My mobile wordprocessing needs have been met for now by a Samsung NC-10 netbook. Not my ideal size or battery life but definitely the functionality that I need. Coupled with BTModem enabled phone it’s very usable as a mobile platform. Although without the modem I’d get more writing actually done!
Snowflakers.net is going from strength to strength with more people posting everyday. Thanks to those that are responding with well thought out and professional critiques.
Writing for myself is on a bit of a hold at the moment, as I try to make sense of where my spare time is going and where perhaps it could be better spent. I suspect that a newly aquired PS3 is partially to blame.
I’ve learned a good lesson from this critique about first paragraphs by Randy today. Another thing to think about and consider whilst critiquing one’s own work. When Randy outlines what’s wrong with a piece of writing it all seems so obvious, yet didn’t flag at all when reading the paragraph previously. Time and experience again.
There’s so much to learn about this craft. I’d have never thought about moving Ginny’s disaster to the end of the first chapter as in a recent post of Randy’s. To someone of Randy’s experience it probably seems obvious.
You certainly need time and experience to get used to this writing lark, that’s becoming more and more obvious to me recently.
I guess with my experience of 15 years as a web developer I’d be able to similarly critique peoples early attempts at websites, and the problems would seem as obvious to me as ours appear to be obvious to Randy.
Note to self: learning can’t be rushed.
I’ve now moved the forum off my blog domain to it’s spanking shiny brand new home:
As discussed on Randy’s blog, I’ve setup a forum for the discussion and critiques of one sentence summaries.
I’ve started the ball rolling with the sentence I’ve been working on this week.
I’ve been working up a story idea using the snowflake method. Step one is a lot harder than it looks. I’ve been hammering out similar one sentence summaries and trying to whittle it down bit by bit like a crazed boy scout.
Recent posts on the snowflake guys blog are a huge help, as both writer and readers are chipping in to critique everyone else’s sentences, which has really helped with my own. Critiquing other people’s efforts is unfortunately much easy than fiddling with your own!
Onwards I plough.
I’ve been concentrating on the early parts of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, the one sentence and one paragraph summaries.
Earlier last week Randy offered to critique his readers’ sample summaries. Reading these, and Randy’s insightful responses, has proved to be very educational. The main lesson for me has been how a broken summary highlights a broken story, and how fixing that summary also helps fix the whole novel.
At the moment I’ve not put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, or is it pixels to screen. Perhaps even ones and zeroes into a bloated Word document!
Anyway no go as yet, lot’s of ideas swimming around my head, and lots of thinking going on. I have assembled a couple of Randy Ingermanson’s Step1 sentances, but no more than that. “Call yourself a writer?!” I hear you scream. Indeed.
Too much life at the moment and too little time. So I’m going to make time.
To a geek like me, this website by Randy Ingermanson detailing how to write a novel seems to make great sense. As my friend Mac is so fond of saying, Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. So the detailed planning stages of Ingermanson’s snowflake method appeal to the inner programmer in me. In a day-job-tastic feat of immense distraction the eye is off the ball and my mind’s off on a tangent.
Recently, due to press coverage in The Metro I checked out a product called Novel Writer. I didn’t like it. Not my style. When I read Ingermansons method I thought to myself, “Here’s a great opportunity to make a little bit of software that both outlines this method and makes it simple to gather together everything generated in the first nine steps, to aid when switching to a favoured word processor for the tenth step.
I really should be concentrating on writing fiction not code!
As I mentioned before I have a problem with my ideas for stories being too full of gadgets and gimmicks rather than story. Some ideas I really like, and want to use. I’m not going to rule out gimmicks, just try to ensure that they are not used at the expense of characterisation.
Often when I mention an idea to “her indoors”, she will respond with, “Oh you mean like ’so and so’”
“Oh bugger,” I think, “yes just like ’so and so’. Damn that originality thing.”
I’m sure all new writers must struggle with originality, I sure do, as do many people following any creative pursuit. Is it even possible to be original? Surely everything has been done before? But certainly not in the same way. Perhaps it is not about what you do and whether it’s original but how you do it. It’s all in the execution. Certainly that’s where the appreciation of skill lies, in the execution.
Everyone has influences no matter who you are. I need to use them, not abuse them, and make something my own.
Good question. What am I going to write about? In my opinion some of the best fiction is character driven, let’s face it, most of the best fiction in fact. One of the problems I have, possibly to do with an over consumption of sci-fi or short stories, is that when thinking about a story I end up fixating on some kind of gimick, rather than characters. So I’m shifting my thinking towards what I want to say, what point of view I want to get across and how to do that in a character driven way.
What if I can’t write a good novel? I’ve been editing other peoples web copy for 12 years now, so I know that I can construct a decent sentance. The question is, can I tell a good story? I’ve been writing and running various RPG campaigns for 25 years, I don’t know if that helps. I read a lot, that most definitely helps.
I guess I’ll be finding out. As with anything in life though, you ain’t gonna be good unless you practice. Time to get started.
“I’m going to write a novel.” Many of us have said this, or thought it at least. Some start, most of them don’t finish. Those that do, rarely get published.
So why become a writer. I have this feeling that if you are in it for the money then you may as well stop right now. Am I in it for the money? I don’t think so. Admittadly I am in need of a good pension plan, but trying to get a novel published is not a sensible path to the glory days of retirement.
I want to write because, well, I want to write. Maybe I’ve got to that time in life where I feel I’ve actally got something to say. Alternatively it could be that it’s the case that something wants to get out.
So how do you go about deciding to actually become a writer? Now deciding to go for it has not been easy. It’s a bit like giving up smoking. It’s very easy to say, “I’m trying to write a novel.” Just as it’s easy to say, “I’m trying to give up smoking.” You see, I finally gave up smoking when I spent some time coming to the decision to stop trying to give up smoking, and to actually give up, for good. The same is now happening with writing, I’ve been putting off actually starting. I keep thinking about things to write, but not starting anything, except for a few sketch notes here and there.
So now the time has come to say, “I am going to write”, really get down to it, set some time aside and satisfy the urge to write that’s been growing over recent months. So to that end this blog, somewhere to get my thoughts out of my head and share some ideas with some friends.