Hello writerly friends!

It’s the last day of Camp Nanowrimo (I totally forgot to update that wordcount thingy) but it’s not the last day of our writing journey, is it? Right? RIGHT?

So, ignoring that, how are we doing? I’ve been writing a lot, so much actually, that I’m dealing with some serious pain in my right hand wrist and shoulder. So much that I can’t even write pain free. Don’t be stupid like me and neglect your body, please make sure to stretch regularly.  

For today, I’m giving you one video with stretches and a post with more stretching exercises and a pdf:

Please take care of yourself. (Do as I say, not do as I do.)

I see you again next week, for more writing. We’re not stopping now!

Hello writerly friends!

I was sick yesterday, so no post. But today I feel better and I came across an interesting post here: https://jerichowriters.com/types-of-stories/

It’s about a subject I’ve heard before, how there’s just seven types of story. They are: 

1. Overcoming The Monster
2. Rags To Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage And Return
5. Rebirth
6. Comedy
7. Tragedy

(Look at the post for longer explanations.)

My first thought was, “just seven?”. It sounds like it can’t be enough. But these are really broad descriptions, something like “The Quest” can encompass a massive range of stories. 

Thinking about my WIPs, I wonder where they fall in this. There’s definitely a Quest going on, but it may also be a Voyage And Return. I’ll have to think more about this.

What about your stories? Where do they fall in the story types?

Hello writerly friends!

In the last post, I suggested to write a blurb for your story. Did you do it? Some of you posted here on tumblr and on the discord and I loved seeing those posts.

I tried to write one myself and I utterly failed. I took this as a sign that I should rethink my approach. If I can’t even say what the story is about, do I even have a story? So, to approach this problem, I decided to focus on tropes. And I tried a new approach by writing BY HAND!

I wrote down the tropes that came to my mind, and then looked at a few lists on the internet about common tropes. Some of them confused me, they sounded more like sub-genres (billionaire romance?) than tropes, but whatever, these things are not scratched in stone.

Here’s my list:

The hearts show how much I like the trope. And I scribbled down some other things. Will this help me? I don’t know, I’m already annoyed that it’s written inside a notebook that currently lies in the trunk of my car. Luckily I took a picture. Is this a good basis for developing a story? We’ll see.

Have you ever started with tropes and developed your story from there? Which are your favorite tropes? What tropes would you like to focus on?

Friends!

I neglected you yesterday, even though I promised a post, but life hit me square in the face yesterday. I managed to write a little but when I started to write this post, time evaporated.

Anyway.

How is it going? Are you gently writing and refilling your creative well?

Don’t forget, you can use a calendar to mark your progress, I made one for you here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c2Mrjo6VUYv5qIEMkteiqYE5NqcMNroh?usp=sharing

Today I have a suggestion for you to get the story gears going.

Describe your WIP in three or four sentences. Write a blurb, if you want.

If you can’t summarize your idea in three or four sentences, maybe it’s too complicated? A blurb can be a simple guide for your writing, reminding you what kind of story you want to tell. Some writers always write the blurb first, and then write the actual story. Try it out, maybe this works for you.

Make a post about this, if you want. See you in a few days.

Taglist: @quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces

Hello writerly friends!

How is it going? How is Camp NaNoWriMo working out for you so far?

I had one good writing day. One. I’m counting that as a win. I’m also experimenting with changes in my writing setup and the program I use, which is turning out to be more difficult than I thought. Apparently “cross-platform and easy like google docs” are hard marks to hit. 

Another thing that may or may not have been very smart is that I scrapped the novel and started it again. She’s still a grumpy and done with shit but he’s not a wolfshifter anymore, but he may have a tail at some point? I haven’t quite decided yet. And honestly, it doesn’t even matter. All the first draft has to do is exist, and for that, I have to drag it over the 30% mark where novels go to die. 

So, that’s the goal for now. Get this thing into the second act, kicking and screaming.

Taglist: @quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @sabels-small-sphere, @annaofthenorthernlights, @sarahawke

Hello writerly friends!

After stretching and medicating my body back into form, I decided to start the project for real today! 40k in 50 days.

There was a post or a headline I read somewhere, saying, “Everything starts out as garbage. So, can you write garbage?” And you know what? I can! This is exactly how I started writing back in 2012. I looked at the fanfics I read that day and said to myself, “I’m sure I can write bad porn like the rest of them”.

And I did!

(Not saying that all the fanfic was bad, far from it, but after reading 5000+ fics, you do kind of get to the lower quality at some point.)

Anyway, I noted the current wordcount of the one story; it sits at around 3k, whipped up a simple spreadsheet and started writing a weird story. Not necessarily garbage, but certainly not a polished thing. I also decided not to worry about genre and such, I decided to write a weird story. Maybe it won’t fit in any genre, or maybe it will only after revision, but none of that is important now. 

Focus has to be on the words. There’s no point in me wondering what kind of story is will be one day if I don’t put it into words. It’s gonna be weird, and that’s enough for now.

Do you feel stifled by your own expectations, too? Go write a weird story. Make it the weirdest you can. We can change it later.

–

@quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @sabels-small-sphere, @annaofthenorthernlights, @sarahawke

Hello writerly friends!

What time is it? It’s time to get ready for Camp NaNoWriMo! 

Three more days!

Camp NaNoWriMo is hosted on the regular NaNoWriMo site, https://nanowrimo.org. The difference to the November event is that you can set a goal that isn’t 50k. Camp is for smaller goals, for more leisurely writing. 

And that is what you should do, if you want to join Camp NaNoWriMo. Set a small, attainable goal. Don’t stress yourself by setting the goal too high, make this goal fun and easy to hit. Even if it’s just 100 words per day, that is fine! Let’s have fun.

Hello writerly friends!

I could write a lot of words about last night’s ESC, but I won’t. I expected quite a different outcome after hearing all the acts. Some acts definitely deserved better and some rather forgettable pieces somehow rose to the top… For me, this shows that a) you can’t please everyone, b) taste is subjective, and c) if you’re giving your best, you’re going to have fun regardless of the outcome. A good lesson to take from this, isn’t it?

So let’s talk about goals, success, and all that stuff.

Success means different things for each of us. Getting many comments can mean success for a fanfic writer. For some writers, success means publishing original fiction and earning money with that. Others just want to write fanfic and don’t care about ever publishing books. Some writers don’t care about earning income with their fiction, they just want to see their book on a shelf or get an award with it. Others see a book breaking even as the ultimate success.

Me? I’m currently at the point where I consider it a success if this damn first draft is eventually finished at some point. I want to publish it as a book and the ultimate success would be “breaking even and even getting a bit of money back”. But that’s a faraway thing. For now, I’m focussing on the very next step, finishing that damn draft.

I think it’s important to not fall for the current hustle culture bullshit that keeps permeating every media channel right now. All these advice posts, books, webinars, telling us how we can turn this thing we’re doing for fun into a money-making machine. Spoiler alert — it never works as easily as they claim. 

It’s fine and healthy to stay a non-profit writer. To just write for the fun, for the self-discovery (boy oh boy the self-discovery…) and publish for the community. It’s also fine to attempt writing original fiction and publishing it. But we have to be careful not to suck the joy out of writing. I mean, if you don’t care about the joy, you do you, but me, personally? I don’t want this to be a mindless job. I can have a mindless job in any form, I don’t want writing to be that. 

We started this event by setting realistic goals. For today, I want you to revisit that. When it comes to your writing, what’s your goal? What is your definition of success?

—

@quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @sabels-small-sphere, @annaofthenorthernlights, @sarahawke

Hello writerly friends!

I’m still on the tropes thing, I keep adding to the list, I need to move that to digital to actually work with them. More on that in another post.

Today, I have a podcast for you. It’s Rachael Herron’s podcast “How Do You Write?”. She’s interviewing Grant Faulkner, the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is the episode: http://www.howdoyouwrite.net/episodes/346

They talk about short fiction, really short fiction, like 100-words fiction. He published a book about that, The Art Of Brevity. They talk about the process of writing and revising short stories, of making every word count, revising a paragraph until it says more in fewer words. I find this fascinating, especially as someone who a) can’t write short to save her life and b) hasn’t revised anything ever.

But the podcast also reminded me that whatever we write, it doesn’t have to be huge and epic. We don’t need to overload one single story with everything we can think of, we can write shorter stories instead, exploring one idea at the time. 

Have you ever done that? Written shorter stories with just one idea? If you’re feeling stuck, maybe this is a way to find new inspiration. Pick one idea and explore it in a scene. No need for massive backstories, just a scene, a moment. 

I’m going to do that, write a short story. Maybe I’ll even revise it, making every word do more work. That will be a true challenge for me.