Creative Corner

Hooray, new thread! And happy my-birthday-month to everyone, hehe.

Umm, let's see, responses from the old thread...

@LadyRowyn I love "Maize's" bio about being read to! It warms the cockles of my pseudo-librarian heart. :)

@micahjaguar Ah, I can see how fan bases might be bigger problems than legal things. (I've definitely been guilty of that myself...not wanting to read books because they used a title that a different author I like already used.) Hopefully I won't run into many fan problems either because I suspect the audience for my book will be a little different from his. They might overlap somewhat (for people like me who read all across the fantasy spectrum regardless of age) but I think mine lends itself better to younger readers. (Maybe. What I managed to write of book 2 during NaNo was darker than I expected, so...we'll see.)
Also, I laughed at "but I didn't steal that idea from David Weber, I stole it from Mercedes Lackey!" I think I would have been more likely to make an association with her books anyway, because I've read a lot of them and none of Weber's.

@Pookasaur Wow, that Nocturne is gorgeous! O_O

In writing news...well, I didn't do much writing last night because I went to see the new Avengers movie instead. So good! (Though the preview for the upcoming Ant Man movie makes me wish they were doing a Black Widow movie instead. *sigh*) I did manage to write a different beginning to one of my earlier chapters when I got home though. It's been plaguing me pretty much since the day I wrote the first draft, because it's a section where it seems appropriate to describe the sailing ship that comprises the setting for the first part of the story. It was also the part where I realized that I know nothing about sailing ships that I didn't learn from reading other fantasy novels. So for the longest time there's been a terribly vague placeholder with a note to myself that says "do research on sailing ships." I've now done some research have a plausible layout in my head, so I managed to re-write that section. It's still not perfect, but I think it works better than what I had there before.

@LadyRowyn

Thank you for the summons! Like @micahjaguar, I participated in Camp Nano reluctantly, but we had a group and they needed support and I did have something to do, always for a writer, eh?

SO, I ended up not doing the rewrites needed on my Wright Catalyst book, but just finished the SF book instead. As in...I reached the end and then played with what happens after the end for the last couple days.

It feels awesome to reach an actual end - second time that has happened now with my novels! BUt the rewrites are truly chores to get into, and the beginning of this novel was sooo bad, lol. I love the new storyline, and just have to figure out best way to handle the rewrites.

Anyone with advice? I use Scrivener, and I stopped updating the outline 20k into the novel - what i have is much different story than I thought I had.

Do I work on breaking it up in chunks and sections? Need an outline to organize? I didn't do the index card options in Scrivener yet either... lol, I am a bit flailing right now on the writing front...within a month, my first readers are demanding I have a draft for them to read. What do I do?

My fellow draong-writers... I am in need of help...

I've been kind of inactive on the writing scene lately. It's not for lack of wanting, necessarily, I'm just having a hell of a time trying to keep motivated.

Part of it is stress from work, of which there is a lot. Part of it is having a 10 month old puppy who's very demanding of my time and attention. Cutest little bugger, but like my mom and step dad jokingly say about anything that takes up a lot of your time, he's a "time suck." Constantly wanting to go outside, and he can't be left out alone because he gets into trouble when he is. Part of it I think is because last August, someone who I'd considered a really, very dear friend for going on seven years, just... decided they didn't want to talk to me anymore. And April is when our "Friendiversary" would have been. So I've been pretty distracted mentally with that...

So I need you guys' help. I need to figure out how to get re-motivated, without having to wait until NaNoWriMo comes back around to kick me in the pants. I just feel so mentally exhausted these days that I can't seem to get anything written lately... What do you guys do to fight the writing blahs?

@Velg, I can't quite say I do anything to fight the writing blahs since... I don't really write a whole bunch even though I really want to be a creative writer some day..
but when I've got artblock, I'll just sit down and do a zentangle. Nothing super complex like some of the things you'd find on google *coughs at horse* just simple squares of one design or another. Then I'm drawing something and sometimes it'll give me ideas of what to draw or how to position the figure if I already had an object in mind, but even if not, it helps me cool my mind because I'm not thinking about positions or complex details or things like "this foot position doesn't look right" or "that eye is too small!", it's just whatever happens happens.

So I guess maybe instead of trying to get yourself motivated or focusing on writing something specific, maybe just make a flat character or so and have them interact and just write down whatever you think of, and try not to care about editing it because at least you're writing?
Then if you want, maybe you can go through it and find pieces to reuse or something?

Not really sure if that helps at all since I'm more of a draw'r than a writer...

@paintminion Ooh, congratulations on getting something finished! I'm still dreaming of the day I can say I finished a novel. *crosses fingers* Soon...

I use Scrivener too, though I don't really have a formal outline on there. (I have one on note cards that I finally broke down and made because I needed to keep straight what scenes I had written and which I hadn't but knew I wanted to add). I tend to section mine off as I'm writing it. Usually I move on to a new section when it feels like a scene has wrapped up or it switches to a different character's perspective. As I'm rewriting I try to look for places where it feels natural to break it off, since when I send it to my critique group I like to have it divided into chapters. It also helps me to have it sectioned off for times when I realize a scene would make more sense somewhere else, or when I want to take something out but also want to keep it around in case I change my mind. I have a whole folder in there called "Use later" for things like that.
(I'll try to remember to take a screen shot when I get home so you can see how I have it laid out, just in case that helps you at all.)

@Velg Sorry to hear that life has been crazy for you! But it's good to have you here. If you want to ease back into writing, you might try doing some bios for your dragons? I find that to be a pretty low-pressure writing exercise for me. (Of course, most of my dragons are silly and/or amusingly grumpy, so they're fun to write.) I also find that if I'm struggling to make myself work on my novel (which I'm making myself work on at least a little bit every day) it can help if I switch up where I'm writing or what I'm writing on. I usually use my laptop, but sometimes writing by hand for a while can loosen me up.

@Pyrasaur Ooh, such pretty dragons! I'll admit I have a fondness for Vipera on Spirals as well.