Author Archive

March Madness Writing Challenge!

Posted March 2, 2010 under General | 1 Comment

I found out about this on R.E. James’s website and decided to take part1.

Denise Jaden and some of her friends are having a March Madness Writing Challenge. So what does this all mean?

If you have a writing project you’re ready to start, or a work in progress you’re ready to finish, come and join the fun. Accountability is our main aim and the more support we have, the easier it will be to sail on through the month of March, bouncing along on each others successes.

And did I mention there will be prizes? Prizes will not be awarded based on how much you write or revise, but simply on how involved you are in the Big Accountability Plan. There will be seven check-in points per week. Each time you check in and record your progress, your name will be entered in a draw for some great prizes, including some high-demand ARC’s and writing craft books.

Spread the word, and check out http://denisejaden.livejournal.com this coming Monday, March the first to put your goals officially in writing and find out the locations of the check-in points. If you’re ready to get serious, don’t do it alone…Get serious with us!

My goal for this is to write at least 12 000 words for The Circled Green, thus taking my total from 28 000 to a nice round 40 000. I did hardly any writing last month, as whooping cough does not make for a great writing state, so I would really like to dig in and do it properly this time around.

Are you gonna join in too?

  1. What can I say? Any offer of free stuff/prizes automatically gets my attention [↩]

Monday Inspiration: Pushing Daisies

Posted March 1, 2010 under Writing | Tagged: , | 2 Comments

In an attempt to motivate myself into posting more often on this blog (even without comparisons to On The Nightstand, postage here is rather lacking), I have decided to do A Thing – an attempt at a weekly meme where I post one thing (a picture, a quote, a video, a song) that has inspired or influenced my writing/a story in one way or another.

Ned and Chuck

Ned and Chuck, the central couple in the prematurely deceased TV show Pushing Daisies, helped inspire me with regards to defining a few subtle traits that help key into the personalities of Delia and Daniel (the MCs of my first novel, Blood Bound). Dee and Daniel were very much formed by the time I really got into Pushing Daisies, but when I noticed vague similarities between the two sets (tall, adorkable and able to bring people into a state of second-life-ish vs short, bubbly and very much alive) another thing became defined.

I had already instinctively started to settle them into a colour scheme (Daniel in somber colours, like Ned, and Dee is brighter ones, like Chuck), but upon noticing the deliberate colour and style schemes for characters1 I began to pay much closer to clothes and colours, and enhanced the difference in their personalities by looking to characters like Ned and Chuck (mostly Chuck) as ‘fashion models’ for Dee and Daniel.

It seems like such a simple thing, really, but until Pushing Daisies, I just didn’t see it.2 So: inspiration/influence.

  1. Yes, yes, I know, I was slow. I was clothes (and other stuff) dumb then. [↩]
  2. Now though I have Seanne. She talks all about different things to do with filming like angles and lighting and costuming and filters it is all very very useful to hear. [↩]

Tools Of The Trade?

Posted February 25, 2010 under Technology, Writing | 3 Comments

In October, just before NaNo began, I did a little Q&A. One question was about what I use to write: my answer was that I use OpenOffice Writer because I find a lot of programs have a lot of bloat.

I have tried a lot of stuff since I started writing novels (such as yWriter) but it just had too much. For every thing I felt I could use, there were ten things I did not need. I just wanted something where I could bullet point my characters and the like.

So you can imagine my delight when I discovered Kabikaboo, which basically just makes a collection of linked text files. It puts them in order, with children and grandchildren and stuff like that. It might not let me add styling and hyperlinks (which I would love) but that’s okay for now, as that stuff is supposed to come out in future versions. It’s simple, and it’s exactly what I wanted.

I love it when you find something after much searching and get it. It’s like when I found Write Or Die. :)

So, writers out there, what are some of the other tools you use? I’d love to see what else people are using, and maybe find something else to use too.

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