Thoughts on Writing...

yeah. it's been a long time... >.> I've been hard at work on editing my first book, though, so blogging is incredibly low on the ol' priorities list. However, I sent out an email on the subject of writing and thought I'd post it here, since I have a couple/several "followers" here who write. Hope this is an encouragement to all of you... :)

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don't wanna lecture, but I was talking a fellow writer through a certain part in his story last night. At first glance, it looked like he needed to fix something. However, when he talked me THROUGH all the details of the situation, etc, I realized that it was pretty much fine.

BUT... that's not the first time it's happened. I know the flip situation has happened to me several times, and I've experienced it with several authors. And last night just made me think about this, so thought I'd remind everyone of probably THE most important rule of writing:

~Write for the Reader~

If you need to EXPLAIN something to a friend/editor when they point something out as wrong, it probably means you didn't explain it well enough in your book. Or your editor is just plain dumb... which, I know, is a common idea among we imperfect authors, but you have to realize that your editor is PROBABLY smarter/more story-savvy than most of your readers will be.

Always, always, ALWAYS keep the reader in mind when you write. What have you TOLD them? What HAVEN'T you told them? What can they be expected to have guessed from any hints? What will they NEED to know in order to follow you and enjoy your work?

When editing (my own work included), I find that this is probably THE no1 problem of budding writers. They- WE- get so caught up in our stories that we forget who we're writing it for!! We're not (or should I say, we SHOULDN'T be) writing for OURSELVES! Heck, the story's already in our HEADS. We write to be READ, to be ENJOYED and, hopefully, to ENCOURAGE (and/or convict, when necessary).

Always write for the Reader. I shall say it again. Pretend you are a slave and the Reader is your Master, if you must. But WRITE FOR THE READER. There, think I've stressed it enough?

Disclaimer: I'm not perfect. I'm not even published. *grin* Do as I say not as I do (though I try to follow the advice I hand out ;). To those of you who's stories I'm reading/editing, I shall do my best to point this out to you, but I think if we ALL just write with this principle in mind... if we can just get it hammered into our stubborn, hyper-creative little brains, I think we could ALL be capable of the Trophy of Publishment (wasn't a word before? too bad. it is now. *grin*) The trick is getting it hammered in there. And it's not always easy in practice, but it's doable. Definitely doable. =)

So. Charge out into your various worlds. Save the day. Write words. Be the Omniscient, Sovereign Presence over your Dominion. But write for the Reader. You may be the Master in your StoryWorld, but the Reader is YOUR Master in the PublishingWorld. *grin*

May your pages overflow with publishable material!
mE

'Nother milestone...

My work-in-progress document, 'Ahrnbk1.doc' just reached 300 pages!!! Whoohoo! =) And the 300th page was the first page of the 19th chapter, the first chapter of pt4. Which... should... tell you something about how long my chapters are! ;) Novel-sized, my book is currently somewhere around 515 pages. Yipes! Ah well... I'll probably/HOPEfully downsize it a bit when I go back and edit for draft2... which will hopefully be within this next year! It's comin'...

of writing months and proof copies

well, finished MayNoWriMo (and 'won'!)! So now I'm on t' JuNoWriMo! *wearily* Whoohoo... ;-) Nah, not really. I love it, even though writing SO much can get rough. However, I've got about eight chapters left to write and I am bound and determined to finish those eight chapters THIS SUMMER! Whoooohoooo.... =) Long story, but, I got a 'proof copy' of my novel from CreateSpace (prize for winning NaNoWriMo last year...). It looked really sweet- just like a novel. It was encouraging in a sense... discouraging in another- the thing was FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY PAGES LONG!!! (yes... 460!) Annnnnd.... that was only the first 16 chapters. So I'll most likely have a 500-600 page book when I'm done! >.< Granted, I'll be removing some of that when I go back and edit, but still... it's like "wow"... f'r me at least. *grin* In a good way...

The one implication of me JuNoWriMo is that I won't be writing many blog posts. =) Maybe one day when I'm old and gray and am done writing novels, I'll take up blogging seriously.... =-P

Well, off to me 1170 f'r the day...

~Em

Milestone and pics

Hit 250 pages last night... wh00t! =) I'm guessing I have a good 100 more to go- at the very least. I very much hate to say it, but I COULD be looking at a 372-400 paged book here... fun to write, CAN be fun to read... but sure would be a pain to EDIT... >.O Anywho... I'm definitely making progress and chap15 has been TONS of fun. Also, I've been messing around on Fireworks some more. Just for fun...(above: 'posters' for my book)(above: two more of 'my main character')

Yay.

Lame title, but w/e. =) Well, the month of April is officially OVER (well, actually it was YESTERDAY, but...) And I made it! (me 'n' Tahlia both, actually!) My final word count- 35,952! Pretty amazing, considering that for the last week of April, I only wrote about 800 words total! =-P So yes... it's over, and I'm actually kinda bummed. Anyone up for May? =-D Hey! There we go- I'll see how many more words I can get in before I turn 1 6! =-D (May 20th) My story is now 239 pages long and MAYBE I'll get the time and inspiration to actually POST something about it sometime "soon" (warning: I tend to use that word like Aslan) =)

Ciao for niao,
Em

Said I would...

MILESTONE!!!! My novel, The Fire and Flame Trilogy: Book I, Ahrn is now a grand TWO HUNDRED (200) pages long!!! I'm 2 pages into chapter 13 (entitled "A Big 'Un") in the third "part" ("Three To Raise A Broken People"). My estimate- I've got 100+ left to go. *sigh* Think I can do it before May 31st? I'd sure LIKE to... what would be really neat is if I could do it before I turned 16, but I'm really doubting that's gonna happen... but this summer should definitely mark the end of this 3-year adventure of mine! I'll have to explain WHY it's been three years later... however, please note that the 200-paged draft was only started this July (and there have been whole  months, even, where I've written hardly anything) 

I'm a writing fanatic, as some call me and a fanatic for this particular story, which has been through and changed a LOT. However, my philosophy is that if you keep starting new stories just because you hit a hard spot in the one you're working on, you'll never finish a story. You're ALWAYS gonna hit a hard spot somewhere along the line. If you simply switch to a different project and then switch back once you've hit a rut on THAT one, A) how are you ever going to learn to work through the hard stuff? And, B) how are you ever going to finish one to satisfaction? Now, granted, I know people that do this and it seems to work for them. But in the long run? We shall see. As for me and my pen- we wanna finish one book before we start another. To published or bust! =-D

"ApNoWriMo"

Well, with the crazy goal of finishing my first book by the end of May, I decided semi-drastic action was needed. So I declared an APRIL writing month. NaNoWriMo, for those of you who are familiar with it, is in Nov. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel (or, in my case, 50,000 words ON a novel.) FYI, that's roughly 100 pages, depending on your format. For "ApNoWriMo", as I'm calling it, my goal is to write 35,000 words (70 pages or so) onto my novel in the month of April. Four of my writing pals are doing it with me- let's see who'll survive! Will the 2008 NaNo Survivor hold out against the rookies, or will she be utterly put to shame as they produce mass amounts of wordage (if it wasn't a word before, it is now)? *grin* We shall see, precious. Oh yes, we shall see.

Status Report-

"-your pants are on fire." (sorry... a movie line quoted in our house a bunch) Well, I finished the initial writing of chapter 11! (it's still in my notebook, but hopefully the notebook-to-computer transformation won't take TOO long...) Currently (meaning, as of chapter 10) the entire thing is 165 pages long! Considering what still has to happen, I've probably got at least that same amount left to write. *sigh and shakes head* And all this before June... well, really, May 30th or so. That was my dream-deadline for finishing Ahrn, but we'll see.

Well, ki-kalon... I'm off to work on that notebook-to-computer transformation!

You know you're a fantasy writer when...

...you refer to Middle Earth like a real country
... you kill a character and your friends get mad at you
...you kill characters because they did something you didn't like. Or because they mad a dumb decision on their own.
...you get names by scrambling/taking pieces of real words
...you wrote and recited, as a school project, a poem in your own language
...you wish you could telepathically communicate over long distances with your friends
...you and your best friend claim to have developed mutual telepathy. And your parents are starting to wonder...
...you create a creature that's more or less a dragon, yet still find ways to assure your readers it's not one
...you gave up trying to think up plotlines in bed because you couldn't fall asleep
...you act out battle/emotional scenes from your story in order to write them perfectly
...you always sit facing the window when you ride in the car so you can act out said scenes while listening to your iPod.
...you scare yourself with a creature you invented
...you walk outside at night to take the trash out and wonder if you'll be spirited away by a villain from another world who's secretly trying to kill you
...you realize that virtually every story you write revolves around some sort of prophecy
...you wonder if your best friend is really your long lost sibling/twin

there are more (ones I DIDN'T come up with) but I hafta get on school now.

Writers aren't exactly people...

...they're a bunch of people trying to pass for one person." Or howabout: "Some of my best friends are fictional"? True. Absolutely, positively true. When you're a writer, anyway. I've got roughly six people living inside my head. Then there are a few who pop in occasionally. Lemme introduce you to some of those people (in order of 'main-ness'):

Jess Kane (15): MC (main character) of my Fire and Flame trilogy. And the books beyond. I often call her my evil twin. Or my 'evil twin's evil twin'. She has a bunch of my weaknesses, and only a few of my strengths. She is very feisty and stubborn. But a lot of fun. Poor kid, tho'. I generally take out my life on her. Any lessons I learn- Jess learns 'em too. Any problem/pain I have- Jess gets it too. But it's so nice to know that another 'person' is experiencing almost the exact same things you are.

Jack: Was originally going to be a sort of secondary character. He was actually going to die quite early in the story. However, that was not to be. He turned out to be my favorite character, so not a CHANCE of my getting rid of him. Not a chance. Jack is absolutely crazy. Well, not really, but he likes to make everyone think he is. He is extremely intelligent and skilled, but has some work to do on his people skills. He also provides the comic relief. Sarcasm and banter, yes, but that's pretty much what I do as far as humor goes. Btw, Jack learns almost as many lessons as Jess does. Maybe because they're so alike... even though they'd (or at least Jess would) like to think they aren't.

Alex Kane (18): The character who's giving me the most trouble. He's Jess's older brother, but he doesn't get along with Jack very well and, since Jack has a more dominant personality, Alex tends to clam up and get mad at ME (of all people!) when Jack is around. *shakes head* I need to give that boy a good talking-to...

Heather (17): Sweet, quiet-natured... everything Jess isn't. Theoretically. She's giving me some problems, but not as many as some *glances at Alex* She is more willing than Jess to go with the flow and doesn't do half as many stupid things. *sigh* And yet, at least in old drafts of the story, she's always ALWAYS getting captured. Maybe it's because Alex likes her... *'nother sigh* And here I am left wondering why on EARTH I ever decided to put a romance in the story. Oh, right. It wasn't MY fault. The characters just ended up liking each other and forced me to marry them. That's the way it happens when you delve too deeply into your story.

Xajtir: (pronounced Zay-TOR) The 'mentor' character of the story. However, he's very stingy about giving information and annoys the heck out of the Three (Jess, Alex and Heather), Jess especially. He has a mysterious past, though, and is a highly useful character, if not very much FUN...

Oh... and perhaps I should actually post a SYNOPSIS soon? Maybe? After all, I DID just introduce the main characters....

I am Me

Cold. Dark. Moon. Stars. Wind. Minor music. Tears...

...These are a few of my favorite things. Some may call these morbid, yes. Weird, yes. I prefer 'insane', but what the hey. My most dangerous aspect is my imagination, though it is far more apt to hurt me than anybody else. Some people consider it a gift. Most people who have such a vivid/active imagination find it a curse. A curse, that is, until you learn how to use it. And the smartest people dealing with this curse will inevitably find the best way to release the energy that builds from HIS (Hyper-Imaginative Syndrome) is writing. But not just any writing. Fantasy writing. With enough education and intelligence to build a believable world of your own, you're free to let your imagination roam. Then record its adventures and PRESTO! You've got a book! Almost. (sorry, but it's not QUITE that easy) My imagination has been roaming in the same world for almost two years now. That's a record. For me. But I've developed something else to go with HIS- determination. That's what ultimately sees a novel through. And hopefully, it'll be enough to get me through.

Aside from writing, I love to make music. I play piano first and foremost, and am learning guitar and clarinet. I also love to listen to music. Hans Sparrow- my iPod Nano 3rd Gen- is at my side almost constantly. Reading is also an essential part to being a good writer. I love a good book (though unfortunately, I'm rather picky- and am getting even MORE picky- about what I deem 'good'). Though, I must say, I enjoy walking through the woods much more than sitting down to read a book. So much 'scope for the imagination' out there.

Well, this writer has more work to do. So it's TTFN for now, blogland. I would say 'don't worry- I won't be gone forever', but since this is ME we're talking about, I think I should say:

Worry. I won't be gone forever.