On the First Day of NaNo Prep My Novel Gave to Me...

Hey guys!  So I decided to do a blog post series on NaNoWriMo preparation, and because I'm way too excited for the holiday seasons, I am naming each post something akin to the 12 days of Christmas, though it might be 31 days, or it might be 2 (let's hope not).
So First, why participate in NaNoWriMo?  Well, there are plenty of good reasons, and you can find them all over the web, or even come up with some of your own, but here are a few of mine.
1. A strong sense of accomplishment at the end.  Honestly, it feels so good to be a winner.  If you're still in High School or younger, you could do the Young Writer's Program (YWP) and set your word count for what you think you can do, or you could go for the 50k, or even shoot for more, if you're up for it.
2. It kills your inner editor.  Why am I excited about this one?  Because I believe in small goals.  Let me explain.  I like to have checkpoints periodically spread out through everything, because if I don't, then I look at the entire project as a whole and get discouraged as I take "forever" to complete it.  Using a book as an example, The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas.  This is a long book.  Not as long as some, but still long.  It can take a very long time to read it, and without chapters, I would never have finished it.  Reading a chapter a day is doable (Though with this particular book, I finished it in three days because I couldn't put it down), but what happens if there aren't any chapters to finish?  You get discouraged because it seems like you aren't getting anywhere fast.  (This is mostly hypothetical for example's sake).  With an inner editor, you go back and fix your typos, correct clunky sentences, and rewrite character's lines over and over again till they sound like the character.  You sit, blocked at a certain point in the book because you can't climb the hill nicely.  Without an inner editor, you get a first draft like my current one (which shall never see the light of day, by the way).  The amount of typos, out of character sentences, and clunky sentences is embarrassing.  (This is probably because last NaNoWriMo I killed my inner editor stone dead.  When editing time comes around I'm gonna need a major miracle).  So since my inner editor is dead, I can finish the first draft sooner.  Checkpoint no. 1.  Then I edit the first draft of all typos.  Checkpoint no. 2.  You get the idea?  Cutting the steak into small pieces is easier to eat than stuffing the entire thing in your mouth.
3.  It's fun.  Okay, this can be opinion, but as a writer, writing, is fun.  Writing in a semi-social, extremely encouraging "you can do anything and we're all here to help you" is amazing.  I honestly didn't know that writers were all super supportive of each other until I joined NaNo.  People make it fun by making sure that you know that they believe in you.  Even if you procrastinate until two days are all you've got left, I've heard of someone who wrote the entire 50k in those two days.  (Also, Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 450 [about 46k] in nine days)  Some great authors have written entire novels in 6-8 weeks, (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is one of them) and the word count is way above 50k.  So you can do it!  1,667 words a day, isn't actually that much, all things considered.  You may be thinking "But I'm not like that", but how do you know, if you've never tried?  In the words of my favorite band, Superchick, "Failures are flyers who touch down, only they know what it's like to leave the ground." and the song (Rockstar) goes on to say that it's okay to fail sometimes, as long as you try, and keep trying.  Honestly, it's fun to fail for the first time in NaNo because you see that this gigantic community of writers, don't judge you.  They understand the challenge, and that everyone is different.
4. It's a reason to drink excessive amounts of coffee, sit around in sweats and a t-shirt all day, and write.   Okay, I don't need a reason to do this, because I do college online and sit around, drinking coffee all day, in sweats and a t-shirt, but what I like about NaNo is it's a celebrated action.  I'm just kidding... sort of.  When you do this in your daily life, you get dressed up to go to social events.  When you do this in NaNo, social events are write ins on Youtube, and they expect you to be nice and comfortable for it all.  Anyways, it relates back to No. 3.  They (Wrimos) understand.  And that is very amazing.

So now that I've rambled for a bit about why, I'm going to talk about some prep in this the first installment of "The days of NaNo Prep" (Yeah, I just made that up)

On the first day of NaNo Prep my novel gave to me… An idea.
Whoop.  Yep, that's it.  You can't write anything without an idea.  So this fancy schmancy idea is a genre, and a basic setting,  or maybe a character, or maybe even a single line of dialogue that inspired you to write a book centering on it.  Mine was the genre and the setting.  This NaNo I'll be writing historical fiction (yeah, yeah, I know, I've already dug myself a hole with all that research) set in the Great War (WW1), and actually, I got the moral of it, which is a little bit of a different take on the conventional method of looking at forgiveness.  This is all very hefty stuff, so I'm probably going to mull it over for a few days, whilst brainstorming (and researching).
So how does one get an idea?  Well here's a few of my suggestions, and ideas.
1. Go for a walk.  Whaaaa?  Yep, I said it.  Leave the house?  You bet.  Look about at the trees, listen to the wind (or swelter under a blazing sun, depending on where you are), and just generally be aware. Think about what ifs, and such, because, what if you get a story idea that really inspires you?  Also, exercise and clean air (Okay, where I live the air isn't exactly clean, but it is refreshing from the stuffy house) are great at clearing your head and opening new thoughts.
2.  Look at items in front of you.  Right now.  Yes, now.  You probably have your device (whatever you're reading this on), some sort of piece of furniture, maybe a few embellishments.  I have a coffee table, pencil box, binder, three books, three coffee cups, a water cup, some hair stuff, scissors, and some other misc stuff.  What story ideas can I get from that?  Maybe a character wake up every morning and drinks their cup of coffee.  What they don't realize is every morning, their cup is clean, and they didn't wash it.  So they're taking for granted that someone in the house loves them enough to clean up after them every single day.  They can go on to realize that you don't miss something until it's gone, when they realize one morning their coffee cup isn't where it normally is.  It's still on the table, still dirty.  Then you can have a bunch of subplots and stuff.
3. Listen in on people's conversations at your local cafe.  People watch.  You can get a lot ideas just from the daily life happening around you.  You just need to open your eyes (no.2) and ears (no. 3) .  Pay attention, and take notes (not necessarily literally).  I wrestle with my brother, quote endless movies with my family, break out into song with my entire family (Actually, literally.  Me, my brother, and my aunt made one of our friend's mom look back at us from her conversation with my mother in confusion when we all broke out into some song together).  So what story ideas can I get from my daily life?  Maybe a character sings all the time, until one day somebody they look up to tells them to be silent for once, and they live the rest of their life endeavoring to climb out of the insecurity that one person, who had a lot of influence over them, tossed them into.  There is so much you can get from life by just paying attention.

So what do you think?  Do you have any specific ways you like to find inspiration?  Or reasons you like to participate in NaNoWriMo (if you do participate in NaNoWriMo).  Let me know in the comments section!

Viola June HFA-DGN

Flash Fiction

Hey all!  So today I was thinking about Flash Fiction, and all, a lot, a few, or none of you may be wondering what Flash Fiction is, so I'll start out with a short description of it:  "fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer in its entirety."  If you look "Flash Fiction" up in the search box on Google, that is literally what you get.
So why would one write flash fiction when they can write novels, or short stories?
1. Practice.  They are practice for quite a lot of things, actually.  I have a small problem with condensing everything I say, so flash fiction for me is easier than for the normal writer, so how would I use it to practice?  By expanding it into a short story.  What I do is I write the flash fiction, then I stretch the story out into 7.5k, or something akin to that.  For those of you who have problems with making your stories too long, you can use Flash Fiction to practice being concise.  
2. Satisfaction.  I believe satisfaction is very important in the writing world.  I don't like those "How to write faster" or "Write a book in a week" or "How to get paid easy for your writing" or stuff like that because I believe that you've got to work for your daily bread.  There is no easy way out.  "Nothing ever comes to anyone that is worth having, except as a result of hard work." -Booker T. Washington.  However, if you spend 8 years writing one book, you never feel like you're accomplishing anything.  If you write and complete a short story, or flash fiction in a week (whilst still working on your current novel project), then you feel like you got something done, which should give you more energy to continue on with your project.  Anyways, it works for me.
3. You Gain Experience.  Yep, I said it.  Exp.  You know, in video games (let's use Minecraft as an example) you do stuff to gain experience, or "Exp".  In Minecraft when you mine coal, which you need constantly, you get experience, but when you mine iron, which you don't need, and you don't gain exp when you mine it.  You need to practice writing, and as you write short stories, or flash fiction, either one, you get experience in developing character, plot, and setting, and you can practice with more different situations because you don't need as much time to complete one.  

So my suggestion to you, if you want to write some flash fiction, is to get out and research a bit (Before I put up my own post about flash fiction, of course) about it.  They are easy to write, and don't take that much time to write, at all.  Seriously, just 15 minutes of your day to write 250 words, or half an hour to write 500, or whatever your WPM (Word per minute) is, it's not a lot of time.  Even a Hemingway (6-word story) is considered flash fiction.  You could utilize dishwashing to think up a story in six words, then edit and revise this six word sentence later.  While washing dishes.  That is an incredibly efficient way to use your time.  Of course, there are times when vegetables seem like they have a good idea of life and you just wish to join them, and so you use dishwashing time as veggie time, and in that case, you'll get no judgement from me, actually I do that sometimes too.  

Anyways, what do you think?  Have you tried Flash Fiction?  Let me know in the comments section!

Viola June HFA-DGN

Writing Slumps: The Ins and Outs

Hey everybody!  So recently I've been in a writing slump, and, climbing out of it, I realized it probably would be a good time to talk about it.
What is a "writing slump"?  It is when you literally do anything else you can (Seriously, I reorganized my entire kitchen, bathroom, and my room is cleaner than it's been in months) in order to avoid writing.  Then when you do get yourself to sit down at that desk with your laptop, alphasmart, typewriter, pen and paper (pencil?), whatever you use to draft your novel or short story, you find you have "Writer's Block", and can't pump anything of good quality out.  Don't worry, I've been there too (see above), and I know how it feels.  Oh my word, do I know how it feels.  Well, worry not!  We'll get you climbing out in no time.
So how do you get INTO a writing slump?  A few ways.  One, don't write; get out of the habit of writing daily and just stop doing it, letting your manuscript simply sit there for days, even weeks on end.  Two, you come to a halt in your writing where it's really hard to write the next part; I've been here too, don't worry.  Places like I don't want to portray my character as the big meanie (because he's my baby!) and have to go through this mental process where I tell myself he HAS to do it to move the plot along.  Or maybe your character is in a really hard situation and now YOU have to think of a way out while using the "Q factor".  Three, you just get lazy and want to take a break from writing, but this sort of relates to no. 1 above.
So I really want to expound a bit on number two.  What is the "Q factor"(Taken from James Scott Bell's book, "The Art of War for Writers")?  The Q factor is based on James Bond, 007.  He has a friend that he just calls "Q" that at the beginning, middle, SOMEWHERE in the movie, Q gives him his gadgets.  That way when he pulls out a laser knife, dangling above a pool of sharks near the climax, you know and don't question where the thing came from.  I firmly believe that "Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating." (from Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling), and as such, my characters end up in a lot of trouble that I have to think of a non coincidental way to dig them out, and let me tell you, every time I hit one of these spots, I have to fight the writing slump blues.
Now, for the getting out part.  This part there are a few options that help in the final battle, but overall it just leads back to your main antagonist (not literally).  Just like your character, the thing that motivated and antagonized them to get on this road is the thing they have to go back and face, but along the way the character gets upgrades, preparing them to meet the thing that beat them in the first place.  It's like Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride.  He confronts his main antagonist, but he wasn't strong enough and failed, then he went and became the best sword master (Actually, a Wizard, the rank beyond master, but that's another subject entirely) in the world (aside from Westley), then came back and killed his main antagonist.  In essence, that's what you have to do.  You were beaten by one of the three things listed above, and you can do as many writing exercises as you like, but in the end you will need to face that scene, or getting back into a habit of writing.
So, what are some methods to gear you up to fight your main antagonist?  Lets take a look:
1.  Find little writing prompts around the house and sit down and write a page about the prompt.  Not only will this give you material to use for later, it gets your writing muscles exercising again.  What do I mean by "find little writing prompts"?  Simply that.  I'm at my desk right now, and I look ahead and see what's on it, I find a plastic mic, sticky notes, pens, watercolor brushed, organizer boxes, kleenex, etc.  What kind of prompts can I get from that?  Lets take the plastic mic and write a scene with it.  Make it as crazy as you can (Not about the plastic mic, just about something you see some whereabouts).  For instance, I would probably have a machine going and the main character takes the plastic mic, the only thing on hand and nearby, and he/she has one chance at this.  They take the mic and toss it, and it misses, bouncing of an obstruction.  It flies straight up in the air, hanging for a millisecond before plunging back down and slamming down on the concrete.  (No coincidences, remember?)  Every thing is over now, the MC has lost, and then, they wake up from a fitful sleep, drenched in sweat.  (No, I DO NOT make a habit of having everything be a dream, I'm against it, but I couldn't think of anything to do in one sentence and I'm giving you advice, not a story)
2. Take five minutes and write everything you can about a character, setting, or plot point.  Only one at a time, mind you.  This gets you all hyped up about it, and excited to get writing again.  You remember why you started the story, and it's helpful in getting you ready to face the antagonist.
3.  Take a moment and drag your book back to the plot board.  (Kicking and screaming, if you must).  See if there are any new angles you can explore, or expound.  I recently added a forest, and that's kind of big, so it helps.  This also gets you excited again.  (I'm getting hyped just writing about getting hyped)
4.  Write.  *Gasp* yeah, I know, right?  This is where you face the antagonist and just do it.  Just write your story.  Especially if it's just the first draft!  Because the first draft is where you dump everything onto paper, and the second draft is where you rearrange and cut and add and stuff.  You can write your character learning they can fly and come back and change it later.  Throw Murphy's Law (Anything bad that can happen, will happen) at them.  Throw the most wild thing you can at them to add spice.  Then don't worry about it!  You can, and probably will, come back and change it later.  Or you can write sensibly, but where's the fun in that?

So what do you guys think?  See anything I missed?  How do you get out of writing slumps?  Let me know in the comments section!

Viola June HFA-DGN

3D Characters-Voicing

Hey guys!  Today I would like to discuss voicing, and how you can help your characters to each find their own individual voices.
When you speak to your friends, you probably don't use the same phrases and terms as they do, do you?  I sure don't.  (To be honest, I think I'm the only person I know to use words like "groovy" and "radical").
So why are character voices so important?  Because without different voicing, it becomes all one blended, muddled voice that, should you clear it up a bit, turns out to just be your voice.  There's a type of music that is in Baroque music (Yeah, yeah, I know, "if it ain't baroque, don't fix it") called Polyphonic.  This music means there are several voices, enabling the music to feel more 3D, instead of just notes on a page.  Different voices for the characters are exactly the same.  All the same voice equals 2D writing, and different voices equals 3D.  It's actually amazing how much this is true.

Here's a tiny bit of what my character's different voices sound like, so you know what I mean:

Ember:  "Could you please find something else to do?"
Winter: "It'd be nice iffen ye could find something better to do."
J.P.: "I'd be mighty pleased if you would be findin' somethin' more productive to be doin'."

Now these characters really are extremes, which is handy for the sake of example, but a change in voicing could be as small as changing one word in a sentence, like asking "anything" instead of "something", but all the other words stay the same

So how do you find, and differentiate your character's voices?  There are several methods.
1. Journal your characters!  Write a journal entry from your character's perspective.  I found this method in James Scott Bell's book "The Art of War for Writers".  When I used this method in particular, I didn't find it entirely helpful, but it did allow me to dig a bit deeper into their personalities.
2. Role Play your characters.  I DID find this one helpful, though I didn't learn about it from any particular source, me and my friends were just trying it out.  It's very helpful because you learn how the characters interact with other people.  You can use any of your characters and squeeze them into any setting you think fit then watch them run.  Once I used three characters from three different projects.  Your characters can gradually find their own voice when they interact with others.  Let them speak their words.
3.  Just write their story!  I didn't quite find the three above's voices until I began actually writing their story.  They came out of their shells then, and really came into their own.  Now I can almost hear J.P. before I write what he says.  (Ember and Winter DO need work, still, but what are edits for, if not for fixing your mistakes?)

So what do you think?  Do you have different methods for finding your character's voice?  Have you tried any of the three I listed?  What did you think of them?  Let me know in the comments section!

Viola June HFA-DGN

3D Characters-Intro

Hey guys!  I'm going to start (my first) a blog series, 3D Characters.  Now, why in the world would I write about characters when there is all those plotting topics to talk about?  Because I believe characters are what make the writing world go round.  They are the thing that writers alway struggle with.  Writing the perfect character is really based on imperfection.
Without 3D characters, the enjoyment level of the book goes down substantially.  It still would fly, and be enjoyable, with a good plot and story, but something would be lacking.  So these 2D characters, the cardboard cutouts that are there merely to depict your idea of your character, are extremely hard to avoid, at one point or another.  In order to be 3D, a character must have their own voice, personality, conflict, and many other things.  They have to be someone who can bend to sit down and have coffee without breaking in half.
So how does one avoid cardboard characters?  By filling them with personality!  Think of the cardboard as a sack that's waiting to be filled.  How much you pour into it equals how healthy they are as 3 dimensional characters.  You give them personality and they fill up a bit.  Give them their own voice, and they fill up a bit.  Give them their own internal conflict, boy do they plump up!  But you need all of these to truly make them 3 dimensional, so in this series I will be delving into the deep recesses of each.

So are you guys excited?  Because I am.  Lets dissect!  (Not really, but sort of)

Viola June HFA-DGN

"Write What You Know"

Hey all!  So there's this saying that always made me so worried, and I'm sure you've heard it.  It's "write what you know".  Why did this bother me so much?  Because I was home schooled my entire life, and I'm planning on getting my BA on an online college in which you can move at your own pace and things aren't really done in a conventional manner.  So I was worried because I would only have one story to write, mine, and mine is not really an interesting one.  Aside for the eccentric writer part, because I'd say that's fairly interesting.
Another thing is several celebrated writers can't possibly know a thing about the worlds the write, except they come out of their own head, so where does this age old statement come from?  I mean, Tolkien, with his Middle Earth, sure.  He's traveled 18 miles a day for something akin to a year (I don't remember the exact time length) to throw a deadly freedom-and-world-destroying gold ring into the only volcano that would destroy this said ring and flies away on giant eagles just before being consumed by lava.  He was also only 3 feet tall.  At least, the story goes something like that.  (All of that about Tolkien was sarcasm, in case you didn't catch it).  Then there's C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, George Orville, William Golding, etc.  Seriously, a lot of authors don't write about what they have personally experienced.  I sure don't.
So I ask again, where did this saying come from?  And why is it still around today if authors clearly don't listen?  I was asking myself this question on the way home from a day-trip to a beach, my dog had been naughty and was now a stinky mess, and I was not happy.  So of course, I began thinking philosophical thoughts about how I didn't like taking care of my dog and being responsible.  At which point, it hit me.  All these authors DID follow this advice.  The only thing was I had got it wrong.  I had taken the advice at point blank meaning, and didn't look further.  "Write what you know" doesn't refer to events taking place, though I'm sure it can, it refers to emotions and characteristics and the way the brain works.  I had wanted to dump my dog and the responsibility of her onto somebody else (like my brother, but she has separation anxiety that makes her hard to deal with for anybody else but me and I just COULDN'T do that to her), in the same way that older siblings might want to ditch their younger siblings, then regret it later.  I knew what that felt like now.  I know what it feels like to have people want to ditch you, or at least not be around you.  I know what it feels to feel loved, and unloved.  I can write a character with people wanting to ditch her and not be around her, yet she find solace in the silence, so even though hatred, or dislike, may boil inside of her for those people who scorned her existence, she can find peace in the quiet where no one shoves her out, maybe out in nature where the birds' singing is a balm to her troubled soul.  Now I've never had it that extreme, but because of my taste of that behavior, I can successfully write a character who has experienced something much worse, of the same ilk.  Someone who has never been treated like that will perhaps have to do research or get lucky, or struggle with writing an unrealistic character.
I believe characters are the epicenter of story writing.  If you write a story, there is a very large (Probably 99) percent chance you'll be writing about something personified.  A tree living it's life becomes personified.  That being said, I believe this phrase refers not to situation per say, but to personality and characters.

So what do you think?  Do you think this applies to characters or situations?  Maybe both?  Let me know in the comments section!

Viola June HFA-DGN

Journaling for Writers

Hey guys!  Today I would like to share with you a bit about journaling, how it impacts a writer's life, and my own (failed) attempts at it.
So, journaling.  To me it's like a little light in the distance I can never seem to reach, but I never stop reaching for it.  I think my record for amount of days journaled in a row is about 7.  Which is really kind of pitiful.  I have tried so many different methods, like just journaling on important days, keeping my journal next to my Bible so when I read at night I won't forget to journal either, keeping my journal in my purse, etc.  I fail, every single time.  (I'll have you know my current method of trying not to forget is keeping my journal on my desk right on top of the notebook I use all the time.  Plus, my journal is so pretty right now that it's really hard to resist it and get to actual work, so maybe that'll help).  So why in the world do I try so hard at journaling even when I've failed so many times?  From school assignments to personal assignments, it doesn't matter, I still fail.  So why do I still try?  Because I believe journaling is a great asset for writing.  Not like, because it gets your creative juices flowing (though it might do that too, as a warm up to your actual writing), and I know that looking back on something time after time doesn't always inspire ideas, but every so often, your brain is in the right mood and BAM.  Amazing story idea from something you wrote a year or two ago and had read tens of times over.
Another benefit of journaling is it's very good for working on your descriptive abilities, but for the most part, I think working on that inside your book instead of inside your journal is the better option.
My friends will tell you that I don't like to delete anything writing related.  We are working on a project together and our "Archive" page is over 100 pages long just from two months of work and chats and stuff, merely because I didn't want anything to be deleted.  I wanted to go back over it all years from now and see how far we had come.  Now how in the world does this relate to journaling?  For the same reason.  I don't like to forget stuff, but I simply don't have room in my head to keep day to day events rattling around up there.  I have much more important stuff to remember (like the taste of that delicious cup of tea I had this morning, or something), including story ideas that were inspired on the spur of the moment.
I think that having the option to look back on your life in writing is a great resource for inspiration and writing.  Maybe at one point you journaled when the anger boiling up inside you was almost unbearable.  Now you look back and remember that anger from an unbiased PoV and you can translate that anger into an actual character, and because the feelings you gave the character were real, more than likely, the readers will feel that at that moment the character was especially relatable, because they too have felt that way when they're angry, and real, because the feelings, though not in an actual person, CAME from an actual person.
So I believe journaling is amazing for story inspiration, but I also think that you can get too much of it.  I don't like to spend more than ten minutes in mine, writing, for the most part, no more than a page.  Mostly because I like to save paper and time by not rambling on about my amazing cup of tea, but also because I don't want to spend an hour writing something that isn't important, like my amazing cup of tea, compared to writing an hour of something that IS important, like my actual current project.

How about you?  What are your feelings in regards to journaling?  Do you feel it's useless, or useful?


Viola June HFA-DGN