Write Your Tush Off Weekend! Ends

Write Your Ass Off Weekend has officially ended, but I'm in the middle of an important scene and can't sleep, so I'm going on, weekend or not. I made some good progress this weekend, even though What Not To Wear proved too irresistible and I ended up watching two episodes after dinner. I'm sure Clinton and Stacey would object to my watching their show wearing my striped, crochet slipper socks. But they keep my toes toasty warm!



Can you believe someone donated these to the Salvation Army? I got them on half-price Wednesday. Fifty cents for warm feet. What a find.

Okay, so back to work. My two main characters are still falling in love. I don't want the dialogue sounding cliche and clunky. I need to eavesdrop on two teenagers on a romantic date. Think The Teen would let me follow him around a few days? Maybe if I pay for the dates?

Write Your Tush Off Weekend! part 2

It's Sunday and yesterday was disappointing, though not a complete bust. I wrote 792 words, give or take a 100 lost in revision work. I wanted 1,000 but kept letting myself get distracted. Totally my own fault. I own it.

After my Diet Dr. Pepper and snack, which turned out to be warmed up bratwurst and homemade stuffed cabbage (okay, it was more than a snack), I was seduced by episodes of Supernatural. Dean is such a scrumptious treat. Belly full of bratwurst and toes warm in my crocheted slipper socks, I succumbed to the power of The Nap. The Nap is a dangerous force in my household, sucking one in at the most inconvenient times. When The Nap release me, it was 6:30. I finished up my four hours of writing just in time to trek across town to pick up the teen. Or, these days, should I say The Teen. He's a force to be reckoned with himself.

While the hubby is busy watching the game and The Teen is off with the newest girlfriend, I'm fixing to hunker down and put in my second half of Write Your Ass Off time. I may have learned my lesson about committing to write on the weekend. I'll post how it goes later. I've got to work on a scene where my two main characters fall in love. Not as easy as one might think, avoiding all the cliches about love and such. What makes us fall in love anyway?

Progress so far with WYAOD

So I'm almost two hours in to Write Your Ass Off Day. I've completed some revision work on chapter ten and after a short break for a snack and Diet Dr. Pepper, it's full speed ahead with chapter eleven.

With revision I cut some words but ended up adding 337 words to the chapter. I'm not fond of overly long chapters, especially in YA fiction. Mine end up averaging about 15 or 16 pages.

Chapter ten is 18 pages and switches scenes several times between two events happening simultaneously. In this chapter, my main character, Ruby, discovers her true nature, a Shedim, a spirit commonly referred to as a demon, but, in the world of the novel, neither specifically good nor evil.

Writing fantasy fiction is new for me. I usually stick with mainstream literary. Deciding how to reveal a supernatural existence in a way that is believable and powerful, while keeping the level of tension tight, has been difficult. I decided to approach it by having the secret revealed by other characters in separate scenes and flashing back and forth between short passages, revealing several important aspects of the novel's plot at the same time. It feels like it works. I think the next chapter will begin with a bridge scene where she has time to think and take in all the strange recent events of her life. I don't want every scene to contain new action. She needs time to digest what's happening. I'll post how it's going in a few hours.

Write Your Tush Off Day! commences

Okay, so best laid plans ... and all that.
I'm posting my comment from the blog Editorial Ass as explanation of why I didn't start my Write Your Ass Off Day on time.

Better late than never. I signed up to write my @ss off from 11am to 7pm today and instead slept my @ss off until 11:30 then ran my teenage son around town. But it's 1:30ish and I'm starting now. I'm splitting the eight hours between today and tomorrow, so one butt cheek off Saturday and one Sunday. What else can I do tomorrow when everyone else I know is watching the big game. Go, eh? Who's playing? Anyway ... starting off with a blog post @ Doom-Eager (my blog about the rapture and misery of writing (http://doom-eager.blogspot.com) and then working on my YA manuscript. I'm about 28,000 words in (130 pages or so) and looking to knock out 2,000 words this weekend. Wish me luck!

Saturday, February 06, 2010 1:41:00 PM

I'll be posting my progress participating in WYAOD over the weekend. I've just about finished my Grande Sugar-free Cinnamon Dolche Americano and it's off to work on Chapter 11 of the book. It's such a beautiful day outside in sunny Florida. I'm going to try hard to stay motivated.

the rules of writing

I continue my theme of "the rules of writing" with this quote from W. Somerset Maugham:

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Maugham's Of Human Bondage begins with a brief description of the weather and the actions of a woman servant on a day when the protagonist's mother dies. What interests me about this opening is that the reader enters the story when the protagonist is very young. The first fifteen chapters take the reader through various points in the young boy's childhood. By page 56 in the Penguin Book edition I own, Philip is thirteen and attending school, The King's School at Tercanbury.

I guess what interests me here is the question of "low" versus "high" openings. It seems these days that all I hear about openings are "grab the reader's attention" and "begin as close to the end as possible." I contend Maugham does not do this and wonder if his manuscript would have been repeatedly rejected based on this opening.

Are openings of setting description and backstory (even when worked into action and dialogue) universally dismissed these days? If I've got an agent's or publisher's attention for maybe three to five minutes, do I even dare a "low" or "quiet" opening? Is this question of the best opening just a matter of current fashion?

This "no rules" thing really bugs me.

Check out this writing blog

Just stumbled upon a new writing blog to follow. Well, new to me, at least. It's Writer Unboxed. Give it a look-see. I read an interesting post on prologues vs. prefaces vs. forwards. Not a big fan of prologues (tend to skip those), but I usually read the preface or forward of a nonfiction book.

For more on prologues, check out the latest post on Pub Rants, "Why prologues often don't work." Just click on my link to Pub Rants under My Blog List.

A Cool Writing E-vent

What a great idea. Moonrat at the blog Editorial Ass has set up a Write Your @ss Off E-vent this weekend. I've signed up for Saturday from 11am to 7pm. Eight glourious hours of writing. Now that I've committed myself to an actual event, I think I'll get some productive work done this weekend. It's easy to slack on the weekends. Then, again, I find it's easy to slack anytime. I'm nearing the half-way mark in the manuscript but have been stuck the last few days in a difficult chapter.

Check out Write Your @ass Off Day at Editorial Ass. See My Blog List below.
I'll be posting my writing progress on Saturday, Feb. 6th. on Moonrat's blog.