey to the Lost Universe
very rough Synopsis of Chrysalis Fantasy 75k words (also a side story of Journey to the Lost Universe)
Today is the annual Festival of the Hunt in Elecorn Village and Baldur and Deeken are competing in a hunting contest. They're hunting a hell boar that was recently spotted near the village. When they kill the hell boar, they take it's tusks to the village chief and win the contest. However what was a seemingly harmless hunt eventually turned into a disaster. An army of demonic, near immortal creatures called Shadow Goblins somehow used the hellboar to track down the "sane minded". They slaughter everyone in the village but Baldur and Deeken, they barely made it out. I don't know much else than that, story wise.
ps: I suck at synopsises so you'll have to make due with this one haha
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Just completed the Final Final reread/revision of THE KABBALIST: THE FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM formatted to Angry Robots atypical manuscript submission guidelines in the low probability chance they request to see the whole manuscript.
I hadn't read the whole novel in many months, so it actually was a bit of a narcissistic treat. I'm pretty happy to leave it be now.
[Except for two copyright permission letters I need write, and the need to reformat the whole thing back to standard agent/US editor manuscript submission guidelines].
I may even decide to chance querying agents.
For the rest of my vacation week, though, I want to finish a short story, maybe two!
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Back from 2 trips (Minnesota & upstate New York, with spouse and 2 children)-- trying to catch up and re-settle in.
As for my goals from my last post, I did precious little toward finishing the draft of the 2nd half of the "Briar's Day" chapter for Hudson Valley School. I did work quite a lot on the motivations and methods of my villains. I'm not sure how much more I'll need to play with this before I'll feel solid enough with it. (The idea for the novel started with a cast of characters. I started building world & plot around that and came to realize that the conflict I'd created was pretty weak as drama. So, I've spent quite a bit of time on re-creating and developing the antagonists. The other characters have built a lot, as well, while I'm doing this, but I'm still not quite where I need to be with malevolent crew.
So, my goal for next week is... uh... try to nail it down.
I'm having a good time reading about what you all doing. I'm glad to be here.
I see that some of you have really young children (or in utero...). Axe, I commend you for finding time & energy to write, truly. I feel like such a wuss for thinking it's hard with elementary school aged children!
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Boy, Meredith you always jump right in on this...Not that that is bad but Wow.
In "Storm Born" I finally figured out a way to get my MC away from the werewolf he was fighting. He's about to figure out where the bad guy is going to call up the demi-god and that Now is the time. That will start the last chapter. I had some reason for him to figure out that this was the last Lightning Storm but than forgot it, so I'm going have to just go with what I have.
I'm further away from the end in "New Mage On The Block" but still starting to close in on it. I would like one more chapter before NA fights the bad guy. Probably be a short one.ÊI may wait 'till that chapter for her to figure out she is under a Trick.
And I'm half way through with my revision of "Bright Lights and Chaos". I'm very eager to finish it even though that feeling usually doesn't come until the last chapter or the conclusion of a short story. Of course than I will have to start fixing all the things the people in a certain group have found in the first four chapters.ÊWell, I just sent in Number Three but I'm splitting up chap Two so when I'm done Three might become Five.