Another BIAM

Tristi is holding another Book-in-a-month challenge. I decided to sign up for this one, but I will be taking a different approach. Instead of writing a book this month, I am going to edit the one I finished during the July/August challenge. I've already started on it, so I figure if I continue on at about a chapter a day, I should have it ready for readers by the end of October.

I also want to do a rough outline of the book I want to start for this years NaNoWriMo. Still trying to decide if I really want to take part in the challenge, but even if I don't, the next book needs to be written. (Yes Kristi, it is the sequel to Finding Rose.)

This all sets me up for a lot of work, but these days I have a lot of time and if I can just get myself organized and motivated, I should be able to do it.

*****
Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.

-George Bernard Shaw-

Playing Catch Up

So I fell a little behind my goal for the BIAM last week, but I have high hopes this week of catching up. Tristi is offering a little incentive this week if we can achieve our goals plus 10%. Since I love a good contest and need to catch up anyway, I'll have to push a extra hard. My goal is 500 words a day, so Monday through Saturday is 3000 words plus 10% makes my goal for the week 3300. I'm going to push a little harder to get another 1000 words on top of that so I can catch up with my goal word count. If I can keep up with the word count I should be able to finish this WIP by the end of the month.

I have a deal with my youngest daughter. She will play with the kids I babysit in the morning keep them entertained. With her help, I should be able to get a few more words written and she will earn a little extra cash to take with us on our vacation this summer. She's excited because her older brother and sister have jobs this summer and she wanted a way to earn her own money. This arrangement will be helpful to both of us.

P.S. I'm back to report my word count for the day came in at 1163. Yay!

Happy Canda Day

Happy Canada Day!

Today we went to the parade and then ended up in Lethbridge helping my mother-in-law mop up her basement. It started raining about early in the afternoon and everything was flooded quite quickly. I guess the heavens opened and it just dumped. Luckily she didn't get as much water as some of her neighbors and it was a pretty quick clean up. Whether the fireworks go off tonight still remains to be seen.

I also managed to write 2633 words on the first day of Tristi's challenge. With my goal of 500 words per day, that puts me four days ahead. Now if I can only keep that up for the next few days so my guests won't throw my word count out too much.

Book in a Month

Tristi is hosting another book in a month challenge for July. I've participated in her challenges before, but never been overly successful. I don't know why I can do NaNoWriMo and succeed, but struggle with Tristi's. At any rate, I'm going to give it another go. July is probably the worst time to recommit to writing. We have guests coming next week, and then another set of guests during our town celebrations. But, usually when I have the most to do, I get the most done. We'll see how it goes.

So my goal for this is to finish the book I've been working on, Double Deceit. I'm aiming for 500 words a day minus Sundays. Hopefully I'll have a few really good days to make up for the days when the guests are here. My goal is to get the first draft done by the end of July. I'll probably be on the road when the challenge ends as we leave for our summer vacation and a family reunion the last week of July. If the laptop battery holds, that means some good writing time on the road.

Good luck to everyone else trying the challenge. It

BIAM Update

April's BIAM isn't going so well. On top of the laptop troubles I've been having, I took on two extra kids for the month of April, one of them a baby. Now I can't even squeeze in those fifteen minute blocks of time. Today I had six kids under the age of five, and five of those kids are still in diapers. Tomorrow will be about the same. Once the kids go home in the evening, the rest of my family descend on the computer.

The other thing slowing me down is the direction the plot took about two chapters ago. I can pinpoint the exact spot where everything slowed down. I'm beginning to think I need to go back to that spot and let the characters take a different direction although I'm still trying to work all that out. The story is good and the characters are strong, I just need to explore different paths to take with the plot. It's going to take more time than I hoped, but I'll get there.

BIAM with Tristi

Tristi is holding another BIAM challenge on her blog and once again I've signed up. I haven't been very successful when with her other challenges, and yet I've done NaNoWriMo two years in a row and achieved 50,000+ words each time. My husband and I were talking about it and think we came up with the reason.

When I do NaNo, the whole family thinks it is cool and pitches in to help. They fix meals when they can and try to be understanding when the meals I prepare are not as exciting as they might like. They put up with the house being a little messier than usual and most important, they push me when I get lazy or distracted by reminding me to go write. They celebrate every thousand words and make me feel like I'm really accomplishing something worth while. But when I've done Tristi's challenges, I don't make as big a deal about them and so I don't get the same support.

I guess this has helped me realize that even though writing is a solitary pursuit, it isn't something I can achieve on my own. No one can write my story but me, but it will take my entire family to get me there. This is part of the process that I'm still trying to learn. I need to discover the things my family can do and learn to let go a little. I need to share my goals, my success, and my defeats with them so they can support me through the process.

Luckily, I have a teenage daughter who wants to help make dinner despite her busy schedule and a husband who doesn't mind cooking once in awhile. It has been suggested that I don't fold the laundry anymore, but sort it into baskets and get each family member to sort their own. That one I still struggle with. I know most of the clean clothes would just get stuffed into drawers and worn wrinkled.

Like any learning process, this one is filled with surprises and errors, but someday I'll get things figured out. Meanwhile, Tristi's challenge starts tomorrow and I'm determined to make it this time. I have a story that's just begging to be finished, and if I can write 1,000 words a day, I just might get there.

A New Year

So I guess this is the time of year when I post something profound to finish off the old year and kick off the new one.

Well, last year life moved on as it always does. I finally stretched myself and pursued my writing dream in earnest. In March, I attended the LDStorymakers conference for the first time and felt like I had finally met a group of people who I understood. I finished my first novel and started my second. The greatest thing about last year had to be all the things I learned, and that is what I am looking forward to in the new year.

I am going to apply even more effort to writing and am starting out by participating in Tristi's Book in a Month challenge. This is just what I need to get back into the swing of things after taking plenty of time off in December. The holidays have been busy. Between an unexpected trip to Phoenix and a round of the flu going through the family, I've spent very little time on the computer in the last month. So now the holidays are over, and I need to get back to work. For Tristi's challenge I am going to continue working on the novel I started in November. It is at 51,000 words and I want to get it to 85,000 by the end of the month.

As for the rest of the year, I plan on learning and growing in every area of my life. I always tell my kids that if I learn one thing during a day it is a good day. So this year, I plan on making every day a good day.

BIAM - part 2

In September I joined up with Tristi Pinkston for a BIAM challenge. I was quite excited to join the group and motivate myself to get some serious writing done.

When I started, I knew what I wanted to write, and had even done most of the outlining on it. Well, I learned very quickly that too much outlining kills my desire to tell the story. But I kept plugging away at it. I hit about 9000 words when I realized there was more to the problem. I did some more looking at my work and realized that I was telling it from the wrong point-of-view. Once I started thinking in a different POV, the story came alive for me.

It was a little frustrating to put the 9000 words away and start again, but I think the story will be better for it. Of course, as soon as I figured that out and started working in that direction, I had to put all writing aside to be with my family while we coped with tragedy.

Now I am back and having a hard time getting into the writing groove again. (There is a lot of wisdom in the advice to write every day.) So here I am at the end of the BIAM challenge with 9000 words that I won't use, and 2484 that I might use. I didn't get as far as I wanted to, but I did learn quite a bit about the story and how I write best. So all-in-all, the month was well spent, and I think I can sit down and get on with the novel that is just crying to get out.

I will be signing up for NaNoWriMo next month, and Tristi is doing another BIAM in January that I am looking forward to. I love to keep challenging myself, and doing a BIAM is a fun way to do it.

To Outline or Not to Outline

I have done a lot of writing in my life - everything from letters and journal entries to essays, poems, and short stories. Last year I began my first novel length work and finished the last revisions this month. When I started Tristi's BIAM challenge, I thought I had it pretty much under control. Of course life always throws in extra things when I make myself a deadline. Or maybe I just notice all the extra things more when I am trying to focus on one project. But even when I take away all those distractions, I keep hitting a wall with this latest project.

The book I am working on is an idea I have been thinking about since last year. I put it aside because I wanted to get the other novel done first. Usually those ideas I am not ready for get written in a notebook and put away. This time I took the idea and worked on it whenever I needed a break from the other project. By the time I started the BIAM,I had the second idea almost completely outlined. So I thought I was that much ahead of the game.

I think I may have been wrong. You see, I have never outlined to this extent before. Even in college, I would usually write what I wanted to say, make a good copy and hand it in. (I hope my kids aren't reading this.) This whole outlining thing seems to have slowed me down. Maybe it is because I feel like I have already told the story. Part of what slows me down is that I feel tied to the outline. In some ways that is good because I know when I finish this one, there will be fewer plot holes that I have to fill in. On the other hand I have lost the freedom to let my mind go and follow wherever the characters are going to take me.

So as I trudge my way through this story, I will have to decide if outlining to the extent I did actually works for me. Is the time spent outlining and then trying twice as hard to get the story to flow worth it? I will keep at this project. I still think it is a good story. But when I get to the next one, I will need to seriously ponder the question, to outline or not to outline?

BIAM

I am joining Tristi Pinkston for her book in a month challenge. We started today, and I am a little behind already. I am working on a book that I outlined last spring. The first chapter is already written, but it took me longer to get back into the story than I thought it would. I spent a lot of my writing time reading over the outline and the first chapter, trying to get a feel for the story again. The interest is still there and it is a story I want to tell. Tonight I got in 350 words. Since the laundry is now done, family home evening has been held for the week, and I have refreshed my memory of where the story is going, the rest of the week should go a little better.

I did get the list of eligible books for the Whitney Awards updated today. There are 67 books on the list and I am sure there are more out to be added. There is a link on the sidebar that takes you right to the list. I hope everyone is doing a little extra reading and then nominating their favorite books. I am impressed with the variety out there, and wish I had the time to read them all.