Jumping on the Notebook Bandwagon Today

Spiral Bound Chaos.

I've noticed a pattern across the Authory Internetz (official term!) today, one that I think I should jump in on ANY TIME NOW. Anyway, on blogger, on twitter, on forums, probably on tumbllr too, the big thing the past couple of days is sharing our notebooks. (Is this an actual thing or just one big coincidence?) Either way, to the left is a picture of all my notebooks I use for writing. Now, I don't actually use notebooks that...much. I mostly just use notebooks to write down very brief outlines to get me through the Nano months. (Of which we are up to three a year now. Yay.) But eh, here's a quick and dirty breakdown:

Pink Notebook - Bought at Wal-Mart, it currently contains the ongoing outline of CROSS//Process. I don't know what the second part will hold, yet. But it's two subject so it's got room for additions.

Large Orange Notebook - Bought at Seria in Japan. It's the well-worn notebook containing the still ongoing outline for CROSS//Revenge. Well-worn because it's been toted around and handled by Japanese chilluns (including one who tried to nom on it) and so, so many stains from all my Sunday dinners at Coco's Family Restaurant (I miss that place!)

Tiny Orange Notebook - Bought at a bookstore in Japan. This is my "catch all" notebook that I carry in my purse at all times, mostly for jotting down Real Life notations and contacts. But the front part is the "idea bank" for ideas I have randomly that I'll probably never use. No seriously, their are some awful ideas in there. No. Seriously.

Fancy Looking Orange Notebook - Bought at Seria (DOLLAR STORE BTW) in Japan. The actual writing space on each page is tiiiiiny so I can see why it cost a dollar now. Anyway, this is my Hubpages / General article writing notebook. I put my article ideas down in here so I can whip it out and go "wait what should I write about now".

So that's my life with notebooks. Oh, and that orange pen came from Japan too. Everything orange in that pic came from Japan.

Looking for a blog post idea? Apparently we're supposed to post about our notebooks today.

OH AND OF COURSE can't forget my "other" notebook...

God I hate this thing. Not Pikachu, though.

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 15: Halfway~

Day #: 15
Words Written Today: 1967
Total Words Written: 41,023
Amount to 50k Goal: 8977
Total # of Pages: 79
Total # of Gratuitous Sex Scenes: it's in the outlines omg~
Drive: I really wanna  finish this scene~

Today's Hilarious Forum Topic: Things in an office building you could shoot with a gun and make explode: Go! omfg.

I'm thinking 2k a day will be the norm this week. Writing 3k is just not feasible because I just don't have the time to do it, and that's cool. I do have to, you know, eat and shower somewhere in there. Oh and work. And and the commute. Always that pesky commute.


My outline is now way behind what I'll get to by the end of November, but at least I'll never run out of things to write about. Also, in slightly related news, my blog has just capped 20,000 page views. Not too shabby.

Technicalities, Vol 2: Chronological Writing vs. Wait, That Doesn't Happen Yet!

This entry is just a snippet of a multi-part saga dealing with the technicalities behind writing. Posts and subsequent discussions focus on how we write.

First off, guess what, it'z mah birthday. Well, it is on this side of  the world anyway. Still a few hours left back in Amuhrrika. General praises of admiration for having made it this far without Darwinizing myself are always welcome. And presents. Or both.

[VULCAN JEDI MINDTRICKMELD] Do both. [/VJMTMM]

AHEM.

 
Today's discussion is about in what order we write scenes.  Simply put, do you write all of your scenes in order (whether from an outline or as naturally as it feels) or do you write whatever damn scene you feel like writing at the time?

I am a strict chronological writer. Everything I write must be written in order. I've always been this way, from my very early days of playing around with fan-fiction. I mean, in my head, writing scenes out of order just is not done! *pearl clutch* On one hand I can understand the argument of "well, if you're blocked on this scene, just work on one that you are inspired for!" but I can't let you do that StarFox do that, man. I FEEL YUCKY AND DIRTY OKAY.

There is one scene that I've written completely out of order. Back in 2008 when I was working on the first half of Rebirth (I started writing it around Nano 2007) I was outlining the series, and there was a scene I REALLY wanted to write for Regress, the then final book of a planned trilogy. So I wrote it. And damn was it a good scene.

That scene is still planned.. But I will have to rewrite it, because the characters' motives in that emotionally charged scene have completely changed. Actually, one of the characters has completely changed, in direction and origin. So while the same things happen, the feeling and tone of the whole scene is different.

(Also, technically, I started writing Revenge before I even finished the first complete draft of Rebirth. But you know, Nano.)

This is why I don't write out of order. I'll end up having to rewrite later scenes anyway because of things always changing in the scenes before them. Plus, finally getting to write those scenes I'm all geared up for is like a super awesome reward for trudging through those scenes I struggled to finish before.

I mostly made this the topic today because I'm really bitter about finishing the scene I'm on. Yeah, I don't wanna.

Technicalities, Vol 1: Outlining vs. Ripping Off Somebody's Trousers

This entry is just a snippet of a multi-part saga dealing with the technicalities behind writing. Posts and subsequent discussions focus on how we write.

YUP. Exactly what I think of.

It's the age-old question, especially during this time of year when Nano season is in full bloom.

"Are you an outliner, or are you a pantser?"

Now, if you're like me, you hear "pantser" and immediately think of that one snot in your middle school who would run around and rip people's pants down and go HAR HAR HAR UR UNDERWEAR LOL. (Oh, the years before that was considered sexual harassment. How I wish I was born later~) Of course "pantsing" refers to the saying of "flying by the seat of one's pants" but it still sounds stupid. So, for the sake of this post, we'll call pantsing "flying" to preserve this author's sanity.

Some people swear by outlining: they get the most satisfying work done by carefully constructing their entire novel via bullet point (including dates and times) that they will later flesh out in their word processor. Others find that when they "waste time" outlining they end up not using it at all and they fly through their story without knowing what's going to happen next. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and it all comes down to your own personal preferences and experiences - we authors know best that all our brains function differently and what works for one does not work for all. Thankfully, I've never seeing outlining wank before....but that would be interesting...and good way to spend a Sunday evening...quick somebody start some outlining wank!

I used to be a pretty hardcore flyer. I've always been the type that once I have an idea I just wanna sit my ass down at the keyboard and start typing, finding out about my characters as I go and letting them take me through the plot. As I got older and got more serious about making a career out of my writing - and, not to mention, focusing on extensive series where lots of crap happens - I started jotting down occasional notes that I wanted to remember for the future. And then I started outlining. But only a little.

I still am the type to just make stuff up as I go...but only little things, like dialogue banter, settings, sometimes who's in what scene and what order they fall in. The only thing I outline now are the Big Bad Plot Points, especially the climatic endings once I have them figured out because LOL I FORGOT. Sometimes for Nano I'll make a scene-by-scene outline just so I have something to continuously work on but I don't think I will this year.

My line of thinking is...if it was really a Brilliant Idea,then I'll remember it. And I still remember a lot of my OMG I MUST WRITE that ideas that I had a few years ago. I've never outlined the third novel of CROSS// but I know exactly how it will play out, all the way down to certain scenes. Of course, you could argue that I should still write down notes in cause I get like, thrown into a coma and get amnesia. But if I ever get amnesia that bad I think I'll have more things to worry about than my writing career.

So in short: outlines are for academic papers, yo. Writing fiction is about literary abandon and writing off the cuff, unless of course you're really afraid you'll forget that one thing. Well, you know, for me anyway.

What's it going to be, readers? Especially for this year's Nano?

Outlining or pantsing flying?

Weekly Writing Check-In: Preparing for the Inevitable

lol spoilers tbh.

Hey guys, it's October.

October is a great month for three super solid reasons.

1) My birthday is in October. Actually this should be all you need to know about October to know that it's fabulous.

2) It's full-on fall now. Hot weather is LOL BAI and blessed coolness all day comes and makes life freakin' bearable outside again.

3) NaNoWriMo season is officially here.

GUESS WHAT. I'm going to do what I've done for every nanowrimo I've ever been in since I started in 2007 (except for last year technically) and work on a WIP. Another 50k here we come.

So this is what I've been doing this week~~

CROSS//Rebirth

Finished editing chapter 2 and almost done with chapter 3. Hoping to have it completed tonight so I can start fresh on chapter 4 during my business trip. The first five chapters are the first hump to get through as they're the first set of chapters I wrote en mass, so they always require the most changes and the most analyzing on my part to make sure they match up with the rest of the novel. Thus far I'm averaging about a chop of 1k words per chapter - most of it is fluff, redundancy, etc, all that good (or not so good) stuff. Editing while on my trip should be...interesting, granted that I will be moving everything to my traveling EEE PC. Not the greatest computer to do any doc work of any kind on. At least I THINK it has Word 2007 (what I use on my main laptop here) on it so my flow should only be disrupted by a super tiny keyboard and it crashing every five minutes from memory loss.

CROSS//Revenge

Like I said above, Nano season is here, which means my preparations are in full swing. Luckily, that's not very much! I'm more or less ready for nano to come now. I've known what the following couple of chapters were going to be since the end of last nano. And I already outlined pretty much the entire next section that I may or may not get through this year. So all that really leaves me with is finalizing where things are going so I can just jump in and write write write without too much blockage. I think I mentioned last week that I fubbed on a plot point but that's since been sorted out (as you may see in the pic I've posted). Oh, about the pic. I needed to take a pic of something. But, you know, spoilers~ So check out at your own risk or just admire my super badass orange pencil I got yesterday. (Seriously? Japan is the best place to buy cheap and amazing office supplies. It's an addiction, really.)

That's all for this week. Proper Nano flail post to come if I ever find time this week~

Weekly Writing Check-In: Dissected and Disolved

Dead @ "militarily"

Quiet week from me, thanks to yet another six-day day-job work week aaaaand lots and lots of gaming! Teehee~. Oh well, girl's gotta do what she's gotta do to stay out of a nervous breakdown, right?

Of course, there was editing. A lot of editing. Every night editing! But nothing exciting, just the usual editing monotony madness that comes with buckling down and getting stuff done. That said, here are this week's progress reports!

CROSS//Revenge

So I had a real "OH NO I DIDN'T~" moment this week when I was looking over my notes for this first draft on Thursday. There's a really, really important plot/character development point that needs to happen in this novel, and I TOTALLY forgot the set-up in the draft that I have so far and I'm kicking myself over it. See, there's no place to go back and put it without forcing it in/changing everything. I was not happy. Well, I managed to fix it. The original scene was going to take place in Japan (where my characters are en route now) but I figure it could just as easily take place State-side. The scene takes place in a psychiatric hospital, and part of the original drama was going to be in language issues (the character involved doesn't speak Japanese very well) buuuuuut I'm pretty sure America's ~amazing health care system~ can bring just as much drama. Especially back in 2007 in which the story takes place. Of course this means I have to do all new research now. I know a lot of about hospitals in Japan but now it's time to depress myself with stories about American hospitals. Yay! (Either way, I'm problem solving! Go me!)

CROSS//Rebirth

 Editing sucks. Actually, no, I take that back.  I like editing. I just don't like it when it laughs in my face.

Since this is no longer MASSIVE READ THROUGH TIMEZ for clarity, flow, and checking for major holes, I have to get into the real nitty gritty of every chapter, and I didn't skimp on the first one. For now it's "finished" (until later of course, because editing is never really finished, sigh) but it gave me a headache. You see, I have a very specific way I do these detailed edits. Here's the breakdown:

Step 1: Do a careful read through of the whole chapter, changing anything I feel like/needs changing along the way. I get rid of lingering adverbs and passive sentences that stick out to me. The real focus of this, however, is analyzing characterization, especially in these first few chapters. I ended up changing one scene entirely because I did not like how FMC2 came across at all.

Step 2: Run a search and destroy of adverbs, aka ADVERB SLAYER mode. This starts with the obvious "ly" search, and then searching for non-ly adverbs that I know I'm notorious for over-using. A lot of adverbs that survived the first main edit were culled this time. My goal is to not have more than 1-2 "ly" adverbs in prose per chapter. (My chapters are usually 15-30 pages in length, single spaced, so I think this is acceptable. Also, this all only refers to non-dialogue adverbs.)

Step 3: Passive sentences, ugh. This is trickier to search for because not every sentence that holds the key words are passive, and damn you "to be". Word threw a fit at a couple passive sentences that I decided to leave in because they're in dialogue, and sorry Word, that's how they talk. Get over it. This is my least favorite step at all because I just hate searching for passive sentences. Anyone know of a good  program that can do it for me? Heh.

Step 4: Said. Now, this isn't necessarily OMG EVIL KILL THEM ALL search and destroy. This is because I tend to use said as a crutch as I write, when words don't need to be there at all! So I search for "said" and see if it's actually functioning or if a tag is totally unnecessary to begin with. It's usually about half and half.

There's other little sub-steps in there, but those are the four main ones. With the goal of doing one chapter a week (remember how I said some chapters are 30 pages long, single spaced? Yup. A week is good stuff for me!) I usually do Step 1 for three days (it's very careful, close reading) and each other step is one day. That gives me about one break a week if  I decide to take it.

Overall, I deleted about 1000 words this week. Not bad!

Sometimes you reach a point in editing where, you know there are still some passive sentences/adverbs left over that don't need to be there, but you just don't care anymore man. You just can be assed to look for them because yuo're sick of it. Suddenly it's the beta readers'/editor's problem. Yeah. That's the spirit!

It's not my problem at all~