Don't you love Fridays? I normally do. Unless I have kids soccer games at 9 am on Saturday, which since it's soccer season, I do. Luckily it's the last day of soccer for the Spring season until the Fall season begins in September.
So, for Fridays, I think I'm going to initiate the Challenge Friday. It will be a writing prompt, learning about something new, or just challenging yourself to something you don't normally do. Work on it over the weekend, then if you want, let me know in the comments on the next week what you worked on. Every week I'm hoping you'll share your challenge in the comments below so that it gives others ideas and we can be supportive of each other even though we may be states apart.
For this Challenge Friday, I am going to challenge myself to learn how to make hooded towels for my kids. My kids needed new hooded towels since their current ones are too small for them now. I decided I would make some. I have everything, I just am always afraid that I will mess up so big that I can't recover from it. I've done it before, and plus, I have a sewing machine that hates me most of the time.
I'll try to post pictures of the finished product next Friday and talk about working through it. I believe as a writer, if you want to be a good writer, you have to be able to face challenges head-on, even if you think it will blow up royally in your face. Whether we get Writer's Block, or are just trying to learn how our character will face a challenge they are faced with, we need to know how we react in situations that challenge us. Challenges make us stronger, more fierce, and more ready to face the day ahead.
Get out there, get reading, and get writing!
Friday, June 12, 2015
Thursday, June 11, 2015
New Story Share
For Thursday, I wanted to make sure you saw what I was working on. I'll be secret about it for now mostly, but I will tell you that I'm really excited about this one. It's like a version of Evil Doctor Who.
So, I went to the library yesterday and checked out books on physics and time travel and Albert Einstein (Theory of Relativity stuff). I'm a little daunted by it all, but before I can really dive into my science of my story, I have to learn some of this stuff. I love it when stories are inventive and creative, but I also love it when it's mixed with proper science and math. It has to make sense in order for it to be believable and grab the reader's attention.
If all I said was that I'm writing a story on time travel, but I didn't care about the science of it all, how would that make my story exciting at all? Having a basis for where your story pieces come from can help your reader become more engaged in the story itself.
Get out there, get reading and get writing!
So, I went to the library yesterday and checked out books on physics and time travel and Albert Einstein (Theory of Relativity stuff). I'm a little daunted by it all, but before I can really dive into my science of my story, I have to learn some of this stuff. I love it when stories are inventive and creative, but I also love it when it's mixed with proper science and math. It has to make sense in order for it to be believable and grab the reader's attention.
If all I said was that I'm writing a story on time travel, but I didn't care about the science of it all, how would that make my story exciting at all? Having a basis for where your story pieces come from can help your reader become more engaged in the story itself.
Get out there, get reading and get writing!
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Writing Excuses
Here's the deal. Wednesdays I thought I was going to make a "Wacky Word Wednesday" or writing prompt day. But I'm having a hard time coming up with anything for it right now. So, I'm going to tell you about my favorite podcast in the world! Probably the only one I listen to or have really listened to ever, but it's my favorite.
It's called; Writing Excuses. Here's the link to the website: http://www.writingexcuses.com/
Anyway, it's a few authors telling us all about writing. They are fun to listen to and funny. It makes learning about the craft of writing FUN! Learning about something isn't always fun, but if you love doing something, you have to learn the fundamentals and nitty gritty stuff about it.
Example: I like soccer. I hated practicing and doing drills, but it's what made me better in the game. It's what made me faster, more alert, and able to work with my team. If you can't get through the nitty gritty's of learning about writing, you're not going to get very far and no one will want to work with you.
That's why I recommend listening to and even trying out the writing prompts from Writing Excuses. One of the authors, Brandon Sanderson, is also a professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University. His class is a master class in novel writing. You have to submit your writing to his class in order to get into it in the first place. Lucky for us who don't go to BYU or live in Provo, Utah, or even can't afford writing courses right now, a lot of the classes you can catch on Youtube here.
He's the author who has written many of his own best selling novels, but was also slated to finish out Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
There it is. Go check out Writing Excuses. It's on Itunes for free, or you can listen to the podcasts on the website as well. They aren't very long. I think the longest one was 30 minutes and I listen to them while I fold laundry on laundry days.
Get out there, get reading, get writing!
It's called; Writing Excuses. Here's the link to the website: http://www.writingexcuses.com/
Anyway, it's a few authors telling us all about writing. They are fun to listen to and funny. It makes learning about the craft of writing FUN! Learning about something isn't always fun, but if you love doing something, you have to learn the fundamentals and nitty gritty stuff about it.
Example: I like soccer. I hated practicing and doing drills, but it's what made me better in the game. It's what made me faster, more alert, and able to work with my team. If you can't get through the nitty gritty's of learning about writing, you're not going to get very far and no one will want to work with you.
That's why I recommend listening to and even trying out the writing prompts from Writing Excuses. One of the authors, Brandon Sanderson, is also a professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University. His class is a master class in novel writing. You have to submit your writing to his class in order to get into it in the first place. Lucky for us who don't go to BYU or live in Provo, Utah, or even can't afford writing courses right now, a lot of the classes you can catch on Youtube here.
He's the author who has written many of his own best selling novels, but was also slated to finish out Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
There it is. Go check out Writing Excuses. It's on Itunes for free, or you can listen to the podcasts on the website as well. They aren't very long. I think the longest one was 30 minutes and I listen to them while I fold laundry on laundry days.
Get out there, get reading, get writing!
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Book Tour Tuesday
So, as I was thinking on what I would do for each day of the week, one thought came into my mind. Why shouldn't I review a book each week? Even if it isn't a newly published book, getting the recommendation is always a great start to learning about an author and what kinds of books they write.
Now, I will hopefully be able to get some authors interviewed in the future for Book Tour Tuesdays, but for now I will put up a book review, or even have guest posts for book reviews in case I'm too slow in my reading.
For this week, I have chosen to review Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Marissa Meyer Website
This book at first glance was certainly intriguing to me. And I saw this book first on Goodreads.com before it's release as a recommended new author read for me. (Back in 2012)
I'll admit, I wasn't super excited when I started to read this story about Cinder, but as I kept going, it got better and better. The characters were lovable and despicable. The science fiction base of it all was fun, and even the idea of what the future of the world could be was fun to read. And by the way, if you want to know my favorite character in the book. Her name is Iko and she's a robot. Finally at the end, I couldn't put it down! I had to force myself to put it down a couple of times because I realized it was past midnight and I had to get up early the next day. In the end, I had to get the next book and I've already started to read it. Scarlet is its title, and I can't wait to finish it so I can read the third book of this series which is The Lunar Chronicles.
If you want more detail into the story, I'm not going to give much away. Although, I found out some of it to be predictable, but was still fun to read. Hopefully you'll check it out at your local library or purchase it for your collection. It's a great, clean read, so it's wonderful for preteen readers as well as any other Young Adult genre fan. Also, if you like fairy tale stories, you'll like this Dystopian/science fiction version of fairy tales.
Go out there and get reading and get writing!
Monday, June 8, 2015
It's Been Too Long...Again
So, I've been inactive for this last little bit because my hubby and I took our family on a camping trip for a few days. We had no cell service (or very little service), and it made it so that we had to talk to each other and spend time together. Which was AWESOME!
Anyway, I've been thinking about how to organize my days of the week for the blog. I won't be posting on Saturdays and Sundays because it's the weekend and I'm usually busy. But I will try to have postings for Monday through Friday the best I can. I'm a one blogger show and fitting everything in every day of the week isn't easy for me. I'm horribly at time management, but somehow I'm going to figure it out and get into gear and do it.
Speaking of time management, that's one thing that I've seen in a lot of author blogs when they answer the question: How do you find the time to write?
Well, the answer they all give is: You just do it. The Podcast show, Writing Excuses, talks about this too. They call it: BIC HOK. "Butt in Chair. Hands on Keyboard." Even if you don't write anything but the same word over and over again for ten minutes, you're writing. You're getting those gears working in your brain.
It's like exercising. You just have to do it to stay healthy and your skills will improve, and your stories will get better, and you will just feel better. But with everything, the starting of it can be easy. You just have to keep going through the rut time to make any progress at all. I've seen amazing things to those who keep going when they've gone through a rut. I am not one of those right now in my life. I am kind of in a rut, but kind of not. I need my exercise, both physically and intellectually in my writing.
So random thought here and it should go with what I'm talking about in finding the time to write.
I started training for a 5k about three weeks ago. This 5k is in August. After week 1 of training, I injured myself pretty good after my 4th training run. It sucks. It sucks so bad. Because of my injury, I have lost about two weeks in my training. I mostly go do the runs when my hubby is home so I can take the dog with me, and not have to push a stroller. So I find the time to do the runs. Because of my injury, I've been having to do some leg strengthening exercises and they hurt to do them, but I know if I keep going, I will get better and be able to finish training and keep on running further than a 5k run is and push past that rut and succeed. First I need some tools though. I will need a knee strap for both knees now, new running shoes, and if I can: new running clothes (just to make me feel good about myself and be more comfortable). Oh, and an armband for my phone to sit in during the runs.
Writing is very similar. I see Writer's Block, what we think of as Writer's Block, as an injury of some sort. Maybe we burned ourselves out in researching our story instead of writing it. Maybe we started self-criticizing ourselves for the story before it was finished, or maybe we were so excited about our story we told our closest friends, allies and family about it but some were critical of it and said it wouldn't happen, thus lowering your self esteem in the ways of writing an actual story.
So, go start again. Find the time to the write. Get the right tools. Go buy some books on writing. Take a creative writing course. Check out books that will be in your genre. Check out new and upcoming authors and what is making their story a hit on the NYT bestselling list or on Amazon's bestselling list. I have even found the researching agents and publishers when I get in a writing rut, or just don't feel like it gives me the motivation to complete it. Find friends, allies, and family members who will support you and help you with reading your story, and will help you edit. Don't forget though, you still have a lot of editing to do when you finish that first draft.
While I figure out what each day will look like on this blog on writing. Go out there. Read a book. Do a writing prompt. Listen to a podcast on writing. Find a writing group. When you get the right tools you need for the exercise, you will be able to get through your rut easier, and find that your outcome will be greater than you expected it will be.
Anyway, I've been thinking about how to organize my days of the week for the blog. I won't be posting on Saturdays and Sundays because it's the weekend and I'm usually busy. But I will try to have postings for Monday through Friday the best I can. I'm a one blogger show and fitting everything in every day of the week isn't easy for me. I'm horribly at time management, but somehow I'm going to figure it out and get into gear and do it.
Speaking of time management, that's one thing that I've seen in a lot of author blogs when they answer the question: How do you find the time to write?
Well, the answer they all give is: You just do it. The Podcast show, Writing Excuses, talks about this too. They call it: BIC HOK. "Butt in Chair. Hands on Keyboard." Even if you don't write anything but the same word over and over again for ten minutes, you're writing. You're getting those gears working in your brain.
It's like exercising. You just have to do it to stay healthy and your skills will improve, and your stories will get better, and you will just feel better. But with everything, the starting of it can be easy. You just have to keep going through the rut time to make any progress at all. I've seen amazing things to those who keep going when they've gone through a rut. I am not one of those right now in my life. I am kind of in a rut, but kind of not. I need my exercise, both physically and intellectually in my writing.
So random thought here and it should go with what I'm talking about in finding the time to write.
I started training for a 5k about three weeks ago. This 5k is in August. After week 1 of training, I injured myself pretty good after my 4th training run. It sucks. It sucks so bad. Because of my injury, I have lost about two weeks in my training. I mostly go do the runs when my hubby is home so I can take the dog with me, and not have to push a stroller. So I find the time to do the runs. Because of my injury, I've been having to do some leg strengthening exercises and they hurt to do them, but I know if I keep going, I will get better and be able to finish training and keep on running further than a 5k run is and push past that rut and succeed. First I need some tools though. I will need a knee strap for both knees now, new running shoes, and if I can: new running clothes (just to make me feel good about myself and be more comfortable). Oh, and an armband for my phone to sit in during the runs.
Writing is very similar. I see Writer's Block, what we think of as Writer's Block, as an injury of some sort. Maybe we burned ourselves out in researching our story instead of writing it. Maybe we started self-criticizing ourselves for the story before it was finished, or maybe we were so excited about our story we told our closest friends, allies and family about it but some were critical of it and said it wouldn't happen, thus lowering your self esteem in the ways of writing an actual story.
So, go start again. Find the time to the write. Get the right tools. Go buy some books on writing. Take a creative writing course. Check out books that will be in your genre. Check out new and upcoming authors and what is making their story a hit on the NYT bestselling list or on Amazon's bestselling list. I have even found the researching agents and publishers when I get in a writing rut, or just don't feel like it gives me the motivation to complete it. Find friends, allies, and family members who will support you and help you with reading your story, and will help you edit. Don't forget though, you still have a lot of editing to do when you finish that first draft.
While I figure out what each day will look like on this blog on writing. Go out there. Read a book. Do a writing prompt. Listen to a podcast on writing. Find a writing group. When you get the right tools you need for the exercise, you will be able to get through your rut easier, and find that your outcome will be greater than you expected it will be.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)