My never ending story.

Tags

CampNanowrimo, idea, Stories, tips, typing, Writerproblems, writers, Writing

I’ve never been a planner with my writing and mostly I just write when I get the urge; I fool myself into thinking that this is because I need to be in the zone.

It’s not really true though is it?

As any writer knows, the main goal is just to actually write, whether you are in the mood for it or not. In fact this is exactly why CampNaNoWriMo exists: just to aid and encourage people to write something every day. It challenges you to pick up a pen, or attack that keyboard: but either way it pushes you to write something every single day for a month.

And I can do this, I know I can, with some self discipline (I’ll admit some days this is a challenge for me) then I know I am able to write something every day, for a month. I know, because I have done it before and I do start to get into a happy habit of it. 

Yet for some reason I just can’t seem to stick to one story. My writing goal is on target, yet only half of it is the story I want to be telling: the other is just inane chatter about other ideas.

 

I really can’t stay with one piece of writing or one character in the same part of the story line. Instead I either end up wandering off into another random idea, or moving my character to another part of his or her life. So yes, it’s nice to be able to write every day but at the same time, I’d really like to be able to say I have finished a story: or at least one chapter without distraction.

I so admire the focus and dedication of a lot of my peers for this, as I watch them produce coherent pieces of writing with a start, middle and end. Then I look to my own Middle, near end, middle, start, middle.

If anyone has any focusing tips I’ll gladly hear them.

 

Dialogue in novels: is it OK?

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Audience, CampNanowrimo, character, Dialogue, Imagination, Novel, Reader, Reading

For my CampNaNoWriMo project this time, I’m going back to a previous story and set of characters that I never really finished and this time I’m determined to at least flesh them out enough to have a plot in place for November. So while I’m happy to be a little bit of a panster (writing with no clear plan) I want to try and be more of a Plotter next time around.

After day one however I am noticing that this time I seem to be writing more dialogue than I would normally use because the characters are now so familiar that I almost have a scene playing out in my head for them and I’m trying to just capture all of the things they would say and interact. Is this weird?

Perhaps it’s because I did a screenplay for a project in my previous writing course rather than novel writing and now my brain doesn’t seem to know when to stop. When I look at the amount of dialogue it doesn’t seem a lot yet when I am writing it then it feels like it might be too much, since people can’t exactly see the characters as I do. Or is this the point? Will this just encourage a reader to create their own version of the character as a visual in their head?  I guess it just depends on how you read things: I know I create a picture in my mind of characters from reading books but does everyone else?

This also means I am often upset at the choice of casting when the books reach filming status, I’m sure we have all had those times when our crush clearly doesn’t live up to expectations.

I am so crossing my fingers and holding my breath for The Witcher adaptation.

Source: Scratcherpen

So dialogue in a novel: good or bad?

CampNaNoWriMo: Lets do this!

Tags

Blogging, CampNanowrimo, Distraction, Handwriting, Motivation, Writing

It’s that time again, yes CampNaNoWriMo is here again, and this time I’m determined not to fall behind even on those days where I really don’t feel like writing. I just need that little kick to keep me going.

*sets daily alarm to add a nudge

This also means if you see me hanging about on Twitter for a lengthy period of time then feel free to give me a poke and tell me to stop procrastinating as I will just be there avoiding the writing.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing because I do, I just lack discipline to do it daily and tend to drift to it only at times that I feel the need to. I (like everyone else) get a little preoccupied with all the other things going on and Twitter is really a rabbit hole for me, I think it’s actually even worse than WoW. At least with WoW I have to be at my PC but Twitter can even catch me which on my notebook or phone.

I have tried handwriting and keeping away from the electronics but let’s be honest once you get out the habit of handwriting it becomes almost alien to do so and it’s slower. In my case it is often illegible afterwards too or gets lost, so a word document is definitely the best way to go for me.

So that’s my warm up exercise complete, let’s get stuck into the storytelling and see where it takes me.