Festival!

The GA Literary Festival was absolutely the most amazing weekend I've had in a long time. I left feeling totally inspired and ready to write. The 2-hour drive to and from also provided plenty of NaNoWriMo planning and I am going to plan on writing a Steampunk adventure novel instead of my planned Paranormal Romance piece. I'm really excited about this change and am very confident about it.

On a happy writer note, I've made up for my missed time that past two nights. I worked for about an hour and a half tonight and finished a short story I've been working on for a week or so. It now needs heavy revision but I'm pleased with the direction it took. I've found that to get writing down I really have to lock myself in my room and sit at my desk, however, my desk chair is horribly old, rickety and uncomfortable so I think I'm going to take a part of my paycheck and get a new chair tomorrow. I feel certain there will be pictures posted too.

Well, I'm going to head to bed early and plan to get up early to get some NaNoWriMo planning done tomorrow morning.

Vampires!

So I'm at the Literary Festival and having a grand time! I went to fascinating panel about vampires and their history and future. It was really interesting to hear about the origins and evolution of vampires both through literature which was really inspiring.

Anyways, writing is going slowly. I've been struggling with getting anything written that I'm happy with but I'm working through that and looking forward to NaNoWriMo. I am planning on writing a Paranormal Romance which is (maybe) the beginning of a series. I'm also trying to finish a short story for a Fairytale Anthology. I'm hoping to finish it before November so I can edit it during November, that way my desire to edit can be taken out on it, and not on my NaNoWriMo piece. Genius right?

Anyways, I'm off to (hopefully) get some serious writing knocked out tonight and then get to bed before going back to the Festival tomorrow for some author discussions.

Missing The Quota

Ugh! I'm bummed because I didn't get in my writing time today. I had to run errands in town and from there time just disappeared. It's amazing how one little thing can make such a difference. it doesn't help that I am a Project Runway addict and it came on tonight and distracted me even further.

I did get some character sketching done earlier today. I've been working on my NaNoWriMo characters and now I have my main character and the beginning of his rival drafted out and forming. Creating characters is probably one of my favorite things to do when creating a new story. I love the variety of people that I get to 'become' when I'm writing.

As a base profile I've been using the Gotham's Writer's Workshop's Character Profile sheet provided online here. I think it's a great beginning for a character though you need to also consider a lot more traits, like religion, history, Likes, Dislikes, etc. One great thing to do is to pretend to interview your character. Invite a conversation (you might feel a little crazy, but all writers are to some degree, right?) with your character, ask questions and wait for the answer. Don't try to force your character into a mold give them a chance to speak for themselves.

Well, I'm off to pack and get ready for work and then the Georgia Literary Festival! I'm super excited and hoping to make all kinds of new writers and friends!

Writing away!

Met my goal for writing today, just barely. Man am I sleepy! Working a full time job and trying to write as much as possible is draining me. Anyways, I'm really excited about upcoming NaNoWriMo, I think I've finally settled on my basic plot so now I just need to work on characters and a more detailed outline. I like to at least have a set idea of major events that I want to happen so that gives me something to aim towards when I get stuck.

Another idea to keep writing is to not always worry about sticking to chronological order. When you are done with your novel (or short story or poem or whatever) no one is going to know that last paragraph was the first thing you wrote. Writing the ending first gives you something to lead up to, and can be great fun.

On another note, first drafts really feel like glorified outlines to me sometimes, so disjointed and awkward. Sometimes I totally doubt I can write and then I'll read some polished work and think 'oh yeah, that's right. I can write, but nothing's ever perfect the first time around.'

I'm really excited because this coming weekend I am going to the GA Literary Festival. This will be my first Literary festival and I'm really looking forward to getting to meet other writers and book enthusiasts.

Well that's all for tonight, I need to get my things together for work tomorrow, whoosh and away!

Writing!

So I've managed three days in a row of at least thirty minute writing blocks, woot! I always struggle with it because I start to doubt what I'm writing and just want to stop and rewrite right then. It's a matter of gagging my inner editor long enough to let me write. Today is the first day that I've actually been pleased with what I've written.

Anyways, today i wanted to share my favorite site to find places to submit, Duotrope. It also makes it super simple to keep track of what you submitted to where and when (that's a mouthful, editing nightmare of a sentence, good thing my editor's still gagged. But you basically can search for genres, or styles and based on what kind of submissions you are looking for. It's really helpful and simplifies the entire search process. So, check it out!

And if you haven't signed up for NaNoWriMo yet you absolutely should!

Change of Pace

So after a long pause, I am returning to blogging. I am looking to begin dedicating more of my time to writing and attempting to get published. I recently had a poem accepted into The Battered Suitcase and the excitement has made me start thinking more and more that writing is what I want to go into. So what better way to get into writing than by... gasp! writing!

I am currently looking into MFA programs but I'm not really sure if that is what I want to do. I like writing in several genres (poetry, short fiction, long fiction, non-fiction, etc) and I also have a tendency towards more 'horror' style writing which many programs frown upon.

So far I've found Seton Hill's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction which is a low residency program (awesome for someone like me, with a job) so that's an exciting option. But for now I am going to try to stick to a routine of writing for thirty minutes a day, eventually working it up to an hour a day.

I'm going to try to update this blog at least twice a week, maybe more than that! What are your writing goals?

Homeland

Apologies for so few updates, my home was struck by lightning and everything was fried. I am now happily back up and running. Anyways, on to the review!

I have rarely charged through a book (actually the entire trilogy) in such a short period of time as I did with R.A. Salvatore's Homeland, the first book of the Drizzt saga. This book captured my imagination by crafting an entire new world. Salvatore delves into the inner most workings of the drow society and makes it believable. I wanted to know more about this horrid and evil world he has crafted and that kept me reading.

His characters are equally engaging, and I found the emotional conflicts some of the most interesting aspects of the entire book. Despite the fact that this book contains a lot of intense battle scenes, and graphic depictions of violence, the main conflict is an internal one.

On occasion Drizzt did flirt with becoming an all powerful character. He defeats every foe with only little difficulty, he masters everything very quickly and innately has a great sense of justice and honor. When compared with the rest of his race of drow he seems very God-like and at times I struggled getting past that and continuing to sympathize with his character.

After a few battle scenes I actually started skipping ahead to the end, not that the scenes were poorly written, all the battle scenes are beautifully detailed, but simply because I knew Drizzt would ultimately win.

Altogether, I really enjoyed the book and have read it over and over already. The entire series was wonderful (though this review mainly is focused on the first book of the series) and I highly recommend to anyone.

Rating:

4/5