A lot!

Not enough of it novel, but the novel is making progress. I’m very excited about the method I’m using, and though I’m frustrated to not be racking up the word count, I am developing the story and have physical proof of it. Things nag me, I figure them out and fix them and it doesn’t matter where in the story they are.

If I’d attacked this like a short story and found my problems sometimes after finishing an entire piece I could potentially have wasted hours and days of writing and tens of thousands of words. I am very much a story grower with rough drafts usually being smaller than final drafts and a bit of pruning in the middle of the process. So this method of having the story as a fully developed embryo before I start telling it in words is very appealing to me.

A lot of brain power is going into this, hence the not posting. I also had a paying gig a couple weeks ago, and one right now.

I think, for now, comments are working. I’ve been very bugged by it, which may be another reason I wasn’t writing. Yeah, I thought it was solved too, but it mysteriously stopped and has just as mysteriously started again. So we’ll cross our toes and fingers. I’m going to have to figure out how to crosspost this stuff to facebook or something.

So what about fiction friday? Well, you know what? An entire story line that you saw here is wiped out. No longer necessary or existing within the universe. And I’m very excited about it because doing that thing differently has solved some problems.

First of all, I understand that comments people are trying to post aren’t showing up, and this started happening when we changed servers.

Second of all, here I am in a quiet room and no kids are going to interrupt me. I am because I have a lot of hours to just write.  But I feel a bit like a fish out of water without my family surrounding me.

Today we learned about throwing our nets wide for our audience and bringing emotion into the story.

And today my story was critiqued. I found out that my narrator voice isn’t working well. This was a question I wanted answered, so I’m glad to find this out now. A lot of other interesting ways that people viewed my story. I love seeing this reflection, how someone else has created the story out of the words I wrote.  But I definately have some work to do.

I have a writing assignment then I’m going to work on my short story, The Amaranthine.

This website is just a blog right now, but I have several things I need it to become for me. I need it to be some place I can point people to that shows me as an author. I need to link to to where my work is published. The blog will be a part of it, probably even on the front page like a news feed, but will no longer be the whole site.

Another thing I want to do is start to have fiction fridays, where I will post a piece of fiction, probably 1000 words or less.

I’m working on a novel that I’ve had in my head for many years. There is a lot of great cultural backstory that will never make it into the series. I’m toying with the idea of using this world to put my stories in, generating interest for the book while not being something important to the story of the book. Problem: I really can’t devote as much editorial attention to these short stories because my real work is, in fact, the novel. So the reader would have to be kind. Won’t mind serious critiquing of it.

I also want to set up a section to help other writers.

So now, dear reader, is where I want your input. Do you like those ideas? What kind of a website would you like most from a budding author? Should I drop the religious and medical rants? Which of my posts do you like best? Yes, you dear lurker. Why do you lurk here and which posts make you go “Oh no, one of those” and move on without reading?