I did it.
It’s finished.
I’m still in shock, I think.
97,595 words. WAY too long probably, but damn… 
Tags: WIP
Archive for February, 2009
"I can’t stop, no I ain’t a quitter. I’m on fire, ah baby I’m a home run hitter."
— Jackyl
So.
I knew I know. I sat down. I looked at the page.
And I wrote. And wrote. And wrote…
I’m taking a break after 2 days typing.
17.5 hrs on Saturday.
11.5 hrs today (so far)
Result?
15,045 words.
I’m still in shock. I’m nearly done, the end is truly nigh. I’m about 5 or 10k away from typing "The End", and I know where it’s going, and how it’s getting there.
Holy crap.
I think I’m buying myself a bottle of champagne tomorrow.
Tags: WIP
I’m full of it again.
Sort of. I know how Vezien ends now. I just have to get there first.
The past few months have been tough on the writing front, it flowed and flowed — and then it all came to a crashing halt.
I dried up.
I hated the story.
I put it aside and wrote other stuff, feeling guilty for abandoning a nearly finished manuscript.
The guilt rides me every day. I walk to work, plotting while I plod. I walk home. Plotting while I plod.
It’s all there, in my head, but it isn’t "hot" enough to write yet. I know how it will come to the final earth shattering conclusion, but the words aren’t quite ready yet. I know what will happen, I know how it ends.
It’s driving me mad.
The book is at 71k words now and the final 20k are in my head.
Soon they shall be on paper, which means the second in this series will be finished.
Then comes the editing. I already dread it, because I know I will have to cut a lot of stuff out.
Still, I’m going to do it, come hell or high water. I suspect it’ll be hell.
Tags: WIP
Once upon a time, when you went to the post office, you could buy stamps.
Pretty stamps.
You know, with pictures on them.
Royal Mail still do them — occasionally. Getting them… yeah. Right.
I asked at my local post office and was told I had to order them. They only do the boring 1st Class stamps.
So I ended up ordering a bunch of stamps today, and not enough with having to order them, they are going to charge me £1.40 postage for them!!
Sick. The postoffice charging postage and packing for fricken STAMPS, because they can’t be bothered to supply them to the post offices around the country so you can buy them. Besides, why is the POST OFFICE charging for postage.
Not funny. Definite thumbs down for Royal Mail.
I’m incredibly slack these days.
I said I’d blog more, and write more and… well.
Good intentions, and all that.
Fact is, I’m bored.
Bored with my writing and bored with life, at the moment.
I sit down to write and… nothing. I re-read and… nothing.
I start something and abandon it.
I need to read more, crit more, DO more.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I get into a rut sometimes and forget to reignite the fire.
The trouble is… I seem to have mislaid my matches.
Setting goals is all very well, but then I set them too high.
I said I would write a minimum of 250 words a day.
Did I stick to it?
Of course not. It lasted until the end of January, then the novelty wore off.
Argh. 
I read a blog recently. (I do that, occasionally…)
The author had a "25 things about me" thing going.
I thought that was kinda fun to read, but I won’t step into those boots.
I’m just not that interesting, honest.
Instead, I’m going to try and do a 25 things I learned about writing.
I write paranormal romance, so some of this pertains to romance writing. Most of it is useful for all writing, no matter which genre you aim for.
- If you want it to sound authentic — do your research.
- If you make it up as you go along — keep a record of what you make up.
- Try to establish a sense of time and place in the first paragraph.
- Don’t describe something just for the sake of description.
- GMC (Not the car company!) Goal, Motivation, Conflict are what moves the story. It needs each to progress and without GMC you don’t have much of a plot.
- Suspense. You need it. It doesn’t mean a dramatic event, it just means you need to keep your reader reading. Keep the anticipation alive!
- A book is (usually) about a person, not an event. Therefore you need to have a strong central character whose story you tell.
- Avoid passive verbs. Adam held the rope. vs. The rope was held by Adam.
- Adjectives are the devil. (Allegedly.) (Don’t ask. I have no idea what I’m talking about! The link is a list of them.)
- Adverbs are the devil. (That’s the ‘ly words, in case you wonder which I mean.)
- You’re the reader’s entertainer. Not the lecturer.
- Try to make dialogue sound natural, but don’t overload it with information.
- Don’t tell me Eva cried. Show me the tears running down her face.
- Know thy Enemy. It’s not enough to know all about your protagonists. You need to know the antagonist very well too. You need to know what makes him / her tick, flaws, strengths and motivation.
- Make it immediately obvious who the hero and heroine are.
- You need a black moment where everything is lost. It’s the turning point, the place where the ending starts.
- Read the genre you intend to write. Just because you think you can write something, you need to know the market you write for, know what’s out there.
- If you get stuck, put it down, put it away. Let it rest. Don’t look at it, do something else. Come back a week later and look at the story with new eyes.
- Avoid unnecessary subplots and superflous characters. (GUILTY!) If a character only shows up once in the story — consider killing them. Unless it drives the story forward, and is integral to the plot, cut it out.
- Don’t stereotype your hero and heroine. Make them stand out. Give them quirks. Know them.
- If your characters sigh with relief, gasp in surprise, jump in excitement and burst out laughing a lot.. then you’re guilty of clichés. I know I am. I’m going to get a damn book on the things and try to weed them out.
- Use clear action words. Adam ran toward the car. Did he? Or did he dash? Jog? Barrel? Race? Flee? It gives an entirely different feel if Adam fled toward the car.
- Said. Sometimes… people just say things. I try to have action tags, rather than said’s. (That goes for gasped, breathed, choked etc too.) I could do better, but at least I’m aware of it.
- Edit. You have to. We all sometimes write complete tripe and it needs to be cut or restructured.
- Never, never throw anything out. If you cut a scene, save it in another file. Just because it doesn’t fit the current story — it might come handy for another one. Did I say never? I mean it.
Well hopefully you’ll find these useful.
Some may know, I piddle around in WoW. (World of Warcraft, for the uninitiated…)
I have a paladin, and a hunter.
Now, the levels went up to 80, but I don’t play that much… so I only hit 80 the day before the last patch. (3.0.8)
Hunters use pets.
Now, I wanted to tame the Spirit of Atha (see above) because… well it’s cool.
I worked hard to get to 80, but this thing is spawned and I didn’t have the quest, which is the daily A Cleansing Song, in Sholazar Basin.
By the time I got the quest — the beastie was no longer tameable.
I was gutted. Seriously.
Now, the other pet I wanted, was Gezzerak the Huntress, a black Warp Stalker.
That one.
It’s the only black one. I tried several times to tame her but I got nailed every time.
I tried again last night — and they made her untamable now!
God Dammit, Blizzard!
They are hard enough to get, you need help with them, go through quests and whatnot — and every damn time I can finally get there… you nerf it!
Seriously, stop that crap. It’s not fair on those of us who play regularly, but aren’t grinding levels like mad.
