Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

The spontaneous discovery of scenes, does this happen to you? I know we've all been face with the OMG Deadline, I have nothing race around the inside of your mind where you get your muse in a strangehold and squeeze words out of her. How about the opposite end, where the characters pop into your head and just volunteer information. I'm sure we've all been there before.

Last night it happened just as I was drifting off to sleep, and luckily I still remembered it in the morning. I've been wondering how/why the characters in my upcoming nano novel were going to get from point A to point B. They do have cars and I sort of know why. Drake is going home to his parents and the closest Living Goddess is in that town. He needs to protect her. That was easy enough but tech level is about 1925 and driving there wasn't going to be easy/even possible. That's when Sverre pipes up with 'I've never been on a train.'

Problem solved. It allows me a short scene to move them onto the next part of the arc and open up the rest of the chapter for the villian of the piece. so far nothing has gone as planned and we probably need to see that and see why this isn't immediately going to civil war.

You have to love little ah-ha moments like that in your writing.

Yearly word count -

69769 / 125000 words. 56% done!

FMA Bigbang -

4652 / 15000 words. 31% done!

Vacation in Victoria - untouched. whimpers

Comments

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

I do love little AHA moments in my writing! I actually have a real problem with having ideas or thinking up lines I really like just before I go to sleep, because I don't always write them down straight away, and then sometimes I've forgotten some of it. ;_; I think I need to keep a pad and paper by my bed.

I envy your Big Bang progress. I've set myself a hell of a goal this year, because my Big Bang is the sequel to The Phoney War, so I need to get out about 24,000 words on TPW plus 15,000 on Big Bang. All the while I've been having a serious writing slump due to the upheaval of new house and new teaching schedule that kicks my ass. *weeps*

On the other hand, I do find that writing fic and drawing is a creative outlet that helps keep me calm in stressful tiemz, and is lots of fun too. So there's incentive for me? I just need to get back into a regular writing thing - even 500 words a day would do it fine.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes I have that problem too. I tried the pad by the bed but i was always too sleepy to write it down. Oh i'll remember it. Yeah right.

My big bang progress isn't as great as it looks. This is the sequel to Source of Sorrow and Sorrow's Dark Array and I suspect it'll end up somewhere between them word count wise. Let's hope so since SDA is over 100K.

My problem is time. professional writing. time. I have all the nonsense filler scenes in myhead and none of the plot scenes and oh, TIME

Good luck to you since yeah that IS a big challenge.

I definitely find writing a stress reliever. What I need to do is turn the internet off more. I cranked out that Soul Eater story yesterday in like an hour with the net off

[bay115.livejournal.com]

The AHA moments are awesome. LOL I tend to get them more either when I'm at work or when I away somewhere else. I would still remember them as the characters (canon and original) just won't leave me alone. XD

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

oh they love to attack you when you're far from a recording device of any kind, like long car rides or in the shower

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Ha ha to ah-ha moments happening in the shower. Sometimes I have to take a Chub notebook and a pen into the bathroom with me so clever plot ideas don't escape me.

I get more pop-up characters than pop-up scenes, but yeah, pretty much same thing. Since I started my NaNo novel (yes, early), I've gotten my first "surprise" character only two pages in, a neighborhood Nosy Parker who publishes a broadsheet newspaper and has a certain investigative bent, unlike most of his scandal-rag colleagues. Last novel the pop-ups were a court magistrate, a sharp young doshin (street cop), and the youngest son of the family Toshiro investigated, who ends up as a yoriki (police captain). Add to that the surprise early appearance of Toshiro and Maru's clever maid Harusame and Toshi and Maru's investigative support system is pretty much in place. I also managed to set Toshiro on the path to high-profile cases, quite by accident. I'd like to take credit for this, but it totally happened all by itself as a side-product of research into street singers and the above-mentioned broadsheet publishers. The way it all fell together was actually better than anything I could have thought of myself, so accidental or not, I'm more than pleased with the results. This is why I love NaNo--it literally squeezes ideas out of your brain. (Note to self--get one of those light-up pens. You know you'll need it when NaNo fever causes inspiration to strike at 2:30 AM because your brain refuses to shut off anymore at night.)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

there you go be prepared.

oh the pop up characters happen a lot too. My nano novel has one too. I've not written him yet but he's insisting he's in it, my half breed bomber.

I find research definitely helps spawn new ideas.

[sun-arose.livejournal.com]

That happened about five times to me this morning. I think I write best when I'm half-asleep, which, when you think about it, is not really a compliment to my skills...

I'm curious, how did you come up with a number for a "yearly word count"?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hahhaha well yes there is that

I keep track. On all my original fiction, when I start typing new stuff I put START in the document and at the end of the day, I go back there (usually forget to erase it) and do a word count from there to the end and write it down in my yearly word count file.

i do not keep track of fanfic. I also turn in my weekly count to findyourwords which is a yearly challenge that will open again at teh end of dec.

[sun-arose.livejournal.com]

That's a really good idea. Maybe that's the secret to motivation I've been looking for all this time. *eyeroll* But I was more asking how did you come up with the "goal," or the second number?

findyourwords looks useful. Thanks for the link!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

oh, my yearly goal is based on how masochistic i feel at the beginning of the year Having a goal keeps me moving.

and some of the other goals are based on the challenge or professional limit

[sun-arose.livejournal.com]

Masochistic is a good word for it.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

indeed. i get that way