Megan

Oct 29

I decided to reread Roald Dahl’s Matilda so that I could pinpoint what it was that I loved so much about this book when I was younger. So here goes:

Matilda is a know-it-all, but she is so humble about her intelligence that you can’t help but to love her. The unjust situations she finds herself in – being called a cheat for being able to do complex arithmetic in her head, being accused of the newt in the water incident, etc. – make you instantly feel for her. Everyone feels that they have been unjustly accused at some point or another, which makes it all the more easy to relate to these situations in the book. Matilda becomes real. Life is not easy for her, despite her high level of intelligence. She has to make due with what talents she was born with.

The over-exaggerated cruelty of Miss Trunchbull makes you feel like things could be worse while also showing you that no matter how bad things get, you can always find a way to make them better. Despite how cruel and evil Miss Trunchbull is, a young child is still able to best her. If this isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is. Of course, kids also like things that are over the top. Example: my almost 4-year-old nephew is obsessed with a picture of my cat looking at a computer box. He keeps saying that it is so silly because cats don’t like computer. And so he wants to look at it all the time because it is so silly.

Another thing I love about this book is Roald Dahl’s word choice. He uses words I would be too timid to put in a children’s book out of fear of them not understanding the words. But isn’t that part of why children read? They want to learn knew words. And a book with some big words in it makes you feel like you have accomplished something, like you are a grownup. And in the case of Matilda, big words go perfectly with her character.

If you want an example of a great children’s book or if you are looking for something easy to read that will also lift your spirits and give you hope that things always right themselves in the end, then this is the book for you.

Oct 27

To continue the NaNoWriMo countdown, let’s talk about genre.

Know Your Genre

There are many reasons why genre is important. From a business perspective, you need to know your genre so bookstores know where to shelve it. As a reminder to YA writers, Barnes and Noble is now dividing YA based on genre (check out this blog too), just like they do with adult books, so genre really is important to consider.

From the perspective of a writer just looking to write, genre is important because it can help guide you in the development of your plot. If you are writing high fantasy, you better include a quest, because that is what your readers will expect. For definitions of some common genres, check out this post from Jennifer Represents…

Knowing your genre can help provide a mini-blueprint. If you get stuck, you can think about what elements you need to include in your book and then try to figure out how to include those elements. Of course, you don’t have to follow a formula, but you should be mindful of what readers of a particular genre will expect to read.

And finally, for NaNoWriMo participants, genre is important in that it helps you to meet other writers. By including your genre on your profile page, writers can find you by genre. There are also forums set up by genre. The forums are a great place to chat with other writers about any and everything related to NaNoWriMo, your book, writing, etc.. By browsing forums for your genre, you are sure to encounter people who know about your genre and can offer genre specific advice.

So, do you know your genre?

Oct 25

Assignment: Create a plot sketch using this photo as your inspiration

What follows is a quick and dirty plot sketch based on the photo to the left. The plot might be shoddy, but note what I have done here. There is a beginning, middle, and end. There is an MC, a love interest, and a villain. I do not waste time on too much back story, though I note things I may want to research. When I don’t know how to get from a to c, I leave b vague, providing only the most basic of information. I can go back later to fill in the gaps. By creating a short, quick sketch of the general flow of action, I at least have something to work from.

My Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch Example

MC returns from a trip. She has been living a few towns over, working as an apprentice (research ideas for what type of apprenticeship). When she returns to her village, she finds it empty. There is no one anywhere. A stillness fills the air
MC has no clue what happened. She did not hear any reports. There were suspicions of possible trouble because there had not been a word from her family for a few weeks. That is why she was given leave to return.
MC wanders down the empty streets, and arrives at her parents home. It is empty. There is no sign of life. She goes to her room and finds it just as she left it. Nothing is out of place. It’s like everyone just disappeared.
MC is walking through the ghost town. She walks to the statue garden, her favorite place, and breaks down. She cries out of fear, out of loneliness. Everything she knows is gone, and she doesn’t know why. She hears a noise and it startles her to silence. She pulls a knife (she always carries a knife – maybe this has something to do with her apprenticeship) but finds nothing threatening. A man is standing there, arms held out, showing her he has no weapons.
MC lowers her knife, but still keeps a firm grip on it. She doesn’t know this man or whether to trust him. Maybe he has something to do with what happened here. But then, he might know what happened here too.
Man asks MC who she is and what she is doing here. She is offended. He has no right to ask her. This is her home. After snapping at one another, she learns that he has seen something like this before. This is not the first town to vanish.
MC and man return to town and find some mildly stale bread and cheese in the local tavern. They eat a solemn meal and man asks if she has anywhere to go. She says she isn’t going back to the apprenticeship until she learns what happened here. After an argument, the man agrees to take her with him on his travels to learn what is happening to their world.
Travel — see stuff. Learn about one another. Uncover clues to what happened. Run into some danger. Find more and more villages that have disappeared.
In the end, they discover that some evil wizard is responsible. He has been transporting the people to his realm to serve as slaves. They defeat him and everyone is returned and lives happily ever after.

Creating Your Own Plot Sketch

In creating my actual plot sketch for NaNoWriMo, I began in a similar way, writing down bullet marks for moments that progress the story. I then went back and filled in additional information or made changes where necessary. For example, in my NaNoWriMo project, I realized that the conflicting love interest (yes, I am using a love triangle) should be someone from the MCs past. This worked better than providing two new characters. It created a stronger emotional connection and helped to create motivation and tension. Because I have not yet started the novel, all I had to do was go back to a few places in my plot sketch and make a couple of changes. This was much easier than rewriting an entire chapter.

By laying out the plot in this way, I can easily see where the story is going. I can also make sure that I have a story arc (see my post from Oct. 13 for more on story arcs). When November 1 roles around, I won’t have to waste time deciding what I am writing or figuring out how to make my story work. I can just open up my short plot sketch, glance over it, and then get down to some serious writing.

Now it’s your turn

Do you have an idea for NaNoWriMo? Have you created a plot sketch/outline/etc.? Do you have another method that works for you? If you answered no to 2 or more of these questions, get cracking. November 1 is fast approaching.

If you need more help thinking about your project, be sure check out Wednesday’s post on choosing a genre.

Oct 24

With NaNoWriMo 2010 fast approaching, I’ve got one question for you. Are you ready?

For first-time participants, you may be thinking, ‘but isn’t preparation against the rules?’ Having an idea, an outline, character sketches, etc. is not cheating. You are only cheating if you add words to your word count that you did not actually write during NaNoWriMo.

As a 3-time failure, I will let you in on the secret to my lack of success. I was unprepared.

If you do nothing else…

Have at least a general idea about your story. My first year, I wasted valuable time day 1 trying to figure out what in the world I was going to write. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, November 1 inconveniently falls on a Monday this year. Unless you are taking the day off of work or school (which I am considering), you will have precious few hours on day 1 to add some progress to your progress bar. All the more reason to come in with a plan.

Your NaNoWriMo Story Plan

Having a plan does not mean you need to have a fully developed, beautifully outlined plan. For many, that would take the fun out of NaNoWriMo. A plan can be as simple as knowing your general plot and the name of you MC. This year, I have decided to go with a slightly more detailed plan, but it is by no means the fully sketched out plan suggested by Karen Wiesner in her book First Draft in 30 Days (a great book, by the way).

Because everyone loves an example

To help get your juices flowing, I thought an example was in order. One way I get ideas is through pictures. A picture really can say a thousand words, or in this case, 50,000, if you know how to look at it. Look at the photo and let you imagination flow. Think of some stories you could create from it. The scene in the photo does not even need to be included in your story. You could base it off of the emotion you get from looking at the photo or what the photo makes you think of. Post your ideas and come back tomorrow for an example of a short plot sketch I created based off of this photo.

Oct 21

As some of you may know, I’m taking a web design class this semester. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a while and I figured, as an added bonus, it would help me to create a professional, user-friendly website.

This series will span over the next couple of months, with a post here and there. At the end of the series, I will have a brand spanking new site up and running and ready for your viewing pleasure. So let’s begin.

Creating an Author Website

As I start thinking about redesigning my site, I find that I have to start at the beginning. Specifically, the building blocks of a great author website. Lucky for me, there was a post on Inky Fresh Press yesterday about cleaning up your online presence. Not only did the author, Brigid, offer great suggestions, but she also included links to several helpful articles.

The main points I got from these sources were:

Keep your site professional – both in design and content.
Let people know who you are – include a head shot and a short bio
Keep the content clean and easy-to-read
Use a memorable url, preferably your name – an author website is like your online business card
Include a way for people to contact you
And, most importantly, be professional

Some additional points I picked up about content are to include:

Bio page
Blog
Writing Excerpts/publications
Contact Page

An Author Website for the Unpublished

I found Annette Fix’s article, What Every Website Needs, to be the extremely helpful when addressing this issue. Not only does she tell you the elements you must have, but she also gives some guidelines for what to include in each section.

The main difference between a published author’s website and an unpublished author’s is that the published author needs to include information about their books and should have a separate website devoted to each title/series. Unpublished authors, of course, do not need to do this since they are unpublished. Otherwise, the sites should be more or less the same.

My Layout

Before I can start designing my website, I need to figure out the layout, or the site architecture. I’ve decided to include the following pages:

Home
About
Blog
Projects
Contact

The Projects page can include writing samples but it is also versatile because I can use it in the future for published works, works that are with an agent/looking for an agent, sample chapters, etc. I already have a bio page on my current site, I’ve been maintaining a blog, so I can just move that content over, and a contact page is easy to create using widgets or some simple coding. All that leaves me to create content for are the writing projects page (which I sort of already have for my writing samples) and a home page. Because I am not yet published, I will either use my home page as a landing page or just have it redirect to the blog.

What this means is there will really be little content to create. The bulk of the work will revolve around creating a clean, professional, personable design.

Coming Up…

Stay tuned next week for Website Redesign Part 2 – Part 2 will look at some mock-ups for my redesigned site.

Oct 19

I’m not usually one to ask for things. Even when I was a girl scout, I felt weird going door-to-door asking people to buy my cookies. Obviously I didn’t inherit my father’s selling skills.

Well, I’ve decided to overlook my aversion to asking people for money just this once. As writers out there are probably aware, NaNoWriMo, or, National Novel Writing Month, is just around the corner. The event, which officially begins November 1, is a month long write-a-thon where writers work towards producing a 50,000 word novel in 30 short days. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Wait, there’s more

But, as an organization, NaNoWriMo does a lot more. Through donations, they bring free creative writing programs for kids and adults to over 500 cities and towns, 3,000 classrooms, and 200 libraries every year. As someone who has always found a special friend through writing, I’ve gotta say, I think it’s great to share this great gift with as many people as possible.

This year, I am, for the 4th year running, participating in NaNoWriMo. And, for the first time, I am als0 trying my hand at fundraising.

My NaNoWriMo Fundraising Goal

My goal is to get $250 worth of donations. Not a lot when you think about it. $5 here, $10 there, and lots of people who would not otherwise have the opportunity can suddenly enroll in writing programs and NaNoWriMo can continue to fund itself.

So what will I do for you?

NaNoWriMo Mug

This year I am more prepared than I’ve been any previous year. I have a plot outlined, complete with a working story arc and everything and I’m buying a new tea kettle this weekend and a good supply of tea to help motivate me. Basically, I’m ready to go. I will complete the challenge this year and your donations will help urge me on.

In addition, I will select one donor at random to receive a NaNoWriMo Diner Mug. How cool would that be?

And finally, once I get my book signed and published (’cause isn’t that ultimately the goal here?), I will give a shout out to everyone who donates.

So here’s the skinny

To donate, all you have to do is follow this link and you will be taken to my donor page. Once you donate, my little progress meter will go up. You can also check out my NaNoWriMo page here to keep tabs on my progress and see a brief synopsis of my NaNoWriMo project this year.

Thanks in advance for your donations and if I don’t have your contact info, send me a quick message through my contact page so I can add you to the raffle list.

Oct 17

As promised, a recap on the writer’s workshop I attended.

The workshop, which was a free, shortened version of Grub Street’s Jumpstart Your Writing Workshop was just one short hour. Perfect for a workshop/writing class novice. Being such a small time commitment, not to mention bank account commitment, I felt less pressure to get the most I could get out of it. Granted, I still went into it wanting to get the most I could from it, but since I was not giving up my entire weekend or a boat load of cash, it was alright if I got nothing out of it. This freedom let me enjoy the workshop for what it was. It was like going on a first date where you don’t know it’s a date. You can talk and have fun and not worry about what you are wearing. There’s no pressure to make the other person like you. Of course, once you learn that it was a first date, then you can start feeling awkward, but that’s an entirely different experience.

So, back to workshops. We did two exercises. One was a memoir focusing on description. It had to include a memory from a car. The second was a short story that was supposed to focus on the inside story. We had to write about a person claiming responsibility for a historical event as a way to mask some internal issue.

These exercises were not the type of writing I’m used to at all. Exercises like this are one of the main reasons I did not major in English or get a master’s in creative writing. I didn’t want to be forced to write something. I wanted to write what I wanted to write. But this was a workshop. I had filled a slot and I was here to learn.

For the first story, I wrote about driving back to college late at night. I wanted to show the freedom I felt, sitting behind the wheel with the cold winter wind blowing in my face to keep me awake. I don’t think this story was very successful. I have a hard time writing about myself. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m fine borrowing from real life, but I always alter it just enough to make it no longer my story.

For my second story, I felt a little more in my element. I wrote about a boy from a poor family who feels insecure because of his lack of wealth. He claims responsibility for warning the Americans that the British were coming. He was able to do this because he invented a time machine. Due to some incidents that almost altered the course of history (i.e. accidentally knocking out Paul Revere minutes before his ride), the boy decides that he cannot use the time machine to bring his family wealth. Who knows what he might mess up were he to do that.

Now, I don’t think this was my best bit of writing. But I will say, doing these exercises opened me up to the idea of trying new things in your writing, to experimenting with new styles and sometimes writing things you don’t want to write, just to see where they will take you. Would I sign up for a full workshop? Most definitely.

P.S. If you are in the Boston area and have thought about taking a writing class/workshop, you should check out Grub Street.

Oct 15

I’ve decided to start doing a bi-weekly book review post. So every other Friday I will review one of the books I’ve read. This way you will know when to expect a book review and I will have time to read things. If you want more book reviews, you can always check me out on GoodReads.

Fire

Fire is the second book in Kristin Cashore’s Seven Kingdoms Series. If you follow me on GoodReads (not to over plug GoodReads here or anything), you will know that while I liked the concept behind her first book in the series, Graceling, I was not blown away. I found Fire to be much more inspiring.

While the world in Fire is connected to the world in Graceling, they are separated by an impassible mountain. Because of this, there are differences in the worlds. Think Madagascar or the Galapagos Islands, full of their strange creatures almost like ones you would see elsewhere, but slightly different. That’s what the world in Fire is like. Similar, but different. And personally, I liked the world in Fire better. It was more fantastical. I also found the characters to be more engaging.

The main character, Fire, is a human monster, but monsters in this land are not scary. They are beautiful and can capture your attention without a bit of effort. It is their hunting strategy, a survival mechanism. Fire, because of her monster status, has spent her life hidden away in the woods. When the King summons Fire to the capital city, she goes, eager to see the city in which she was born and to show both the world and the attractive and intriguing Prince Brigan that she is not evil, despite the sins of her father. The book deals with issues of identity, belonging, and choosing your own path in life.

What I liked about this book

The world building: As with the first book in the series, Cashore has created an engaging, complete world. When you start reading the book, you are instantly drawn into the world. I never once forgot where it was set.
The characters: I found her characters to be engaging. They were not as complex as what you would find in a Victor Hugo novel, but they had some depth. Even the goofy, lovesick Archer who initially seemed a bit 1-dimensional proved to have some depth by the end of the book.
The plot: The plot was engaging with a good amount of mystery. I thought her use of mystery was better than Graceling, showing her growth as a writer. There were still some things I figured before I was meant to, but the foreshadowing did not give too much away, which was my main complaint about Graceling.
The prose: Cashore’s writing style is engaging and consistent.

Sex in YA

And so now this brings me to a somewhat grey area. Sex in YA books. There was a lot of sex in this book. There weren’t any descriptive sex scenes, but I felt like every character in the book was having sex. Cashore did use some of the sex scenes to bring up how sex leads to pregnancy and can lead to a broken heart, but most of the sex was pretty casual. I’m not quite sure what my feelings are on having this much sex in a book for teenagers. Certainly teens know about sex and a lot of them are having sex, but I wonder about the author’s responsibility when it comes to incorporating sex in YA. Should authors be concerned with the influence they may be having on teenagers with regards to having sex? Should YA even include sex? I don’t want to go into a long thing about sex in books for teens in this post, and I’m not going to. That topic could take up several blog post, but I thought it was worth mentioning. And speaking of blog posts on sex in YA, there was a good post over at kidlit.com on this subject just the other day.

Final Thoughts

So, to sum up Kritstin Cashore’s Fire, would I recommend this book? Yes. It’s an easy, fun read with engaging characters and wonderful world building. And keep an eye out for the 3rd book in the series, Bitterblue, coming out 2011.

Oct 13

As it turns out, I am having a harder time giving up on my WIP than I thought I would. Even though I’m ready to put it aside and ignore all of its problems, I can’t let it rest. Instead of working out the details for my next project as I lie in bed at night, willing myself to sleep, my mind keeps wandering back to my WIP. How can I fix it? How can I make the story I know is in there work?

Story Arc

The other day I was browsing the blogosphere and I came across a post by Alexis Grant titled Learning by doing (or the importance of story arc). This post got me thinking. It’s not that my story is a bad idea. I think the concept is there. The characters, with a little bit of editing, have the potential to be quite lovable. The problem lies within the story arc.

Now this is something I’ve sort of known. Every time I sit down to work on my WIP, I find myself stuck on the flow of action. But it isn’t the flow so much as it is my inability to pick my inciting incidents. I have thrown so much in there, the reader doesn’t know where to look.

In researching story arc after reading Alexis’ post, I came across this very familiar diagram. You may recognize it from middle school English classes. I know I used to sit and stare at it, wondering how this was going to help me to dissect Lord of the Flies or get the lead in Antigone. As a reader, it didn’t seem too useful. As a writer, though, it is quite useful.

If you are not much of a graphs person, the explanation of story structure that goes with the graph was pretty clear and concise. Between the graph and the explanation, I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp about what makes a successful story arc. And that brings me back to my WIP, which pretty much lacks a story arc.

And so, I am picking my WIP back up and working out the story arc. I’m sure there will be a lot of shifting and deleting, but if it leads to a book that people are excited about reading, isn’t it worth it in the end?

Oct 11

Even Arthur is excited about the new iMac!

Today I have done something liberating. I sat down and I organized all of my writing.

Writers are hoarders

We tend to hoard our work, or at least I do as do several writers I know. You don’t want to trash something that could develop into something later. Sadly, though, my folders are so disorganized I spend valuable writing time trying to find my documents. It’s all just this giant mess of files, some stuck in my writing folder, some lying around my documents folder, and even more just hanging out on my desktop.

Laptop vs. Desktop

This weekend the boyfriend brought home a shiny, brand new iMac. I definitely prefer writing on a desktop. While the idea of taking my laptop to other places to get a change of scenery seems great, in truth it is just a huge distraction. It means I have no order. You go to work and you have a desk you are forced to sit at. With my laptop, I can easily move to other areas, look at other things, and next thing you know, the day is done and I have barely done any writing. Now I can say that the desk is for writing and if I want to be on Twitter or Facebook, I have to do that on my laptop, in another room. Separating the distractions keeps you focused.

Now that the weekend is over, I finally get to play with the new computer, and I will be able to use it every evening after work. On the weekends I will still have to switch back to the laptop, but hopefully the discipline of writing on the desktop will help me become a more disciplined writer.

A Folder for Everyone

In trying to set up the most organized, clean writing environment possible, I have organized my writing. Every document I deem worthy of being a good idea, which, let’s face it, is pretty much everything, gets copied from Word into Pages (Apple has made it really easy to convert Pages documents into iBook format) and then saved into a sub-folder of writing. The sub-folders are:

Chick Lit
Young Adult
Children
Middle Grade
Short Stories
Writing Exercises
Ideas
Essays

For works-in-progress, I have assigned a sub-folder to their category. For example, my Max book is organized Writing–>Middle Grades–>Max. All the files for this project live in the Max folder.

Now when I am searching for a document, I can easily locate it, saving me time and keeping me from getting distracted. And, since I have converted everything into Pages, it means there will be one less step if I decide to turn anything into an ebook.

How do you organize your writing? Do you prefer a desktop or a laptop? What do you think of Pages vs. Word? Is there another program you prefer to use?

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Page 13

Book Review Friday: Matilda

What's Your Genre? Countdown to NaNoWriMo – Part 3