Outlines

When writing a story outline - how detailed to you go?  Chapter outlines - do you go with brief description of what would happen in each chapter and that's enough - or do you get more detailed in each chapter and go paragraph by paragraph?

What about segments of the overall story?  This who idea of doing an outline is just feeling overwhelming - one thing I'm considering is to start large view and work my way down or narrower...

But sitting here right now, I'm just not sure who the story really ends, so can I really do an outline when I don't know that?

UGH!  Sigh...ideas?  Tillie tries to help, but she runs out of ideas too!

Time to Outline? Time to Confess...

I've never outlined my story...never sat down and so much as put one bullet point on paper about the plot, the characters, the climax, any sub-plots and I certainly haven't organized a full blown outline of who, what, when, where, how, why, and then this and voile...(can't even spell that word - not even sure I got the right word - trying to get the word from magic that implies ta da - there it is!!!).

But is that necessary?  I'm beginning to think the answer is a resounding YES!

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of miscellaneous notebooks from the past few years with numerous pages of notes about my story with lots of great ideas about my characters, who they are, where they come from, where they should go, what they could do, together, to each other, etc... how they are connected, ideas for background, notes about where I need to go back and fill things in...but what I definitely DO NOT HAVE is a comprehensive outline or even a slightly vague outline of what is going to happen in this story.

How problematic is that?

In reading so - oh so many posts at the beginning of November on the Nanowrimo Facebook page enthusiastic Nanoists talked in excruciating detail about the importance of outlines.  In fact, people were panicking at the end of October at having NOT outlined in preparation for the start of Nano!

It's been far too long since I took an actual creative writing class and in reading about writing, clearly an outline is the way to go - and in the practicality of my daily life and trying to wrangle this complex story, an outline is needed.

So - outline it is.  Suggestions - comments - ideas are welcome.  But, as I have no followers on this blog and no one seems to be reading it or commenting - which is fine - this is just really an exercise right now to keep me writing - I'm going to jump in and get started with a basic attempt.

However, in the off chance there is someone out there who does happen across this and feels so inclined to leave their two cents (thanks in advance).

Writing Again Feels Good!

I changed the name of my main female lead. Thank you Sarah for the help! Awesome idea... Ariana going by Ari for short. It means holy one! Perfect!

The Dark Rider is now revealed as Sana which means radiant one (what a fall from grace, right?).

1200 words so far today! Yay!

Back at it...

I am way behind in Nano writing but I got back to it today! Whew for the three day weekend, even though I have to work a bit I can write while I work so alls good! Yay. I can and will catch up this weekend!!! I am determined!

October 29 - three days and counting...

Every time I think about writing a blog post and think about writing for Nano it occurs to me that I should be writing for my story.  That every word I write on Blogger is actually a word I should be using for my novel.

My brain is actually going to start screaming at me, "Hey!  You could be using this word for Nano!  What are you, Crazy!  Oh, right, that was last year!  This is the denial year - yea, you're on that river in Egypt girl and you're not writing either!"

Yep.  That's my brain.  Nice, right?  Welcome to my world.

See you in a few days...maybe...

Me and Tons of Friends...

I found out yesterday that tons of friends are doing Nano this year too!  It's so great to know that I won't be suffering alone!  I shouldn't say that.  I shouldn't say suffering, because writing is really fun.  The story flows, you never know what the characters will do next.  It's really amazing when all of a sudden they are off and running in a completely different direction from the one you originally thought.

But to get back to all my friends - yesterday on Facebook, I posted Nanowrimo - 1667 words a day, 50,000 words in a month, and just how many more days before November and all these people came out of Facebook-land to say they are "in" too!  Awesome!  I'm so excited!

So here's to everyone doing Nano - you can do it!  And we'll all be in this together!  Thanks for being in there with me!

Gear up for Nanowrimo

It's time to gear up for Nanowrimo and in preparation I've been looking again at my manuscript for Guardian (re-writing the first paragraph - bouncing around and adding things here and there). Sarah asked if I was going to continue to work on that for Nano, but then I got to thinking about doing something different. I'd been thinking about our dog Tillie.

Tillie is an avid sleeper, hiker, dreamer, and of course eater! She's had many adventures and loves to tell you all about them, especially when we get in the car and are headed off for a new one. All of this begins to take shape as a great story in my head and so...I start this txt conversation with Sarah about titles: Tillie Takes a Trip, Tillie Goes for a Hike, Tillie Meets a Skunk, Tillie Takes a Plunge. She and I are popping them off to one another like crazy!  Tillie Learns to Yodel, Tillie Catches Flies, Tillie Meets New Friends, Tillie Gets a Puppy.

So as we are txt-ing, it finally comes up that I'm talking about Nanowrimo and of course, you could write the whole thing with just titles - ugh!  That's cheating!  But imagine a series of children's books about Tillie and her adventures!  What fun!  So, maybe I'll do that - or maybe I'll go back to Guardian and keep working - it too is an awesome story and is still just getting started and I'd love to spend more time just writing!

This whole blog about Just Keep Writing - well that works if you make for it and somehow right now, I just haven't - except it's starting to creep back in like a light under the door, gradually getting brighter, slowing beginning to fill the room with a hint of light so just maybe, perhaps, I can see my hands.