NaNoWriMo novel, done

Well, it’s done. I only hit just over 45,000 words, but it’s done. I’ve hit the story targets; the characters had their representative scenes, the plot had its required scenes, the story is told. There’s still 5 days left so the plan is to do some rewriting and editing and keep both the new and old versions as part of the word count. Other people have suggested writing additional scenes […]

End of writing class

As of last night I finished the beginner writing night course that I had been taking, and I feel a sense of relief. Where does the relief come from? From aspects of the course that I didn’t enjoy, like listening to, rather than reading things that other people in the class wrote and then trying to critique. I find that translation of hearing to imagined reading difficult and would much […]

NaNoWriMo at the half way point

This year has been tough. For my first NaNoWriMo I came up with a characteristic that I wanted to investigate (creativity), applied different versions to have three different characters (recombining, unorthodox, people skills) and then figured out a way that the three would have some connection to each other (famous artist returning to birth city, daughter of gallery owner, son of gallery owner) and then let my protagonist work her […]

NaNoWriMo

As of late my writing has been shaped by 1) the basic writing class that I’m taking, and 2) now the start of NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo takes priority. Two years ago I wrote a romance novel that has some good stuff in it; I still need to tie up some loose ends in the plot and also do a thorough editing for weak writing and errors, but at some point I […]

Characterization exercise: Mother of a murderer

Carol sits at her dining room table, her right forearm resting on the table, hand wrapped around a tumbler half full of merlot. She’s leaning forward, elbows supporting her, almost oblivious to the cigarette in her left hand. Her expression is fixed, and she moves only to take another sip of wine, or a breath of her cigarette, or to tap ashes into the crystal bowl that other people might […]

Bob (characterization excercise)

Bob had worked in sales for years. He and his three co-workers had kept the organization going, kept it moving. They were the ones who enabled the company to reach its goals, each and every time. The city was divided into four sections and together the four of them covered it all, out on the road, always working together. Sometimes they might rotate, to keep things fresh, but like pallbearers […]

Writing class assignment: Characterization

Honestly, the class is not very challenging. We’re covering basic-basics and had very limited “improvement” oriented feedback on our first assignment readings. I know it’s a first reading and we’re all beginners, but I dunno if anyone’s going to improve very fast until people start to suggest things to work on, things to consider changing. We’re a little too polite, too supportive. Anyway, assignment two is characterization. My job; to […]

Setting exercise

First writing class assignment. My hands are wearing a thin layer of cold so I wrap my left around the cup as well, interlocking the fingers with the right hand and and laying my thumbs one atop the other. The cardboard sleeve protects me from getting burned but the warmth that still escapes is nice. Using both hands to lift the cup I take the first sip. A bit of […]

Writing class

First assignment from a beginners class for creative writing; describe a place using the 5 senses. Sigh. I knew it was going to be a basics class, but I wanted review of some basics. “Write about a place that you love. Describe it using the 5 senses, or as many as possible.” Then it’ll be read, and critiqued in class next week. This falls under the topic of “settings”. Even […]