Clearing the Dust Away

Ah, at last the time has come log in to blogger and clean of the cob webs of my quiet blog. NaNoWriMo 2008 creeps closer and closer with each passing day.
Even though I am extremely busy this year with AP and Honor Classes, Stage Managing for the School Plays, and being an Assistant Editor in the Paper, I still feel that this is the year for me to win.
So if your new to this blog, I write it just as a record of my writing adventures. I don't expect people to read my blog, this is for my own personal enjoyment, However if you do read this, I would love to hear from you. I will be posting a new blog every couple of days until NaNo starts recording what I am going through in planning this novel, I hope what I find will also help you.
Once NaNo starts I will be posting updates every saturday.
For those participating in NaNo Have Fun and Good Luck

LLH

Zen Habits

I recently came across a great blog called Zen Habits (www.zenhabits.net) it is a blog on just about anything to make your life better. I will leave it to the writer to describe:

My name is Leo Babauta, I’m married with six kids, I live on Guam, I’m a writer and a runner and a vegetarian and I love writing Zen Habits.

Zen Habits covers: achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits.

To tell you the truth this blog inspired me to do a lot of things. I am now sign up (and actually participating!) for online classes. I am self teaching myself by reading informational books, and I have gone from thinking about to doing. I find myself unable to wait for his next blog to come out (usually once a day) I find this site to have a plethora of useful information and highly recommend it.

Thanks for Reading!

Logan

I Published a Short Story!

A finally a real blog. I have so much to write about.
I have published a story! Yes that is right, I have published a short story titled "A Death of Poe" it is about Poe's mysterious death. I am very excited to see it in print.
Xan, one of my novels that I have been working on since NaNo 2006 has been sitting at the bottom of the drawer, I have tried to edit it, but it doesn't get far it was always missing.... something. Well it hit me like a ton of bricks the other day while I was day dreaming in my Health class and I figured out that by changing one thing.... ONE THING, the place where my main character lives, I could fill and fix every plot hole and problem I had. Yes I did a little party dance for quite a while, it was that big. So I dug Xan out of my drawer and I have started writing an Outline for it. It is developing very nicely. I plan to be finished editing by the end of this month. And I want to do a NaNoWriMo sort of thing during June (so if you want to do this send me a comment and we will set up a small forum.) I am going to be finished writing before the end of this year, By September. I can then take a break for NaNo and get back to editing. Yes I am feeling very productive
2YN (fmwriters.com) is going very well we are now working on world building and I have a very good feeling about where it is going. See you in the Forums!

Thanks for Reading, Until Next Blog...

Have fun and Good Luck,

Logan

Two Year Novel

I have recently signed up for Two Year Novel (fmwriters.com) a workshop based on the 2YN books by Lazette Gifford, is supposed to take you from idea to published novel in two years. Sounds like a good deal to me. My Two Year Novel, is coming a long well, I currently have my ideas narrowed down to two and I am following the assignments and building on idea. For those who subscribe to fmwriters and also are a part of the 2008 class, if you would like to see my post search my username: Logan_Xan
I have started working on Xan (a Novel that I started NaNo 2006) but haven't been able to do much since I am immensely busy with school.
In only 11 days I depart for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for spring break. I am very excited, I love to travel. I will be posting some pictures here when I get back.
I hope to get a lot of creative writing done, hopefully something will inspire me to get back in to the writing mood. Unfortunately for me I think that I am the only one that can do that.

Until My Next Post: Have Fun, and Good Luck,

Logan

NaNoWriMo 2007 Recap

Hope you all had a great holiday season and a happy new year!
Ah, I am back from a long break off of NaNoWriMo and writing and general. So to put my whole NaNoWriMo 2007 experience in a nutshell I would simply call it crap.
Now this is not the usual crap... I was simply not prepared and procrastinated ever so much... I how ever did reach the same amount of words as last year at 25k. My writing club was one of the reasons I did not get a lot done. Also with the school play I was not able to plan, but these are just excuses. Next year will be better and I WILL... I know I said this last year.... But I WILL accomplish the 50k goal.
The thing I wrote will be going in a box and in this box I will put rocks. Wrap it with duct tape and place it on the largest shelf in my garage until I can find further use.

My Writing Club is going to be basically doing a workshop. So I am going to crack out Xan and I will complete it. I will then begin to edit it for its third draft. I hope at which point I can begin to send it out to Agents and Publishers.

This will be a part of Year of Big, Fun, Scary things at NaNoWriMo which I had a blast doing this year and can't wait to accomplish this year. Off I go! Good Luck and Have Fun,

Logan

Halfway Mark Update

Congratulations to all of you WriMos that have not quite by now... It is almost the end of week two. HORRAY! And a special congrats to all of the writers that are keeping up or are ahead of the game.

My word count has dropped drastically this week. So as special mid-month challenge I will write 6,000 or more words today. So my current word count of 11,290 (I can see you all cringe) will turn into 17,000. Which means I should easily by the weekend.

I am taking advice of Sue Gruen (http://www.saragruen.com/home.html) if you haven't read her pep talk... its a good one. I am going to write all the candy bar scenes! sounds like fun :D!

So I am stealing the random bullets from hed.

• I am going to write 6k
• I am going to write 6k
• I am going to write 6k
• The internet is a huge distraction
• I am dreading editing this beast
• I am going to write 6k
• I feel like starting a cool wiki
• or a collaberative blog
• I will write 6k
• I am going to post an update by tomarrow
• Wireless mouses are a gift from heaven
• I should probably put the six or seven glasses and mugs in the dishwasher
• oh! and I will write 6k today!

Have fun and good luck!

Wind Chime Outlining

Simple 7 Step Method

Deciding that I needed an outline for NaNoWriMo this year, and a quick one, I spent an hour or so in search of the various outlining methods. I printed off around four and reviewed them. Adding what I thought would work for me, and what would create a better story, I created this wind chime method. It has worked wonders for my writing.
I call it the Wind Chime Method because of the way it looks when it is finished. All you will need is a pack of 3x5 cards, a pen, your brain, and an optional bulletin board. This should only take an hour or two.
For this model I will use the story of 'The Three Little Pigs'.

Step 1: Create an information card for each of the main characters, write about their past, their personality, how they will change by the end, and any other various quotes and bits you want to add.
Step 2: Take another one of your 3x5 cards and write the general synopsis of the story, this should be fairly vague, maybe a paragraph or two.

Step Three: Now mentally divide the story into three sections the beginning, the middle, and the end. Write around three paragraphs.
Step Four: Take one of the thirds and look at it. Write about all the Candy Bar Scenes as Holly Lisle (www.hollylisle.com ) Calls them. These scenes that are fun to write, packed with action, comedy, and bizarre revealing of secrets. These can include dialogue, snippets of description, and anything else you want.
There should be at least two per third depending on your novel length.

Step Five: Now make all the filler scenes. Scenes that get you from one Candy Bar scene unto the next, If you have another idea for a Candy Bar, Write it down and Post it up there. That’s the great thing about this outline, it spawns Ideas.
Step Six: It is a good idea to go back through all those scenes and when there is something that can be described or in depth more, write it down and set it next to the scene it is in.
Step Seven: It is finally time to post your outline into the 'Wind Chime' format, take your Plot Card and post it at the very top in the center. Take the beginning, middle, and ending cards and Set them under it. With some space between them. Take the scenes pertaining to each third card and post them under it in chronological order. Then the major description Card should go under its scene. Post the character cards wherever works. It should look like this:

See It looks like wind chimes! Kind of! The blues are the thirds. The dark orange cards are the scenes (CB= Candy Bar and F= Filler) the light orange in the background are the in depth description cards, and the gray cards are the characters.
I hope that this helps your outlining needs!


Good Luck, and Have Fun,

Logan