Wednesday's Word Count

Wednesday again. I hope everyone had a great week!

Prior Goal: Three to five pages of outlining.

Achieved: Seven pages of outlining.

Goal for new week: Finish outlining and hash out more character profiles?

Excuses / comments: I didn't do too bad with the outlining, surprisingly. It's more like five or six pages, really, since the first page is an index and a couple other pages aren't completely full. In any case, I definitely met my goal. I'm hoping to finish within the next week but I'm sort of stuck at the moment - having some issues with my plot. Hopefully I can push through and figure those out.

I'm definitely seeing the benefit of outlining though. Seeing how I've changed key elements of the story about three times already. That would have been pages and pages of writing down the drain if I had just jumped in to write. Maybe this really will benefit me after all!

How did everyone else do? I know we had some healthy goals of 5,000 words - I hope you met them! Oh, and how is the querying going, Angela? Any bites?

Keep up the great work and goals everyone!

A Bit About Me and Christmas

Grabbed this off of Shelli's blog, so I could play too.

Who Are You? Christmas Edition:

Welcome to the Christmas edition of "getting to know your blogger friends". Please feel free to change up the questions if you follow a different religion and/or set of traditions.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both.
   
2. Real tree or Artificial tree? Real!
3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the second weekend. It was the first this time.
   
4. When do you take the tree down? The week after New Year's.
5. Eggnog or Hot Cocoa? Hot Cocoa.
6. Turkey or Ham? Ham.
   
7. Grinch or Charlie Brown? Grinch - the classic cartoon for me.
8. Favorite gift received as a child? Not sure. I think my play kitchen was most memorable.
   
9. Christmas cards? Yes, when I actually get on the ball and do it.
   
10. Favorite Christmas Movie? The Grinch, It's a Wonderful Life, or Love Actually. Not sure!
    
11. Pumpkin or Pecan Pie? Pumpkin.
12. White lights or colored lights? We have white on the outside but I love a colorful house too.
13. Favorite tradition? Getting and decorating the tree.
14. Favorite Christmas song? Carol of the Bells.
    
15. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Prefer to stay home but we usually travel.
    
16. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Materialism and greed.
    
17. Favorite ornament theme or color? I love retro looking ornaments.
18. Eat on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Technically both but the big meal is a Christmas one.
    
19. Spend it with your family or Inlaws? We try to make time for both. It's a pain but we love them.
    
20. What is Christmas about to you? Family, tradition, making memories, and being thankful for the blessing of another year.
    

Please feel free to put this on your own blog and let me know if you have!

P.S. Tomorrow is Wednesday's Words - are you working on your goals everyone?

First Paragraph Contest

In case you've missed this bit of fun, Nathan Bransford is having a "First Paragraph Challenge" on his blog. The deadline to post a paragraph is this Thursday at 4 pm, Pacific time.

I haven't decided if I'm going to play yet, but I just might.

Fellow writers, I'd love to know if you've entered so I can read your paragraphs!

Happy Dance!

My pre-ordered copy of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" shipped today.

I'm SO excited.

Wednesday's Word Count

Oh my! I'm so sorry this is a day late. My week got a bit mixed up and yesterday went down like a normal Tuesday would for me, so this post totally slipped my mind.

Prior Goal: 6,000 words.

Achieved: 6,775 (11/26 - 12/02)

Goal for new week: Three to five pages of outlining.

Excuses / comments: I completed NaNo and my weekly writing goal, so I'm obviously quite pleased with the last week. This week I've set myself three to five pages of outlining. That may seem like a puny goal to some of you seasoned outliners, but it's likely to be quite a feat for me. I'm going to give this a real attempt though and NOT write until I've got a decent outline underway. I'm thinking if I don't let myself start the story than I'll have the incentive to keep working on the outline. Wish me luck!

Now, your turn! Post your goals for the week in the comments. Let's try to keep each other accountable.

Oh! And start thinking about your New Year's resolutions and year-goals for 09. I'll be doing a special New Years goal post closer to the end of the month.

Finding My Niche

I've been thinking about my writing in terms of where it started, how far it has come, and where I want to go with it (working on that career plan of mine.) It occurred to me that I've tried my hand at adult fantasy, young adult fantasy, middle grade fantasy, historical romance, literary fiction, mainstream, and poetry. I've heard this is a great way to discover your writing voice and what you enjoy writing the most, but for me it's been more about finding where I belong.

Now, I'm fairly certain I'll always write fantasy, but I haven't discovered where my voice fits best within the genre. I think I enjoy writing MG more than anything but I prefer to read YA and/or adult fantasy novels. So I'm just not sure. I tend to think you should write what you like to read, at least, there are many benefits of doing so, so I'm hesitant to delve into this MG novel I'm trying to outline.

As I pondered this, I began to wonder if a lot of other writers try their hand at various genres, whether to find their voice and/or genre, or if they just immediately "know" where they belong based on what they read or what they first started writing.

And now I'm curious, why do you write what you do? Have you tried other genres? Are you certain you are writing where you "belong?" Please humor me and my constant posing of questions.

: p

Outline an Outline For Me: Outlining Struggles

Now that NaNo is over and I'm starting something new (yet again), I'm faced with my old outlining struggle.

How do I outline?
What's a good method and what will work for me?
How do I keep my focus when I just want to delve in and write?
How do I know where I want my story to go?
Is this going to ruin the story for me?
Will my characters still be able to lead me if I’ve plotted their path?

My questions in the realm of outlining go on and on. I contribute this to the fact that I've always been a "pants" writer; as in, I write by the seat of my pants. Or so the saying goes. I feel that I need to learn to outline to push myself further as a novelist (as opposed to just being a writer) but every time I give it a go I end up distracted, frustrated, and/or disheartened. Outlines ruin my euphoric new-novel high and subsequently scare me away.

So what’s the answer to my problem? Well, I think my options are as follows: Learn to finish novels without an outline, use my first draft as my outline, or find a method that doesn’t bog me down and ruin the story for me.

I’ve tried various “methods” and have tackled the advice of others with some success, but I’ve never succeeded in making a complete outline. They always fail me (or is it that I fail them?) Most recently I tried the Snowflake Method, as you may or may not remember, for my NaNo novel and the one previous to it. It’s not bad, tedious maybe, but I don’t feel like it’s working for me. Both of the stories I used this method for have larger holes in them than anything I’ve ever written pants-style. Of course, that might have a lot to do with me not completing the steps of the method more than the method itself. So…I guess it’s back to research and trial and error while I try to figure this out.

Tell me though, if you please. What is your opinion on outlines? Are they necessary? Did you struggle to become an outliner? Is there a method to your outlining madness? Do you have a method you’d like to share? An outlining success story? Advice?

Anything – I’ll take it!