What's Up Friday? (WUW #5)

Yeah, it's been a busy week. And all of it has been non-writing life busy. So my total word count since my last update is... 4532. That looks good, but after a week and a half I should have more. :(

I'm hoping to get some words in tonight. I've been dying to write because I'm ramping up for the first big battle scene in which epic things will happen and it will be sad and EPIC. I'm a little scared to write such a big scene. And this will be my first time writing a space battle, but it will be fun.

Also, I believe I've reached the point in this current WIP where I gave up on my last one. That first draft of the first manuscript was about 42K words long and I've passed that mark already in Moon Dragons. And I still have a long way to go. I'm wondering if this is going to end up being a series or something. Well just have to wait and see.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!

What's Up Wednesday #4

Wow, I've updated this blog every week for a month. That's a serious record for me. :D

I love these pictures. :)

Anyway, I'm getting better and better at writing everyday. I like getting up early in the morning. My mind is fresh and the house is nice and quiet. This week I wrote a total of 4436 words. I'm almost at 40K total for this first draft. I've kind of set a goal of 70K, but I may go past that. I'm not really sure. Either way, I'm somewhere around the half way point of my story.

I'm getting into a good place with all this writing. At first it seemed like a chore. All I thought about was getting that minimum of 350 words so I could move on, but now I'm writing more everyday and I just don't want to stop. If I had my way I'd write all day long. Unfortunately, kids and chores and stuff get in the way of that.

I wrote a funny little piece of dialogue the other day that I thought I'd share. In this scene, my main character, Sonya, is talking to a scientist about how the general population would react to the knowledge of the existence of aliens.

Carter [says]..."Half think it would be beneficial to make friends with aliens, the other half think that all aliens would want with us is to harvest our brains, or other such nonsense.”

“Those people read too much science fiction,” Sonya laughed. 

 “My thoughts exactly.”

A little breaking of the fourth wall never hurt anyone. ;)

So how is your writing going? Is it flowing or are you hung up on stuff? Tell me in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter.

Happy Wednesday!

What's Up Wednesday #3

This has been a much better writing week than last week. I've started getting up at 5 AM to write. The kids don't normally get up until sometime between 6 and 7 so I, generally, get a solid hour to write. That didn't happen today. William got up at 5:30 and has been watching Sesame Street. Elmo is not conducive to Moon Dragons. So I've been writing blog post instead.

So my total word count this week is 3313. I did a little over 1700 words yesterday alone. And I've noticed I don't write much, if at all, on the weekends. Part of it is because of that Chuck Wendig blog I mentioned. His plan has you taking the weekends off, only writing 5 days a week. But that will change this weekend. I'm going to start going to the library again on Saturday mornings. Two hours of childless writing sounds like Heaven.

Anyway, I'm half way through the first meeting between the Humans and the Aliens. I'm really playing this scene by ear. I've already covered some of the major points and now I'm just playing with the characters. I'm sure a lot of it will be cut later, but it's a good way to get to know my Alien MCs.

I forgot to do this last week, but here's some lines I've written recently.

“I make you nervous, don’t I?”

[Sonya] blushed. “I’m sure you have that effect on most people, sir.”

            

Commander Turner grimaced. “True. But I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I have a feeling we’ll be working together a lot in the near future. Plus, you’re my daughter’s best friend, I want you to be comfortable around me.”

            

“I’ll try sir,” she said with a smile.

And that's all folks! Have a Happy Wednesday and go write something!

What's Up Wednesday #2

As an interesting side note: This is my 50th post on this blog. So that's kind of cool. My first post was back in June 2010. Two and a half years and the most I've done is finish the first draft of one manuscript. Didn't even finish editing it because the whole thing was just wrong.

BUT, on to happy writing stuff!

So this last week was a little slow with the writing. In total I only added about 1000 words. But I'm on the edge of a very important and, possibly, hard part. The MC is about to meet her first alien in person. I'm pretty sure these aliens are going to come off flat and cardboard at first and I'll have to work hard to make them real, but at this point, I just want to get the scene down on paper. That's what the first draft is all about.

Anyway, I plan on writing a lot this week and hope to have lots of time this weekend, but we'll see. Life has a bad habit of getting in the way of all the fun stuff I want to do.

So, how's your writing going? Starting any new projects now that's it's spring? Share with me!

Have a Happy Wednesday!

What's Up Wednesday #1

So I've seen a few other writing blogs that do a Writing Wednesday or a WIP Wednesday and I wanted to do something similar but different. So here you have the first What's Up Wednesday!

And what will I talk about in What's Up Wednesday. What's up with my writing of course. This is a writing blog after all. ;)

Well, I've given my current WIP a new working title of Moon Dragons. Sounds a lot better than Dragons in Space space space space! And I'm currently up to over 30,000 words out of about 70,000. I really have no clue how long this is going to be but I'm pretty sure I'm not quiet half way through the story yet.

I was hoping to get a lot more words on the page the last few days but I got caught up in the beginning stages of developing two of my main alien characters. At first I wanted to make them "simply evil" but after reading that character book I reviewed last post I realized that would not be a good idea. So I had to come up with some basic motivations and reasons for why they do what they will eventually do, which I'm not 100% sure of yet. :D

And now for a few lines from Moon Dragons:

Sonya looked over her shoulder at her teacher Master Abdul... “I don’t think I can do it, sir.”

“And why not?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m afraid of heights, sir,” she whispered.

Master Abdul let out a belly laugh. “You want to fly in space but you’re afraid of heights?”

Sonya shrugged. “There’s no gravity in space, sir. No falling down.”

Also, some links about writing awesomeness I'd like to share.

First, Chuck Wendig dispenses awesome writing advice. The first I'd like to share is this: 

HOW TO PUSH PAST THE BULLSHIT AND WRITE THAT GODDAMN NOVEL: A VERY SIMPLE NO-FUCKERY WRITING PLAN TO GET SHIT DONE (his title, not mine)

And this: 

25 WAYS TO BE A HAPPY WRITER (OR, AT LEAST, HAPPIER)

He's a smart man and he writes good books. I just reviewed one this week in fact. :)

And that is all for now friends! Have a Happy Writer's Wednesday!

Something New!

Oh my gosh, this blog does still exist! Haha.

So, if you read my regular blog, you know that I do a fair amount of book reviews. Well, besides loving fiction I also read a lot of writing reference books. I've never taken a creative writing class or anything beyond an English 101 and Business Writing college course. Everything I know about writing (and a tiny bit about publishing) I've learned from books. And I have a fair amount of them.

So I figured, since this is a writing blog I could use this space to review some writing books. As a note, I've gotten like 80% of my writing books from the Writer's Digest Shop*. It's a great resource. :)

And today we will start off with a review of Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

5 STARS

*Images and book information from Writer's Digest Shop

The indispensable Write Great Fiction series continues with an indepth look at three of the most important tools in the writer's craft: character, emotion and viewpoint. With the tips and techniques in this book, you will learn how to:

Create compelling characters that readers believe in

Write scenes that deliver an unforgettable emotional impact

Distinguish among the many different kinds of viewpoint, and choose the one which is right for your story

Each chapter is filled with examples drawn from the work of successful writers, along with action-and-results excercises that help you take your lessons to the keyboard.

Nancy Kress is the author of 16 novels and three story collections, as well as Writer's Digest'sDynamic Characters. Her short fiction has won three Nebulas and a Hugo. In addition to writing the fiction column for Writer's Digest magazine, Nancy often teaches writing at universities. She lives in Silver Springs, Maryland.

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This book is part of the Write Great Fiction series. I bought the whole series a couple years ago at a great price and I've been working my way through them (life makes me a slow reader sometimes). 

As the title states, this book is all about characters. Kress covers a lot of topics in this. From choosing and defining your characters, to properly expressing their emotions, to deciding what kind of point of view is best for your story.

What I love best about this book, and the others in the series, is all the exercises at the end of each chapter. There's at least 5 per chapter and they include activities that have you building your own characters and ones that have you evaluating characters from other books. It really makes you think.

This book is meant to teach and it does a great job of that. And thus, 5 stars. :)

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Well I hope you've enjoyed reading this. If you have any suggestions of good books about the art and craft of writing, feel free to leave me a comment here, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Have a Happy Wednesday!

750 Words At A Time

So I just wanted to do a quick little post about this cool site I found last week. It's called 750words.com. It's a great tool for those people who have daily word count goals to meet.

It's basically a blank screen where you are supposed to write 750 words a day. There's a point system for how many words you write and how often you write them. And all sorts of fun badges to earn as well. It makes hitting that daily word goal fun and something to look forward too.

And you can write whatever you want and no ones sees it. It's completely private and 100% free. In fact, I'm writing this blog post in there right now. Once I hit my 750 I'll just copy/paste the words into Blogger.

So go check it out and tell me if it helps you meet your writing goals. I know it's helping with mine.

Thanks for reading! Have a Happy Thursday!