Draft 2 - Begin!

Yes finally I'm ready to dive into the second draft of my NaNoWriMo Novel. Doing an outline for this draft was a lot more rewarding than I thought it would be. Usually I'm very against planning things out, but after the first draft it was refreshing to know I won't have to worry (so much) about getting stuck.

Chris has been a great friend and has been helping me sort out all the crap I didn't need, including a ship personality and some ridiculous coincidental relationships. I recommend having a writing support buddy like that. It really helps.

I decided to keep most of my characters, threw out a couple and the rest are all going on Rad's pirating crew. Chase is getting a big makeover - and Kevin got a personality makeover and is getting a chance to shine as the nerdy, social misfit fanboy mechanic on board. I like his character a lot. This time around it's also in third person so I can do some scenes with the other characters. I feel a little distant from Rad, but I think it's a good thing. He wasn't a very reliable narrator (sorry Rad, it's true!) and I got to know him well in the back story I wrote (for my own reference).

I wrote 1,800 last night. It was hard, but I resisted the editing bug as much as I could. I'm still doing it a little bit, but it's not nearly as bad and now I've gotten to the point where I don't go far back unless it's a continuity thing - and even then I'm learning to just make a note and move forward. I'm excited to see where Rad and crew take me this time. I have a feeling it's going to be 10 times what the last one was.

- Joanie /^>

Learning to Outline

So I'm back to Rad Savage full-time now. And this time around I'm brainstorming an outline to keep them from wandering the center of the planet for about 30 pages, hahaha! It's been difficult for me because I'm the type of writer who likes to work "straight ahead" (as we say in animation) with no plans and just see what happens. As in animation this can be a good thing if you're experienced enough to handle the challenges that come along with it, one of which is getting stuck in proverbial corner, surrounded by wet paint.

Sheila's always been good with outlining her work, so we've been helping each other out. I just finished reading her 3rd draft a few weeks ago and she's good to go. Before I start on mine I'm outlining the big events to give me a framework to hang my story on.

It's going good so far, but I'm afraid I'll have to cut out just one supporting character to round things off. It's a hard choice to make though. At the end of next week I'm hoping to have it completed and ready to begin. I've already done a ton of character studies on my MCs so I feel like I know them better. I also did a literal backstory so I know what happened in the past (so I can leave it there!).

2010 is looking even better than '09 and I'm glad to be into the future now! Here's hoping this is a year of creativity and growth.

- /^>

And now... Back to Dreamshapers!

Lol, I've always wanted to say that in my special announcer voice. Win.

So after successfully completing my sci-fi novel I'm returning to my old friend, Dreamshapers. I've been reading through the first draft and I think I finally found the weak point that was causing me to fall apart. I was missing Lambent early on! I guess some distance was a good thing (Thanks Rad) and now I can get back into it.

I'm actually outlining this time too. I think the Dream World needs it. I was just running around before, which was helpful because now I understand it better, but having gone through once I'm ready to actually plan it out this time around.

Hopefully the next time I post I'll be on my way. :)

- /^>

Novel First Draft! COMPLETE!

So it's a day past NaNo and I've finally brought the first draft of my novel to an end. 60,549 words. Wow I was right about how much more it would be past 50. That's almost exactly 10K.

This is the first time I've ever completed something like this. I can't tell you what it means to me personally. It's a milestone I'll never forget. I've completely fallen head over heels for these characters who've become so close to me and told me their innermost secrets.

It needs a major re-write of course, but the heart of it is there and it's beating good and loud. It's even ended and left room for another if I really wanted to. OMG Space Ninjas next. :) It could totally happen next year, NaNo, next year! What do you say? I think I'll just worry about getting this one done first, lol. What do you say NaNo? Sounds good to you, you say. Congratulations, author. You've done it.

This is a day I'll never forget. :) Now I have to go save it in a billion places and send it out to my peeps - and get some feedback for draft number two! And what's next Joanie?

Holy crap do I need some sleep. I'm with Rad on this one. One bed, please. Kthnxnight.

A 2009 NaNoWriMo Winner is Me!

I hit the 50,000 mark sometime last night at about 10:30pm one day from the finish line of NaNoWriMo. For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, I can direct you here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

As I said in my last post, this has been more than just about making it to 50,000. I've written nearly twice as much in this month alone than I have in the entire year of 2009 and that's something I want to celebrate.

NaNo is always about a personal battle and mine felt more like an old war that just never ended. I suffered from lack of confidence and spirit due to harsh critics and even harsher self-erosion which had built up over a long period of time. The last time I had ever been excited about writing without worrying what it looked like or sounded like was back when I was writing the old author's nightmare fanfiction and before that Pika's Tale and way way way before that my first ever (horrors!) 14-year-old novel that I never finished due to the family computer crashing and voiping most of my childhood writings and schoolwork. All this to say this wasn't an easy thing for me. There were two major times I thought about giving up. I was at least 10,000 or more behind and I didn't think I could do it.

I'm so glad I proved myself wrong.

I feel like my writer's block is finally cured. It wasn't lack of ideas that was keeping me from writing, it was literally something telling me that I couldn't write, that I shouldn't write and that it didn't matter even if I did write.

I'm here to tell you if you have something like that stopping you, the voice is bullshit! Some people call it their "inner editor" others their "personal demons" but you know what I think? In the end it's just my own selfish pride. I think that I have to be successful with whatever I write to make it worth something and that's complete bull! You know why? Because writing isn't about making money or becoming famous, or even getting people to like you. I know because I've heard it from my favorite writers' own mouths. Writing is for expressing yourself and sharing your love of storytelling, of reading, and imagination. These are precious gifts and because every person in this universe has a unique voice, they are all valued. They are all needed. This is what NaNoWriMo reminded me. Thank God for it.

So I leave NaNo behind with this novel of mine. (I'm still writing as of this post. I haven't gotten to the end yet, but I project it to be about another 10,000 words at most.) No it's not award-winning, but I had a blast with it and now there's a hell of a lot to do. I've started making some rewrite notes and I'll probably start into that after a few days of distance from it. I'm hoping to finish today so I can take the first week of December off and just chill for a bit. I've earned it.

To anyone who wants the challenge, I urge you to do NaNo next year - or if you're a screenwriter-y type, try Script Frenzy in April. My dear friend Chris will be write there beside you.

God Bless and I hope everyone had as good of a November as I had. I'll be remembering it for years to come as an poignant chapter in my life.

- /^>

NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul...

... and I liked it! :O

For those of you unfamiliar with NaNo, I suggest visiting their website: http://www.nanowrimo.org
But basically what it boils down to is a writing challenge for the month of November. Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I can't begin to describe what this month has been for me. I've written more now in the last 23 days than I have the entire year so far. I'm writing again and I'm making progress. I've begun to heal from my "Inner Editor" (as we say on the NaNo Forums) and all the biting remarks that had I let stop me from doing what I loved. It's been a time of growth, and it's been a long road to 50,000. I'm currently in another valley as life has gotten in the way with working overtime at my job (which pulled me away from updating here consequently!), my volunteer work, and my new living situation with my little sister. Through it all I have never given up although I've thought about it many times. I'm going to make it to 50,000. I need to do it, for myself, to prove my inner editor wrong and to banish the scars that have haunted me since the last holiday season. Through this month I've rediscovered the joy of writing, especially just making things up as I go along and enjoying the discovery that my imagination provides. Rewriting is for when you have something complete to work with. This doesn't mean I don't have an idea of where I want to go, but now I'm letting the characters speak for themselves, and that is a joy all in itself when they say (or do!) something that surprises me.

The author pep talks have been very helpful as well. I was more than pleased to see many of my favorite authors writing encouraging letters. It's so good to hear they all struggle with the same problems we do and that it is possible to overcome them.

My daily writing habits have been reestablished now and I'm looking forward to returning to Lambent and company after I finish my NaNo science fiction novel, which is currently titled: "Rad Savage Wins Against the Universe (Sometimes)" .

I'll post more about it here, including a full update on December 1st with the final tally and results of NaNoWriMo. The funny thing is though, I've already won. I'm writing again, and I couldn't be happier than I am right now.

- Joanie /^>

The Rules of the Universe completed!

Novel Progress:
Words: 37,000 approx.
Pages: 148
Chapters: 10

It's crazy when you think about it. I've been working on this only since January and already I have so much (over 37,000 words!). I've been very pleased that I've been able to keep and sometimes even surpass my daily writing goals. Writing has brought me so much pleasure and I only wish I would have picked it up sooner. But no time to worry about that, keep moving forward, because Ka is a wheel and this time I'm finding myself enjoying the ride rather than feeling trampled under it.

So I took one week off to work on just the "Rules of the Universe" and damn am I ever glad I did that. It's helped me answer so many questions I had about the Dream Realm and the creatures in it - and most importantly the roles that humans play both as spirits wandering it at night and visiting there physically. Lambent had a lot to say of course, but most of it came from more story ideas. I was intially afraid of writing down what could and couldn't be done. I mean, the Dream Realm is the world of impossibilities, right? But I suppose if there was one thing I took away from Animation school it's that even the most impossible things are still plausible. Watch any classic Merry Melodies and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Mr. McMorpheus finally makes his appearance in text too. This time he's much more developed. And yeah, the "Mc" came back. It was missing it. I think it needed the extra syllable and to me it makes sense that he's more non-sensical. I almost want to say Suessical, hahaha. I'm excited to get to Bastinado now - I'm dreading the Greyscales, but I'm confident this time the boys will make it through and they won't get stuck like poor Blythe. I'm still sure I will do a story with her later. They have Cameo and he's really come to life - a lot more kid-like and brave as ever.

That's all I have to say for now other than I want to post my reading list too. Thank God for the Public Library System. I've been checking them out like crazy and loving every page of them. I was surprised to find Neil Gaiman's Sandman in the library too! Yay for graphic novels. I want to see his interpretation of the Dream Hunters in that book of the saga. I still want to see "Coraline" at some point too. I saw the maquettes for her and some of the other characters at ComicCon last year and couldn't wait to see more from it. Animation Mag had a great story on it. It's so good to see Stop Motion going strong. I hope it's doing well in the cinemas.

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Books of the Week:
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Indignation by Phillip Roth
I found this one on the "new books" shelf at King County Library. I had read The Plot Against America back in 2005 for my English Seminar class with Dr. Fuller and remembered enjoying him. This one's about an atheist Jewish college student on the edge of being drafted into the Korean War. I loved his character portrait - Marcus was someone who reminded me a bit of myself, a perfectionist - Roth really knows how to stab you in just the right places. It had a bit of existentialism thrown in and the ending (as always) surprised me. Not nearly as happy as Plot Against was, but this ending was more satisfying. Very short, less than 220 pages, so I read it in one day.

Triss by Brian Jacques
There isn't a better traditional storyteller alive than this man. His voice is akin to sitting on Grandpa's lap and hearing a "ripping yarn" just before being put to bed for the night. (God Bless the United Kingdom! I don't know what I'd do without my dose of British humour and stories...) I think his work is best appreciated in the audio books, so you can hear his voice and his wonderfully talented cast not only act the roles, but sing the songs with music! You can almost taste the RedWall foods by the way he describes them so vividly and his sense of smell is something I want to emulate in my own writing. Triss features a glimpse of Salamandastron (the fire mountain of the Badger Lords), an evil Ferret princess, a squirrel Swordmaid (the titular character), a scaly three-headed monster and a score of other memorable characters. I loved it and if you love a good old fashioned battle of good and evil, pick this up.

The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson
Ever wonder what goes on at night in the Magic Kingdom? Five kids know because each night in lieu of dreams they are holographically projected here, chosen to do battle with the evil characters who are struggling to break the boundaries of reality and take over. Great concept and I'm looking forward to reading more from this series. A really sad reference to the now debunked, VMK, but I'm glad for having experienced it before it went offline. I even got to visit the park last year and log in just for fun while there. Ridley has written the famous "Peter and The Starcatchers" and a host of other neverland fiction, which I read. He's a great author for children and I'm looking forward to more. It's rather simple, but if I was an elementary schooler again, this would be a permanent book on my shelf.

What do children dream? by Gérard Bleandonu (English Translation)
Phew, I hadn't read real textbook science material since my last college course. It was refreshing to find a challege again. I learned a lot about Dreams and Sleeping in general and also quite a bit about basic child psychology as the author himself is a therapist. This is the only book I found on the subject and had to wait two weeks to get it from the main Seattle branch. It also had special sections on Post-Traumatic Stress Dreams and Fetal Dreams, which were insightful to what I'm writing about. In the case studies he included many drawings from his young patients which helped me understand how children attempt to form what they have dreamed into words and visual language. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants some hard core facts about dreams.

The Secret Language of Dreams by David Fontana
At first I thought this was just your average Dream Dictionary, but was surprised to discover that the first half was an indepth discussion on the history of dream study, documenation and of dreams culturally throughout man's history. Fontana mentioned a lot of famous names I wasn't familiar with yet and rehashed Freud and Jung, helping me understand better what their separate philosophies were - and even presenting some of their most famous dreams. There were a lot of case studies in here too and have been helping me as I'm forming my characters' dreams.

Bird Brains by Candace Sherk
Candace is just awesome. This is a total coffee table book just bursting with full color photographs of the Crow (Corvidae) Family in action. I learned more about the corvids in my neighborhood, including the Stellar's Jay, Common Raven, and Lambent's species, the American Crow. I've been noticing them a lot more lately and was surprised to discover even more stories about their great intelligence and their ability to mock not only other bird calls but other animals and in some cases, human speech as well. Watch out parrots, here come the crows!