Past Posts reposted.

The following is the four posts I had to delete in order to get my feed to work.  Their original posting date will be beside their title.  The most recent post is at the bottom.  Sorry for the trouble!

Posting a specific – Originally Published on 31/08/2011

It's been a long time since I had anything like a blog.  My initial one was a failed experiment in trying to track my own thoughts through their tumultuous, treacherous and often circular paths.  That, and the voice I used was stuck so far into the air that I'm surprised more people didn't comment on that than they did on what I wrote.  This time I've got more of a goal though and I'm going to try and stick to it.

First and foremost, this is my style of writing and I'm going to try and stick to it.  I know it'll probably change depending on how I'm feeling but no more lofty thoughts the same way I did before.  Now don't get me wrong, I am certain that I will eventually get into that kind of mood that makes me feel like a preacher expounding on an idea.  I'll try to avoid it, but some things just strike me as something that needs to be pondered and blogs seem like a good place to ponder things.

Secondly, for once I'm actually going to finish what I start.  Now, it's not that I don't finish things when I start them, I do, but usually several years down the road and I'm sick of that.  I'm going to get this novel written, period end of story, if I need to blog when I'm having trouble then I'll get it out, complain or share my blocks and then hopefully move on.  This thing is going to get written and then (ack) rewritten or edited as necessary.  Now the hard part will be to balance keeping the book itself somewhat secret (as I don't want anyone mad at me for taking one of their ideas, there's a whole kettle of fish to avoid!), while still utilizing what I'm trying to do with blogging.

Finally, I'm going to add every other project I'm working on in one way, shape or form on here.  I'll probably also add what I think about movies, books, food and anything else I feel like reviewing so I can use the thoughts later in my books and films (yes, I try screenwriting too, I'm working on that right now as well ugh... why do I do this to myself?  Oh right, because I can't stop... oh well, moving on).  Plus maybe give some interesting ideas to others.  The web's a fun thing, why not use the sociability of it?

So that's it for my first post, not terribly exciting or even really informative but hopefully it'll be really useful for me and maybe interesting to those who end up reading it.  I'll try not to post about things that aren't all that interesting, but at the very least the blog keeps me writing so at the very, very least at least I'll still be writing something!

Writing’s worst enemy – Originally Published on 31/08/2011

So technically these posts are two in one day, sleep in between notwithstanding.  If I am going to successfully finish this novel I think that I'm going to have to stop going on Facebook.  It's perhaps one of the best time waster's I've ever come across and the people doing the games have designed them to be that way.  If it's not time it's energy, encouraging you to come back at least once a day.  My favorite game right now is My Shops which is a lot of fun as you build and manage your little shop, you have to keep it fully stocked and make your customers happy while keeping the "beauty" level of the shop up to par so people will come in.  Of course you don't have to be there to earn coins, your stock will naturally deplete and your coins will increase but it takes time to get the deliveries and you've got to try and get friends to send you items to upgrade your products.

Needless to say I spend way too much time on there waiting for deliveries when I should be sitting down at my desk and writing out more in my novel.  Or at the very least planning more, or developing the characters or ANYTHING to do with it.  But no, those deliveries are way too important because I don't want to lose my A++ rating and make my customers mad at me...  Yeah, I've got a problem I think.

So!  My new current attempt is to stop going on Facebook as often as I have been.  I am limiting myself to twice a day from now on (and yes, it's totally to check My Shops, or maybe play Tetris Battle which is also ridiculously fun and addicting but at least has a battery so I have to stop playing at SOME point...) and only AFTER I've written something, and this blog doesn't count in that because I don't want it to become as bad of a distraction as Facebook already is.  It's one thing to write this out quickly and then promise to go back to writing, it's another thing to just spend hours writing here instead.  It's interesting but like Facebook, not very useful at this point.

Hopefully I'll be able to conquer the enemy and actually get something done today.

Progress…? Originally Published on 31/08/2011

Well my attempt to stay off of Facebook didn't work for very long.  What did I do first thing when I got up today?  Went to check My Shops... that being said however, I DID manage to more or less stay off of it yesterday for long enough to get some serious writing done in regards to characters and plot.

This isn't the first time I've written this novel but the last time was so horribly convoluted by the time I finished it didn't actually make any sense.  I tried to keep an overview of each chapter to remind myself not only where I was going but where I had been but I kept changing it as I changed the story and didn't go back to re-write the parts that no longer made sense.  This time I don't think I can do that since going back to rewrite major sections of the story seems impossible for me.  I don't even want to re-read my first draft it was so painful in my own eyes.

So, this time, I'm doing a thorough bio for each character.  I've found going through and doing a list of wants and desires as well as secrets for each character is a really helpful way to not only get to know them better, but to really decipher their motivations for the story.  This seems to help a great deal in regards to the plot, especially considering I've realized that two characters I was going to throw out I had to keep and two characters I was going to keep I had to throw out because they belong in the second book.  (Yes, this one was always designed to be two).  Anyway, I've completely overhauled the basis for the story and now I've got to rework the entire plot to make the story work.  Ugh, not only that but I'm not really certain where I"m going with it anymore so I've got to do some serious plotting to see what kinds of things are still going to happen and what's going to stop.

Also, I've discovered that the deities I've created for this world probably have way too much interaction with the regular humans.  How are the characters supposed to do anything themselves if the gods are so accessible.  So now I'm having to go through and rework my religious systems, in this case probably making them more important than they were before and the gods a little less accessible and faith a little more important.  That works well enough with my own faith since I realize how important faith is in life, but it does make it more interesting planning out what's going to happen to the characters.  Originally I figured it would be much more action oriented, now it's turning into more of an intrigue.  I think I'm missing a character or two still so I'll have to go through again and figure out what's missing, but overall I feel pretty good about the direction the characters and the story in general are heading.

This story is really important for a number of reasons so I think once I've finished the first two novels the rest of the novels will be a great deal easier.  To give you an idea I've created a world with over 14 "land masses".  Technically some of the land masses are actually a collection of islands but I've given them one general name eve though there's no actual relation between some of their civilizations.  (I'm a little lazy I guess).  And of course the greatest majority of those lands that I've already developed have different countries and societies on them.  I'm running into more of a problem keeping track of them and seeing how they interact differently in a world view sense than for this story.  This story fortunately only touches three places that will eventually be countries on one continent, but I've also created a historical time line for the majority of the world with major events included as well as several specific to this continent so now the story's got to be placed in time as well as in place and I've got to keep track of the stories of the past as well as the future.  There's also two other stories around this same timeline that will be in this continent that I"ll have to take into account during the creation of this one.

You see why this story's so important, it's really the first introduction to my world and the intricacies involved and I can't even throw everything onto the pages because of the sheer volume.  When I eventually get published (and this isn't meant to be arrogant, it's simply an acknowledgement that that's what i"m going for and I have faith enough in myself and what I'm doing to recognize I'm going to keep going until I do get published), I'm going to have so much information for the entirety of the world that I think I'll probably have more than enough to create a book detailing everything in the world and perhaps more than one for separate points in time.  UGH... I love my world, don't get me wrong and once the first book's published I'll be a little more detailed with certain names and stuff, but I think I bit off way more than I expected when I started this world years ago.  Fortunately I don't seem able to stop and really when I've come this far stopping would just be stupid... why put so much effort into something that will never see the light of day?

Keep going... just have to keep going.  And on that note, I'm going to go see if I can work through what character is missing to make this plot (this time) actually work long term.  I'll also see if I can figure out some major plot points that I can then have the characters work toward.  Oh and of course keep things and threads in line for book two... I'm so glad I'm writing this blog...

Blogging Problems.  Originally Published on 07/09/2011

It figures that when my writing is starting to go well my blogging runs out of steam and I've barely begun either.  I'm thinking I need to spend some time finding a community to write with and share work with instead of just writing to myself on the blog when no one's reading it.  I'd love to be as well read on my blog as I hope to be with my books, maybe even more than my books since that's part of the community aspect.  I'll probably change the title to go along more with what I'm using the blog for which is of course the process of my writing.  In fact that's not a bad name for it.  Anyone who happens to look at it should really know what it's about based on the title.  Then they don't have to slog through all my awful posts.  So, Generalize the Specifics was my first title.  I think I'll try changing it to... Writing Processing?  Word Processor?  Hah, I kind of like that one.  Ah... let's see... Pen Power, Writing Wrangler (that sounds like I write westerns I think, I don't currently, it's all fantasy/sci-fi at the moment), Word Wrangler (still western but I do like the sound of it), maybe more active, Word Wrangling?  Dreamer's Sleep?  That might be too vague still... A Writer's Dreams, Dreaming of a Story, (I think I should save some of these for book titles, they're giving me other ideas!) I actually like Dreaming of a Story as a title for another book that's been bouncing around my head, though it's nothing to do with Reinora which is my main world, it's a different YA type book I've got plans for in the future.  My Husband's suggested I started with the stories about Reinora though and I agree, if I'm going to end up restricted to one genre (not saying I am, but just in case), then it should be the world I've put so much work into.  Reinora would definitely be that.  I've been working on it since I was in high school and that's getting to farther and farther in the past as the years go on.  Seems redundant but still, it doesn't feel like that long.  I'll start posting tidbits soon.  An excerpt from chapter 1 perhaps?  Or maybe I should wait and post an excerpt from a later chapter... decisions decisions...