• 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

Since I didn't set goals that were too difficult I was able to complete them. I was able to get chapter eight completed but I did not go much further than that. The next chapter does little more than getting my main character from one place to another so I have not been looking forward to working on that chapter. I did rearrange some of the scenes in the next chapter or two that I hope I will help me get through those chapters.

My goals for next week:

• Chapter 9

I want to work on chapter nine. Since I did some rearranging I hope that this chapter will be easier to outline. I decided to change PoV characters for this chapter which should help me get some more material and scenes for this chapter. Previously I did not have much to write for those scenes other than traveling from place to place and I did not have much to write about there. I hope this change will help.

What did I learn this week?

I don't know that I learned much this week. I did find a possible new writing tool / technique that I want to use for the writing I do this week. If it works out well I may have something to add next week.

To that end:

• Finish one of my short stories! I have two short stories that need an ending.
• Reorganize WotW. I'm almost done plotting the emotional arcs of my characters.
• Think about the middle for TWoH.
• Take a peek at WotF story!
• Critique something. It's been way too long since I've read someone else's story.
  

Last Week's Goals
Dreamer's Rose: My original goal was to try to get through Chapter Six. I revised it to just figuring out what the story needs because it was clear to me that something was wrong if I couldn't seem to make any progress. I posted my problem in Open Discussions and the feedback helped me break up the log jam. I'm not sure how much of the first few chapters I'm going to cut, yet. That can come in the first revision. But I picked up the story ten years later. I not only finished Chapter six, I'm halfway through Chapter Seven. Woo Hoo!

The Shaman's Curse: Send out five queries.
Oops. I got too busy with Dreamer's Rose. I looked up last night and realized I hadn't started this. I plan to send one or two e-mail queries out later today (hopefully). Since the others on my list want snail mail queries, some with up to fifty pages, I'm not going to try to rush getting all of that printed out and organized. I'll do the printing this weekend and send them off on Monday.

The Ignored Prophecy: Continue the chapter exchange and revisions.
Well, my chapter exchange has been side-lined by computer problems on the other end. I do have a lot of revision notes that I can work off of whenever I'm not working on Dreamer's Rose.

What Comes After: Otherwise known as untitled Book Three. Continue brainstorming and outlining the plot in detail.
I've done a little on this, but very little. Dreamer's Rose was finally flowing.

This Week's Goals:

Dreamer's Rose: Finish Chapter Seven and write Chapter Eight.

The Shaman's Curse: Send out those queries I didn't get to this week, plus a couple more. Start working on a list of more agents to query. I've worked my way almost to the end of my current list. Current stats: Seventeen queries sent. Fourteen rejections--eight actual rejections and six assumed rejections due to elapsed time.

The Ignored Prophecy: Continue working on the revisions I have already outlined. There are a couple of points I need to work out a little more, to tie them in more firmly with the central plot.

So, I neither finished the scene I am working on, nor did I start the next scene. I did do some writing, which is better than nothing. I also learned the truth of the fact that you throw out the first part of whatever you write. I don't think I'll end up keeping anything that I wrote over vacation.

Next week:

I'm going on vacation again! This time it's with my boyfriend and his family. Hopefully I'll get more sleep and have more flexibility with my time. I'm hoping to...

-Finish this scene (finally)
-Start the next scene
-Do some kind of writing every day

Against my better judgment, I finally gave in to my kids' requests and adopted a cat. Astonishing move, considering I'm a dog person. Regardless, Ares (I named him; I hated his original name) is now a member of my family. My kids love him. Athena (black Lab) sees Ares as a curiosity, but Loki (coon hound / German Shepard mix) sees him as a chew toy, so we've been keeping those two in separate parts of the house for now.

Back to writing...

Current: "Metzgerhund Empire" is done!
Goal: Find an agent.

Current: Mainstream novel: Order of events and character sketches are approx. 90% complete.
Goal: I'm announcing the beginning of my writing ministry for this story! I've already typed out 2K words, and am looking forward to cranking out more tonight.

Current: SF novel: research phase
Goal: Continue studying and learning

Current: My 'special' project: development phase
Goal: Complete one section, and start another

Actually, I wouldn't mind going on vacation again.

Marita Ann, I get antsy a lot during vacation, feeling like I want to write, but it's good to sometimes take a break and spend time with family. Aspirit, I'm there with you--with the self-pity and self-disgust bit. I fall into that trap all the time. I think you just have to shut it up and plow on. Meredith, hooray for getting all those queries out, and keep on sending them! William, I'm interested to know more about this new writing tool.

I forgot to post last week. But I have been doing really good lately in writing, so I think I would have made my goals if I posted them.

I am going to make a big goal to have the rough draft of my novel completed by December.

Goal this week: Work on Chapters 2 and 3.

As for this new writing tool, annepin, I am still gathering research material on this. Some of you may have already learned or heard of this technique. Basically you alternate between two different types of scenes: Scenes and Sequels.

For the Scene, you have three things you include in the scene:

• Goal
• Conflict
• Disaster

The Scene is primarily action. You have a stated Goal the character (perhaps the PoV character) for that scene, the Conflict regarding that goal, and a Disaster in failing to achieve that goal.

For the Sequel you have these things to include:

• Reaction
• Dilemma
• Decision

In the Sequel you slow down the pace of the book by showing the character's Reaction to the disaster. Then you present the Dilemma (stakes) regarding that goal. Finally, you end with a Decision which leads to the goal of the next Scene. It all then starts over with a new Scene (a new Goal, etc.).

I'm still researching some of this but one thing I found is a recommendation that the Scene be around 4 manuscript pages long whereas the Sequel be significantly shorter because the Sequel will have internal exposition and that slows the pace down. A longer Scene and a shorter Sequel will speed up the pacing of the novel. Thus, if you want to slow the pace down (such as after a major climax in the story) you may be able to increase the size of your Sequels for a while.

The other tool that I'm researching is called the Motivation-Reaction Unit (MRU). This is a micro-view whereas the Scene / Sequel is a macro-view. Basically, you start a scene with a Motivation, which is an objective description of the environment around the character. This is then followed by a Reaction by the character, which is an internal reaction to the previous motivation. Then back to another objective Motivation and you cycle between these two. How long these are depends upon the author but it seems like these are no longer than a paragraph each (or a sentence of dialogue back and forth between characters).

An example would be to have a Motivation by describing the people eating and drinking at a tavern. This would followed by the character's Reaction to those people, his or her opinions of them. That could be followed by one of the people in the tavern throwing a challenge at the PoV character. Then you would have the character reacting to that motivation, and so on back and forth.

From what I have seen it is supposed to help bring out the action of the scene and still show internal exposition without the internal dialogue becoming to bloated. Since it is interspersed with action the reader is less likely to become bored with the exposition.

I've only scratched the surface of this so far but have found that by using this Scene / Sequel technique I have come up with additional items for my scenes that I may not have thought of. In addition, I can see that it could be easier to control the pacing of a novel by adjusting the length of the Scenes and Sequels of a given section of the book.

Much of this can be found using your favorite search engine. I believe much of this is based upon the book, Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight V. Swain. Other authors have their own variation on this technique.