As I persue those threads of character creation, the plot seems to chase afterwards at a breakneck speed. I have discovered some other unpleasant happenings in the course of my character creation ideas ... and the ideas are getting juicier. I don't know if I will use this new thread yet, or if it is only going to lead to a dead end. Now it seems that there are many depths to the villian's treachery! He is a very bad man! 

Just a bit worried that this plot twisting and turning is the beginning of a confusing mess that is just waiting to happen! It is scary sometimes when a plot starts taking a life of its own. I haven't even begun worldbuilding yet! Come to think of it, I haven't even started auditioning for characters yet - I better get those over-enthusiastic wannabes under control! (hehe!)

At the moment the plot looks like a hazy image of a story, but it is slowly losing its blurry edges. More scenes are starting to pop into my mind now too. Not sure if I'll keep them. Ill just watch these ideas over the course of the next few weeks and consider their progress as it goes along.

I'm still following the writers course...but while driving home I got a sudden insight into the motivations that drive my main protagonist and antagonist. I began to understand the antagonist a lot more - which has been a block for me for a while.

My antagonist is an fascinating character which I understand but hate at the same time. One nasty bit of work he is going to be. Yet if you know his past, as I do, and you understand how a dirty secret he has been hiding all these years has twisted him in a way that his actions are disgusting beyond measure. *goosebump territory*

My protagonist popped up at the front door of my head with a bundle of story ideas in the first place, so she isn't as tough to figure out as my antagonist has been. Despite this have been stuck on her motivations for a long time too!  All the ideas I came up with was edging closer to the truth but never quite hitting the tender goosepimple territory needed to drive the plot. Ill confess, I'm not there yet...but I sense with my protagonist that I am edging closer to the truth of what drives her actions and I am discovering some aspects of her that (thankfully) don't make her an angel either. 

As a result of this small breakthrough, I got a few more ideas for scenes in my head too. That cannot be a bad thing either.

It helped that I stopped only considering from the angle of "what does this character need/want so much they are willing to get it no matter what" and changed the focus to - what is most important to her/him and what situation would bring about a point where this particular character HAS to act because the situation is completely unbearable. Oddly that shift in though shook loose some ideas that I haven't been able to figure out until today.

So good progress all round.

I just found a really cool WIP bar to add to this blog  here  it even shows how to add the code in. Very useful! 

Please note I might take a while before I start writing the novel as I have a lot of planning to do, and a lot of worldbuilding before I begin. Yet it will stay there waiting for me as a reminder of what the worldbuilding and planning are for. I love worldbuilding - sometimes a little too much! :)

A bit of a struggle to write today. I am tired and  grumpy.

My progress isn't bad as far as following the assignments set in Lazette Gifford's  2-Year-Novel Guide, though.

Lazette has arranged  5 weeks of assignments to complete as an introduction or the basic groundwork behind  writing a novel. 

This section deals with the preliminary material such as the original idea, the general setting, and the primary conflict. I can see how this is an excellent way to lay down the ground rules and will be a boon later when my mind winds up into a muddled mess. I can also see why I managed to get myself into these muddles with those 3-chapter-long false-starts before. 

I start off with a fantastic concept, which gets me hungry to write a novel. I work on it for a few months, and hit a wall. My mind starts twisting into Gordian Knots and I cannot figure out what the original concept was in the first place. Since I never wrote the damned concepts down somewhere in my notes, I become so confused that I cannot unravel my ideas for weeks and in the meantime I become so frustrated and disillusioned that I give up on the idea completely.

...until the hunger strikes again - only  this time it is for a different and new idea for another novel and the whole scenario starts up again. 

If you lay down the groundwork, as Gifford suggests in her e-book, you will have the option to go back to your original notes and see what the first spark was. Also, you can see how far the story has drifted from the original concept, and either drop the new material and align it with the original, or update the original. I need these kinds of signposts, I have never considered that this has contributed to all those false starts for novels in the past! :)

On a different note, I intend to write my first draft in just under a year, so my timetable is not the same as that laid out  in Gifford's book. I figured that I could do two set assignments a week instead of one. I did a trial run of it last week and it doesn't seem too much. This might change as the assignments become more and more in depth and require more time and work- I know that right now is the easier section. So we shall see how it goes. 

To date I have completed the single line story idea, I have worked on the theme, and have just finished outlining the main conflict in my story. I need to do the assignment on Genre, but it seems a bit obvious to me that my book is fantasy fiction. 



 

I confess.

Not a lot done on my novel preparation today.

I haven't thought much about the story either, come to think of it and it concerns me a bit. 

I feel a story should at least keep nagging at you until you sit down to write it or work on it. 

Or. Something?

Then again, I went down that path before. 

Too many times before. 

I used to have long, long months of tying an idea together. I worked like a woman possessed, obsessively creating or thinking up scenes and ideas. I was making a mad dash, so I rushed, and huffed and puffed, and sweated to get them all to paper. I spent every living second thinking about the story. Yet it got too much and I blew off the project altogether.

I think one can over-feed an idea. I think it is important to give ideas space, time and small amounts of attention to get it to grow. 

I don't want to rush. I don't want to over-feed the idea because it won't grow. I know that this is a marathon run, not a short distance sprint.

I am just hoping this wisdom I am sharing with you here is not my pitiful excuse for being lazy? 

Time will tell. 


 

Years.

The last time I was so hooked to a fantasy novel that I could forget that I needed to eat, drink, sleep and so on, was years ago.

Even though I plan to write fantasy, there are few original stories that I can read from beginning to end without feeling a bit frustrated at the quality.

I admit that I am a demanding reader. 

I want an author to make me cry, make me laugh, make me sweat, make me fear, and never let me go until I have finished the tale, and even after that,  still cling to me with lessons, ideas, and still wanting to know more about their characters and the world they live in. 

Not all fantasy books manage that with me. Most of them barely manage to get me to care about their characters enough to give a snuff if the hero or heroine dies a horrible death - indeed, some fantasy books I have read made me pray they WOULD ALL die a horrible death just to get the story over with.

The last book(s) that I couldn't put down was the Empire Trilogy by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts. A fantastic story, and I cried when I finished it. I also deeply missed those characters and want to know more about them.

Talyn, by Holly Lisle, is the only book since reading those trilogies some 3 or more years ago that has managed to captivate me to such an extent that I could not sleep until I found out the ending. 

To read that tale felt like a steamy love affair turning into a nightmare. I felt as tainted by the touch of the tale, as the heroine did by the touch of the man that betrayed her.  And I wanted to see that man scream, I wanted to know that he died a long, painful agonizing death for what he did....and for what he intended to do. I won't spoil the tale too much, but it is a satisfying read. 

It also played upon one of my greatest fears of all time, to be mind-controlled, it was such a horrible concept to me that I could hardly sleep after reading it. Even now I feel haunted by that tale. 

I like that.

Stories should do that.

They should stick with you, they should make you slightly uncomfortable, scared, and questioning.

Thank you Holly Lisle for writing such a good example of original fantasy. A breath of fresh air. 

But....phew! I'm going to take a shower after that tale! 

 

I am neck deep in planning for my work at the moment.

I have downloaded the first book of Lazette Gifford's 2 Year Novel course from Forward Motion. You can download the book here if you are interested. 

I use this course because I have no idea how to approach writing a novel. I have written the beginnings of novels, sure. I have no trouble coming up with ideas, either. I have a trouble with finishing them. 

There is no guarantee that this 2 year course will be the best way for me, personally, but I figure I should give it a try. I think part of writing a novel is learning the process that works best for you as an individual.

I am curious, does anybody else have these same issues?

Oh, and computers have their way of adding complications to the mix. 

I have been having serious fights with the router (my computer is connected to a wireless network) and for some reason the signal (which I never had issues with before) started becoming too weak for my computer to connect to the internet.  In the morning, it was working fine. In the evening when I tried to get my computer to connect to the internet it kind of looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language... "Ze internet...I not know vat you mean??"

I swore....a lot. I also stomped like a toddler not getting her way. I blamed God for hating me. I prayed to my computer and pleaded for it to work for me again. The past few days I was terrible, I growled at people. Not only can I not get my daily dose on internet surfing, but it threw a spanner in the works for my research, which I have planned to do for the novel. I was furious that I didn't know how to fix it.

This morning - I fiddled with the router and it seems to be working fine now - fingers crossed. Now I have it back I marvel at how amazing the internet is. And how confusing and unpredictable wireless connections are!