Plotting on the wall

Things have been kind of stale on To get him back since I started the new job. I have quite a bit to type up, but some­thing doesn’t feel right.

As a nice sur­prise some of my char­ac­ters have come back to visit me from my BIG project that I’m going to work on next. I moved my room around, to get my desk and a dresser out of the way. Now I have some wall space to work with. On the wall, I taped up the note cards from the first book in the quartet.

Plotting

Plotting

Seeing it like this, it needs some more flesh­ing out, more details added in (I’m think­ing post-​​it notes added with details). I also cut out a good chunk from the begin­ning, and set it aside as either ref­er­ence for back story, or a poten­tial pre­quel. If that hap­pens, and the planned sequel, than that brings the whole project up to a total of six books.

I don’t even want to think about that at this point.

To start with, I’m only going to deal with this first book. The sec­ond one is where the bulk of the first draft ended up. This first one is mostly new mate­r­ial. It’s like start­ing a new book, rather than a sec­ond draft, but the char­ac­ters are famil­iar. I’m anx­ious, and a lit­tle excited too, to get going.

I just want to fin­ish the cur­rent project first, so I guess that means I need to get typ­ing that one up.

Progress Report

I started a new job two weeks ago. So far it’s going well. I’m learn­ing new things in the field that I want to make a career out of, gain­ing expe­ri­ence that I’ll be able to use to move for­ward along this path I’ve cho­sen, and I’ve been doing some writ­ing on my breaks.

I feel like I’ve made decent progress. It’s been slow, since I only have a few min­utes here and there, but some­thing is bet­ter than noth­ing. And noth­ing is what I’ve been get­ting accom­plished lately  I haven’t read a book in about a month. I haven’t had a chance to type up what I’ve writ­ten yet, but I think it might be about 2000 words or so, spread out over two weeks. Not spec­tac­u­lar, but it’s a small note­book that I’m using.

Amanda’s top 10 writing rules to live by

Okay, after some prod­ding I’ll admit that I’m a writer. I’ve been writ­ing sto­ries since I was about six or seven years old, and over the last twenty-​​odd years I’ve com­piled a list of help­ful tips for myself.

  1. Second Draft = First Draft — 10% This is taken directly from Stephen King’s On Writing. A book I would highly rec­om­mend even if you’re not a King fan. It works for him because he tends to write way too much at first. For me, I might change that — to a + instead, since I tend to write a skele­ton and then have to add meat to it. Come up with your own equa­tion that you think is a good tar­get. Having a num­ber to aim for gives you an idea of how well you’re on track.
  2. No adverbs, no pas­sive voice. This is another King tip, but I’ve read it other places as well
  3. Write the truth. When I read a book and I see some­thing shown the way I think of the world, I relate that much closer to the story. For exam­ple: If some­one writes about brush­ing their curly hair and not end­ing up with a fluffy mess, I’m imme­di­ately jarred out of the story with the thought “but that’s not real!” and I get quite indig­nant about it. Conversely, if some­one writes about comb­ing out their wet curls and then pray­ing to some deity that those curls behave, than I’m much more likely to favor­ably immerse myself in the story.  Continue read­ing →