Script Frenzy 2011

I tried Script Frenzy in 2009, and sadly it turned into epic fail at around 12 pages. I had never written a script before, and telling the story through dialogue and in a limited space (it was a stage play) was very hard. I was surprised, since dialogue is my favorite thing to write. Narration can be annoying (even inner monologue), description is...necessary, but dialogue just flows for me. But in "Seashore", the dialogue didn't flow. It staggered around and fell over. I decided to give up, because apparently script writing isn't my thing.

This year, since I'm doing WriYe, I figured I might as well try again. I haven't been writing as much as I should (I think I'll have to push my word goal back to something like 70,000 instead of 150k), so this would give me a push in the right direction. I've been adapting one of my novels into a play, and it's been working well, so I thought I might have gotten the hang of it.

And actually...I was right! For Screnzy, I'm adapting another novel (called "Bright Lights") into a stage play. Unlike Dream RELM, it was just in its early phases. I had two developed characters and a vague idea of how the plot would go. I quickly transcribed the dialogue from the first few scenes into the play, and then I was on my own. It was challenging, especially introducing characters, but I think I've really gotten into it now. I'm at 58 pages, and the plot hasn't gotten out of control yet. I'm especially excited because writing plays combines my love of acting AND writing. And now I can actually do it!


So...question to inspire people to comment: what do you find the hardest to write? (Characters? Description? Dialogue?) What's the easiest?

The perfect medium

The first "real" novel that I wrote was called Every Color (sound familiar?). I was eleven, and I'd written pieces of novels before, and lots of picture books (illustrated by me, of course), but I hadn't actually committed to writing (and eventually editing) a full novel. Every Color was total fantasy: portals, other worlds, mysterious dream catchers, some kind of evil "presence". It makes sense, because fantasy was my favorite genre at that point. Around that time I ended up getting into analyzing fantasy too, by comparing all sorts of different books I've read and classifying them into subgenres. And, like I tend to do when I've spent too much time classifying something, I started to go wider with my definitions. Was science-fantasy considered "fantasy"? What about soft sci-fi? What about mostly real-life with a hint of magic?
That's when I got into my slice-of-life phase. I wanted to write a book that was real life, but was steeped in fantasy. Nothing crazy would happen, but there would be an undercurrent of unreality throughout. I was into surrealist art at that time (I was about twelve at this point), so my first attempt was about a gallery. It didn't work out at all, but my second attempt in this vein was also about an art gallery (and, more specifically, surrealism). It was about Andrea, a sporty girl who meets Vega the dreamer. They became friends through surrealist art, and created a club (the "Dream RELM", which is the name of the novel as well) about "exploring" imaginary worlds.
And then Vega was supposed to disappear, to go into one of those imaginary worlds, without leaving any sign of her existence. She was supposed to be the magic element of the book.
Except, I got stuck writing it. It felt too short, and I kept trying to stretch it out and make it into a novel. And then I got bored. It was too quiet, too subtle. I started to write another "slice-of-life-with-fantasy" novel (it's called River Girls), which blended magic with real life in a more fluid, more interesting way. Eventually, River Girls stalled out too, and I tried once more before stopping slice-of-life altogether.

About a year ago, I went back to both novels. I realized that they were destined to be novellas, and I didn't try to force them. I basically finished Dream RELM, but when I read it over I realized it ended too abruptly. Vega and Andrea have their last conversation, then Vega leaves and BOOM: epilogue. So, okay...I just need to fit in some scenes in between, right? But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I lost interest again.
But yesterday, I was talking about plays with my Mom of Awesome (you'll see why she's called that in a sec). I was saying how I want to write plays, but so far it doesn't seem like my medium, and I have to keep trying. Then the topic switched to my earlier novels, and Mom of Awesome said, "Maybe you should make Dream RELM a play."

HOLY CRAP.


It's going great. I would act in it, if I was twelve. THIS is the medium for Dream RELM, if not all my slice-of-life-fantasy novels. And as a bonus, it's adding to my WriYe word count! The only thing is...I'm starting to wonder if I should change the ending. What if Vega reappears near the end, and the play ends as they start talking? (Or maybe Andrea sees her, but decides her life has changed, and walks away?) We'll see.
I'll keep you posted.

New year plans!

When I was younger, I never understood why people would make New Year resolutions. It just didn't make sense to me. But for the past few years I've started to think of it more as a challenge than a life-changing plan. Last year's resolution was to "be as social as I was in 2009 but read as many books as I did in 2008". I accomplished the social part, but failed on the book part. This year I want to give myself a set of challenges instead of just one resolution. What are my challenges? I'll get to that in a sec.
This year's NaNo was my most successful yet: I had a good novel that didn't stall out and wasn't too long (it was around 51k words), and I love my characters and the setting. I could see myself writing another book that takes place in that world. The only downside to this year's NaNo was that I really miss it now. So when I found out about WriYe, a writing challenge where you set your own word goal and work toward it over the year, I got excited. I've discovered I can only work with a deadline (otherwise I have to wait for that very flighty thing called "inspiration"), so this is a great chance to not only write my originally-planned-NaNo about a collective mind, but also finish NaNos 2008 and 2009, AND maybe even work on one of the many failed novels in my folders. So many options! I think my goal will be 200k words, but that's probably my excitement speaking for me. We shall see.
So WriYe (which, by the way, has to be the most awkward name ever. How do you pronounce it? "Rye-Yee"? "Rye-Yeh"?) is challenge number one for 2011. My other challenge is to do another "blog every day" week, to get back into the habit of blogging. I've recently started knitting, so expect more craft-related posts.
Challenge number three: read lots. I haven't read enough in 2010.
I think that's it for now. Since I've posted my challenges here, I'm less likely to ignore them now. So...I'll say bye now. I'll try not to disappear, but if I don't post anything else this month (which, let's admit it, is quite likely), see you in 2011!

Nano 2009: there is hope!

Two years ago, after NaNoWriMo (we're talking about 2008 here), I had reached the word count goal in my novel "Two", but I hadn't actually finished the darn thing. I promised myself that I would soon, as well as edit it. "December," I told myself. "Well, maybe January...or February..." It's two years later, and I still haven't finished it.
So last Nano I told myself that I would _definitely_ finish "Jigsaw Cloud", and I would not procrastinate.
Then my Nano took a turn for the worst.
Long story short, while I did reach the word count goal (according to my laptop. My desk top's word count says differently), I was not happy with my novel at all and declared it, to use the scientific term, "epic fail".
Fast forward a couple of months. I was starting to think about Jigsaw again. And I was starting to realize something: I wanted to edit it. While "Two" was a fun Nano novel, it didn't have much potential as a "real" novel. However, with Jigsaw I had had a great idea, and I could think of a lot of interesting ways it could go when I actually put time into it. Sooo...I started editing it a couple of days ago! I started by removing the really bad parts, and now I've rewritten some scenes. Hopefully when I'm done I'll move onto actually continuing the story, and eventually finishing it.
I wanted to post excerpts with comparisons, but this post has turned out longer than I planned. So instead I'll just leave you with "It's not an epic fail! WOOHOO!" and do the comparisons later.
Wish me luck!

I'm a fortune teller (Nanowrimo from a week 2 perspective)

My novel this year is totally different from last year's in structure. Last year's novel ("Two"...yes, that's its name) was basically a series of events that were related to each other, that eventually formed a cohesive whole (sort of. I haven't actually finished it yet). It was fun because I liked my characters and if it was getting boring, hey, I could just add another event.
This year's novel ("Jigsaw Cloud") is completely different. One of my characters (Mira) goes on an adventure, but I'm actually writing about her younger brother (Davis), who stays behind but ends up going on an adventure of his own. It sounds kind of cheesy, and the Mira-going-on-adventure thing is supposed to be a little that way, but after she leaves for her adventure Davis is supposed to realize something important and the adventure is supposed to really begin.
I say "supposed" because I'm totally stuck leading up to that.
See, Davis is going to have several strange dreams, the last of which will bring on the "realization". I can't find a way to fill in the rest of the time. I got him arrested (sort of), and then trapped in an attic (which is related to the former), which was fun at the time, but now it's gotten me even more stuck.
Basically, I really need to rethink my options.
Instead of working on the story, I have one "letters between the main character and the author" segment, and one essay that basically explains what I've talked about here. It's pretty funny, actually.
But I want to work on the story. And the structure I've invented is not a Nano-speed structure, it's a work-on-it-for-half-a-year structure.
So, basically: waaahhh, Nano is too hard this year.
Aren't I just the amazing fortune-teller?

P.S. I might post my "letters" segment later on my blog, because it's kind of funny and sad at the same time.

100 posts and a first sentence

Two things today.
One, I've reached 100 posts! Thanks so much to everyone for reading, and for sticking with me while I try to figure out this whole blogging thing. Here's hoping I reach 100 more! :)

Two, as you know I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I have no ideas what my novel (or "NaNovel"...just made that up) will be about. And while some people have outlines, or character ideas, or just vague plots, I have a first sentence: "It happened the day I got sick. Figures." It just popped into my head today. Now...I just have to figure out who's talking, what happened, and how I can turn that into a novel. By November. Wish me luck!

Perspective

What's your favorite perspective in books?

There's 3rd-person perspective ("he said", "she thought"). Some books focus on a large amount of characters and don't really talk much about their thoughts, which makes me feel disconnected. The more specialized "limited 3rd-person", where the narrator only focuses on a few characters (or just one) but goes deeper, are more my thing.

There's 1st-person perspective ("I went"), which can be very interesting if the main character feels real. My mom said once that she generally didn't like 1st person as much as 3rd, maybe because it feels too intimate?

And there's the rarest one, 2nd-person perspective ("you said"...or usually, "you say", since 2nd-person is almost always in the present tense). I don't care for it much in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" kids books, because they try to make the main character as neutral as possible so you can implant your own thoughts into the book. There are a couple of short stories (and books too?) out there, though, that are in 2nd-person. I only read one (something by Ray Bradbury), but it's different because the main character isn't actually you, but by reading it you sort of pretend to be him. And I love this kind of "ultimate-being-in-someone's-shoes"/roleplay. When I write my own "Choose your own..." games (I actually call them "Pick Your Own Path Adventures"...or, PYOPAs) I try to create a character for the reader to become. This character is obviously not as detailed as 1st or 3rd person perspective (maybe it can be, though...I should read more books like that), but it's vague enough that you can put a bit of yourself in it.

Next time: present tense, past tense, or future tense? Heh heh.

100 words

I was looking at this list of "150 things to do when you're bored" and one of the things was, "write a story in 100 words". Sooo...I tried it. This micro-story is based on a plotline that was floating around in my head. This is the most minimalistic version of what I was imagining, and I might expand it (maybe for NaNoWriMo?), but I thought I'd post it here first.

If you could dream about anything you want, every night, what would you pick? My mom said we didn’t always have this choice, and that we shouldn’t really have that choice. I wonder why?

Last night I decided to have a dream about being a goldfish. I couldn’t see past my bowl: just these weird blurs moving around. I wonder if that’s how my goldfish sees.

Books you read in your dreams are the most amazing books ever. Shame you can’t remember them.

I think I know what Mom meant last year. With perfect dreams, we forget to live real life.

...And that's it. Feel free to interpret, or whatever. Leave a comment! Maybe I'll post more about this story if I get feedback.