I Love the Internet

The internet is a wonderful thing. I'm always having to look up weird stuff like the effects of radiation poisoning or the names of the Antichrist, and it hit me the other day that before the internet, writers' only option would be to search actual books for stuff like this. Without those books, they'd be helpless, research-wise. And that means lots of trips to the library, which, in my case, means either the local library which is is about the size of my living room, or the bigger library which is half an hour away and won't let non-residents check out books unless you pay them a yearly fee that is quite high. And it's a lot harder to find relevant facts in a book than it is to find them through Google, at least most of the time.

This is not to say that book research isn't important - especially for broad topics, such as what life was like in a particular period in history - but the internet is invaluable for those small, specific, yet important things.

Maybe this makes up for how it keeps distracting me from my writing...

What Kind of Novel?

GOTHICS! - Deep, dark, mysterious and melodramatic. You are drawn to write tales of the shadows and what might lurk there. Could it be Love? Or Madness? Anne Rice and Brahm Stoker are your guides.


What Kind of Novel Should I Write?
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Hmm... I think not. (Most of what I write is urban fantasy.)

Writing Rules

The other day I found the Writing Rules I created for myself last year. In reading them, I thought I needed them now just as much as I did then. I don't know how much they'll apply to other people's writing (I know some people, for instance, write best when they have no outline at all), but I thought I'd post them, in case someone else needs to remember these things as much as I do.

1. Writing is fun. Remember this. Don't treat it as work; treat it as play.

2. Write deeply. Don't just write a sketch of what the outline says. Fully explore the truth of each scene.

3. Stop and smell the roses. Squeeze every last drop of potential out of each scene before moving on to the next.

4. Write as if nobody else will ever read it. Don't be constrained by the fear of others' criticism.

5. Put lots of ideas in the outline. Don't rely on the idea that you'll get lots of inspiration as soon as you start actually writing.

6. Write confidently. If you're writing about something you don't know anything about, write as if you do know all about it.

Inspiration Coming Out My Ears

Ask and ye shall receive...

Remember when I was talking about how I wanted a writing project to work on while the 2YN novel was still in the early planning stages? Well, I got one; the novella I wrote (it turned out to be shorter than a novella, but the first draft is done) fired up my inspiration, and I got an idea for a novel. So I've been working with that idea and doing some planning.

But that's not all. The 2YN class is starting to pick up speed. I'm still doing worldbuilding with Holly, as I mentioned in my last post. One of my friends wants me to write some poems for his website. And today, while I was exercising, I got an idea for a series of short stories.

I've definitely got projects to work on now.

Perhaps I need to be a bit more specific about what I'm looking for. Take last year, for instance - one of my goals was to start a new novel. I started two of them. They're both languishing unfinished on my hard drive, and are likely to stay that way.

I'm not really complaining, though. Lots of inspiration is definitely better than two little. Inspiration is good. And this way I get to learn how to work on more than one project at once.

Lots of Projects

It turns out the novella was just what I needed. After working on it for a couple of days, I got hit with an idea for a novel. This is the fire I was looking for in the other project. It just wasn't there for that story. I might write it someday, but now just isn't the right time.

So I'll be doing planning for the new novel... in between 2YN work, and Holly worldbuilding work, and adding the last couple of scenes to that novella (which turned out to be more the length of either a very long short story or a very short novelette). I'll be busy... but it's a good kind of busy. I'll be busy doing stuff I love to do.

Productivity and Poetry

Yesterday I tried setting aside half an hour just to write. No checking blogs and webcomics, no email, no putting on music and then messing with the playlist incessantly... just writing. Then I did the same thing later in the day. I discovered that if I write for half an hour at a comfortable pace, I can get about 1000 words down. I've done this kind of experiment before, so I know that's a typical pace for me. Then, last night, I did some writing without restrictions on what else I could do while I was working, and it took me two hours to write 500 words. That's four times the time to get half the amount of words.

My experiment also made me realize that I spend less time writing than I think I do. Or that I resist setting aside time exclusively for writing. Or both. It was hard to get myself to set aside two half-hours to just write; that's only an hour total.

But I did it, and it worked.

I did two yesterday; today I'll go for three.

I also wrote a poem yesterday, and another a few days ago. Before that, I hadn't been able to write decent poetry for months, maybe longer. But I like these two. I don't know whether my poetry is publishable-quality, but I like it nonetheless.

19,650

That's my word count for the month. I counted up all the fiction (including brainstorming and character profiles and such) I've written this month, expecting that I'd done about 8k since the beginning of January. Instead, I got almost 20k. I think that's the most I've written in a month when I'm not working on a novel.

I'm naturally a prolific writer. The problem is, I'm also naturally a lazy writer, and that has a tendency to kill the prolific part. The internet is always there beckoning, and even though I know I write better and enjoy it more when I concentrate only on it for awhile, I still check stuff online every few minutes while I'm writing. Not to mention, I have season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD downstairs, with sixteen episodes still unwatched, and they demand to be watched.

And writing is hard, and thus easy to avoid. Which is not a good habit for a writer.

But I've been quite productive this month. Let's hope next month is even better.

Ten Ways to Know You're Reading a Novel by Me

(Jumping on the bandwagon with this meme...)

1. Oppressive governments. Chances are, someone's being oppressed or persecuted, and chances are it's by the government.

2. Tough moral questions. I like to give my characters moral dilemmas with no easy answers, and not present an absolute right answer in the story. I also often have my main characters do bad things, while keeping them sympathetic.

3. Spirituality. God, religion, and spirituality have been important elements in a lot of my recent writing.

4. Tragic death. Especially for love interests. If a character has a romantic relationship with one of my main characters, that character has a high chance of dying.

5. Evil mothers. I don't know why, but a lot of the mothers in my stories are evil and/or strange. I don't plan for them to be that way; they just develop like that.

6. Getting into characters' heads. I don't use first person more than third person, or vice versa, and I don't prefer one over the other. It just depends on what the story needs. But even when I write in third person, I stick very close to my main characters, and I'm often inside their heads.

7. Alienation. Most of my characters are separate from the rest of the world in some way, and are separate in a way that the people around them don't know about.

8. People on the run and/or in hiding. They're probably trying to get away from those oppressive governments.

9. People with powers. Psychic powers, magic powers, anything beyond the norm.

10. Not-quite-happy endings. My endings tend to be less "Yay, everything's all better" and more "Everything we care about has been destroyed, but we'll survive... somehow..."