Where Do I Even Start?

I have a feeling that around this January or even February time, it's this time where everyone wants to start something. You know what I'm talking about--it's time to start that workout regiment, or learn how to be certified in a skill, or for most of us--we want to finally write that book.

I'm totally with you there--writing a complete book has been on my Resolutions lists since I started the habit of making these lists. It's probably why I'm not totally sold on making a list like that since I obviously don't take them seriously enough.

Well, I don't think I can help you on the wanting-to-start-a-workout-habit (but I'm all ears if you know of anything that works!) but I think you and I can work together to get our rears in gear to get some books out there.

So what if you want to write a book, but don't even have an idea? Coming up with an idea is super easy, and can be fairly inspiring and exciting if you're passionate about the subject, but sticking with it to "The End" is what get most writers in a bind.

I actually had a friend of mine ask me, "Where do you get your inspiration from? How do you find creative ideas to write about?" That's a fairly good question, and I didn't even realize that I had an answer, because I always feel void of creativity.

I told him that the best way to be a writer is to be a d*** good reader. The swear is just for flair, but you get my point. Avid readers make the best writers, because if you know what you like to read, or what the public likes to read, then chances are you know what to deliver. You know you'll be working on a project that can go somewhere.

That's for any kind of genre, not just fiction or fantasy. You don't have to sell fiction or fantasy to make it in the market. For example, I work as an intern for Cedar Fort and I work with nonfiction. I thought I wouldn't particularly enjoy the things that I'm reading, but I changed my ways. I believe everyone has a marketable skill. To me, that means that you know something that I don't, and chances are, you could write about this skill or experience that you had that will be interesting to other people. We all have a bucket list of hobbies to tag onto our daily lives or things we want to try. You might be that person that can act as a Segway between the kernel of knowledge and the audience.

So maybe the best kick-start advice I can give is believe that there's a book in you that needs to be written and read. Some don't ever come into being because the creator doesn't believe in it enough.

But back to the reader thing: avid readers ask questions. You don't have to be an English major to  know what a crappy ending looks like. Any kind of reader can appreciate a well-rounded character that doesn't fit in a stereotype box or does really cool things. As a reader, there are certain things that irk me, and most of them have to do with clichés. So when I sit in front of my laptop and I want to write something, I generally find myself writing characters or plots that reflect what I've learned from other writers. I explore the possibilities of creating a fictional character that could be mistaken for real life. Isn't writing sort of a way to study life in general? I take what I like and what I don't like and it affects my writing style so my book stands out from the other books.


For example, I'm not a fan of a main character that seems to "have it all." You know, the character that seems to outshine everyone and the other characters are just "side kicks," right? So for my books, I try to make my main character more "human"--because I believe that we're all the heroes of our own stories, but we learn things from other people and that's what makes us who we are.

If you still feel like you don't have a decent starting point, or you're just not "creative" enough, pick up any writing prompt book and just start writing everyday. I know, that's a lot of hoopla coming from me (didn't you enjoy my suffering and pity posts during NaNoWriMo?) but I did that for a Creative Writing class, and I found things that I found interesting enough to write about. You could write for thirty minutes answering a question or exploring something, and it could blossom into a full-length story. Prompts help you explore what you think about certain things about people, life, or yourself.

This could be getting fairly long, but in the next post, I'll share what I know about acquisitions, or that tricky step of getting people to actually sell your stuff. Again, this is a learning process for me, too, so I'm no expert, but if I can pass along what I learn to help others, by all means, hear me out.

A blog post I'd like to write:

 

A bad habit I'm going to break: stop being anal about things I can't change

A new skill I'd like to learn: alter clothing

A person I hope to be more like: Christ

A good deed I'm going to do: when I think of something nice about someone, I'm going to say that thing to them--immediately!

A place I'd like to visit: Oregon

A book I'd like to read: the entire Sherlock Holmes collection

A letter I'm going to write: query letters to publishers!

A new food I'd like to try: anything Indian or spicy

I'm going to do better at: keeping my goals



I know this image says 2013, but what will you do in 2014 to make it a real spectacular year?

Recovery

word count: 50,285
page count: 85

Oh my gosh, that's a true statement all right! Yup, I managed to succeed in this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. I apologize for those of you who were wondering where the heck I disappeared off to once November drew to a close. As some of you know, it's already a bit stressful trying to write a novel's first draft during the busiest month of the college semester. Sooo, once November ended, I picked up the pace to keep up with my studies.

But here's the story:

Over the entire month of November, I ended each day questioning myself, "Why are you doing this, anyway? The book won't be done, anyway, plus you have so many other things that deserve your attention. What's the point?" I'm glad I didn't give in, even though there were days where the words didn't come and I wasn't focused on the plot or characters at all. But on the last day of November, I found myself sliding across the finishing line! For those reasonably skeptical folks out there, you're probably like, "So how do they even know that you wrote all those words anyway?" Well, they have a word counter thing and to validate your manuscript, you copy & paste your work and their word count is apparently different from the word count used in Microsoft Word, because they thought I was 100 words or so behind! That didn't stop me, so on the last day, I wrote almost 300 extra words so that I could satisfy the word count. And it felt great! My brainchild and I survived!

 So what's next you ask? Well, even though I won the challenge, I probably won't use any of the "winnings"—that being all the various resources where I can self-publish my novel in e-book format. I don't want to give out a first draft of ANYTHING I write, and the novel itself still isn't done, believe it or not. I have this great relationship between two characters that spans over a few years and I want to make it seem real rather than a "So we just met, wanna get together?" type of thing.

 It's not the end of the world; I won in many ways, because I have a new novel which I didn't have a month ago, and I pretty much proved to myself that any excuses I make up about not having enough time to read or write for pleasure are just bogus. So I hope to be able to still right every day—maybe not the same intensity—but I'll get somewhere with this project and my other project that has taken me years to get about 300 pages fleshed out.

 If anything, take my advice when I say: if you have a goal or a hobby, if it's that important to you, than it deserves your time and efforts. I always think "Oh, I'll have time to write over the summer or during the holidays" but I don't get as much done as I hoped I would and I always think that I'm too busy or stressed to write during school. Everyone has their own way of prioritizing their lives and how they use their precious time, but if you have a goal, it's important enough. That means not always listening to others who think that you should spend more time with studies or work or something. It's not like I didn't go to classes or finish my school work for the sake of this novel—ugh, my parents would kill me—but I made sure I had two solid hours each day to write and I found ways to get everything done. It just happens; you get smarter about your planning and prioritizing and everything falls into place.

 So if you're a writer and time doesn't seem to be on your side—try to make it work, anyway. You really get better at it every day, and taking time to think about your project and what you want to say is really beneficial.

 So write on, people, write on.

introducing you to the madness

Word Count: 30,586

Page Count: 56

Would you like to know what I’m actually writing about? I suppose I can wonder the same thing! Today is day twenty of the NaNoWriMo challenge, and I thought today’s better than never to tell you about the story that’s been on my mind all month.

I am writing a modernized fairytale. Before you roll your eyes at such a cliché move to make, I’m sure you haven’t actually heard of this fairytale: "The Wild Swans."

Thanks to my Danish heritage, I have an obsession for anything Danish—H.C. Andersen being top of my list. He’s the one who wrote “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “The Snow Queen.” Did you actually know that Disney’s new movie Frozen is based off of that story? You better read up before you go see it.

But back to this NaNo nonsense. I really liked this story, but like many other fairytales, I thought a lot of crucial details were missing. Here’s an excerpt of my book where my main character, Lotte, summarizes the story for you:

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little princess and she had seven—or was it eleven?—older brothers. Her mother of course died, and so she got a new one, an evil stepmother that didn’t like her brood of stepchildren. So much in fact, she turned the strapping young lads into swans and turned the little princess out—which sounds nice compared to almost killing her in a bathtub.

The little beautiful princess sure was sad, and all she wanted to do was save her older brothers. In a few dreams, she found out that in order to save her band of brothers, she had to sew them shirts out of the prickliest nettles growing in the woods and she couldn’t talk. How she got the dreams, I have no idea, but she of course went right to work on a project that took her years on years to accomplish.

And what happens to this quiet little teenager in the woods? Why, the king happens to ride by, and thinks she’s so beautiful, that he whisks her away to his handsome castle and she becomes his bride. Some first date, huh?

Well to make a quaint story short, the archbishop thinks she’s a witch, so she is sentenced to burn at the stake—and she obviously can’t vouch for herself; one word spoken would kill her swan brothers. Just in time before the flames rise up, a bunch of swans swoop down (the swans obviously the princes in disguise) and the little princess throws the shirts up at them, and they try the prickly shirts on for size and poof! they become princes again and the curse is broken! The princess is innocent and she gets to still be queen. The end."

For the non-snarky version of the story, click here. 

So how do I possibly write a modernized fairytale about a princess who sews little nettle shirts for her swan brothers? With lots and lots of imagination, no doubt.

Like my main character, Lotte, when I read this story, I wanted to know all the in-between details. Like, how do you fall in love with someone who can’t talk? And I mean, did the princess know how to write or anything? How was the king able to love a person he met in the forest without even being able to ask her name?

I decided to put those details in myself through a modern retelling of this story. Liselotte (Lotte) Nielsen starts out as a high school senior and she gets out of a complicated relationship with Chris, her ex. She breaks up with him because she’s tired of feeling like he’s being overly manipulative and condescending. He’s obviously not happy with that, but Lotte doesn’t expect that he would curse her for it.

The curse goes something like this: if she says a word, laughs, or even scoffs, her brothers grow feathers. And it hurts. She’s worried that if she talks too much something very weird will happen to them, so she stops talking so she doesn’t cause harm or discomfort for her five (yes count ‘em) brothers.

Throughout the book, she has to come to terms with the fact that Chris somehow has magic and she pretends that she lost her voice from an accident instead of telling people what really happened.

But she’s not about to spend the rest of her life writing little messages on her whiteboard. Her brothers help her figure out how to free them of the curse for good and in the meantime, Lotte goes off to college and tries to live without her voice. She takes it a step further and learns sign language so she can at least express herself somehow. During that time of learning ASL, she meets Dan* who’s in her class . . . and you’ll just have to find out the rest of it, of course!

I’ve had this idea for a couple of years now and it’s exciting to finally put it all down. Hopefully it fills 50,000 words! Anyway, have a great week and read up on some great fairytales.

 

*I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I like that name.

sweet glory, hallelujah

Word Count: 20,773
Page Count: 38

Oh yeah! I'm feelin' the burn. It's like a marathon run...I have to keep telling myself that I'm HALF WAY DONE. Well, half-way minus 2,000 words. I tell you, this week has been so insane. All I can say is, school is kicking my trash at the moment. You know, people sometimes assume that as an English major, I have all the time in the world to read or write for fun. Yeah, until I have free time, I'll be using all my time going to campus for classes, going to work and working on five simultaneous projects.

The fact that I was able to write 1700 words today was a miracle. I'm already behind 1.5 day's worth of writing and I can't afford any more slip-ups! But I managed to get everything done today that needed my immediate attention and magically had two hours left for this NaNo madness. I tell you, this is so hard but so worth it.

I think over the weekend, I'll try to screw my head on straight and then I can actually share with you good people what I'm actually writing about. I hope you find the concept remotely interesting.

It's just funny how when you have buttloads on buttloads of things to do, you manage to take two hours of your life to help someone else without being asked and still find the time to get your stuff in order. I don't know about you, but I believe in a higher power, and He's got my back on this one.

Motivation...

Current Word Count: 17,282
Page Count: 32

Holy heck, Leute.

Just to let you know, in order to make the cut by the end of November, I must write roughly 1,600 words a day, or three pages of writing. It's a lot, but so far, I'm somewhat on track. I'm actually (blarg) 1200 words or so behind because I was sick. So now it's time to play catch-up.

Writers, how do you keep your butt glued to the seat to write when you'd much rather enjoy the nice weather outside, communicate with other people, or literally do anything else, like clean the whole house, rearrange all the wall décor or go save Gotham City?

It's probably not as bad as it looks; I mean, did you see how many words I've written in the past eleven days? That's right, it's the twelfth, but I haven't gotten around to today's 1600 bit.

Anyway, for your fun-filled enjoyment, check out the cover I designed for my book! I must give credit to kechake-stock for the picture of the girl in the cute lace shirt.

Fight the good fight! Write it 'til it's over!