NaNoNovel Read-Through, Re-Cap, and Worry-Over

I promised you this a long time ago, and so here it finally is! You can also have a virtual bag of virtual popcorn if you can find one.

You may remember that I spent most of July writing, writing, writing. To you weirdos, partially, but mainly I was writing a novel based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. It still doesn't have its own title, but I've read it all the way through, and I thought I'd tell you what I thought of it.
 Short answer is that it's absolutely rubbish. Thankfully, the fact that it's absolutely rubbish will make editing it a good lot easier, which is always good. But first, I need to do lots and lots of research. Which is where the 'worry-over' part of this post's title comes from.
 You see, I have a bad habit of shoving things into my writing (which is a problem of its own that I don't have the energy to go into or even think about with this novel). When I'm writing speculative fiction, I tend to cram as many supernatural creatures into a world as is humanly possible. And in contemp., it seems, I shove themes and problems into novels like I've got four folders and a laptop to fit into a handbag. This particular novel has everything from terminal illness to mental illness, from suicide to cowardice to cold-blooded murder.
They say 'write what you know' but I only have experience in one of those things  (and it's murder, of course). The rest of them are all things that you need a careful, well-informed hand to handle, and while I try to be careful, I'm not very well-informed.
 What should you do when you're uninformed? You should get yourself informed! But with topics like suicide... it's a bit more difficult. Especially when you're socially awkward (but that's another issue I don't have the energy to go into). It's difficult to find people who can inform you, it's hard to talk to them sensitively -- possibly as difficult as writing about it is -- and if something they said would make a huge difference to the novel, what would I do? Would I ignore them so that I could keep it on track and not have to re-write the whole thing, or would I leave it and offend them and possibly others?
 A friend of mine (hi, by the way, if you're reading -- harass me at some point; we haven't talked in yonks) pointed out that you can't keep everyone happy. But as true as that is, I'd like to avoid it as much as possible. I want what I write to be as true to life and human nature as possible. I want what I write to help people, if it can. I want people to like reading my writing, not hate it. Which is why reading through this novel was so difficult to do -- I could see the image it painted of the mentally ill and of people in general and it was so negative, so awful... but I've not got a clue how to fix it.

Also, I haven't got a satisfactory ending yet. But at the moment, that's almost the least of my problems.

Writer-who-actually-seems-kind-of-depressed-but-promises-she-isn't out!

My Writing Plan for the summer (and part of the autumn, technically)

By Monday 10th June (this is a draft post, so I don't know when you will be reading this, which is why you get the full date) I will have finished school for the summer, thanks to my GCSEs finishing. Therefore, I have a lot of time on my hands. Therefore, I am planning on getting a lot of stuff done. Here it is.

For the rest of June I will be mainly working on writing blog posts for you, my lovely 'rinos, and editing/revising/rewriting/whatever you want to call it-ing Lantern's Fall. I might also be doing bits and bobs on Nemophilia and the story idea I got when I wrote this for a Write Practice practice, and don't let me forget about entering this competition. I will also be preparing for July.

Because (drumroll please)... in July I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time! Hurray! My goal is set at 50k, though I'm hoping to maybe do more than that (scoff), seeing as I have so much time on my hands. Like in November, you lucky dudes will be getting a look into my writing habits via some round-up posts, although I have not decided yet how often these posts will be. They will be added to the 'NaNoWriMo Journal' page again, so you can see how much awesomer I have become since 9 months ago.
For Camp I will be writing a re-telling of Hamlet. You can find more information on the shiny new 'WiPs' page.

August all depends on how far I get with Lantern and her difficult-to-work story. If I have got it all sorted, then August is pretty goal-less, unfortunately. I will be writing whatever takes my fancy and also going to the summer school weekend run by the Ilkley Literature Festival. Find out more about that here. If Lantern, Annie, Malan, Cathenna and assorted others have refused to cooperate, though, I will be working around the clock, as...

September is NaNoCritMo! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be sending my baby off into the world for the first time and looking after someone else's to boot! I am slightly scared and apprehensive about this, but, as I'm sure you know, the teen writing community are a brilliant lot, so I'm sure it'll be brilliant. *gulp*

And that is my summer. Please feel free to berate me if I don't do any of the things I have written down here.

Writer type out!

Writing, a double post: Your plots and your Internets

Neither of these points currently merits its own posts, so I decided to squidge them into one.

First of all, your Internets. There are a lot of brilliantissimo writing-y blogs and websites out there. To name just a few that I follow:

• Teens Can Write Too!
• This Page Intentionally Left Blank
• Go Teen Writers
• The Write Practice 
• YAvengers 

This is all well and good and helpful... but beware, my little minions. I e-mail followed maybe six or seven blogs. I now spend an hour reading my e-mails. Now, that isn't really helpful when you're trying to get stuff done, so beware. You can learn how to be a good writer all you want, but if you never put that into practice...
Just a word of warning to the wise.

And now onto plotting. Unfortunately, I've already given you a link to the wonderful Liam, who has basically explained all the things that I might want to say about plotting before.
Let's go with it anyway.
I've always hated plotting. I like my characters to drive, and they can't exactly do that when they have to work to a given point -- if they don't have free will -- right?
Wrong. Or at least, I think so.
Because it depends on what you mean by plotting. At writer's group lately, we have plotted and tried to write a short story as so:

1. What is the spark that starts the story off?
2. What is the main character's motive?
3. What's the obstacle to this motive or goal?
4. What's the first thing to go wrong?
5. Where's the point of no return, where it looks like there's no way out?
6. How do they get out of it?
7. Now tie up those loose ends.

Or something like that. It might seem like a lot of things to get sorted, but that doesn't mean that your story is done, dusted, told and explained, oh no. Because, not only can you change these things if you want to, this isn't the story. It's just the plot, and one plot can be told a thousand times in a thousand different ways, especially if it's character-based. You need an example? --sigh-- Okay. Let's say I'm writing a short story about a guy who finds out that his uncle killed his father for his crown and this guy plots to kill that uncle. Basically, I'm writing Hamlet, yes? No. My Hamlet could be a girl instead of a guy. She could be sassy instead of moody. Her mother could have been in on the whole thing. The uncle could be a much nicer dude than the dad.
 You get the point. My story could be almost unrecognisable from the original but still use the same plot. Hurrah! The story might be plotted, but that don't mean it's been written yet, sistah.
I apologise from the random faux-US-style-language. I don't know what came over me.
 So that story hasn't been written yet. But maybe you're scared of jumping in quite so close to the deep end. Maybe you've got a series planned out, like I have, and you've got stories where the beginings and endings have to fit together, but no more. Does that count as plotting? And is it possible to do?
 From my experience, I would say no. I've been trying to write a series where each book gets to a certain end. The only book I have finished that has done what I've told it to is the first book, and I only found the ending mid-way through in a flash of inspiration. I've tried writing all five other books, but they just... they basically die half way through. So, if I were you, and I was going to plot, I'd try to plot out more than the beginning and the end. It seems like the middle actually seems to matter.

 I think that's all the 'wisdom' I've got to share with you. Thanks, and comment if you've got something to say (*facepalm* duh, Chaz, your readers aren't idiotic enough to not know why people comment on posts...


...are they?)

Writer out!

Editing Isn't Murder. Hurrah!

So, I'm twelve percent into Les Mis, and this thing is meandery-meandering and going all sorts of places just for a while before hopping back to everyone's favourite saint, Monsieur Valjean who-doesn't-tell-anyone-his-actual-name-of-coursey-course.
 Some people -- most people in fact -- would say this lovely little thing NEEDS ATTACKING WITH SCISSORS, and they're right.

 But that doesn't mean it isn't brilliant (I think -- my brain isn't too super-duper with my double negatives right now). The language is fllowery, but it's beautiful, pretty, insightful...

 Anyway, to get back to the title, editing is murder. The book Les Mis is obviously Victor Hugo's baby. Fact is, it's indulgent AND NEEDS ATTACKING WITH SCISSORS. Maybe. It's brilliant as it it is, of course...

Okay, obviously too late at night for me to make sense. Basics: let's see the film as THE EDITED VERSION, and the book as the UNEDITED VERSION. They're both good -- both brilliant, in fact -- and neither of them is better than the other. Just different.

 But, if we're honest, which of 'em would be most likely to sell: the 1000-ish page version or the short, snappy, hit-you-with-it version.

 Exactly.

Yes, I realise that this might actually be more verbose and self-indulgent than the book.

Charlie out!

Writing, reading, EDITING EDITING EDITING

 Yes. Editing. The bane of my life, the reason I now hate being a writer. I look at you people who detest the blank page, and I laugh. Ha! Your worries are trivial compared to those of us who have to chop our book up into pieces and reassemble it. Trivial.
 But seriously, if anyone wants to hop in with a few editing tips ('cut adverbs' is one I've seen recently [edit: just been doing that, and besides it being a good exercise, it's also made me realise how often I use qualifiers like 'actually', 'really', 'obviously', and it is driving me insane]) then I will hug you until you suffocate.
 Also, writing. I am sick of my lovely baby, the Saving Grace series. I wish it would a) curl up in a hole and die, or b) write itself because I am ruddy well getting nowhere with any of it. I might have to cut it down to just the one, already second-drafted, novel, and that would be suckish because the other characters have much more to give than the main wimps in that one. Plus, they fit in with what I'm editing, so that would make everything I've done basically obsolete, which would be a shame because I like the stuff what I'm editing (which makes it all the harder to edit, obv).
 Reading-wise, this is going to be a quiet, quiet blog for the next however long because thanks to this guy and what he wrote here, I thought I should maybe read Les Mis. It's nearly a thousand (gazillion) pages long, so I'm not gonna have anything to review for a while, methinks, especially as I am maybe forty pages in and the only people I have met are the bishop (the one Valjean tries to steal off of) and his sister and servant. I know. But on the bright side: the bishop is an extremely good person who, even through the medium of a book, is making me more and more Christian-feeling as I read along, so that must be a good thing (?); and it will probably open my mind or make me a better writer or something, which is always good.
 By the by, watch out for my post for the TCWT blog chain on Tuesday [Edit: FRIDAY YOU DINGBAT. I can't work out dates to save my life, let me tell you] (and nosy around everyone else's too, you evil lazy creature things). If it's not up, I've forgotten and you have the right to berate me.
 So. Back to editing, I suppose... because that's totes what I've actually been doing... gulp...

 Charlotte out!