kelly said

There are many rules, tips and words of suggestion for writing. However, the one I’ve found to be crucial for me is, finishing what I start.

How many times have you started a project only to wander away from it?

Never? Really? WOW! You’re my hero, hehe!

I wish I could say the same. However, I was looking through my WiP files and noticed *ahem* I have a lot of unfinished business!

Currently I have draft’s for two short stories, MINER MISTAKE and SLEEPING BEAU. But the stories aren’t finished, they still need to feel the red wrath of my editor’s pen. I started on them, but I haven’t ripped through that finish-line tape yet.

I’ve been on pause with my YA SciFi short, SCARLET CITY. I have to write the bridge between “the scene at the tree with her mentor” and “the moment of truth – will she or won’t she destroy everything she’s ever known.” There are some delicate threads wafting in the breeze and I need to carefully weave them in – in other words, it means I know what I wanna say but I have to figure out how to say it the best way possible Started, but not finished.

I have a story that started off as a short piece but now, it has expanded beyond my 5k word limit into a novel ambition. I have no title, so I label the document by my MC’s name. Jule. She belongs to the high fantasy world I’m building where it’s not unheard of ride a beam of light to a particular destination. This story requires major development. I have three chapters started, but the draft remains unfinished.

And, amongst many others too numerous to list, there’s CHOMP, my 50k+ 2010 NaNoWriMo efforts — a completed draft then, but according to my 2011 standards, a beginning with no middle or end. This one lurks on my thumbdrive, started, but not finished.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Hehe! I have the writing part down, but what good is that if my stories never reach a conclusion, or *gasp!* an audience!

So the write tip I have today is mostly for myself, hehe!

> It’s important to finish what we start. <

It’s important to see a project through from beginning to end, to experience that sense of accomplishment, to be brave and share it with others and to move on to the next story and to do it all over again.

I accomplished this once before, with SANCTUARY, starting, finishing and finding a home for that gem of a YA vampire short story in Wyvern Publications, Fangtales Anthology.

And I want to do that again with one of my current WiP’s.

Now, the real dilemma? Which one do I target for completion? hehe!

[ Special thanks to my beta reader, for sharing the following link to sci-fi writer, Robert A. Heinlein's 5 rules for writing ^_^ ]

4 Comments | In: WiP, write tip, writing process | tags: FANGTALES, SANCTUARY, vampire, Wyvern Publications, YA. | #

Recently I dared to open my SSiP and expose a rough sample of SCARLET CITY.

So what, big deal, what was the point? hehehe! Well, I like to learn how people do things by watching their creative process. So, the point was to share how I harness the wandering particles of my mind into a laser beam.

*pshew! pshew!*

I have, scrawled by hand, seven legal-pad-pages of story and only squeezed out a measly two hundred words on screen. If you break it down, basically that’s about 8 feet of wandering writing, solidified, condensed and filtered down to the most clear and concise two hundred words I could muster for a first draft.

Two hundred words? What the crap, that’s like writing a word a day to some people! LOL! Yeah, I move at the leisurely pace of a snail.

That could be because I write before I type. Paper is cool, it lets me do my thing and write outside the lines The computer, with all it’s organization and structure is a little too confining for my thought process, so I admire those who can just log on and type away their first drafts. I’m more inclined to type once I have the idea fully formed.

So, after analyzing the data from those sheets and sheets of paper, I’m now trying to see if my message is coming across to the reader or if it’s just a lot of imagery floating around on the page. This is where I begin to see the structure of the scene or story. Is everything that I had to write down on paper making an appearance in the proper sequence, revealing not only the futuristic world I’ve carefully crafted but the character’s too, their background, their social hierarchy, their conflicts, their hopes, fears and desires.

Yeah, I’m asking a lot from those 200 words.

I’ll find out if they’ve hit their mark later, after I have the whole draft done and I click ‘post for critique’

And at a 5k word goal, juggling full time job and life, well, I won’t run through the calculations on a finished product just yet, lest I find myself discouraged.

One day at time, and in my case, one word at time

4 Comments | In: SCARLET CITY, WiP, writing process | tags: YA. | #

I decided to take on a writing prompt challenge from a forum I frequent — not for the moderator’s contest, however, because I simply won’t be able to meet her deadline. But, I’m going to write it anyways and see where it’ll take me. And I’m being courageous enough to invite you into my story making process

Here’s the photo for our story prompt – the original had music, but, sigh, I wasn’t able to hear it. Probably for the best, it may have prejudiced the world I’m about to create Oh, and I’ll be hovering near the 5k word limit assigned. Five thousand words worked for my contracted-for-publication YA vampire shorty, so I think that’s a nice sized number for me to manage successfully

OK, so first things first. I study the picture for every single little detail and then let my mind wander, to take things or objects in the image and place them out of context, change its meaning from what we know today to something different, opposite. I try to create and solve a mystery behind every detail in this picture.

So, when I look at this photo, I’m intrigued by the six, round, white lights in the background. Sure, they could be city lights, lights from cars, but in my imagination, those lights are for something very specific, because it looks to me like they’re hovering in a pattern. In my mind, she’s being watched. By *something*. A *something* that I’m not quite ready to reveal just yet

A small detail, but, she’s wearing a silver cross. I’m thinking that will have meaning, but perhaps not with a religious undertone — funny to think that way, because, it is, after all, a cross. However, I see it as something else, a symbol used to show significance, more over, HER significance to this world I’m fabricating. That starts adding more to my MC’s conflict and leads to discovering the reason *why* she’s holding that grenade. (or *is* it a grenade? )

There are laser lights pointed at her chest and hands. A sign she’s targeted by someone, police? gangsters? Ohh, I have an idea, all right, but it’s still in it’s developmental stage. However, it’s very very curious to me whey they haven’t taken her down yet. It’s apparent that they could, her vitals are in the line of fire, but something about her has them halting, hesitating. And that will be a key point I’m going to explore.

It’s raining in the pic. Or is it? Sure, it appears that water is falling from the sky, however, what if that’s not nature-made water, but rather, man-made. And what if that yellow ‘jacket’ she’s wearing isn’t really a raincoat, but rather a cloak? Well, right there, by changing the article of clothing I create another area of interest. What’s the purpose behind wearing a yellow cloak? Do they wear them for special occasions, or ceremonies? As a means of protection, or self-preservation?

Perhaps my favorite mystery of this image is her bag. What’s in the bag? hahaha! I love that question, as it’s spawned all sorts of delicious answers in my mind — answers that will come once more backstory and world building are done.

So, no, I have not started a “story draft” of this yet. I’ve been waking up at 4 am each morning, before I go to work from 7-4, to write as much as I can — and when I say write, I mean, literally, write, not type. I’m using my favorite Rolling Writer and just scrawling out all sorts of things, lines of random dialog that pop into my head, names for certain devices, organizations and objects of reverence. It may be a couple weeks before I can actually start composing the actual story, but ohhh! I have so many delectable tidbits scattered through my looseleaf pad that, well, I’m finding I’m sneaking more and more time to compile things before I birth this baby of a story.

Anyways, while I don’t have a title yet, currently just the generic ol’ Short Story in Progress, SSiP, I do know soon I’ll be heading over to one of my favorite writing resources on the web…

The Bookshelf Muse.

They have an invaluable thesaurus for things like weather, emotion, color, character traits, everything! A mighty thanks to Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi for their amazing efforts to construct such a reference for us writers. I credit their thesaurus for helping me remember certain aspects about being in a church, things that helped solidify the reality in my story, SANCTUARY, the one accepted for publication in Wyvern Publications, Fangtales anthology!

2 Comments | In: FANGTALES, SANCTUARY, WiP, Writers Thesaurus, writing, writing process, Wyvern Publications | tags: Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi, SANCTUARY, The Bookshelf Muse, vampire, Writer's Thesaurus, Wyvern Publications, YA. | #

Or: Wowza, What a Wednesday! Hehe!

Was it possible that, in one evening, I was able to write out an entire draft for a short story tentatively titled MINER MISTAKE *and* reach the more-than-half-way mark of my SIXTH novel for the 50 or 100 challenge, a zombie YA titled GENERATION DEAD?

Yes! Entirely possible! Because I did it!

And, yeah, I was able to clean the house, snuggle with Mr. S, play with the dog AND snarf down a bite of dinner!

Holy smokes, not quite sure how it all happened, the events of the previous night are still a blur. But I do remember rubbing a cramp away from a frantic hand that was scribbling on a note pad (five and a half pages on a legal sized, flip-top pad) and I do remember re-reading and thinking, holy smokes this actually makes sense. Yay! Now, all I have to do is transcribe the scribbles into text on a monitor.

No Comments | In: 50 or 100, MINER MISTAKE, WiP | | #

I’ve been putting serious effort into getting some work done on SANCTUARY. Which, I dunno, I’m debating on whether or not to change the title, heh heh.

But anyhoo, I’ve managed to squirt out just over another thousand words. And not just any words, either … quality words, words of substance, words that move the story along and words that have shaped things in a way that give me confidence that it’s just about ready for critique.

Whew.

Writing is the most fun job I’ve ever had, it’s also the most difficult job, too

Wow, I totally feel like I’m starting the New Year off on the right foot – by making progress on a short story in progress

1 Comment | In: SANCTUARY, WiP | tags: SANCTUARY, vampire, YA. | #