Life in progress

Tag Archives: fiction


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EDDD 15 – What I don’t want to write

Having never had a blog at Christmas before, I had no idea what to expect. Okay, technically I did open this blog in July of 2012, but I wrote one post and promptly forgot about it until late January of this year.

So how am I enjoying my first Christmas experience on WordPress? It’s good and then it’s not. I’m very pleased with the comments I’ve had on my posts so far – many people have shared their own past Christmas adventures with me and I love it. What I’m disappointed about however, is the fact that I can’t seem to be able to write about anything else. Christmas has consumed every part of my life it seems. I haven’t written anything fictional to speak of (other than a few poems and my The Note series on my fiction blog) since NaNoWriMo finished.

So I’m hoping you’ll bear with me while I try to find something else to talk about. I realize my blog probably hasn’t been very interesting lately to those who don’t celebrate Christmas, and to you, I apologize.

Oh, how I need a break.

Blog post of December 15th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!


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EDDD 12 – It’s Official

I’ve finished the five courses I needed to take, so as soon as it arrives in the mail I will officially be the proud owner of a college certificate in Writing for Publication.

Then I will be able to certifiably hit the “Publish” button on WordPress!

Now all I need is a job. Anyone out there interested in hiring a slightly worn out but enthusiastic, stay-at-home mom/compulsive scribbler? I work for peanuts (preferably chocolate covered). Just ask my kids. Hell, I pay them!

 

 
Blog post of December 12th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!


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Finished!

I just finished NaNoWriMo! 😀

For the record the novel did, indeed, end with a bang. Did everyone die? You’ll have to read it to find out.

*cue evil laughter*

Okay, time for a happy dance!

2013-Winner-Facebook-Cover


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Na – Nooooooo!

Is it a good sign that I want to blow up everyone in my NaNoWriMo novel? I’m thinking a nice gas explosion would come in handy right about now. Unfortunately that would mean killing off the narrator. I doubt that would go over well in most literary circles.

I think the most creative way I’ve written for anyone to die has to be my story of the unluckiest man alive:

http://neverendingstorydepository.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/unluckiest-man-alive-dies/

What’s yours?


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Nature vs Nurture in Fiction

Twins. Part of the plot in my NaNoWriMo project required a case of mistaken identity, so instead of having one protagonist, I’m writing one and a half. I call the twins “one and a half” protagonists because I’m writing in the first person – so I’m getting all of what one of them thinks and only half of what the other does. They’re both good guys, Marcel and Max are. Decent men from a good family – very much the same in many ways.

As usual, something happened in real life which made me contemplate the differences between siblings. In this case it was a  conversation with the lady who manages the dry cleaner on my paper route.  She has two granddaughters who she loves to talk about. She was telling me how unalike they are, even though they’re very close in age. This is a subject (among many) that has always fascinated me, being an only child. My own children didn’t grow up as siblings usually do, since they all have such physical differences,  so it’s something I must study from a distance.

The difficulty I’m experiencing in my novel is that the twins, Marcel and Max, sound the same when they speak. It makes sense to me that they should, but they end up coming out like these guys:

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Not all that polite mind you, but they speak exactly alike.

Once NaNo is done and I can put some thought into it, I’ll work on finding something unique about the two, which will come out in their speech. But in the meantime, I’m wondering what about their natures, and not their nurture, can help my readers to tell them apart.

Have you ever written siblings and come across this problem? Let’s learn from each other!


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What’s in your Main Character’s Fridge?

I’ve been seriously thinking about how much my own tastes influence my fiction. The other day, my characters were in a restaurant and I purposely made them order something I, personally, wouldn’t eat.

It occurred to me that maybe I’m thinking about this too much – micromanaging my story. But the fact is, they’ve gotta eat. And I find it boring and not really credible that they’d like ALL the same things I do. If for no other reason than every character in every story I ever write always eats the same group of foods, I feel like I have to change it up once in a while.

Is this something you’ve put any thought to? If you’re a vegetarian, do you ever have your characters eating a nice juicy steak?

How else do your characters not reflect your tastes?  (Human characters, that is.)


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Shhh! Don’t Tell!

I’m an excellent person for keeping secrets. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible liar. Unless it comes to my mother, in which case I’ve been practicing since I was four and had it down to an art by the time I was a teenager, I blush, I look the other way, I avoid eye contact… I do everything in the book that will show anyone with an ounce of observational skills that I’m not telling the truth.

Is it a good idea to entrust a bad liar with a secret? If the person you’re confiding in knows your deepest darkests, and they also know, say, your spouse, do you hope that somehow they will suddenly find the ability to not blush, or simply avoid your loved ones lest they give you away?

I’m finding myself confronted with these issues, not in real life, but because of my writing. My plot is so thick with secrets at the moment, that not only am I having a hard time keeping track of who knows what, but I’m finding it difficult to not give things away to my reader.

I actually studied the body language of people who are lying, just so that I could write a more believable liar. In this, I’ve found the perfect way to tell when my kids aren’t telling the truth, and how I, myself, can become a better liar.

But back to telling secrets. Everyone has them, whether they’re big like infidelity or small like you think someone looks horrible in their favourite suit. Fibbing is a necessity when it comes to secrets. Secrets in fiction can be the backbone of a story.

Can a person who is a bad liar even have secrets? I sometimes feel as though I’m an open book, for all to see. Maybe that’s why secrets are prevalent in my fiction – practice for real life. I’m puzzling it out on paper.

Do you suffer with this dilemma, either in fiction or in real life with yourself or someone you confide in?

Tell me. Tell me your secrets. I won’t tell anyone, promise. 😉


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8/16 – Yesterday’s News – Focus on those who inspire

I’m inspired – not by the article on the front page of the paper yesterday, but by its headline:  Focus on those who inspire.

I can’t count how many times in the last month I’ve been asked the question, “What inspires you?” This question was my first assignment in my short story course and it continues to come up. Like here: on Opinionated Man’s blog just today.

My answer is ‘everything.’ All people, all things. There is nothing that can’t inspire me if I am in an imaginative mindset. And that leads me to a question for anyone willing to put forth an answer. If you consider the fact that you potentially inspire someone, does it make you want to be on your best behaviour?

Personally, I don’t think it should. After all, if everyone was always nice, pretty, clean, healthy and polite, we wouldn’t have antagonists. If our homes were always neat and tidy, would we be able to come up with a trash heap for a setting? If we all believed in the same things, would we be able to imagine strife?

Conflict is what a good story is made of. We NEED people to be at their worst once in a while. Misery, while not something most of us strive for, is necessary for the well being of the written word, as is sickness and death. Beauty is nothing without ugliness. Yin cannot exist without Yang and vise versa.

Think about it. What interests you? Conflict. Happiness that has overcome defeat. The struggle…

I can be inspired by a rock if it’s in the way, or if someone trips over it, because it’s all about the human interaction for me. It’s even better if, whoever trips over it swears like a sailor. Yes, I can be inspired by a scenery. But without life, it’s only a scenery.

What inspires you? Or, better yet, WHO inspires you?

In other news, the tree formerly known as Nosehair is sporting a new eyebrow

In other news, the tree formerly known as Nosehair is sporting a fancy new orange eyebrow


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A Minor Dilemma concerning my Short Story Course

A first world problem has arisen. It was bound to happen. Because I have some experience in writing short stories, I’m kinda ahead of the class. We’re learning, at the moment, terminology such as character, setting, conflict, theme, point of view, and narrative unity. Not to toot my own horn, but most of this stuff I already manage without thinking about it.

So our first major assignment is to write a first draft of a short story. We’ll be marked on the above points. Fine, no problem so far. I am, however, having a problem with the second major assignment. Why, you ask? Because we have yet to learn about ‘style.’ In the second assignment we must fix what the professor tells us we need fixing – which is the first half of the mark – but then we need to apply to our story what we have yet to learn about style and writing in our own voice. The problem is, I don’t know how to write, not using my own voice and style in the first place, so that I have something to be marked.

I’ve thought about trying to write the first draft in someone else’s style, but I know I’ll be so unhappy with it I won’t be able to hand it in.

What to do…what to do…?


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Erotica Week

It’s Erotica Week over at the Community Storyboard! The “Submission” post can be found here http://neverendingstorydepository.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/erotica-week-submit-to-us-he-he/

I’m finding myself rather distracted by all this. I know what I want to write, so I should probably just go ahead and do it. I’ll probably submit more than once before the week is finished anyway.

So check it out! A few things have gone up already, so to speak. Come and join us, won’t you?