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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 continue to clean up the scans I did of my book outlines. This will likely take a while. I have several books outlined and each book has multiple outline printouts. So, I first need to clean up the scans then I need to combine each book's scans into a single document. The book I'm doing now has 10 or more different scans I need to clean up and then combine. Hoping this is worth it.
MAGIC'S FOOL: Get started on the second draft of this one. Yes.
MAGE STORM: Start querying again. Yes.
SEVEN STARS: Let it rest. Easy one.
BLOOD WILL TELL: Send a polite email to the agent who has had the full ms since September. Yes. No answer yet, though.
BLOOD IS THICKER: Finish. No. But I have a plan. I know what the scenes are that I need to get to "The End". I'm writing one scene a day and then moving on to the second draft of MAGIC'S FOOL. Breaking it up that way seems to be working.
I've updated my entry in that thread, because I'm working on RITN again!
Months ago, I mailed my sister a stack of mismatched paper, an unfinished draft of RITN that I had written in longhand. She managed to interpret most of my notes, learn standard manuscript format (an unnecessary but kind effort), and type up 200 pages of the story. For Christmas, she gave me a printed draft in a labeled binder.
Last week, I read about 150 pages of the printed copy and made note of missing and incomplete scenes, major problems with voice and syntax, and anything else that stood out.
During this exercise, I remembered some of my anxiety from two years ago, when I last worked on RITN. The romantic moments, in particular, make me want to burn the whole story and forget about it. Writing doomed and abusive romances isn't much of a problem for me, but I feel that I haven't been through the right reading and life experiences for the quirky romance that develops between RITN's young, naive characters.
In an act of desperation, I decided to read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight for inspiration. Twilight isn't what I expected (except that in some ways, it was poorly written) and the characters are vastly different than mine; however, I made a good decision. I'm learning a great deal from what Meyer did and didn't do well.
My goals next week are to ensure that I can open the electronic version of RITN on my computer, incorporate into the main draft the relevant scenes that weren't sent to my sister, and finish at least one of the incomplete scenes.
Posts: 1139 | Registered: May 2008
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Speaking of the "NSG Work in Progess" thread, maybe I should update mine... I don't think my current WIP is in there at all.
Last week, I almost made my goal. 5 writing days for 5k total, plus 1300 words of outlining for my next project. I'm beginning to think that writing 7 days/week just isn't in the cards for me (particularly since I've been fighting a long-term headache of varying severity since Thanksgiving).
This week, I want to continue with 1k/day, at least 6 days, and I'd love to hit the 80k mark.
Posts: 125 | Registered: Mar 2011
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Last week: clear off desk: DONE! cleared off all the yarn and stuff (okay, so it's sitting in piles behind my desk now but hey, I did what I said I was going to do!)
This week: This week I really want to spend some time coming up with a System for dealing with stories and their associated notes and paperwork. I have some ideas in mind, including a folder for each in-progress story, which will then get cleared out once I send that story off. The physical manuscripts and notes for my books are dumped in boxes right now, which makes sorting through them pretty difficult. I think one of my problems has been that I will have ideas for reworking a scene, I'll write it down, and then I'll just forget about it, and because my system is such a mess I'll only come across it months or even years later. So, I think I need some kind of "tickler" file to keep ideas fresh and easy to review when I'm ready to work on that project.
I dunno... if you guys have any tips or want to share your process, I'd love to hear it!
Posts: 2185 | Registered: Aug 2007
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annepin, I keep a permanent folder for each short story. Novels get a binder or two...or three. (Huh, do I really need three for RITN?) In the binders, I use sheet holders for small or fragile papers and tabs to divide chapters or categories. It's easy to switch out pages in the folders and binders, but the best part is that I can usually find what I'm looking for. The trick for me is to maintain the files instead of keeping new material in notebooks.
Posts: 1139 | Registered: May 2008
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Thanks for the suggestions, aspirit. I've decided to try the folder idea. One for each story, and one for "story ideas". I thought about binders but they remind me too much of school (even after all these years!) So, the manuscripts will stay in boxes for now. However, I've started hanging file folders for each project which contain manila folders to file info for all my research and world-building --folders for the main characters, for some of the countries, etc, as well as some of my plot notes.
Phew! What an awful lot of stuff. I'm realizing I really need to finish this one book simply because of all the paperwork. It's going to bury me if I don't deal with it!
Posts: 2185 | Registered: Aug 2007
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Wrote on Angel Kin. Fifth chapter she gets attacked by a wizard as she charges to the rescue of a stranger, but doesn't know who he is yet. Actually there are two of them but one was easy to deal with. I think I need to go back and make the second guy tougher for her.
I say wizard but in this world they aren't super powerful and need the help of a spiritual entity to do major magic.
Also worked on Stone Within. A new novel so far around 1500 words. Same basic premise as Angel Kin but totally different setting, characters, and such. One thing while Angel deals with Angels and demons and magic there most probably won't be any magical creatures such as unicorns, dragons ect, but there will be all of the above in Stone. At one time or another.
Right now the MC is confronting a Hell Hound. My first thought she would chase it off but I got into the idea that it was fighting something else so why not have my MC help it and become friends with it? It won't always be around but only now and then.
Haven't worked on any other novels but I am going to set aside a month to work on nothing- except for at work- but the revisions of New Mage and Bright Lights. I need to get them ready to send out.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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Hoping this is worth it.
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