Fireworks and Another Update

Happy Fourth of July!

This has been a very interesting Fourth, one that is full of. . . 

Slowness.

These past weeks have been busy.

I finally found a job.

A prologue and first chapter of my current Work In Progress was written and rewritten, critiqued, and another rewrite started.

I traveled down to Kansas and had a wonderful week at a writing workshop.

My sister and her husband came up and are currently visiting for a few days.

But everything seems to have happened slowly.

Maybe it's the long daylight hours of summer.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm getting older.

Who knows.

Anyways.

I do have a reason for writing up another blog post.

I have rewritten Shadow Wings' Synopsis.

I literally wrote it up about five minutes ago, and yes I'm too excited to keep it to myself.

It's not too long, which I'm happy about.

I really like how it sounds.

Then again I'm emotional and tired. 

Either way, here it is:

 Sometimes, in order to save today, you must unbury the past. Abigail Dimond, an ordinary historian, never thought that she'd have to become someone else in order to save today. Well, not literally, but the next closest thing. Through the use of a secret technology only recently revealed to the public, she now must work through the memories and feelings of a woman named Kallie Forbes and work against time to stop needless hatred and evil from spreading any farther.

In a time of micro smart computers and hovercrafts, she must return to the slower pace of the past in order to save many lives, including some that she's only met in someone else's memories.

I haven't really dug into Abigail as a character yet, but I'm in love with her already.

Bah.

I'm an Author.

Of course I'd be in love with her.

Oh well. . . 

Ask any questions, and I'll gladly answer!

Really, I will.

I really need help developing this more.

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Editing, where to start?

Something that is very simple can be extremely hard to obtain.

A character that you've worked on for a year, more or less, may be lovable to you.

You might care for that character a lot.

You might have cried with that character during the dark moments.

You might have cheered for that character during the triumphant moments.

You might have felt satisfied for that character during the denouement.

But that doesn't mean that your reader, who knows nothing at the start of your story, will want to see your character through the events in your story.

That was one of the points given to me from a couple people who critiqued some of my first chapter before I started to edit it was that they didn't care.

What genre was it?

Contemporary Adventure?

They were confused about certain events.

This was, to say the least, painful for me to realize.

Like any other first writer completing her first novel, I didn't want to be shown the wrongs.

Yet I am starting to like these questions.

It is from those questions that I started to edit.

Story writing 101: 

Your reader should care about your character in some form.

Whether it is what your character is doing, or who your character is, your reader should care.

I had the problem with people not caring about my characters.

At all.

So, I worked on showing Kallie, MC, as a more likable human being.

Well, from some feedback, I have succeeded to a point.

Let's just say that I have a long way to go. . . 

Story Writing 101:

Make your genre obvious.

In my first draft, all I showed that it might be Science Fiction ish, was the hover cars and electric shock gloves.

It was not very believable, as well. 

I worked hard to include my genre, science fiction, in a believable and natural way. 

The house and appliances are something that can naturally show science fiction that I had originally over looked.

To say the least, it has improved.

I've been told that Kallie is more likable, and that they would like to read more.

What I would rather not look at is how it still needs improvement.

Evidently her parents now need more character development.

I need to rationalize why Kallie describes the blond woman as she does.

I need to work on describing more and slowing down a bit more at parts.

Description.

I love it.

But when it comes to writing a first draft, I tell instead of describing. 

Ouch.

Well, that's what happened.

I hope it helps others in some way.

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Getting Back in the Groove

College.

It wears you down with loads of homework; essays, speeches, chapters and books that need to be read before class.

Well, I've finished my first semester.

And I passed every one of my classes.

Hurrah!

Now, I have to get back into the groove of living at home.

Even more important, the groove of fiction writing.

Wait, I write in my head all the time, or at least think of writing all the time, so it should be easy.

That.

Is.

Sadly.

Horribly.

Wrong.

I have been home for almost a week, and only tonight have I been able to sit down and put hands to keyboard and get something out.

Oh, I've outlined four chapters (er, more like three and a quarter) in two days.

That much is thankfully true.

Even so, I haven't been able to DO any writing.

I've tried using paper and pencil, my old fall back method, but I just ended up doodling.

Then it hit me.

I've been burying myself in 'writing know-how' for I don't know how long.

College has been beating grammar rules into me, and my free time is constantly filled with reading other writers' blogs and searching for tips on how to make my writing better.

I'd scour Pinterest for pins that had inspirational quotes or pictures full of Plot Bunniez.

All of this was done with good intentions (that will probably help in the long run).

But I wasn't doing anything with them.

They were just information that I was storing in my head and letting sit there.

Today, I didn't do a lick of thinking about writing or any of my stories.

I just drank coffee, knitted and crocheted with a good friend, and worried about Christmas.

I went shopping at a yarn store and drooled over yarn and knitting needles.

I started a new knitting project and finished some old ones.

We complained about what was added to the latest Hobbit movie that wasn't in the book (one in particular was especially odious to us).

I laughed, I knitted, and I completely zoned out from my future worries as much as I could.

I came home, helped cook dinner, and curled up with one of my favorite fantasy novels and just read for pleasures sake.

Just about half an hour ago I wrote 400 words in fifteen minutes.

That is the most that I've written in a very long time, especially for fiction.

Oh, it's not my best writing of course.

It is after all unedited as of now, but I feel so exhilarated that I finally wrote something again.

I sat back after that fifteen minutes, stared at the screen, and thought why?

Why, after all this time of fighting with myself each time I tried to write, I can suddenly do it now?

Well, this is the clearest that I can put my answer.

Because I wasn't really writing.

Oh, I was planning ahead before.

I was plotting, I was learning how to edit, and I was figuring out how to get my work out there.

But I wasn't REALLY putting it into action.

My mind was storing it away, and I'm sure that some of it will come out as I continue my work and show itself to be highly useful.

But tonight, I sat down, looked at my first draft, and started to completely rewrite my first chapter.

I didn't think about grammar other than pressing enter for a new paragraph and putting the proper punctuation in.

I didn't think about how the characters are supposed to look like or act.

I just wrote.

I don't know how I did it; only God could have helped me, as I had decided to give up on my writing for the rest of this week.

I now feel so completely at ease with my writing.

I know now what to do:

Give the final result to God and just write.

Keep on Writing

God Bless

SDG

Joy