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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. 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 think I can say that I met my goals for last week. I'll explain more below but it was difficult to accomplish the goal of outlining the final "act" of this book. However, I do have around 30 scene ideas and 6 additional story arcs that I need to detail. Overall, I'm happy with the results.
My goals for next week:
Outlining
At this point I will continue outlining and not set a particular goal other than to continue outlining with this new technique.
What did I learn this week?
One thing I'm learning with this new outlining technique is that it is difficult to set goals with it. With normal outlining I could set a goal of outlining a certain number of chapters. With writing I could set a goal for number of words or scenes. With this technique I can't do that.
What I'm finding is that I need to work on specific story arcs that the story requires. I have details on the three important story arcs I mentioned in my Outlining Technique thread: Motivation, Means, and Opportunity. I can go into more details on these arcs but I like what I have so far.
One thing I feel I will need to do in the future is to find a better way of tracking all of these story arcs. I'm finding that some of them could potentially merge and tracking these have been difficult. I'm tempted to find a flow charting program to assist in tracking these the story arcs. Either that or program my own application.
Overall, I'm pleased with what I have learned with this new technique.
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I've had a reasonably good week, considering that I was completely unable to write for one day and it's been difficult for the last couple of days. When it's so hot and humid that I sit at the computer with sweat literally dripping off my face--from typing?--well, suffice it to say, it's not conducive to my best work.
Last Week's Goals:
Dreamer's Rose: Contine to let this one simmer. Well, this is a very easy goal to meet.
The Shaman's Curse: Get at least three more queries out. Make some revisions on the synopsis. I did get three queries out. Technically, they were the three I was supposed to get out last week, though. I didn't look at the synopsis though. Have I mentioned how much I hate synopses? Current stats: 21 queries sent, 17 rejections. I even got an e-mail rejection on Sunday.
The Ignored Prophecy: Work on revisions and keep printing out chapters as I get the revisions done.{/b] I did make a few revisions and printed out one more chapter. As soon as Blood Will Tell will allow it (probably this week), I'm going to start on some of the revisions I have marked up for later chapters.
[b]Blood Will Tell: Keep my focus on that tricky spot. I did. I got through that spot.
Next Week's Goals:
Dreamer's Rose: I'm not ready to come back to this one, yet. Something about it just wasn't working or it wouldn't have fought me so hard. I haven't figured out what, yet.
The Shaman's Curse: Send out three more queries. Make the revisions to the synopsis.
The Ignored Prophecy: I think I'll be ready to give more attention to this one soon, probably this week. Aside from the chapter exchange, I have ten revisions marked up to make in the later chapters of this one, some of them minor, some more major. So, for a concrete goal: Make three of those revisions.
Blood Will Tell: The ride is almost over on this one. I've got a couple more chapters to write and I'll have completed a very rough draft. It stands at just over 45,000 words right now, but that doesn't bother me. As fast as this one just wanted to pour out at times, I know there's a lot of stuff that will be added in the revisions. There are places where I will need more scenes, rough spots that will have to be smoothed over. I know there are some things that will have to change for consistency and believability. I've also already started thinking about a couple of subplots that will have to be woven in. For goals: Finish the first draft. I may start working with one or both of the subplots before I set it aside to rest. The first draft is written exclusively from the POVs of the two main characters. I've decided that I want to put in a significant subplot on the villain of the piece. Right now, the reader doesn't know who the real bad guy is until, well, until the protagonists find out in the chapters I'm writing now. But I've decided that this one would be a lot better if I disclose who the real mastermind is much earlier. Let him appear to be helping the protagonists, even. The reader will know that they shouldn't trust him. But they will trust him. Of course, there will be at least one significant piece of information that the antagonist will disregard. And that will help lead to his downfall. I think that has possibilities for this story.
Other: I may take a stab at the flash contest. A couple of the prompts are sort of swimming around in my head. If they congeal into something usable in the next week or so, I'll enter. It's about time I pushed the writing muscles by trying something short again.
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I finished my revisions on my novelette - yea! - and sent the mss off. I also wrote a good 3K as a possible jumping off point for the novel version of the same.
I haven't done much writing on KS, but I've done a ton of world-building
Since it's Labor Day weekend here in the States and I have nothing to do but sit around in my hotel room twiddling my thumbs, I have high hopes for my productivity! With that in mind, goals for this week are:
1) 3K more on Mudlarks the novel 2) work on synopsis level prose outline of what I want to do with KS 3) figure out if I've got anything for WotF this quarter or not...
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Last Week’s Goals and Activities My week was successful, in part. I'd forgotten about my world-building goal. However, I filled in enough holes from memory and imagination to finish a workable chapter 6. I also started chapter 7.
Next Week’s Goals Finish chapter 7 of RITN.
Lesson Learned More people need to understand what to do in a diabetic emergency. This is writing-related when one keeps rehashing a poorly-handled incident instead of focusing on writing goals.
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Congratulations, Kitti, on getting something sent off. I am so far from that point.
I also was hoping to have a nice Labor Day weekend of writing progress (outlining still). However, my mother-in-law will be staying with us again. I hope I can get at least something done this weekend. Don't get me wrong. I like having her around. It just gets crazy when she's in town.
MrsBrown wrote:
quote:Yikes, I need a beta reader.
For what project do you need beta readers? Feel free to e-mail me about the project. Perhaps I can help.
@Meredith: The Ignored Prophecy is the sequel to The Shaman's Curse correct? Even though I have not finished the first book I could read a chapter on that one unless you feel reading book one is necessary. I'm not ready for chapter exchange but I could take a look at the first chapter if you don't think I would be too lost.
@aspirit I hope all is well (RE: your Lesson Learned note).
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Slowly-but-surely PotD is moving along. But, my brain's burning around a new magic system, and my recent researching of The Aeneid.
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@ aspirit - Okay, I'm curious now. Is this readers not understanding why your characters are acting in a particular way? Or is this characters not acting the way they should to help out your diabetic? Or something else?
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Slicing and hacking my way through the subplot of my novel. Now that I've decided eliminate a few unnecessary but fun previous connections between characters, I'm finding all sorts of stuff that can go. My fingers are crossed that I can distill 150 pages into roughly 35 pages (and still show, not tell, which is the hard part). My hope is that it will be worth it--so far I like the new stuff better, but isn't that always the case? Everything seems golden when it first leaves my brain. Only time will tell.
My goal: Finish editing this part and get back to the main plot.
My question: If you were reading a story where 2 stories were going on at the same time and the story jumped from one to the other, would it be jarring if one was happening at night and the other was happening in the morning IF they were happening on different worlds? Melanie
(T-hehehe. My story for the day is SITN instead of RITN. Get it? I just noticed... Maybe I shouldn't have used the first title that popped into my head...)
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@Melanie - No, as long as I could tell where the storylines are in relation to one another, I don't think the morning/night contrast would bother me.
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As long as you firmly establish that these are two separate worlds then the reader should not get confused. Otherwise, you could jar the reader into thinking that either days are passing by or getting confused with the time differences.
Another thing I feel you should strive to do is connect the stories in some way so that the reader is intrigued as to why two stories are being told. The difficulty is to get the reader to become interested in two sets of characters that may not seem connected in the beginning.
I hope that made sense. Outlining is such a drain on the mind sometimes.
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Hello all, Meredith referred me to your group so I guess I'll start with the formalities.
My name is David, and I'm a novelist. Or at least I desperately want to be. I'll keep to a modified checklist for the rest of this post, but suffice it to say you'll be reading a lot of me in the weeks to come
Goals from last week:
Not really a ‘goal’, but last week I found out I won a short fiction contest being run by a video game company. The prize is a beta key to a game that I wanted to play, but winning the contest was the first time in a couple of years that I’d sent any of my writing public. I’d forgotten how exhilerating it can be to have your stuff “out there” and winning was the icing on the cake. Remembering how good it feels, jitterbugs and all, was a big part of my decision to stick to what I love and not go to graduate school.
What I did this week:
I went through all of my writing projects, recent and much older, re-read several of them—and picked a novel I’m committed to working on every week until it is finished. The working title is A Day After Christmas, a holiday story that I have a lot of momentum behind and is close to half-finished.
Also, I discovered this community and joined it. I think that’s gonna be a big part of any successes I have this year.
Things I’ve done in the past:
I’ve given up on projects too often, either thinking I didn’t have the chops to write what I was imagining, or feeling that the story had someone gotten away from me and that there was no way to bring it back to the ending I’d envisioned. I have a harddisk full of half-finished books, it’s time I start finishing the ones that have potential and leave worrying about their solvency until I get to into editing/re-writes.
Goals for this week:
A Day After Christmas – Retype/revise all the chapters, update the outline, add 5,000 words to the story come heck or high tea. I suppose the first step of that process would be to get an accurate word count, something I don’t have because the story is split into files by chapter.
Short Fiction – I plan to read at least 3 stories on this site and offer feedback and then offer one of my recent projects for consideration.
Lesson Learned:
I’m not sure yet
[This message has been edited by lbdavid98 (edited September 10, 2009).]
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Welcome, lbdavid98. It's good to have new people join our group. Having a list of goals has certainly helped me keep track of what I want to do. I hope it helps you as well.
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Welcome Ibdavid98, and congratulations on winning the contest. That's awesome.
I'm trucking along on my goals, and can't wait until next week to report! It's been frustrating, but I'm making some real progress. I actually like what is emerging out of the ashes of my novel. And I have a tentative title that I like SO much better than my old tentative title. The initials are TGB. Any guesses? Melanie
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My dad used to tell us that a blivit was "ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag," and I just googled it and found out that he was right. Cool what you can find on the internet.
By the way, I would have guessed "The Good Boy," but I haven't read your story.
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