Weekly Progress Report

I think Friday will be my weekly progress report. Through the Plots & Structure book from the Write Great Fiction series, I learned that a novel has three acts. Act 1 the setup, the Lead goes through the first door of no return, Act 2 the action leading up to the final conflict, the Lead goes through the second door of no return, Act 3 the final conflict and resolution. My current plot falls in line with the Hero's Journey. My character is still in Act 1. I've introduced the lead's world and have another scene before the disruption to the lead's world.

I've written 1512 words total on the story so far mostly this week. On plotting and idea generation and character development, I've written 4244 words this week. That's an average of about 1000 words a day which is not bad given I've only had about an hour to write a day. I'm hoping to kick up the total numbers of hours I spend next week.

Goal setting for next week - average 1500 words per day, 10,000 words total on the story by Friday of next week.

Write Great Fiction

I've finished Characters and am almost done with Plot & Structure. I currently have a work in progress that I find exciting and have been making notes on every day. I think the lack of Internet has done me some good in that respect. I will have to keep my usage down so I can still accomplish everything I want to. I've been analyzing my writing time to determine a good word count goal for each day. I'm on top of it.

Dreams in the Making

It's really odd how when we sleep, our minds are the most creative. I tend to have the standard dreams most nights i.e. running away from someone, family dreams, dreams I actually participate in. Other nights though I have "movie" dreams. I am not a character but a watcher of the action. These are the dreams that give me ideas to write about. (They are not X-rated.) Last night I had such a dream. These dreams inspire me to write again. This morning found me concentrating hard to remember all the aspects of the dream, then running to get my laptop to frantically type in the beginning sequence and the events that happen after. Then it gets saved to my ideas folder. Some ideas get picked out to have their own folder and get the story going. My biggest problem is that when a new idea comes along it's bright and shiny and I want to play with it. My other ideas go to the way side while I play with the new idea. I need to work on sticking to one idea at a time and leave my ideas folder for when I finish a book. I know there are writers who work simultaneously on multiple books. I don't think I can do that, but hopefully we'll find out soon enough.

Plotting, plotting, plotting

Sorry, I didn't know anyone was hanging by a thread for the answer to my dilemma. I did resolve my issue since it's near the end of the novel and I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone, I won't be divulging my secrets here. I also was able to find out the motivations for my characters as they move through the story, now I need to weave it into scenes. I still don't have a handle on my hero, but I'm willing to let him fall out as we move forward with the story. I'm sure he'll tell me his secrets as it develops. Meanwhile plugging along.

Just Write

So my husband apparently thinks that reading and learning about the craft of writing is a complete waste of time. We don't see eye to eye on this issue. I do see the point of just writing and getting something on paper and maybe if all I wanted to do was sit and write all day and not worry about a cohesive story line and characterization, I could do that right now. I didn't sit down one day without any training and perform an audit simply by stating "I already know how to do math. This won't be too hard." I spent 4 years in college, 16 hours taking a qualifying exam and several weeks of training before sitting down at a client's to perform an actual audit. So forgive me if I'd like to learn something about the thing that I've wanted to do since I was a child. Instead of writing a piece of tripe, I'd like to at least understand what I'm supposed to do. So in continuing along that vein, I'm currently reading Characters, Emotions & Viewpoint in the Write Great Fiction series from Writer's Digest. And I have plenty more books where that one came from. :)

Dilemna

Currently I'm plotting a story. I've taken my two characters and got them to the point where they are on the run but I don't know how to save them. I'm going to need to brainstorm on this one. I've started to flesh out my heroine, but need to work on the hero. The hero's line of work is another object. It will need as much work as a lead character. I need to do some research before finishing that. I'll need to put it on hold until we move again, but will continue to work some on it. I'm reading to research a line (Harlequin line - Silouette Nocturne).

Writing Time-Out

I'm currently taking a time-out on writing while trying to prepare our house and family for our move to England. I'm hoping to find time to write once we get settled. I've purchased a few more writing technique books for the long plane rides back and forth.