Rising Tempest Rising

Finally, I've settled on a temporary title for my paranormal. Tempest Rising or Rising Tempest. Tempest is the main character. Hmm, Rising Tempest fits better. The title may not stick but will help me focus on the protagonist's arc. Anything is better than RCP which stands for nothing so much as 'Tempe's story'.

Yesterday, I listened again to Screenplay expert Michael Hauge's workshop Identity to Essence. As a result, I've identified more clearly the main characters' motivations and resulting conflicts. Hauge calls it their Desire. The desire and longing that drives the story forward to the end. 'The character arc is the tug of war between their identity and their essence.'

It's interesting how we relate and apply teaching from some workshop presenters better than others. Hauge is obviously stating the same as other writers I've heard but each time I listen to his application of screenplay techniques to novel writing, I come away with new insights. I highly recommend his Hero's Journey2 (with Chris Vogler) and Identity to Essence workshops.


BIAW starts again tomorrow for a week so I must finish up my notes on clues and threads and move forward. If I'm not here for a couple days that's where I'll be - BICHOK. (Butt in chair, hands on keyboard)

Yey, I'm a winner!

I'm very pleased with my progress in Nano, considering I lost an entire week. So my 51,509 total was achieved in three weeks minus the Thanksgiving weekend. It's good to know what you're capable of doing if push comes to shove.

Word count was the goal but it wasn't the only benefit of Nanowrimo. Through the interactive website a writer can become acquainted with others across the globe as well as those in his/her local region. Writers were competitive but greatly supportive.

I was even more thrilled this year to be a part of Nano. The community feel is so successful in goal setting that our Goals loop is setting up our own challenge similar to Nano so our members can take advantage of this ritual. I'm excited about being able to participate in two or even three of these challenges a year to enhance my productivity.

So now we have Nano in November, perhaps two challenges with our loop, the BIAW loop run by Barbara one week of each month. Are you aware of other writing challenges, loops, contests? I'd love to know about them.

BIAW

BIAW started last Monday. I'm satisfied with 10k word count for five days, but especially gratifying was the way the plot started expanding and pieces began to fit together.

It reminds me of a football game. You start off with a game plan but you need to have plenty of extra plays and players on the sidelines so when the other team makes unexpected moves you can change up on the fly.

I'd spent several months revamping the setting and characters and developing the paranormal world fearing I hadn't done enough. I was pleased to find out that my fear was unfounded.

Do all writers go into each wip with a fear of the unknown? Or just pantsers.

It's scary but so rewarding when the magic happens.

Sunshine and bandwidth

Okay, I've ranted enough about this that everyone knows when there's rain, it means little or no satellite internet. Emails will eventually go through but surfing or building a blog post and uploading - forget it.

Sounds like another rant, huh? Well, if it looks like a duck...

So finally today we get sunshine and cool weather. (It's going to be 45 in the morning. WOOHOO! I pulled out the sweat pants for work tomorrow, cranked up the butane heater this morning, and sat down to catch up on a few internet tasks. A week puts me SO far behind though and my weekly trip to the bookstore/highspeed cafe yesterday was cut short.

So I got my computer updates done, major mac update, downloaded my audibles, went through changes for my website, and now I'm posting my little blog promise.

I had promised earlier in the month to blog about the four writing software programs and the one I've settled on. I'll do that next week in four parts. I get very little done on Sundays during football season so I'll do my blogs then and upload them on a nice day.

Monday BIAW begins. For those of you who don't know about BIAW, it's a Book in a Week loop which repeats each month for our GIAM goals loop. The goal - write as much as you can in 7 days. Looks like I may not be working but one day next week so I should get a good start on RCPN.

Last week, after cleaning up the scenes I had originally the manuscript decreased to around 20k from 30 but amazingly, I'm not shook up over it.

I toyed with first person for the main character, writing the new first scene. I liked it and I listened to some advice from some published authors on the RWA cds about POV. One editor said use the pov that best suits you. But avoid it if you always sound like the same person, i.e., yourself. Another said, only do one POV per chapter. A third, don't write in first AND third. And a multi published author said, "Phooey on that. I've done it all and it hasn't stopped me from getting published yet." The bottom line seems to be if you write it well enough, the plot and world are interesting enough and the characters stick with the reader, anything can be forgiven.

So I'll write the main character in first, everyone else in third. Then if it pulls the reader out of the story, I'll go back and put the main character in third. Writing in first and switching back to third might help create a deeper third pov in the end.

See you Monday! (unless I find something I just have to share before then.)

BIAW - Back in the Saddle Again

Finally, after months of inactivity due to the crawfish season, I'm writing forward again. Looking back I can see that those long trips to haul crawfish allowed me to brainstorm the characters, their world and the genre. Something was missing. This was to be a contemporary romantic mystery and I'd already written about 15k. When I decided it needed a paranormal twist, the twist took on a life of its own and now, it's an entirely different book.

Barbara White Daille's Book in A Week, BIAW, which is offered one week out of each month, began this week. If you're interested you can contact Barbara at BIAW@barbarawhitedaille.com.

I had never participated before because I thought it was like Nano, only allowing you to write a new story, all new material. Barbara cracks a gentle whip and encourages writing forward but also allows revising/editing, outlining, though no research, blogging, tweeting, etc. which makes sense since those activities are such time hogs.

It felt good when I began the week with 11,000 words in three days. Once I'd completed a synopsis/rough draft, I had to stop, split my scenes up in scrivener and then create my outline from those scenes. That took a day. Then I was able to write a couple scenes to wind up with around 12,500 words for the week.

If I hadn't joined BIAW would I have been as productive? I don't know for sure but doubt it. I readied myself for the starting gun. If not for the Monday goal, it may have been Wednesday or next week before I stopped researching and planning and started writing.

It was wonderful to be creating again. Even better than singing for a small intuitive audience who loves guitar and ballads. With singing, the feeling comes from fine tuning the sound or in rendering it in a new way. I don't write the songs. Writing is a newer passion. It's hard. And it's pure joy!

Have you tried BIAW or BIAM. How did you find these shorter programs in comparison to NaNoWriMo.