Finished reading the series!

Quick update: Whilst nearing some important bits during the rewrite of #1, I figured I should stop and read the other 2 books to get a good bearing for what was going on.  I knew there were details I was unsure of and such.

The the status is… #1, of course I’m working on polishing that one up for the first round.  The beginning to first quarter or so I’ve never been happy with but now I believe I’ve figured out how to make it all work.  The rest of the story seems relatively solid.

#2 I thought was going to be pretty decent.  Ha! Its much worse than I imagined.  At least the first part.  Writing quality was worse than I expected, but story-wise and such it started out pretty bad.  I took detailed notes along the way.  Its going to take quite a bit of fiddling to spiff it up.

#3 I just finished reading this one a few minutes ago.  Writing quality was better but I saw all my glaring, ugly mistakes.  Ewww.  Story-wise (if you don’t count a lot of shit I added for sake of NaNo word count) its awesome! The last half really became a page turner.  The last quarter was really engaging.  I knew it was good when I was nearing the end and I kept putting it down because I only had a few more pages to go and I just didn’t want it to end 🙂 I always do that with the best books I pick up.

So #3 won’t need nearly as much work as #2 and #1.

I still have at least one huge issue to work with.  I can probably start working with that now that I’ve read everything and its all somewhat fresh in my head and I’ve got notes.  Ironing on this huge issue shouldn’t ruin how awesome #3 is and how slightly decent #2 is.  It sholdn’t touch #1 at all.  But it is some major stuff.

So yeah… lots and lots of work.  My writing buddy and I have put soooo many hours into this world, working with these characters and working on the little details that matter in the whole picture.

Something I was glad to see was my writing quality go up.  I guess I can’t be too picky because these were written during NaNo.  But I have learned a lot about writing along the way.  So much so that I shouldn’t have to work this damn hard to clean things up in the future.

I’m really curious about #4 (picks up right were #3 left off but is a different story).  I think I probably grew a lot as a writer between #3 and #4.  (technically #4 and #5).  I -know- I must have gotten better when I read something that halfway-decent and cringe at the parts that are bad.  Its going to be a really fun one to clean up.

The thing that no writer wants to realize…

My writing SUCKS!

Ok, so what I’ve been doing is going back and re-reading the whole Rayna’s Story thing (trilogy).  All of these were written for NaNoWriMo.

For awhile there I was thinking that the writing/plot and stuff sucked mostly for the first book and the One That Shall Not Be Named (long story but its basically #2).  Well I’ve been discussing with Whitepaws about spiffing things up now that we know a lot more after writing in Q’lanth for several years.  We know a lot about the world, what was going on with the plots, the characters, etc.

So I’ve decided that the new #2 books is actually going to be #3 (omg I just realized I’ll be missing a #3 now, wtf?).  So I started reading through the first re-write of #1 (which isn’t done) and started reading the new #2 and realizing that even the one that I thought was written a lot better is still pure drivel.  Its better… bit it still sucks.

And I -know- this is because its NaNo.  My writing quality goes down.  Because when I was reading the first rewrite of #1, which is being rewritten outside of NaNo, I found it to be very readable.  Yes, there’s loads of room for  improvement but I’m just trying to lay down the brickwork, not make a piece of art.  Making it a work of art is the -next- step 🙂

But my gods… there’s a lot of work to be done.  The story is there, the story is awesome… the characters are there and they’re awesome.  But my ability to make them read well is just not that great.

And christ on a cracker its a mess.  A huge mess. I know I’ve said this before here but I think I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe…

If only I had fulfilled promises to myself to clean up every NaNo novel during the year before the next NaNo, I’d be in lots better shape.  Man I wish I could get paid to work on this, it would have been done ages ago 🙂

Tori Amos Haiku

A haiku about Tori Amos for National Poetry Month.

See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1618598/tori_amos_haiku.html

The fruits of my god-like labor

Bwa ha ha.

So I’m loving Joomla in place of WordPress to organize all the data in our little lala land.  Its a lot more convoluted but you have more control and options.  I didn’t expect to like it so much.

I like that you can actually organize, and not just fake-organize.  You can also order items.  The picture gallery thing is nice.. WP always eats my pics when I try to scoot them around.  Joomla doesn’t do this.  Its also a lot snappier than WP.  There may be some things that take a lot more clicking to get done than in WP and it is a convoluted, retarded process in some cases, but once you get the swing of it you don’t notice the extra steps.

So yeah.  I’m happy in the pants for Joomla!

So in case anyone wants to know how to organize a novel or world so you can collaborate with someone else on the internet or even just keep it all to yourself, here’s an example of what we have so you can get an idea of what you might want to do:

Web links

– (to various categories like injuries, cultural beliefs… you know)

Beasties (which will have a list of articles)

Ships/Boats

– Good guys section (listed)

– Bad guys section (listed)

Characters

– Good guys (listed)

– Bad guys (listed)

Q’lanth

– actually broken down into one category for every country/continent/island, then each category will have a page full of articles on cities and other pertinent information to that area

Things

– Food/Drink

– Herbs/Drugs

– Objects – Magical

– Objects – Mundane

(each of those has listed articles under it)

Etc etc etc

– Fun stuff

— all those wacky characters and such that we come up with

– Nautical Glossary (single article page)

– Name ideas (single article page)

– Holidays/Festivals (single article page)

Questions (single article page where we write down questions to problems we can’t work out, like plot or whatever)

Organizations (like… FBI, CIA, all that kind of stuff, single page or separate articles, not sure yet)

Timelines (a chart with a list of characters, events, and how old they were at said events, VERY handy! single article page)

Meanwhile! I bought index cards tonight (thank you Dollar Tree) so I can try organizing my novel(s) with them.  I’ve been rolling some ideas around in my head and actually like the idea of writing a new novel or story on index cards.  I’ll try it sometime, just to see what I think.  Who knows, might be my cuppa tea.

Character/Writer Similarities & Differences: Adrian

Yeah, you read that right.  I’m going to list out all the similarities/differences between myself and my characters.  Why? Because its my damn blog and I’ll do with it as I please! ^-^

I’ll start from the top.  Whatever that means in this case O.o

Similarities:

Adrian: Alcoholic and other vices. Me: I could be easily so I’m just going to quit while I’m ahead.  And… I’m working on those other things.

Adrian: Has dark red hair. Me: Everybody says my hair is red but its -not- you fucktards! Its strawberry blond and I don’t care what color strawberries are, because my hair does not look like god damn strawberries! grrrrr!

Adrian: She gets a little worked up sometimes and flings colorful words around. Me: ….. see my response about hair color above. ^-^

Adrian: Considers it a personal duty to help her close friends. Me: I’m very dedicated to friends and sometimes just acquaintances.  I’ll spoil you rotten if you let me.

Adrian: Emotionally distant/stand offish. Me: I’ve been told as much.

Adrian: Is bi. Me: …… well I don’t discriminate ^-^

Differences:

Adrian: She’s brave.  Me: I’m a pussy.

Adrian: Very smart and very well studied on many things.  Me: Smart but not that quick.  I know a little tiny bit about various things.

Adrian: Horny little devil.  Me: My sexual appetite is barely on the radar! lol

Adrian: Physically fit.  Me: Can someone open this peanut butter jar for me?

Hmm.  That’s all I can think of right now.  I had this post open for a few hours so I was digging for some of these similarities.  I’ll update this post later if I think of anything else.

Why do I do this to myself! arg!

Woot. Post 2 today.

I keep having problems holding me back on writing… mostly these problems nag at me because I want to do everything correctly because I want to publish someday so others can enjoys this world as much as I do.  Prolly self publish, there’s no way anyone is going to publish a series with pirates, magic, anthros, humans, sex, alcoholism, prostitution, anti-religious/political undertones and a mix of all those with each other, let’s just face that fact straight up, yo.

So even if I publish myself, that doesn’t mean I can’t be anal and strive for perfection and try to do everything by-the-book, right?

Last year or so I made a post about trying to learn how to be a better writer.  Sometime between then and now I’ve decided that trying to go by-the-book or even what people like to read is not the way to go.  I would read a pile of “do these” and “don’t do these” tips and go pick up a couple fictions to read and see all those tips trampled. And these are not unheard of authors.

What the fuck am I supposed to do then??

I have considered off and on the perspective of my Q’lanth series.  While Adrian is dominate, I do get a lot of enjoyment jumping around heads.  And I don’t mean every other scene or within scenes.  I love getting to know other characters and how they think and see other things although I suppose I could do all that from Adrian’s perspective.

I think it would suck keeping -only- in Adrian’s head because there’s a lot of adventure going on and there’s a lot of story between the characters and back story (like how Zander and Rayna met, how else am I supposed to do that? “Oh, we met in the library. She was drooling on a map.” I’d loose a TON of words!)

What I’ve been writing might be called a third person subjective.  You experience the story and the current character’s thoughts and feelings and you find out stuff about the story as that character finds things out. I’ve heard the Wheel of Time series is done in the fashion I’m shooting for. I’ve also heard its really hard. I’m not a very good writer (ADMIT IT! I can weave some excellent stories, but writing them? ha!) so to me its not hard. I write what comes to me, if the flow gunks up then I’m doing something wrong or I need a break.

So I’m having some perspective problems to work out and some problems with… I don’t know, mood? Not tone…

What do people here think about a novel that reads like an anime?

And by anime I mean… Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, etc… you get to know the characters/big picture through the series, there’s funny moments and tragic moments, there’s a bad guy in every episode…. I dunno, I always felt everything coming through like I was watching an anime.  I want it to read like that because those shows are so well done and really suck me in.

And… I have more issues with my writing but that’s whats bugging me right now.

I have found one thing to keep in mind whenever I’m feeling lost and desperate:

I have to write what I like.

There’s a lot of stuff I like to read out there and there’s a lot of people that like those various things.  Right?

Right.

*ETA* Oh yeah! Another thing that keeps bugging me that I need to stop doing… is repeating information/things the reader already knows throughout the story (via whatever means). This annoys me and I’m sure I don’t know the full extent of this >.<
*ETA… again* I burned off my 2 Celine Dion CDs and listening to them and liking them. Its really soothing music. I don’t have much of that LOL :-p

Arg! need writing solution!

So earlier today I thought I had a program that would work to help me with my writing.  I have a lot of stuff that needs sorting out so I can really work on it all and icon everything out, etc.  I might have to find a solution other than a writing program.  Here’s a bit of overview of what I’ve tried:

yWriter4: Free.  Windows but works with WINE.  I love this program.  Its perfect.  loveitloveitloveit.  But its… not stable (on Ubuntu or otherwise).  And yWriter5 Beta won’t work on Ubuntu.

Writer’s Cafe 2: Commercial. Very neato program with lots of features.  Its an eye sore but it works perfectly on Ubuntu.  My problem is I keep over writing my scenes way too easily. >.< Not good at all.

BasKet: Free.  Works like a dream for Ubuntu ’cause its for Ubuntu.  Its more of an advanced note taking program.  Its pretty neat for various note taknig things (especially my online Witch School notes).  It will do my book/chapter/scene organizing.  Doesn’t have spellcheck >.<  I cean use a tag on each scene so I can keep track of what needs work, moving, etc.  I could live with this program in a pinch.

Power Writer:  Commercial. Eyesore.  clunky.  Not very usable…

StorYBook: Free.  ZOMG awesome program.  AWESOME I TELL YOU! I love it -but-… I can’t use it because it seems to be mainly for notes on a story/novel and thus where you would put a scene… they only allow so many characters.  GOD DAMNIT  >.<  And it works like a dream on Ubuntu because there’s an linux install for it >.<   Ok so maybe I can use it to help sort things out but I need the -whole- picture.  *sigh*

WriteItNow: Commercial, for Windows only.  I would consider letting M$ anally rape me again just so I can get some fucking work done on my novel writing >.<  I have never seen a better program (‘sides yWriter).  I can get it to somewhat work under Gnome.  It works a lot better under KDE but still a little tweaky.  Useable though, I think.  It seems to be a graphics problem.  Nobody has said anything about it anywhere on the web it seems.  Triple se ligh >.<  And I think it costs, which is impossible for me right now.

I’ve seen some suggestions for using LaTeX but even more comments against using it because its more of a word processor.

So… arg.  I don’t know what to do.  Guess I could do a combo of Open Office (regular word processor), with BasKet and maybe StorYBook.

Orrrr I can figure out how to do all this on paper.  *twitch*

*ETA* I just spend way too long reorganizing a couple scenes in BasKet just because I twitched a bit and messed everything up.  Not good for twitchy people like me.  Found a similar but less fluffy program called gjots.  You have to tell it you want your notes to move up or down to tree.   *goes back to playing with it*

*ETA again* Okay gjots keeps crashing on me >.< I’m tempted to open a blog or something for this damn thing.

once again, Xeen p0wnz NaNoWriMo

its all thanks to wandering back and looking at some older scenes from the beginning to see how far all my characters have gotten (and because i was stuck in the story line and was procrastinating), finding a couple of “could be” sex scenes and started working on them.

i highly do not suggest working on 2 sex scene at the same time.

i’m going to go implode now.

i’m a dirty girl!

mmm… 😉

-now- its starting to feel like NaNo! *looks at calender*  23 freaking days into it.

Usually I don’t get lost in their heads (mainly Adrian’s) this late in the game.  And luckily I got a bit ahead of my word count today and I didn’t even write anything to do with the story.  And it was EASY.

How, you might ask?

SMUT!

Okay maybe not down ‘n out dirty smut.  This was good old fashioned girl-in-shower-gets-dirty scene.  Not even -that- dirty, just a little.

*squirms in chair*

Is it warm in here?

*fans self*

Anyway.  It would make a good stand alone scene, mayhaps.

I’ve written at least 1703 words today to a total of 38808.  I really need to get in an extra day or two for some breathing space as The End approaches.  I don’t want to have to keep digging up smexxy scenes or even start the idea of smexxy scenes just for word count.

God how horny my characters must be >.<

Its only because they know now they can get me to write it now. They just want their private times, to relax.  Doesn’t everyone? ^-^

Note: Anyone I happen to really like right now should prolly stear clear of me until my mood is no longer Flirty, Horny and Hyper :-p  What a horrible combo to inflict onto someone…

*ahem*  Now that that pipe is unclogged, looks like I can get back to the actual story ^-^

NaNo ’08 update, thoughts on whiny writers… and more?

I did it! Last night I caught up on my word count! I’ve been behind by 3 to 6k for a bit over a week I think but I caught up! And magically enough, I got what I’ve been lacking all this time.. an information dump about the story.  Ok so the dump wasn’t as big as it usually is but man its might cool.

Anyway, my good friend in Arkansas and I have been talking about noveling.  He sent me an e-mail yakking about outlines.  I decided to post my response…

Hiya!

Wow you try to hit all the spots a lot of writers get bitchy about.  I don’t know why but there’s a lot of whiny writers out there.  Bringing up writing programs and outlines is like bringing up politics and religion in mixed company.

I did an outline for my first NaNo and it went okay.  But took all year to plan for it though and work out all the details.  Then in the end the outline was nothing more but a guideline or a hint of what to do next.  If I had followed my outline exactly, my characters would have lost  a lot of their freedom and personality.  Maybe I’m not a good outline writer but I just don’t like to follow something that is step-by-step like that I guess.

I haven’t done an outline since that first year and have enjoyed the process a lot more.

For someone who has never written a novel, I think an outline is a perfect way to start.  You got your ideas out there and you create a bunch of blanks… great jumping off point! But don’t be surprised if you started writing and you start deviating off the path.  When that happens you have to sit there and wonder what you’re going to do.  Stick to the plan or follow whats really going on?

But yeah, its so true… there’s a lot of whiny writers out there.  Or maybe whiny isn’t the word, more like overly defensive.  You bring up outlines and writing programs and they feel like they have to instantly start defending themselves and their beliefs.  I’ve seen it way too many times.

Personally, I don’t care what people do and don’t do.  If I found out that my favorite books were written from an outline, so be it.  If it worked for them it worked for them.  I’m just grateful for the reading.

I do think a lot about using outlines but everytime I try to form one up… just ugh.  Not for me.  Sometimes I wish I had an outline to go off of but I know better.  I know that won’t solve my problems.