lisahartjes.com

Testing a new technology

Lisa — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:48:19 +0000

I’m trying to find new ways to make this blog useful, so I thought I’d see if I could get a Google Wave to embed here.

Tweets for 2009-11-09

Lisa — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Have I written? No. Have I eaten lunch? Yes – 2 c stir fry veggies, handful of walnuts, left over spicy stir fried pork. #

Tweets for 2009-11-05

Lisa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Enjoying a nice hot coffee with sugar free gingerbread syrup. Yum! #

Ready at last?

Lisa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:06:22 +0000

I’ve finally finished up entering all my scene cards for TMA and getting them in order. I’ve assigned them to chapters, and printed up the Book Summary (I’m using the program StorYBook, a free and open source program for novel writing. The program doesn’t have every feature I’m looking for, but it has most of them and that’s good enough for me.

Anyway, the summary is 13 pages. It’s a bit misleading, as there’s stuff in it like locations and character’s present for each scene. Many of the scenes have little more than a sentence or two to tell me what’s supposed to happen in them. Once I’ve finished with the complete first draft (and after NaNoWriMo), I’m going to go back and put in more text for the scene summaries. That way I can use the book summary for a synopsis when it comes time to submit the thing. Good idea, don’t you think?

But not this weekend. Between housework and my hemming the kids’ pants, I’m not going to have much free time.

I told you so.

Lisa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:58:01 +0000

Yes, I’m doing NaNo this year. And my word count so far? 256.

Man, that sucks.

I have lots of excuses, but very few good reasons as to why it’s happened. All I can say is I’m working on a plot problem, and hopefully when that’s taken care of, the words will start flowing.

Tweets for 2009-10-28

Lisa — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Decided to throw sanity to the wind and participate in NaNoWriMo this year. #nanowrimo #
Support #NaNoWriMo, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! – http://bit.ly/3DdbZo #

NaNoWriMo 2009

Lisa — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:06:32 +0000

I’ve decided at the last minute to attempt to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. Giving myself the weekends off, I’ll have to hit 2400 words a day. Yes, that might look at a lot of words, but it’s something I need to strive for, especially since it’s unlikely I’m going to do much writing over Thanksgiving.

I’ve added a couple of widgets to the left sidebar so those of you who care can see how I’m doing. Got to have accountability.

A Bit of Creativity.

Lisa — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:56:34 +0000

A couple of years ago, my friend David was suffering from what he called a “lack of creativity”. I sent him this, and we both had a good laugh. (Actually, what’s below is a recreation of it, because I wanted to have a larger version to make it easier for you to read the small print. )

Tweets for 2009-10-22

Lisa — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:59:00 +0000

RT: @ravenousromance: Lori's blog post about HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE, upcoming zombie romance anthology. http://is.gd/4vOiN #

Housekeeping

Lisa — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:15:14 +0000

I’ve been doing two kinds of housekeeping lately. First, the kind you expect – actually cleaning the house. One of the things I’m doing is entering all our books into a program called Readerware – you enter the ISBN number, and it pulls down all the publication info from a number of sites to complete the entry. I entered book #502 a few minutes ago, and I don’t think I’m even a third through our collection.

The second kind of housekeeping I’m doing is writing related. I’ve gathered up all my notes for TMA (I have them in several different formats, from index cards to files on my computer) so I can work on creating a comprehensive “bible” for the world. While I’m taking breaks from that, I’m going through the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (as I’ve talked about before). I’m feeling really confident about what I’m doing, and getting Chapter 19 out the door really helped boost my spirits about the book.

Tweets for 2009-10-15

Lisa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Drinking Stash Chocolate Hazelnut tea out of my Grumpy mug. Is this a sign of what the day holds? #
Added some new links to the sorely outdated Worldbuilding resource pages on my blog. #

Test for LiveJournal

Lisa — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:04:01 +0000

If you’re at LiveJournal and reading this, I’ve set up the new crossposting plugin properly.

Test post for LiveJournal

Lisa — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:58:01 +0000

If you’re on LiveJournal and reading this, then I’ve succeeded in setting up a new crossposting plugin.

Medieval Worldbuilding Resource

Lisa — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:15:47 +0000

In my wanderings around the web, I discovered the wonderful “Medieval Worldbuilding Information” blog. All kinds of interesting and useful stuff. For example, the most recent entry is “How far, how fast?” – information about traveling in the medieval era. Useful for anyone writing fantasy that’s not set in the modern era.

Tweets for 2009-10-13

Lisa — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Got "Not Ready to Make Nice" playing on an endless loop right now. My muse apparently needs to listen to it while I'm writing today. #
@LKHamilton Thank you so much for posting blog entries like this. I learn a lot about writing by reading them. #
Woohoo! Just finished Chapter 19 of TMA. I wonder if I can use this momentum to do Chapter 20? #

October 2009 Update

Lisa — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:42:02 +0000

After long last, I’m blogging again. No really good reasons why I haven’t, but lots of excuses. For those of you keeping track, the Word Meter has been updated to reflect the fact I’ve finished Chapter 19 of TMA? Could this mean I’m on a roll? Hah!

Tweets for 2009-09-22

Lisa — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:59:00 +0000

I wonder how long it will take for my vision to go back to normal after getting the eye dilation exam. #

Tweets for 2009-09-21

Lisa — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:59:00 +0000

My sink is not shiny right now, but that's because I'm soaking some stuff in vinegar and water to get rid of hard water stains. #
But, I'm dressed to shoes (even put on a little bit of perfume), and am up to Day 5 of FlyLady's Baby Steps. #
Trying a new recipe: Banana Peanut Butter Spent Grain Muffins. #
The muffins are almost ready to take out of the oven. They look delicious! I can hardly wait to try one. #

Working through Writing the Breakout Novel, Part 1

Lisa — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:58:29 +0000

As I mentioned last week, I’m going through Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook with an eye towards The Morgan Affair. Rather than writing directly in the book (and there are spaces in the book so you can do that), I’m writing it all out in a spiral-bound notebook. That way I’ll have it all together in one place, and can eventually stick it into the “bible” I’m building for the novel (and, hopefully, more books about Alex and her friends).

I’ve finished the first three “exercises” of the workbook, and I’ve already learned something new about Alex: what it is she really wants. It’s not what I originally thought it was going to be, but it’s something she will never be able to have. How’s that for inner conflict?

The workbook recommends reading Writing the Breakout Novel (which I will refer to in the future as WBN) first, so you can learn about the concepts before trying to put them into practice. I’m glad I did that. While each set of exercises are prefaced with examples from actual books in print – ones Maass has identified as breakout novels – there’s not a lot of explanation there. WBN has pretty thorough explanations of the characteristics of breakout novels, but really not much in the way of practical advice on how to do it. And that’s what the workbook is for. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to attend one of the workshops Maass runs in person, so I’m using the workbook as a surrogate.

Okay, enough procrastinating. Time to fold some laundry then get back to “class”.