The past couple of months have been quite busy. I've been neglecting my blogs and have no real excuse for it. Real world stuff comes and my writing is what suffers...*sigh* It makes me so sad and disappointed in myself sometimes.
The month of July held some unbearable weather in our area as well as the summer stomach bug for myself and my three year old son. Awesome times to be had by all. Wee also had family vacation and a visit to my mom's. Not a very productive month at all though I did (somehow) manage to write my thirty thousand words that I set as my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo. How did I do it? I still don't know.
I am five months pregnant and that presents its own difficulties. I'm more tired than usual, overheated easily, and sitting comfortably is becoming a challenge. That being said, I am due in November, November 6th in fact and many people have been asking me if I will be doing NaNoWriMo this year. The answer is a resounding yes. I will still be an ML and there's actually training for us Saturday, the 10th of August. I'm looking forward to it and will be re-watching last year's webinars as well just to refresh my memory. All very exciting and I'm hoping to be more organized this year now that I know what I'm doing!
My goal now that July NaNo is over, is to catch up on my Merry-Go-Round blog posts as well as planning emails for the month of November.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Community
Since this is about writing I'm not talking about the television show. This month's theme has been community as it applies to writers. My own "community" consists a lot of online type interactions and less people to people (unless it's November and that crazy NaNoWriMo thing) but it's a supportive community nonetheless.
These days there's a lot going on via the internet. I see it as both a blessing and a curse. The internet has given me access to a much wider community of writers and thinkers to bounce ideas off of and talk to about writing. This is a good thing. The downside to the internet forums and communities is the lack of person to person, face to face contact. When I lived closer to The Big City I had a writing group that a friend and I had started to keep meeting after NaNoWriMo ended. We had bi-weekly meetings (or write-ins) at a local coffee shop and while writing did get done there was a great deal of socializing as well. We had critiques as well and while these are all things you can get online (minus coffee and yummy pastries from good looking barristas) there's nothing that really can take place of human interaction. It's just not the same. However I think every writer needs community and people that understand the crazy things that go on in a writer's brain. (Think plot bunnies or something similar.)
As I said before, I do participate in online communities, much more so now that I live further from The Big City. There are writing groups around but they tend to cater to older (50 yrs + crowd) or younger (high school age) groups. I've found it hard to be accepted or welcomed into either so I've just let it slide for now and stick to my online presence. It's sad but at this point (expecting baby #2 in November) I'm not ready to try and set up a writing group from scratch.
Since that's my case I have to say that there are a number of supportive online communities for writers out there. The first I should mention of course is the Forward Motion for Writers community. They plan and put together topics for the monthly posts that I do. Yep, this would be one of those. It's a forum-based community that has chats and groups for just about every topic a writer can think of. If you want something more specific there's Scribophile, an online critiquing community. You can't just ask for critiques but rather have to give some in order to get some. While some people think it bothersome I think it's one of the best ways to become a better writer so it's never bothered me much. It's gathered all kinds of writers and thinkers so you really get a good variety of input. Those are my two main go to spots for writerly community type things.
These days there's a lot going on via the internet. I see it as both a blessing and a curse. The internet has given me access to a much wider community of writers and thinkers to bounce ideas off of and talk to about writing. This is a good thing. The downside to the internet forums and communities is the lack of person to person, face to face contact. When I lived closer to The Big City I had a writing group that a friend and I had started to keep meeting after NaNoWriMo ended. We had bi-weekly meetings (or write-ins) at a local coffee shop and while writing did get done there was a great deal of socializing as well. We had critiques as well and while these are all things you can get online (minus coffee and yummy pastries from good looking barristas) there's nothing that really can take place of human interaction. It's just not the same. However I think every writer needs community and people that understand the crazy things that go on in a writer's brain. (Think plot bunnies or something similar.)
As I said before, I do participate in online communities, much more so now that I live further from The Big City. There are writing groups around but they tend to cater to older (50 yrs + crowd) or younger (high school age) groups. I've found it hard to be accepted or welcomed into either so I've just let it slide for now and stick to my online presence. It's sad but at this point (expecting baby #2 in November) I'm not ready to try and set up a writing group from scratch.
Since that's my case I have to say that there are a number of supportive online communities for writers out there. The first I should mention of course is the Forward Motion for Writers community. They plan and put together topics for the monthly posts that I do. Yep, this would be one of those. It's a forum-based community that has chats and groups for just about every topic a writer can think of. If you want something more specific there's Scribophile, an online critiquing community. You can't just ask for critiques but rather have to give some in order to get some. While some people think it bothersome I think it's one of the best ways to become a better writer so it's never bothered me much. It's gathered all kinds of writers and thinkers so you really get a good variety of input. Those are my two main go to spots for writerly community type things.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Favorite Character
A favorite character...hmm. Well I have to admit that this is a broad topic. A favorite character of my own or someone else's? Well in order to cover my bum I'm going to write a little about both.
Every now and again a writer will fall in love with one of their own characters. I believe that it's impossible to fall in love with every character you create. I speak from personal experience. I downright hate some of the characters I've written but hey, that's life right?
My favorite character that I've written recently is Sera, from a fantasy fiction piece that I've worked on. A strong female lead that I've developed to a point where she's a real person. I've worked on her for so long that she's a real person to me. I'm a "long term" type of writer.
I work on pieces off and on for a couple of years at the very least. Right now i have a few other characters that I've "known" for the same amount of time but I feel a real kinship with Sera. part of it may be because she is the only one that I have an image of. I'm a very visual person and it really helps me to have images of my characters. The best I can manage is a series of pictures of people (some fictional and some not) pasted together to create some semblance of who I'm thinking of. This sketch came out better than I could have hoped. The feel of the character, the overall look, the look in her eyes, it was all right on target. I wish this particular artist would do all my character sketches but unfortunately I can't afford to commission that many and that much work no one should do for free. Sadly my own artistic talent is restricted to clothing. Faces, hair, and expressions are all beyond me. So far she is my favorite character and part of that is I think because I've written her to be a facet of myself.
On that note I'll transition to my favorite character that someone else has written. I first picked up Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings in my teens. Since then I have read it at least a dozen times and each time the main character makes me laugh. Her sense of humor and sarcasm are in line with mine and the way she deals with situations mirrors how I would like to think that I would deal with them. Polgara is a unique character and very real to me because of the character traits and attributes that I feel we share. I have a feeling that in the years to come I will probably read that book another dozen times at least just because it's like having a conversation with an old friend.
In the end I think that an old friend is really what the best characters should feel like. Sometimes they feel that way to the author and some times they don't. What's important is that each character deserves to be written because somewhere there is a reader waiting to make that "old friend" connection and they might be waiting for your latest character. How awesome is that thought?
Every now and again a writer will fall in love with one of their own characters. I believe that it's impossible to fall in love with every character you create. I speak from personal experience. I downright hate some of the characters I've written but hey, that's life right?
My favorite character that I've written recently is Sera, from a fantasy fiction piece that I've worked on. A strong female lead that I've developed to a point where she's a real person. I've worked on her for so long that she's a real person to me. I'm a "long term" type of writer.
On that note I'll transition to my favorite character that someone else has written. I first picked up Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings in my teens. Since then I have read it at least a dozen times and each time the main character makes me laugh. Her sense of humor and sarcasm are in line with mine and the way she deals with situations mirrors how I would like to think that I would deal with them. Polgara is a unique character and very real to me because of the character traits and attributes that I feel we share. I have a feeling that in the years to come I will probably read that book another dozen times at least just because it's like having a conversation with an old friend.
In the end I think that an old friend is really what the best characters should feel like. Sometimes they feel that way to the author and some times they don't. What's important is that each character deserves to be written because somewhere there is a reader waiting to make that "old friend" connection and they might be waiting for your latest character. How awesome is that thought?
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