A is for apples ... and other things

Oh wow. Did I really sign up for this? I think I'm getting dangerously close to that very annoying line: biting off more than I can chew.

Well, anywho, onwards and upwards, and to the business of the day: the letter A. Or, more specifically, something that starts with A that will be fun to write about (and hopefully read about). Do you know how hard it is to think of a word that starts with a specific letter when you absolutely have to? Hard! I mean, I came up with a few ideas: apples (crunchy are best, nuff said), Argentina (I don't really know anything about it, but I would like to), aphrodisiac (...).

I settled on ... audience. The people you write for (other than yourself). I could have talked about the audience you write stories for, and was going to, but instead I decided to focus on blogging audience, since we've just started a month long blogging bonanza.

Who do you write for? This is a question I've struggled with a few times, over the life of my blog, and I think it's shown from time to time. Am I writing this blog for myself? Other writers? Readers? What is my goal? Do I want to impart knowledge (I don't have a whole lot of this, so perhaps not the best strategy)? Commiserate? Share amazing finds (book related of course)? Build my platform for the one day dream of getting published?

There are so many directions this blog could go in, and all I really know is that I want it to be about the things I am passionate about: reading, writing and books. I think I'm going to use this month to figure out the future of the blog, try and solidify a goal, and then keep trucking.

Do you know who your blogging audience is? Is it who you intended, or have you gone off track? What are your thoughts on this?


PS. I also toyed with adamantium as my letter A, but then realised I had nothing to say about it and would only have chosen the topic because I wanted to include a picture of Hugh Jackman in all his Wolverine glory, which I'm going to do anyway.

June is over - how did I go with my goals?

... Ahhh ... *crickets chirp into the silence*

Well, let's just say that I didn't fail completely, but I may have been a little ambitious with the goals.

Let's have a look:

Complete at least one round of revisions for Blood Legacy. Nope. Not done. I didn't do it every day either. More like 80% of the days in June. So while the revisions are not complete I did get some good progress on this, although it is going a little slower than I'd like because I'm rewriting a lot of scenes from scratch.

I also had some notes back from a CP about my beginning which got me thinking a lot about that for a couple of days. I now have some good ideas for the beginning rewrite (number three) but that will have to wait till I've finished this round of revisions.

Read and write notes for critique partners. Check. Although I do still have some to do.

Write out plot for Blood Legacy. I wrote BL with absolutely zilch planning and therefore I have no record of my plot. I figure this would be a big help for revisions so I wanted to have it written down. Also, I won a ten page critique from the awesome Sarah Billington and I need to send a synopses along with it. To start the process off for both of these I have been writing a one to two paragraph summary of each chapter as I finish revising it.

Work on consistency of character voice in BL. This kinda comes under revisions, and I am working on it. I think I'll do a post on this some time soon too.

Continue writing and choose a setting for So Far to Fall. These two were bonus goals if I got through the rest, so no - they haven't been touched.


Did you set June goals? If so how did you go with them? Will you set some goals for July?

How well do you know your world?

So, we know setting is important, right? Whether we spend days or weeks world building, or pants it as we go, it needs to be real. It needs to support the story, and make it richer.

I have a confession: setting is not one of my strong points. I wouldn't say that I'm awful at developing settings, but I guess like everything else writing related, I'm still learning. I knew setting was important, but only on a theoretical level. Until recently.

A few weeks ago I read the first book of the Kate Daniels series, Magic Bites, by Ilona Andrews (who is actually a husband and wife team). Since then I've read the first five. I love the characters. I love Kate. I love the plots. I love the romance.

I love the world.

I've never consciously thought that about a setting before. I'm sure I've admired settings. Enjoyed them. But they've never been one of the stand out factors that have made me love a story.

The world that Kate lives in is so unique, so well thought out, so interesting and detailed, it adds an extra layer of awesomeness to everything that happens in the story. It's a source of so much conflict, before the bad guys even appear on the scene. It's even the cause of many of the badies.

I wish I could explain why it's so amazing, but I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. So instead, I'll just say, read Magic Bites. It's a great story, and so are the rest, and you might just learn something while you're at it.

Are you like me, and don't usually notice the setting? Or can setting make or break a story for you?

How are your June goals going? I'm on track, but I have a house full of guests and they're here until next week, so it's hard to find time without seeming antisocial.

Summer? What summer?

This is what it looks like outside my window right now. Not very summery, right? Apparently it's 6.4°C at the moment, so it doesn't feel very summery either. But that's ok, it's not going to stop me from participating in Beth's Second Summer in the City blogfest (which I am a tad late for, by the way).

Since the idea behind this blogfest is to make writerly goals for summer (or dreary winter holidays) and I kinda already did that on the weekend, I thought I'd look at how I'm going to try to keep those goals.

In February I wrote a post about creating a writing habit. I am the sort of person who finds it very hard to stick to goals. I have so little self-discipline I wonder if it even exists. I am easily distracted.

When I wrote the writing habit post I had very good intentions, but you know what they say (and at the risk of sounding cliche): the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Today is the seventh day of June. I've done no writing or revisions. I have read four books. Three out of four were very good books. (Read Divergent, Poison Study and Crown Duel if you haven't already!) Now I have to put reading on hold for a while, because I know myself, and I know if I keep going through my new books no writing will get done.

It's time to try out the writing habit again.

To summarise the five steps to building a writing habit:

  1. Commit to thirty days of writing (or in my case, revising). No skipping days.
  2. Make it a ritual. Do the writing/revising first thing in the day.
  3. If my self discipline really isn't doing it for me (it hasn't got the best track record), remove temptation.
  4. Write it down and put it somewhere I can see it.
  5. Have a buddy.

And here is my June 'To Do' list (ugh... goals... maybe I'll stop using that word).

Those words of wisdom at the bottom are from my CP Maggie. Told you I was going to put them on my wall!

 

So, who wants to be my writing/revising buddy for the next 30 days? I'll keep you accountable if you do the same for me! Head on over to Beth's blog and encourage all the other goal setters, too.

A reading and writing month

Squeee! This is what arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago:

Book heaven! I'm still waiting for three more (Delirium, Supernaturally and Finnikin of the Rock). I finished Divergent in a day (ZOMG! So amazing. A must read.) and I'm about to get started on Demonglass.

Sigh ... I love holidays with books. Oh yea, did I mention I'm on holiday? Uni tests are finished for the semester and now I have a month off. Which is also why I signed up for this:

To participate in Australia's National Young Writers' Month, you have to have a goal. Mine is:

Finish revisions on Blood Legacy in June.

Hopefully all the reading I plan on doing won't get in the way of completing my goal.

How 'bout you? What are your writing (or reading) goals for June? Have you read any of these books?

I think I may be permanently cross-eyed

I really feel for the people who work long hours in publishing houses and as freelance editors, copy editing and proofreading people's work. I mean, I actually enjoy doing this - sometimes.

I'm working on my second assignment right now, copy editing an excerpt from a book on soccer, and the particular section I'm working on is a history of the soccer world cup. Seriously mind-numbing business.

And I guess this is the thing, I want to be in publishing. I want to be an editor. Admittedly I'd prefer to be a content editor, but I'd still be happy doing copy editing.

As long as it was on a topic I found interesting. The whole reason I'm trying to get into publishing in the first place.

My ultimate dream is to work on YA fiction (obviously), but the publishing industry is so competitive and so difficult to get into, that I would be ecstatic to be doing almost anything, so long as I had my foot in the door...

...I just hope it's not copy editing books on soccer.

How's your week treating you? Are you getting words? Succeeding?

PS. This is where I was earlier this week. Aussie is a cool country!

Learning a little bit more about our writer friends

Today I've got someone on the writing couch with me: Trisha from WORD + STUFF!

She's a fellow crusader, writer of multi genres and another Aussie.

Check out Trisha's answers to my questions below, and then head on over to her blog.


Trisha, tell me a little about yourself.
I was born in 1980 (everyone can do their own maths there) and I live in Western Australia. My home is beautiful, but I love it best when I'm returning to it after having visited some far-away exotic clime. I love cats, and tend to talk to them (and other creatures) a lot. I admire ants' ability to carry burdens MUCH heavier than themselves. They're so cleeeever! I also talk to inanimate objects. My favourite band is the Smashing Pumpkins, and I like wine and Vietnamese/Thai food. I really don't like Tequila. I was born in the U.K., and so have dual U.K.-Australian citizenship. I have one brother living in Canada. And I play some guitar and sing.

What made you start your blog?
I had heard that it was important to have some kind of web presence, and not just a blog with 0 comments on entries and no followers, so I decided it was time to bite the bullet and do something more attention-seeking than my private online journals have been. Hence the blog. I really had no idea what was out there waiting for me - that being all the amazing people I've met, and the opportunities I've been privy to as a result of meeting them and following their blogs. It's been awesome and eye-opening, for sure!

What do you like to write about on the blog?
Well, it's mostly a writing blog, and I prefer not to try to teach others about the craft, but rather to just speak of my own experiences of the writing/revising process. I talk about my WIPs a bit, and also feature some excerpts of my writing - I'll be mostly featuring writing that I'm not planning on trying to publish at any time. I also like to talk about what I'm reading, though I'm not into doing official-style reviews. And finally when it comes to blogfests and the like, I sometimes write about other things, i.e. TV shows, music, and so on. I'm going to start a bit of a music post series pretty soon, but it won't be scheduled for any given day. I'm not really a scheduling sort of blogger. Maybe it's my pantser nature shining through (I only recently learned that word, and I love it! It totally suits me to a tee, in so many areas of my life).

What made you want to be a writer?
I honestly can't say. I've been writing since I was a kid, and I guess I just always felt compelled. I've also always drawn pictures, and quite often I would come up with stories to match the characters. Naturally I love writing, or I wouldn't be doing it. I always excelled in English classes, and found my true passion was the creative writing side of it. And of course I love reading too, so maybe I got inspired by my favourite authors. But I honestly feel sometimes that it's a compulsion - these characters pop into my head and I must tell their story argh start typing!! Plus quite often I like to live vicariously through my characters. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a vigilante turkey in tights? Okay, maybe it's just me...

Do you have any favourite genres to write or read? Why?
For much of my life my favourite genre was fantasy, but since those days I've really expanded out into reading/loving other genres. I guess what I loved about fantasy though was that it was away from this world. I preferred fantasy that had no character names I recognised. That was until my mum bought me an Isobelle Carmody book, the first in her Legendsong series, and changed my thoughts there forever. I always did like apocalyptic storylines too, i.e. Blade Runner. As for favourite genres to write in, well let's call it a tie between fantasy (though this is taking a back seat right now; none of my fantasy works are anywhere near being complete), contemporary, romance, sci-fi and middle grade. The truth is though that I'm open to writing in pretty much any genre.

What are your writing goals?
Ohhhhh, what are my goals? I have a goals page on my blog if you want to check it out. That's just goals for this year, and I've certainly got a lot to be going on with there! But overall, my goal is to get querying fairly soon, and ultimately get published with at least one of my works. I guess I want to see my book in the store. And yes, I mean in bookstores - where you can pick up a book and smell it and drool over its adorably pretty cover.

Can you tell me about any of your current writing projects?
Well, currently I'm revising my contemporary romance, and I will say it's about rock stars on tour. I'm getting it ready to send out to beta readers I have not yet found. My other project that I'm really eager to get sorted is my middle-grade novel about a mouse detective. I always think it's a bit embarrassing if you're the only one laughing at your own story, but I DO think it's funny. But I have a fair amount of work to do on it. And third, I have last year's NaNo novel (sci-fi/action) that I'd love to get around to revising, but that's going to have to wait.

What are your writing tics?
I start a lot of paragraphs with "I" or "She", i.e. not coming up with a more creative way of starting them off. I also have a LOT of laughter and meeting of gazes and widening of eyes going on. Oh, and I'm guilty of using the dreaded "it seemed" and the like. I'm working on it. And no doubt when I send my stuff out for a beta-read, more shameful tics will uncovered. ;)

What are your top five favourite writing resources?
1. AbsoluteWrite has been pretty amazing, in a painful sort of way. The harsh feedback I got there in one instance has really helped me revolutionise my novel.

2. ElitistCritiques - my critiquing group. We're not public but I still rely on that place pretty heavily for near-daily sustenance. I'm always a little sad if none of my CPs have updated with anything over there.

3. AgentQuery.com - Naturally this is awesome for when we are actually ready to query. Which I am not! But yeah...can't go past it!

4. Agents/editors/publishers who blog. Follow them! Obvious agent blogs that come to mind are Janet Reid (and Query Shark) and Diana Fox. There are plenty of others, too!

5. Fellow writers who blog! Follow them too! :) For some specific links, see my ME LIKEY page. Of course there are plenty I would have put on there if I'd thought of making the page sooner. ;)

Do you have any advice for other writers?
I guess this depends on what stage those writers are at. For those just starting out on a project, my advice has always been to just write and get it done before you even worry about making it perfect. Obviously research is useful in the beginning, for preventing major plot problems later when it comes to revisions. But other than that...just write! As I saw a very wise person say recently (whose name I can't remember. Argh! But it was a fellow blogger), and I paraphrase, "You can't edit what you haven't written yet." Nor can you send it out to betas, or query it, or get it published. Right? As for those who are in revisions, my advice is to find some fellow writers who understand your hell and are right there too! Commiserate! Eat cake! And if you're of age, lucky you, because there's always wine!

Anything else you’d like to add?
Not really - just thanks for this opportunity and for your great blog! :)
 
Trisha, thank you so much for answering some questions about yourself! I love all your answers. I, too, am originally from Western Australia (Denmark, WA to be exact) and I also love the "You can't revise a blank page" philosophy.
 
Does anyone have any other questions for Trisha? Anyone have any of their own answers to share?

Allow me to have a minor public freak-out... and an award

Some of you may know I recently decided to drastically change the course of my career. I resigned my job at a bank in New Zealand and applied for publishing and editing courses in Melbourne, Australia. I was lucky enough to get into the Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing at RMIT University in Melbourne, which I am very happy about.

Today is the first day of my course. Right now I feel like it's the first day of school and I'm feeling VERY nervous. I'm starting to second guess myself and wondering if I'm going to be good enough. The course is, after all, aimed at people already in the publishing industry and I have no relevant experience (other than a summer working in a book shop - which I loved).

Couple that with the fact that I went to eleven different schools, and I feel like somewhere along the way I missed a very important lesson on grammar (what the hell is a dangling modifier, anyway?) and you get a minor freak-out.

EEEP!

Ok... deep breath. I will be calm. I can teach myself grammar. I've learnt by myself before. Must control tummy swirling.

Aaand... moving along.

A few awesome bloggers have sent the stylish blogger award my way. Be sure to check out the blogs of Vicki Tremper, Shelley Batt, Alison Miller, and Cleveland Dietz.

I have recently done a vlog for this award, telling seven things about myself. I'll add a few more:

1. I'm not familiar with the specifics of grammar, although I think I instinctively get it right some of the time (but not all).
2. I have bad circulation. My feet and hands always seem to be cold.
3. Even though I feel the cold badly, one of my favourite things to do is skiing on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand. It's also one of my favourite places in the world.
4. I talk to my cat. She's silly.

And I'm passing the award on to these other totally awesome bloggers:

Bess Weatherby

Chantele Sedgwick

Christine Bryant

Meredith

Be sure to check them out!

So have you had any minor freak-outs lately? Is there anything you're both excited and nervous about? I'd love to hear!

PS. If you haven't checked out the Birthday Love Blogfest yet, have a look. You could win a book and get some helpful advice in the process.

In which I start a Sekrit Projekt, and Welcome!

First off, I wanted to say hello and welcome to all my new followers. It's so good to have you here. I know many of you have popped over from the crusade or from the dojo and I'm looking forward to crusading and kicking writing butt with you all.

In other news, I have started writing a Sekrit Projekt. In the past I've been a one project at a time kinda girl, but lately I've been trying out all sorts of new techniques to see how they work for me, and this is one of them. It's a YA paranormal (yes with vamps, the non sparkly kind) and so far I'm loving writing it.

As you know, I'm working on developing a writing habit, and since my other WIP is now in the revision stages I wanted something else to get daily words on. So far so good.

For those of you joining me with building a writing habit, how's it going? What goals and triggers did you set for yourself, and are you managing to stick to them?

PS. I made a little 'Writing Habit' button for the blog. If you're doing it with me, feel free to grab it.

Make writing your habitual fix

Writers write because we love it. That may be a slight generalisation, but it applies to most of the writers I know. We love our characters, we love our worlds, we love our stories*. But sometimes writing can start to feel like a chore. I'm not sure how this happens, and I know that every day that I don't write, I think about the fact that I haven't written a lot.

I hear a lot of writers say (and I know exactly how they feel) that getting themselves to write is the hardest part. Once you've made yourself sit at the computer, gotten rid of all the distractions like Twitter and Facebook and (squee!) new blogfollowers and comments, and finally gotten around to opening your story, it becomes easy**. The words flow.

The big hurdle for many writers is not getting the words, but making themselves sit and write the words in the first place.

I no longer want to feel guilty about skipping a day of writing. I want it to be easy to sit down and get past all the distractions and WRITE! And I never, ever, want it to take three years, or even more than a year to write a first draft again. I want writing to be my first priority of the day (other than, you know, the things that keep me alive).

So, I've decided to give myself a writing habit.

habit (from Dictionary.com)
–noun
1. an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary: the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.

I want writing to be so ingrained in my daily routine that I start getting jumpy if I don't get my fix. Ok, that could be taking it a bit far, but you know what I mean.

I've designed myself a writing habit building schedule, to help me become a daily writer for life:

   1.  Commit to thirty days of writing at least 500 words in a row on fiction. No skipping days. No complicated goals. Just get the words. Habits take repetition over time to build. Thirty days is generally accepted as the point when you can stop thinking too hard about the action, but it isn't the end. It's a good start.

Instead of focusing on cultivating self-discipline, introduce rituals similar to brushing your teeth. Incremental change is better than ambitious failure. Success feeds off of itself.

-Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier

   2.  Make it a ritual. Do the writing first thing in the day. Don't do anything else until I've reached the 500 words. No blogging, no checking emails, no reading other blogs, no Twitter. Nothing else till I've got my words (other than making coffee - this is essential). This step doubles as a reward, because then I've got the other things to look forward to once I've finished.

   3.  If my self discipline really isn't doing it for me (it hasn't got the best track record), remove temptation. Since for me, the biggest blocker for writing is the interwebs, that means switching off the modem at the wall (which means no more Thesausus.com while I write - hope it doesn't come to that).

   4.  Write it down and put it somewhere I can see it. This is what I made for myself to stick right in front of me on the wall. Feel free to use it too if you want.

   5.  Have a buddy. I think, at least for those of us writers who also blog and tweet, we writers like to share experiences. Writing itself is such a solitary thing that we reach out to other writers to see how they're doing. If anyone would like to join me on my attempt to create a writing habit, please do!

There you have it, five steps that are hopefully going to ensure I never have a problem with writing motivation again.

Do you think you could benefit from creating a writing habit? Do you have problems motivating yourself to write? Why don't you join in?

* Although love can surprisingly easily turn to hate sometimes

** Unless they're suffering from writer's block

We interrupt this programme to bring you a totally awesome announcement...

I FINISHED my first draft!!

Since giving myself a kick up the bum on Friday I've written 9,700 words exactly (weird, huh?)

The finished first draft stands at 85,439 words.

It's taken me a LONG TIME to get this far (I've lost track).

There's still sooo far to go. Not just REVISIONS (which I'm kinda excited about), but also another book. This one was only the first of two. Still another 80k words approx to go on this story. I'm not sure how I'm feeling about that exactly.

So yes, just had to share. Yay, Celebration!!

What do you have to celebrate? Come celebrate it with me (generally celebrations are best when they're done with others).

Crumbling the walls of writer's block

I've written a few posts recently about making writing goals, how I wanted to get a certain number of words per day and have my WIP finished by a certain date. I had such great intentions, but in the end intention =/= action.

I've been struggling with months and months (and months) of writer's block. It got the point where I forgot what was going on in my story and had to go back and review my words. This took a lot longer than expected, because I found myself editing along the way (I know, not recommended), and getting distracted from it all together. This has all culminated with me getting very fed up with myself.

So, without further ado, here are my tips for kicking writer's block to the curb, and taking some of my own advice:

• Shut down the webs. Twitter - closed. Facebook - logged out. Blogger - gone. The only web thing I leave open is my trusty Thesaurus.com (I love that page).
• Give myself permission to freak out for a moment about the fact that I don't know what the hell is going on with my story, then shut that down too.
• Try something new. This is where I completely strayed from my traditional writing process, which makes me think I'm not as much of a Pantster as I thought. The tools I used were: pretty pens, notebook, note cards, computer. Here's what I did, written in handy dandy instructional form:
1. Start with the notebook. Ask a question. Any question. If the 'what happens next' question is blocking you right now, ask something else. Anything to get the ideas flowing and the Muse warmed up. I keep a list of plot holes I need to resolve and started with one of those.
2. If you're finding that the answer to one question leads to another, and then another, then you're doing it right. When your writing brain is feeling limbered up, try asking the 'what happens next' question. If it's still blocking you, maybe ask it in a different way, like 'what happens as a consequence of character X doing action A?'



Not too imaginitive, right? It's ok, it doesn't need to be amazing, as long as it gets answers.

3. Once you've got an idea of what happens next, grab the note cards and pretty pens. Sit yourself on the floor (more space to work that way) and start writing out ideas for scenes. Don't worry about order, just write them. Once you have them, then put them in order. When I did this, it turned out I only had four major scenes to go until the end of the WIP. Woop!
4. Start writing! I ended up getting 4,371 words the day I did this.
• Keep writing every day. Create a writing habit (will post about this later in the week, otherwise this would be a mammoth post).
• Learn from others. I didn't come up with these ideas by myself. This is an accumulation of all the wonderful writing resources I've seen on the webs (check the Writing & Publishing Goodness links to the right). If you found this process helpful, I would definitely recommend checking out Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways. I haven't even finished the course yet, and already I've gotten so much out of it. Also, she's adding new content in March, and the price of the course will be going up after March the 11th, so if you're interested, check it out now. If you're on the fence, Holly has heaps of free writing courses and articles on her website to check out first. What are you waiting for? Go forth and explore!

And that is all. I now have around 10k words left to go, and all that time I was stalled not realising how close I was to finishing.

What about you, do you ever suffer from writer's block? How do you go about beating it? What are your favourite writing resources? We'd love to hear about them.

I am a ninja

Yesterday I gave myself a major kick up the bum and wrote 4,371 words on my WIP. It was fantastic, like breaking down the walls of writer's block that has been holding me back for such a long time. I'll blog about how I did it next week, in case anyone else is struggling with the same issue and needs some inspiration.

I have around 15k words to go, so my revised goal is to have the first draft finished by the end of February at the latest. Having the end in sight is such a good feeling. Even though it's not really the end. The current WIP is only the first in two books so I still have another whole novel length MS to go on this story.

To help me stick to this goal, I've signed up for Ali Cross's Ninja Novel Writing Month of February. For those who want to do nanowrimo but wish it didn't have to be in November.

Is anyone keen on joining us? What are you waiting for? Go forth and sign up. Also, you can get one of these super cute ninja buttons =>

Why I didn't write today

You know when you have those days, you get to the end and you feel like you've achieved nothing? You haven't written a single thing and your characters are pouting in the corner? You know the ones. And then you find yourself justifying your lack of success by telling yourself (or others) things like:

• I didn't have time, there was so much housework to get done, or
• my evil day job (EDJ) is just too draining
• I had no inspiration to speak of today
• the family was visiting, I couldn't lock myself off from the world to get any words
• or any number of other wildly fantastical reasons (the dog ate my computer?)

Hmm.. these are all painfully familiar to me, or at least some variation on them is. And when you look at the words closely, pull off the silly mask and the technicolour wig, you see them for what they really are: an EXCUSE.

Don't let the evil excuse fairy get you fellow writers! If he shows his ugly face jump on him before he can run amock, then stick him in the laundry cupboard. Make sure you leave a heavy pile of dirty washing in front of the door just to really annoy him. And then walk away.

Tell yourself:

I might well be super busy today, and the family's coming to visit, and I really need to do that thing (you know that thing?), but I'm still going to sit down, set a 10 minute timer, and get something. And then I'll know I have succeeded because I haven't allowed the evil excuse fairy, or the nasty procrastination pixie to win.

And then remember that, when you're writing, failure is only having no words for the day. You can't revise what you haven't written.

I'm off to get words.

Have you done your 10 minutes today? How do you go about slaying the evil excuse fairy? Or is this never a problem for you?

An update.. and deciding if a character needs to be killed off.

Since I did my getting serious post I have gone over approx 100 pages of my WIP, and then hit a brick wall.

You see, I have a character who is giving me mixed messages about whether she should be kept or not. I have a few options for what I can do with her. She's got good conflict potential for my MC down the track, and she lightens the mood of the story in places because my MC can be quite dark. She wants to join the fight. Her family were all killed by the Big Evil Antagonist afterall, so she has a reason to get in there.

At the same time she's just kind of... useless. She gets scared in the fight scenes and doesn't help and it's up to the other characters to convince her to keep going, and to rescue her from time to time.

This could just be a symptom of not developing the character well enough.

The way I see it I have three options:

1. Kill her off. It'll create some instantaneous conflict but I think, since she hasn't been part of the story for all that long, it will feel a bit superficial.
2. Leave her behind. She's served her purpose in the story in helping the MC grow. Leave her somewhere and keep going without her.
3. Go back to square one, develop the character a bit more, see if she can be fleshed out so she's not such a drain on everyone else's energy.

None of these three are jumping out at me as the perfect solution. Without a clear path in mind I'm going to keep pushing forward, leaving her in there for now, and if she continues to irritate me and serve no purpose in increasing the conflict and moving the story forward, she will be culled. Either by being written out of the story or by being killed.

How do you deal with characters who won't play ball? Do you cull or compromise? How do you know it's just not working anymore?

It's time to get serious..

About my goals. I know, I know, everyone's blogging about resolutions at the moment and it's starting to get a little old, but I feel like I need to write this down in order to stay accountable to myself.

In my December pre-resolutions I had a number of things I wanted to achieve. I've decided I'm going to cut those back to one. I still want to do exercise and all those other good things, but I want to put my focus onto the most important one to me.

I want to have my first draft finished and start revising it by April this year.

This means I need to make sure I write every day (within reason - sometimes it's just not possible and I'm not going to beat myself up for skipping a day every few weeks). At the moment I'm going over what has already been written because the lack of progress recently has fuzzied my recollection of events and I want to make sure I don't leave any glaring plot holes. I want to have this done and start getting new words by Wednesday next week.

Because I'm also very much a numbers person I'll be tracking my progress with a writer's report card type spreadsheet, and probably posting progress here too. The more public the more accountable.

Right now, based on 85 working days, I need to be getting minimum 513 words per day to reach my words target. I can do that.

How are you all planning to stick to your goals this year? Is this something you generally find easy, or do you lack in self motivation too?