One year ago, I finished reading Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem!. His words were motivational and I was inspired, ready to tackle the remains of the rough draft of my first novel.

Then I got to thinking about how wonderful NaNoWriMo is, how many lives it touches and what it does for the world. It encourages people to unlock their imaginations and author 50,000 words in a month.

There are tons of critics out there that say NaNoWriMo produces nothing but garbage. I disagree with such a generalized opinion, but it only seemed natural that there should be a variant that emphasises consistency over quantity. So I came up with the Novel-Push Initiative (NPI).

Consistency really is tough. Writing every day can sometimes be a tall order, even for professional authors.

NPI is about writing 250 words (or more) each day, every day, for a month. As simple as it sounds, it never is.

The very first Novel-Push Initiative happened right here last March and was what I would call a success, teaching us innumerable lessons about our craft.

So I pose the question– Are you ready for the next NPI?

If so, sign up here. More information to follow!

I know I haven’t posted in a moon or two, and I wish I could tell you I’ve been editing this whole time. But let’s just say slow and not-so-steady isn’t working very well.

I’ve gone through the conceptualization of Five Rings and two sequel novels, designed outlines, wrote the entire first book, and now all that’s left is the editing/re-writing.

I thought things would be easy from here. I have the weight of all those steps behind me just crushing me to get finished… but…

What I need is a way to inspire myself to commit to sitting down and editing more often. It’s harder for me to sit down and edit than it has been for me to write. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult. Maybe it’s because the changes I make feel more permanent this time around. I more or less have to get it right this time, you know? Or maybe it’s because a few of my author friends seem to have stopped writing altogether, which is a thought that has depressed me quite a bit.

It’s not that I haven’t been working on Five Rings at all, but, too regularly, I’ve been letting other things distract me. My usual method is to try and get distractions out of my system through oversaturation, but this time I’m starting to feel guilty.

I know there’s a lot of great writers sitting down right now editing. Some of which conceptualized, outlined, wrote, edited, and rewrote all in the time it took me to write my first draft. And that’s what I’ve been telling myself lately to keep my damn butt in this chair. Maybe if I can channel the energies of all these wonderfully dedicated writers and feel some sort of virtual kinship to them, it’ll encourage me to sit down and edit, too. 

But any further advice is welcome.

A few days ago, I was heavily discouraged by certain recent books and movies that are socially embraced and loved even though they have what I may consider bad writing.

In the end, I decided to just move on and be a little upset. And after packsister’s comments, I think we both agreed that we can only write for ourselves and not sweat the luck some of those authors seem to have.

But…I’m going to reiterate something I’ve heard recently that strikes the very core of the issue I’m having.

Gimmicks ultimately can’t compensate for bad writing.

And, with that, I’m at peace with all of this.

But what does that mean, exactly? Read the rest of this entry »

Out-of-the-blue-rant time! A rant about … vegetables? No, don’t worry. This does have something to do with writing.

Brave souls may click below to proceed. …

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to March 10th! Glad you’re still here :)

The past five days have definitely had their share of highs and lows for us all.

1.
packsister:

Still coming in strong at first place, packsister has been an inspiration. Last time we checked in, she’d written 3,316 words in a mere four days for her werewolf novel. Let’s see how she’s doing now:

Tally:

Previous Total WC: 3,316.
March… Read the rest of this entry »

One thing creative writing classes try to teach their students is how to mimic the styles of famous authors.

I think that’s pretty smart. After all, one way to ensure a writer can make informed decisions about the different aspects of their own writing style is to see if they can pick up on and identify the alchemy of other writers’ styles.

I’ve never taken Creative Writing, but I’m taking Lit 110 this semester. As a result, I’ve recently read some short stories that are considered ‘classics’ by the powers that be:

A & P – John Updike
Story of an Hour – Kate Chopin
A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner
A Party Down at the Square – Ralph Ellison
Everyday Use – Alice Walker
Shiloh – Bobbie Ann Mason
Araby – James Joyce
The Man Who Was Almost a Man – Richard Wright
Sweat – Zora Neale Hurston
Good Country People – Flannery O’Conner
The Guest – Albert Camus
Hills Like White Elephants – Ernest Hemingway
In the American Society – Gish Jen
Woman Hollering Creek – Sandra Cisneros
The Red Convertible – Louise Erdrich

I’ll admit I have little patience for old movies and less patience still for old, archaic prose.
To make matters worse, a good portion of the stories featured irritating dialogue, where the writers tried to phonetically transcribe ‘slack-jawed’ or other variant dialect, which made reading them horribly laborious.

But a few were pleasant surprises, such as Araby and The Guest. And every one of these authors had radically different styles, so it was kinda fun to pick up their quirks and nuances while reading.

The point of all this is I tried rewriting the ending to Mr. Updike’s short story, A & P (circa 1930), mimicking his style as best as I could.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to part 3!
IMO, style is a fascinating topic. As I write, share, and critique more, it’s just as neat to watch other writers’ styles develop as it is to notice the subtle changes in my own.

I’d love to share with you what writing methods I’ve found myself leaning towards over the past year:

1. I often drop the word ‘that’.

I decided that I would go.

becomes:

I decided I would go.

But not always. I try to play a mix-up game when I write—I don’t always follow a rule. For variety’s sake.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been writing - well - everybody ‘writes’, but I’ve been writing writing for a little over a year now. And one thing I remember being worried about when sitting down in front of the keyboard as a ‘writer’ for the first time, was style. As in, “How do I develop my own style?”

I think it’s hard for new writers to imagine they could actually have their own unique style because there’s already a daunting number of both professional and non-professional writers out there staking their claim in stylistic real-estate, so-to-speak. It ’s hard to believe there can be room for a new writer; hard to believe they might actually have something new and valuable to bring to such a saturated and sometimes elitist craft. 

WHAT IS STYLE, EXACTLY?: Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you may have noticed I axe’d all my Wordpress.com pages when I converted this blog over to the style of my main page.

Now you might be thinking: “Oh no! What about the character and location pages?” *fingerbite-fingerbite*

Don’t worry. The pages have all been retained on my hard drive, and can still be accessed on my old blog.

Truth is, I’ve had plans to redo them a bit more /professionally/ to help preserve the snootiness of a .COM presense.

The first outcome of this diabolical plan is a new ’About the Author‘ page, also accessible from the main page by clicking on ‘about’. 

You may notice that empty square to the right of the blurb—That’s the spot where I want to add one of those infamous black & white ‘really serious author’ photos of myself.

Even though the passage turned out a little tongue-and-cheek, it still feels (somewhat) more professional. I hope it effectively answers all the questions someone might wonder about me, and I’m glad it doesn’t leave me as horribly stalkerbait-naked and vulnerable as my previous one did. 

Other pages will come in time, but I think the ‘Random Fantasy Clichés‘ page can *ahem* fall to the wayside. As fun as RFCs may be, perhaps they were best kept to myself. :P

Hum. I definitely see why people pay other people to make websites.

If you could, please visit http://5-Rings.com and let me know if it shows up correctly for you. I’ve done some testing and am fairly certain it should line up correctly no matter what browser you’re using.

Please also let me know what you think about the style and layout–I was thinking about also using that color scheme and style here at the blog. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s so many words. Sooo many. I come across words I’m not 100% sure of the meaning of every day. It’s kind of pathetic — I pick up a book, I read a few lines, then I have to put down the book in order to look up a word or phrase I wasn’t sure of.

I mean, sure, I might’ve heard these words before, but I can’t rely solely on context clues to define words I might have to use when I write. Guesswork could end up making me look like a total idiot.

Some words are just silly — words that end up making the author sound stupid, like he’s trying too hard to sound scholarly, or like he’s exploiting the built-in thesaurus feature in Microsoft Word. Fortunately, I can tell the difference, and I can do without those. Read the rest of this entry »

The (ver batim) rules for the short story contest:
-Entries must not exceed 2,000 words. (685 words, here!)
-Manuscripts must be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11″ white paper. (Double-spaced, check. Standard paper, check.)
-Each submission entered must include:

• A seperate cover page with name of contest, title of manuscript, number of words, writer’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address if available. (Done!)
• A title page with the manuscript title only. (Done!)
• On the manuscript itself, each page should be headed with a title key word and page number. Nowhere on the manuscript should the author’s name appear. (Done!)

• No staples, please. (They’re so picky, aren’t they?)

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m aware of the bad grammar of the title ^_^;

“At the beginning of next month, I’ll see if I can’t get this sucker published in a real magazine.”

Well, it’s the beginning of next month, and indeed, we shall see.

As you may recall, I’ve tried to get a few things published in the past but they all were met with failure. My first attempt was entering my first short story, ‘An Escape from Reality’, in a contest at my college back in late March.

When submitting something, I guess you have to follow the directions exactly or your work’ll end up somewhere far worse than a slush-pile.

Rules were: Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m aware of the bad grammar of the title ^_^;

“At the beginning of next month, I’ll see if I can’t get this sucker published in a real magazine.”

Well, it’s the beginning of next month, and indeed, we shall see.

As you may recall, I’ve tried to get a few things published in the past but they all were met with failure. My first attempt was entering my first short story, ‘An Escape from Reality’, in a contest at my college back in late March.

When submitting something, I guess you have to follow the directions exactly or your work’ll end up somewhere far worse than a slush-pile.

Rules were: Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m aware of the bad grammar of the title ^_^;

“At the beginning of next month, I’ll see if I can’t get this sucker published in a real magazine.”

Well, it’s the beginning of next month, and indeed, we shall see.

As you may recall, I’ve tried to get a few things published in the past but they all were met with failure. My first attempt was entering my first short story, ‘An Escape from Reality’, in a contest at my college back in late March.

When submitting something, I guess you have to follow the directions exactly or your work’ll end up somewhere far worse than a slush-pile.

Rules were: Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m aware of the bad grammar of the title ^_^;

“At the beginning of next month, I’ll see if I can’t get this sucker published in a real magazine.”

Well, it’s the beginning of next month, and indeed, we shall see.

As you may recall, I’ve tried to get a few things published in the past but they all were met with failure. My first attempt was entering my first short story, ‘An Escape from Reality’, in a contest at my college back in late March.

When submitting something, I guess you have to follow the directions exactly or your work’ll end up somewhere far worse than a slush-pile.

Rules were: Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I’m aware of the bad grammar of the title ^_^;

“At the beginning of next month, I’ll see if I can’t get this sucker published in a real magazine.”

Well, it’s the beginning of next month, and indeed, we shall see.

As you may recall, I’ve tried to get a few things published in the past but they all were met with failure. My first attempt was entering my first short story, ‘An Escape from Reality’, in a contest at my college back in late March.

When submitting something, I guess you have to follow the directions exactly or your work’ll end up somewhere far worse than a slush-pile.

Rules were: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve mentioned some of the projects I’ve been involved with elsewhere, but this time I’m going to be involved with one that will unfurl right before your eyes. ^_^

Tomorrow, I will start participating in an event called ‘World Building Month’; the brainchild of the awesomely talented author Eliza from Tales of a Fantasy Scribbler. (Her blog is also snugly nested within my tanglebrush of links->)

What is World Building Month?:
Quote from Eliza’s blog:

So if this sounds like something you’d also like to participate in, by all means, join. It should be lots of fun and there are many talented writers participating.

I’m joining partly because Eliza has been around here since post #1, partly because I missed out on her ‘Villains Month’ last month, and because I decided it can’t hurt to take one more month aside to reinforce the world I’ve built. I’m hoping to discover many additional things about the land my characters are destined to traipse through, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of it with you. Read the rest of this entry »

First off, it appears I was counter-tagged by Steph. I hope this isn’t revenge for the shredding we did to each other’s writings :3…

This meme isn’t particularly riveting and probably thrown together by someone who barely has a grasp of the English language, so here’s the deal: I’m not going to tag anybody on this (partly to avoid a potential tag war/riot). But if you would like the torch to be passed on to you anyway, post a reply stating you’d like to do this meme and I’d be glad to link to your pertaining post at the tail of this one.

I guess the goal of this meme is to answer questions starting with letters of the alphabet. How clever! *shudder* I’ll do my best for Steph, though, cuz she’s just awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

The Five Rings are at the very core of the magic system I developed for the book.

But before we get into that, I want to take a moment to discuss magic in fantasy.

Magic often serves double-duty in high fantasy novels: as utility for characters (ex: cast a ‘fire’ spell to light a campfire) and as an important plot device. (ie: Nature is out of balance so magic must be restored, someone craves the ultimate destructive magic, magic is the very lifeforce of nature and people are using too much of it, etc.)

A dyed-in-the-wool magic system must have a cohesive set of rules to follow—-just like the world the story is set in—-in order to be more believable. If a caster is limited only by their imagination and can cast without any drawbacks what-so-ever, it becomes too tempting for the author to use magic as an easy way out of difficult situations. And, worse, makes characters seem invincible. And, perhaps worst of all, they lose much of their humanity, right along with their ability to connect with the reader on any level. Read the rest of this entry »