During November, within the NaNoWriMo epidemic, my writing went to great heights. Not only was I writing nearly 1700 words a day (most days), but I was also doing daily blog posts of at least 500 words. I also wrote several 500 to 750 word essays for school during this timeframe. I was a word-spitting writing machine gun. When December came, all of the fight drained out of me and I developed a brain freeze.
I expressed my feelings about my dilemma to my Twitter friends and one of them, Janel Porter {@soulwindow,} came up with the idea of us creating our own contest. We came to the realization that during NaNo it was easy to keep up with our word count because we had a goal. After we had crossed the 50,000 word finish line, our writing was in limbo. So to get out of our creative rut, Janel and I agreed that the month of January would be our month to finish and begin editing our NaNoWriMo novels.
We’re hoping that this will help us change our writing habits by incorporating writing into our daily lives all year round instead of every once in a while.
Wish us luck!!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Novel Editing Tips
During my NaNoWriMo recovery over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been catching up on my blog reading. I’ve read a number of articles that offer suggestions on editing manuscripts. Depending on your preference, you can either proofread and make your corrections on-screen http://writingforward.com or you can print the work in progress out and make small changes on the manuscript but write more detailed edits in a spiral notebook http://hollylisle.com. There is also a page on the NaNoWriMo site called “I Wrote a Novel, Now What?” http://nanowrimo.org. One of the contributors to the site suggests that you use post-it notes and a purple pen to make notes all over the hard copy of you novel.
No matter what method you use, it is very evident that editing and re-writing is just as important, if not more so, than writing the first draft. Even if you think you are the next Sue Grafton or James Patterson, it is not a good idea to send your novel to agents and publishers without making sure it is exactly the way you want it.
1. Make sure all of your loose ends are tied up. Explain what happens to each person that is important your story before you come to the end of your novel.
2. Check for grammatically and spelling errors. Don’t completely rely on the spell and grammar check in your word processing program.
3. Don’t be repetitive. If you find yourself using the same word over and over again, pick up a thesaurus. Your prose will flow so much nicer.
4. Keep the reader’s attention. Make readers feel something for your characters, good or bad. Indifferent is not good.
5. Make every word count. Don’t just have your characters talking just to be talking. Everything that is said or done should advance the storyline.
6. Do another read-through. Once you have made all of the corrections you need, let the manuscript for two weeks to a month. If will almost as if you are reading the story for the first time. You’ll be able to make sure you improved your work in progress instead of making it worse than it was before.
7. Get friends or family involved. If you are not fortunate enough to have a best-selling writer in your midst, you are bound to have someone in your circle that loves to read the type of book that have written. Only solicit comments from those you feel will give you honest feedback.
Happy editing! It will be hard work but you’ll be very proud of yourself when it’s all over.
No matter what method you use, it is very evident that editing and re-writing is just as important, if not more so, than writing the first draft. Even if you think you are the next Sue Grafton or James Patterson, it is not a good idea to send your novel to agents and publishers without making sure it is exactly the way you want it.
1. Make sure all of your loose ends are tied up. Explain what happens to each person that is important your story before you come to the end of your novel.
2. Check for grammatically and spelling errors. Don’t completely rely on the spell and grammar check in your word processing program.
3. Don’t be repetitive. If you find yourself using the same word over and over again, pick up a thesaurus. Your prose will flow so much nicer.
4. Keep the reader’s attention. Make readers feel something for your characters, good or bad. Indifferent is not good.
5. Make every word count. Don’t just have your characters talking just to be talking. Everything that is said or done should advance the storyline.
6. Do another read-through. Once you have made all of the corrections you need, let the manuscript for two weeks to a month. If will almost as if you are reading the story for the first time. You’ll be able to make sure you improved your work in progress instead of making it worse than it was before.
7. Get friends or family involved. If you are not fortunate enough to have a best-selling writer in your midst, you are bound to have someone in your circle that loves to read the type of book that have written. Only solicit comments from those you feel will give you honest feedback.
Happy editing! It will be hard work but you’ll be very proud of yourself when it’s all over.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Causes of Social Media Addiction
I’m trying to figure out when my two year old son became a football fan, because I don’t know if I’m ready for this. It’s Sunday, so I was trying to watch a little TV, but every 30 minutes, D asked if he could watch football. Because I’m kind of sneaky, I would turn the channel to football and when he started playing with some of his toys, I would change the channel. Of course he would notice that the game was not on and he would ask to see it again. After about 6 times, I got sick of it and went into my office to catch up on some blog reading and do some research for my Social Media Addiction-Solution essay for English class.
Now I enjoy using sites like Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube; but I’m always conscious of the amount of time that I spend online. I am a true believer in the adage, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” This means that I know I could easily spend 4 to 6 hours playing games, tweeting, and watching silly videos. Last week I turned in an essay about the of Social Media Addiction-Causes, which in my opinion is 50% boredom, 25% loneliness and 25% avoidance.
Boredom
We all get bored sometimes but there are a lot more things to do besides sitting in front of a computer all day, especially if you are not doing anything constructive. First of all, you could read a book. Maybe you could watch something on TV. Get out and go for drinks with friends. You could even learn to crochet a sweater for your dog. But spending 4 or 5 hours sending notes and posting comments on MySpace gets old after a couple of days. Yes, the games on Facebook are very appealing but you should try to win (or lose) some real coins by taking a trip to the casino.
Loneliness
A lot of people that are addicted to social media are online to make friends because they don’t have any friends in real life. These internet fanatics feel comforted by the fact that they have an endless number of people that listen to their rants and raves. They feel that no one ever listens to them but their Facebook friends by commenting on all of their status updates. This internet empathy that is received is not real because real friends tell you the truth, for your own good, but internet buddies just tell you whatever you want to hear or because it sounds good to the rest of your audience.
Avoidance
Social media addiction affects an addict’s daily life in so many ways. The house is always a mess, their kids have eaten nothing but Happy Meals for 6 months, and they are late or have missed work more than once on a weekly basis, why? Because they felt that updating their blog or sending a tweet every ten minutes was more important than fulfilling their real life obligations. This is not a good way to live. The house will get so dirty that they won’t be able to find their laptop. All of the kids will be 20 pounds overweight and develop high blood pressure. If they do not go to work, eventually they will not have the money to pay the utilities or keep on the internet service.
When social media is used properly, it can be a great business tool or a nice way to entertain yourself. But when used improperly, it can cause problems in your everyday life.
Now I enjoy using sites like Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube; but I’m always conscious of the amount of time that I spend online. I am a true believer in the adage, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” This means that I know I could easily spend 4 to 6 hours playing games, tweeting, and watching silly videos. Last week I turned in an essay about the of Social Media Addiction-Causes, which in my opinion is 50% boredom, 25% loneliness and 25% avoidance.
Boredom
We all get bored sometimes but there are a lot more things to do besides sitting in front of a computer all day, especially if you are not doing anything constructive. First of all, you could read a book. Maybe you could watch something on TV. Get out and go for drinks with friends. You could even learn to crochet a sweater for your dog. But spending 4 or 5 hours sending notes and posting comments on MySpace gets old after a couple of days. Yes, the games on Facebook are very appealing but you should try to win (or lose) some real coins by taking a trip to the casino.
Loneliness
A lot of people that are addicted to social media are online to make friends because they don’t have any friends in real life. These internet fanatics feel comforted by the fact that they have an endless number of people that listen to their rants and raves. They feel that no one ever listens to them but their Facebook friends by commenting on all of their status updates. This internet empathy that is received is not real because real friends tell you the truth, for your own good, but internet buddies just tell you whatever you want to hear or because it sounds good to the rest of your audience.
Avoidance
Social media addiction affects an addict’s daily life in so many ways. The house is always a mess, their kids have eaten nothing but Happy Meals for 6 months, and they are late or have missed work more than once on a weekly basis, why? Because they felt that updating their blog or sending a tweet every ten minutes was more important than fulfilling their real life obligations. This is not a good way to live. The house will get so dirty that they won’t be able to find their laptop. All of the kids will be 20 pounds overweight and develop high blood pressure. If they do not go to work, eventually they will not have the money to pay the utilities or keep on the internet service.
When social media is used properly, it can be a great business tool or a nice way to entertain yourself. But when used improperly, it can cause problems in your everyday life.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Day 28 of NaNoWriMo
I got up at 8:00 am to work on my novel. The first 1,651, that I wrote while D was still asleep, was pretty good. It answered a lot of questions that I should have answered from the beginning. Now the last 10,226 was partly backstory but mostly gibberish that I’ll end up taking out during the editing stage. I must admit that part of my dad and my weekly conversation found its way into the story. My dad is a funny guy. He is usually the prototype for most of the older male roles in each of my stories. He doesn’t mind because he knows that I’ll share the wealth with him.
Excerpt
I was still staying at my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve. Aunt Essie and I sat side by side on the couch in front of the fireplace. We had a pitcher of Crown Royal laced eggnog on the coffee table, for easy access.
“Professor, do you ever get lonely. I mean I don’t ever remember you having a steady boyfriend. What do you do when you’re feeling…antsy?”
My auntie threw her head back in laughter. “Well, darling, I haven’t been antsy in quite a while. But when the desire comes, I have a friend that I like to visit.”
“You’ve never told me about a friend,” I said before a hiccup escaped my lips. “Who is this dude? I need to check him out, make sure he’s not a killer or rapist.”
“I’ve already checked him out, about 20 years ago. And darling, when I’m done with him he doesn’t have the strength to put his pants back on let alone to go out and killing and raping.”
“Ohhh, my auntie is freaky deeky. What’s his name? How come you’ve never married him?”
“His name is Bobby Harris. He’s great in bed but he’s not marriage material. I don’t think Bobby has worked at the same place for more than two years since I’ve known him.”
“Damn…sorry dog, auntie you got a freaky scrub. Haven’t you met any other guys you wanted to be with?”
“Yes, a few professors and a judge but they weren’t ready when I wanted a commitment, but when I had accepted the fact that they didn’t want to in a relationship and moved on, they changed their minds. I got sick of the love tug a war so I just decided that I would just settle for Bobby.”
“That’s sad Aunt Essie. You and me…You and I are going to have to find us some real men. We will not accept immix…imitations, lady.”
Aunt Essie giggled so much that she made me burst out laughing and I almost spit my eggnog across the room.
Word Count
51,045/50,000 WINNER!!!
Day 27 of NaNoWriMo
My sitter came to get D at 7:40 this morning, so I took that as my cue to get busy writing. To avoid the urge to return to bed I got dressed, packed up my laptop and notes and headed to Starbucks. It was 9:15 by the time I reached 636 words. I wanted to add a little more but it was time to head to work.
The cafeteria at my job wasn’t serving food today, so I had the entire space to myself. Armed with my notes, IPod, snacks, and a great writing utensil, I set out on my word count mission. I was able to add another 152 to my word count before my break was over.
D was gone someplace with my sitter when I got off so I was able to work on my writing uninterrupted for a couple of hours. I wrote my little heart out, trying not to think about D. It’s something how when your kid is around, you wish he would go to sleep and stop asking so many questions but when you are away from him, you feel like something is missing. I wrote 659 words while I waited for my little man.
I ran to the door as soon as I heard Mrs. B pull into the driveway. When I opened the door D was walking up the steps. As soon as he got in he grabbed my soda drank half of it before belching like a grown man. D made me bounce a balloon off his head a couple times while I keyed in 192 words.
My total word count for today was 2190. The creativity was waning as I became more and more sleepy. Three more days and 10,836 words to go, I hope to get them all in this weekend so I can relax on Monday.
Excerpt
“Shannon, I’m sorry. I had to get the laptop and I had to see if Joshua had hidden anything in the car. I didn’t want you to be implicated when all of the mess came to a head,” Mallory said headbutting Shannon and then kneeing her in the groin. I jumped out of the car just as Shannon hit the ground. The men had stop loading the trailer to watch the cat fight.
“You,” Mallory said turning to me. “Why did you have to stick your big nose in our business? I was going to leave the car someplace so the police could find it once we had searched it.”
“Why are you mad at me? You’re her friend all you had to do was offer to detail the car and search it then. You stupid.”
“Stupid? I’ll show you stupid.” Mallory said throwing a punch at me. When I dodged it she yelled and ran into me, knocking me to the ground.
“Ooo,” one of the guys exclaimed. I saw Shannon get up and walk over to where we were struggling. Mallory was on top of me trying to choke me when Shannon came over and kicked her in the side of the head.
“Damn, did you see that,” came from our audience.
Mallory fell off of me onto the concrete. I got up and ran to my car while Shannon talked more shit to Mallory. I hoped that the men wouldn’t think I was getting a gun and attached me. But they were too busy watching the fight to pay much attention to me. My cell phone was on the floor and I picked it up and called Marcus.
“Marcus, this Sassy, I need you and some of your boys to come take care of something for me.”
“Sassy, what are you trying to do now? You’re on parole you can’t get into any kind of craziness.”
“I’m just trying to clear my name,” I gave him the address and ran to get Shannon before she caught a valid murder charge.
“Shannon, it’s okay sweetie,” I said grabbing her.
Mallory’s face was swollen and bloody, a couple of her teeth were gone, and plugs of her blond hair were missing. Shannon was crying her eyes out and she was babbling something about the only gift he had ever given her being stolen her by her best friend. I walked her to the chair on the porch and helped her sit down.
The guys helped Mallory up, as they tried to keep their giggles from turning into hilarious laugher. A closer look at two of the three men revealed a family resemblance.
“Sis, you got your ass beat. I didn’t know that big girl had it in her.”
They looked at me quizzically. One of them asked who I was and when Mallory mumbled that I was a detective, they stopped laughing.
“Are you a cop?”
“No,” I said as the first of five squad cars pulled to the curb. “But I have a lot of cop friends.”
Word Count
39,164/50,000
The cafeteria at my job wasn’t serving food today, so I had the entire space to myself. Armed with my notes, IPod, snacks, and a great writing utensil, I set out on my word count mission. I was able to add another 152 to my word count before my break was over.
D was gone someplace with my sitter when I got off so I was able to work on my writing uninterrupted for a couple of hours. I wrote my little heart out, trying not to think about D. It’s something how when your kid is around, you wish he would go to sleep and stop asking so many questions but when you are away from him, you feel like something is missing. I wrote 659 words while I waited for my little man.
I ran to the door as soon as I heard Mrs. B pull into the driveway. When I opened the door D was walking up the steps. As soon as he got in he grabbed my soda drank half of it before belching like a grown man. D made me bounce a balloon off his head a couple times while I keyed in 192 words.
My total word count for today was 2190. The creativity was waning as I became more and more sleepy. Three more days and 10,836 words to go, I hope to get them all in this weekend so I can relax on Monday.
Excerpt
“Shannon, I’m sorry. I had to get the laptop and I had to see if Joshua had hidden anything in the car. I didn’t want you to be implicated when all of the mess came to a head,” Mallory said headbutting Shannon and then kneeing her in the groin. I jumped out of the car just as Shannon hit the ground. The men had stop loading the trailer to watch the cat fight.
“You,” Mallory said turning to me. “Why did you have to stick your big nose in our business? I was going to leave the car someplace so the police could find it once we had searched it.”
“Why are you mad at me? You’re her friend all you had to do was offer to detail the car and search it then. You stupid.”
“Stupid? I’ll show you stupid.” Mallory said throwing a punch at me. When I dodged it she yelled and ran into me, knocking me to the ground.
“Ooo,” one of the guys exclaimed. I saw Shannon get up and walk over to where we were struggling. Mallory was on top of me trying to choke me when Shannon came over and kicked her in the side of the head.
“Damn, did you see that,” came from our audience.
Mallory fell off of me onto the concrete. I got up and ran to my car while Shannon talked more shit to Mallory. I hoped that the men wouldn’t think I was getting a gun and attached me. But they were too busy watching the fight to pay much attention to me. My cell phone was on the floor and I picked it up and called Marcus.
“Marcus, this Sassy, I need you and some of your boys to come take care of something for me.”
“Sassy, what are you trying to do now? You’re on parole you can’t get into any kind of craziness.”
“I’m just trying to clear my name,” I gave him the address and ran to get Shannon before she caught a valid murder charge.
“Shannon, it’s okay sweetie,” I said grabbing her.
Mallory’s face was swollen and bloody, a couple of her teeth were gone, and plugs of her blond hair were missing. Shannon was crying her eyes out and she was babbling something about the only gift he had ever given her being stolen her by her best friend. I walked her to the chair on the porch and helped her sit down.
The guys helped Mallory up, as they tried to keep their giggles from turning into hilarious laugher. A closer look at two of the three men revealed a family resemblance.
“Sis, you got your ass beat. I didn’t know that big girl had it in her.”
They looked at me quizzically. One of them asked who I was and when Mallory mumbled that I was a detective, they stopped laughing.
“Are you a cop?”
“No,” I said as the first of five squad cars pulled to the curb. “But I have a lot of cop friends.”
Word Count
39,164/50,000
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