Archive for May, 2009

Baby Steps Still Get Me Somewhere

Posted May 9, 2009 under Writing | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments

Writing is one of those things that you have good days and bad days, and you can sort of describe it in terms of walking/running. Some days you can go dashing across the playing field with no problems, and the next it is difficult to put one foot in front of the other. But just because the creative juices aren’t flowing and making it easier for you doesn’t mean you don’t write at all that day. Keep going.

Sadly, I suck at taking my own advice sometimes. But sometimes I don’t, sometimes I keep pushing forward even though I am only capable of baby steps. As much as I love starting a new project (a little too much, at times) looking at my wordcount just makes me go, “Ugh, this totally sucks” and “This is going to take forever!” *whines. Up until about the 5000 word mark or so, and then it’s all, “Yeah, woohooo!” and so forth.

Well guess what? Today I moved past that wonderful first mark with Bones. :) So hooray!

Another piece of good news is that the final round of editing for Blood Bound has just reached the 2/3 complete mark with the completion of chapter twelve. Six more chapters to go, and then one big old run through once again to see if there is anything we missed or anything that needs to be added. I know that my wonderful beta, JK has one suggestion about a certain one-shot character who has decided he is now a thousand times more important in the grand scheme of things than originally planned. So that is one thing. More might pop up in the meantime.

Then it will be back to trying to write query letters. I am so looking forward to the prospect.

And on a third project update thingy, Lionheart is still very much in the early “let the idea blossom as I am walking about doing anything but writing” stage. Far, far too early to start writing things down, as I still need to do a heck of a lot of world-building first. But I love this bit, this mental scrapbooking for characters, costumes, places etc. and I am enjoying putting into practice the concept of using a wiki to organise my thoughts and world.

I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime keep an eye out on the progress graphs in the sidebar to see how I am going with Bones. :)

Wiki for Worldbuilding? Apparently So!

Posted May 8, 2009 under Resources, Writing | Tagged: | 5 Comments

So. I have a new idea for a novel. Yes. Another novel. It’s a YA steampunk fantasy with a male protagonist. But I am not going to work on it just yet, well, not actually start typing out chapters and the like. I have enough on my plate with Bones and the editing of Blood Bound that I do not want another major project right now, especially one that requires as much research and world-building as this one does.

But this is one idea that I do not want to lose while I am working on other novels. I wanted to keep snippets, notes, ideas, maps and all sorts in one place, but knowing my track record with notebooks (hint: it’s bad) I was more than a little worried about still having those notes when the time came to actually write Lionheart. And then I found an interesting blog entry on using wiki software for worldbuilding. So now, instead of several notebooks with pieces of paper sliding out of it, I now have a private wiki hidden somewhere to keep all my notes and additions for Lionheart, and can easily edit it when I think of something new.

In the meantime, though, my focus is on Bones and Blood Bound, and doing research for Lionheart by reading books/watching movies with a steampunk theme. Suggestions would be wonderful.

Dreamwidth Code!

Posted May 1, 2009 under Internet | 5 Comments

All right. Today is the day that current Dreamwidth users get some invite codes to invite people along.

So, since I have five four account creation codes in my hot little virtual hand and no idea who to give them to, I have decided to just open it up and draw a winner or two out of a hat.

Right now this is just for one code, as I am going to span it out over time.

To enter the draw comment below with:

  • Your name
  • Your LJ and/or website (if you have both, both please)
  • A little bit about yourself, and why you would like a Dreamwidth account

That’s it! I’ll choose a winner Sunday night my time, which will be sometime around midnight EST on Saturday. Contest has closed, and I decided to give away two codes. Congrats Haley and Clem!

Hopefully I find some cool new people to follow/check out, and some might stick around and follow me. :)

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