Fiction Scribe

Day six.

I apologize for the lateness of this post. Along with the ‘post to future’ technical difficulties 451press is having at the moment, Mr. Scribe and I have spent the day moving around furniture and re-setting up our entertainment system.

It has certainly been an interesting day.

I once again avoided rewriting my main character’s scenes because I worked on another scene I was eager to finish up instead. The scene helps set one of the major plot lines of the story, though, so I don’t feel bad for neglecting her.

I’m rather proud of the scene I completed, actually. I wrote a few pages more or less without stopping, which I always like.

How is your project going? Do you write for twenty minutes (or more) straight? Or do you prefer ten minutes here and there? (Maybe it’s necessity rather than preference, hm?)

Describe your favorite drink as if speaking to someone who has never heard of it, seen, smelled, or tasted it.

Day five.

My writing desk seems to be taking precedence over my main character, which is strange and annoying. I’d like to get my desk moved into the living/lounge room today, though, because I love my desk, but it’s too cold in there during the winter.

(Winter? you ask. Yes, it’s winter in Australia.)

My main character is proving willing to withstand my poking and prodding, but I’m currently in the middle of a scene not involving her that I find more interesting.

One thing I’m discovering about this novel is that I’m changing from my usual ease of writing with the females to more ease (and eagerness) to write for the males in this story. Perhaps it’s because I know how much of a big mess they are going to cause or perhaps even living with my husband has made it easier for me to write about males. (Living with someone you can study. What more can you ask for?)

I think once I get past this initial hiccup, I’ll ease into the story more. As it stands, I’m shifting around a bit still to get the feel of it.

How are your projects going? Is anyone new participating? Are any of your projects taking turns you didn’t expect? Do you wish your project would?

Day four.

After rejecting and then taking back what I have written for my novel, day four brought a lot of ideas as to how I can make the plot better. I wrote some more for the beginning and made plans to rewrite the scenes my main character is in. I haven’t written that far for her, so there isn’t going to be a ‘great dismantling’ of everything to rewrite her scenes.

After reading Susan’s comment - If you don’t like your main character, how can you expect your reader to? - I began thinking about my main character. I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t like her, it was that I didn’t know her. She stood there as a flat, meaningless character and, out of habit, I pretty much tried to ignore her.

Having contemplated that a bit, I came up with a few ideas about how to make her shine, which I’m looking forward to writing on day five.

How are your projects going? Is anyone new participating? What genre story are you working on?

Day three.

This challenge has already proved quite interesting for me. What I gave up yesterday, I’ve decided to give another chance today. I tried writing things over, but they just didn’t feel right. I’ve isolated my main problem down to, again, the main character I’m not especially fond of.

Instead of writing the entire beginning over because of her, it’s much easier to simply rewrite her scenes.

I’m quite looking forward to my writing time tomorrow to see how long I’ll sit and think before actually getting my twenty minutes of writing done.

How are your projects going? Are your characters behaving? Are you stuck for any reason?

Day two.

Remember yesterday when I said I didn’t think the twenty minutes every day wouldn’t have much influence until I had done if for more than one day?

Well, day two has turned out to be quite eventful in that I’ve decided to scrap what I’ve been working on and start over.

I like the idea, but I just plain don’t like what I’ve been writing before. I don’t like the main character (which isn’t essential to writing a novel but helps) which is causing problems. I also feel like I’m jumping around too much, which is partially reflecting how restless I’ve been feeling lately and also how much I have been avoiding committing to the plot. (Ironically, my main character is having commitment problems as well. Go figure.)

So, after getting today’s twenty minutes of writing, I’ve decided on a complete overhaul.

How interesting.

Day one.

So how did you do with your twenty minutes (or more) of writing? I admit, I put it off most of the day instead of just sitting down in the morning and doing it. I ended up getting up a nice chunk of writing done as well as a few notes down for future scenes.

I wasn’t expecting much on the first day of this challenge. It will be interesting a few days down when I’ve made more of a habit of writing at least twenty minutes every day.

If you’re participating in this challenge, comment and let me know how it went, what you’re working on, and anything else about this you’d like to talk about.

Sometimes it’s not the writing that’s hard; it’s the sitting down and doing it. Once you’re sitting down and actually writing, things can come a bit easier, but pulling you away from your nachos and the latest game of footy is an interesting challenge indeed.

Talking with my good friend DaveP, we discovered one more thing we have in common – a novel we should be working on more than we actually work on it. We talked more on the matter, and I proposed a challenged.

The Weekly Writer’s Challenge.

Every week on Sunday, I will propose a writing challenge for writers to complete every day starting the following Monday and ending when the next challenge is posted the next Sunday.

For our starting challenge, we’ll have something simple to get the ball rolling. This week, starting tomorrow and completing when next week’s challenge is posted, my challenge is this:

Write for twenty minutes a day.

This may not sound like much, but as my friend Leslie says, “It’s amazing how much you can get done in twenty minutes.� (She is the woman who has accomplished what many of us dream of – living off earnings from writing.)

There are a few more rules, though.

You must pick one project, one story idea, one something, and work on that for the entire week. I’m choosing my novel rather than something else because I know it can keep me writing.

There are no punishments (in fact good on you!) if you go over, but you must write for a minimum of twenty minutes, and this doesn’t include the time you spend shuffling papers and wondering if you can remember the name of the person who invented post-it note glue.

If you’d like to participate in this challenge and are going to blog about it, use the “contact me� button on the right and send me the URL of your blog.

Enjoy.

Another random words paragraph is your challenge this weekend. Enjoy!

Broccoli
Rainbow
Paycheck
Assassin
Red
Woman
Diamond

This should be an interesting one.

In as few words as possible, define happiness.

After you’ve done that, freewrite on happiness for as long as you like.

How does your shorthand version match up with your longer version?

Random wordplay! Try to work all of these words into a 200 word story.

Rings
Yellow
Pyramids
Horse
Cracks
Teddy Bear

Bring back the romance…

Remembering the love.

This time around, write five things you love about writing your type/genre/etc or just about writing in general.

This exercise/tag gets you writing about what you know best - yourself - and writing quickly with the short answer format. It should be a perfect warm up and a great spark for your thoughts.

The “I� Question

I Said:
I Want:
I Wish:
I Hate:
I Miss:
I Hear:
I Wonder:
I Regret:
I Am Not:
I Dance:
I Sing:
I Cry:
I Am Not Always:
I Make With My Hands:
I Write:
I Confuse:
I Need:
I Should:
I Start:
I Finish:

Think of the biggest struggle you’ve had so far in your life. Was it stepping on stage? Giving that big speech in class? Meeting someone important for the first time? Flying on a plane for the first time?

Think about the nervousness and other feelings you had to get past to do what you needed to do. Now apply those feelings to your characters’ current struggles. Don’t have a current writing project? Then make yourself the character and write your experience from a third person point of view.