(no subject)

[gategrrl]

 I hope everyone on my flist had a Happy New Year's Eve - the Guy and I didn't even pop off the cork of our faux champagne. We both felt a little "off" and funky. Not sick exactly, but not up to drinking. And there was no other fizzy in the house (nonalcoholic) to drink, not even with the kids. Both of whom, by the way, managed to stay up past midnight. Little Guy has practiced staying up while on sleep-overs at friend's houses.

I spent last night, off and on, going through my NaNo draft (I wouldn't even call it a rough draft) of Land of the Dead and divvying it up into scenes and chapters. I hadn't realized I started skipping marking chapters after Chapter 5 on the manuscript, although I had demarcated scene divisions. Anyhow, I did that so that I could load the monster into yWriter, and it worked!

I also got my copy of Editing for Fiction Writers from Amazon the other day, and have been going through it. Yeah, I depend a lot on Narration (Telling) rather than showing, in this story. It's something I have to fix because it's boring. Boring boring boring. There are enough infodumps to top up a landfill. This is going to take up a lot of time, getting it rewritten and revised. What I'm doing right now is going through, scene by scene, and writing down the summaries in yWriter's scene summary box. It's neat, because I can print out the scene summaries as a list. And an outline, too. I still can't believe this program is free.

Anyhoo, I'll be taking Mermaid to OSH (that's a home-hardware type of store, similar to Home Depot but smaller and friendlier) today for paintchip samples. She wants to paint her room. And honestly, I wouldn't mind painting the interior of the entire house. We still have the color scheme that the previous owners painted up, plus some horrible shelves that look like they're from the fifties (so my mother said on her visit). 

What else...the Science Fiction Book Club got me in its marketing grasp once again with their $9.99 a book special offer. To be honest? All of their sales are a bit pathetic - it doesn't make it nearly as "special" if sales are constantly offered, but what the heck. I bit, and ordered a mammoth version of Salem's Lot, usually $24.00, Stephen King's new book, Dume Point (?), and the latest Temeraire book in that series.

Comments

[whisper99.livejournal.com]

You know, I didn't realize you could import that easily! I may have to try as an experiment importing a longish WIP that just languished to see if I can do anything with it. Do you know if it let you do more than one story at a time?

I've tried using the notes feature, which I think is cool, it's just another way of thinking about writing. The goals and whatnot I haven't tried because I wonder if thats just not too much to worry about, as well as the locations and objects. But so far, the dang thing is pretty nifty.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure at different times, for different writers, the features that are built in come in handy for some, and not for others.

BUT I think the most useful features is the "goal" one, in each scene. It helps clarify what's supposed to happen and help keep up the reader's interest. If a scene is feeling "dead" or not going anywhere, it could be because there's no goal/conflict happening in it.

Oh, and that book I mentioned? VERY useful for rewriting. Some of it, I already "knew", but the authors of the book are pros, and put the different problems writers have into words, with samples.

I haven't used the "object" form, but I have started using the "places" form.

[whisper99.livejournal.com]

Do you find the places form useful? How are you using it?

location form

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

All I've done with the Places form is to start a list of the places I remember my characters have been/are going. So far, that's two places, maybe three. I couldn't think of what else to do other than the list - no description yet of what happens in each location.

I'd expect that if you're writing a piece that doesn't go many places, you wouldn't need to use it. But if you're writing a Stargate fic, for example, and you have four characters and seven locations, it helps to keep it all straight, even if it's a short story.

I haven't used the "Items" form at all yet. I might use it for "Powers" or "Abilities" instead, so I can keep who can do what straight. Plus, I actually do have a few objects I'd like to add to it, once I get to them while I'm summarizing the scenes. It might be a handy way to keep things consistent within the story.

Re: location form

[whisper99.livejournal.com]

I just spent most of the evening putting in different WIP's that I have on my HD into yWriter. It really does help me get a better view of where my writing stands. Here's hoping I can be a bit more prolific this year :)