Oct

21

No Idea For A Blog Title

Filed Under Art of Writing, Novel In Progress 
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The morning has come and gone, as have several days since I last posted. I need to get back into some kind of rhythm and routine if I’m going to post here daily.

Anyway, today’s been a good day so far. I’ve updated the word count meter to reflect where I am in TMA. (The word count is actually 20,860, but the meter rounds off.) My writing group also had a chunk of my time – I did several crits. One more to do, and then I believe I’m on to the extras. I need to check my notes, though, to be sure. But that’s for tomorrow. The rest of the day I need to spend concentrating on me.

I believe I’ve mentioned I’ve got the book First Draft in 30 Days. It’s a very good read, and brings up a lot of important things to think about when planning your book. The author of the book has recently published a “sequel” to it, From First Draft To Finished Novel: A Writer’s Guide To Cohesive Story Building. I’m reading through it now. The part I’m looking forward to where she discusses how to layer in subplots and stuff like that. It’s the subplots that make a story interesting – a novel with just the main plot would be boring as all heck.

Weaving subplots is something that I have to do well for TMA. It’s a cross-genre novel, urban fantasy/mystery, so subplots are the key to the whole thing. When I start my next novel, I’m going to do more planning of the subplots. It’s difficult to just go and start writing and develop these subplots as I go along. Changing things mid-write means more work. Having to go back and rewrite chapters to add in or remove info to support the subplots. For example, a brother and sister who are friends with Alex, the lead character of TMA, start out as just being her friends. However, as I wrote, I discovered they weren’t just friends, but an integral part of her support network, both in this life and in past ones. That change made me go back and rewrite four scenes so the set-up was there for the reader to see and say “so, that’s why they didn’t think she was crazy.”

So, I think that’s it for today. Tomorrow’s post is going to be about setting goals, and I’m going to be putting myself on the spot and out in the open, publicly posting my writing goals to the end of 2009. And, of course, my failure to meet any of them will be out there for the entire internet to see. :)

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