Use For Your Words

Wow! Can you believe 2011 is almost over? Where did the year go? I hope this has been a productive year for everyone and you accomplished everything you set out to do. And that is basically the point of this little post, just to wrap everything up for 2011. How did you do on your 2011 writing goals? What successes did you have and what were some things you discovered you needed to improve? Did you find yourself falling into some of the same writing “traps” as years past or were you able to navigate through the obstacles effectively? How did your writing (and reading) go for the year 2011? Please feel free to share anything else that you particularly enjoyed about the year.

Are you a “plotter” or a “pantser”?

The basic definitions:

• “Pantsers” write by the seat of their pants. Most times, they know certain points of their plot, usually the important ones, but just write as the story comes to them.
• “Plotters” outline. They outline everything before they begin. They outline so they know exactly where they need to go. And they usually know all points that need to be covered.

Some people swear by one way or another while others tend to fall somewhere in the middle. So, where do you fall? Are you a “plotter”, “pantser” or a little bit of both? Or does it depend on the story, plot and characters that make you one way or another?
 

Every writer has periods of self doubt or writing periods where things just may not be easy. The words don't flow, the plot has become a bit trickier because your characters do what they want, when they want. (We've all been there, yes? lol) I came across this list on Twitter, and there were some that I really love so I wanted to share it. As the title of this post states, these are just 25 simple mantras.

25 Simple Mantras

Also, if you have any mantras/affirmations/positive thoughts that you say that you'd like to share, feel free to do it in a comment and I'll add it to this post! :)

Enjoy.

It's one week until NaNo begins. Again, I'm really excited lol. But I just wanted to throw out a few links to help plan your novel and hopefully make those 50k come smoothly and easily. These aren't just tips for NaNo though. So, hopefully, they'll be able to help all of us from beginning (when we're unsure if it's even anything) to the end when we finally decide we want to take the jump and dive into the story :).

5 Steps to Writing a Novel

The Story Bible

Enjoy :)

Just wanted to know how many people are participating this year? I know I've seen on Twitter a few of you are, but for the people I don't follow.

I'm writing original fiction this year. (Technically, I wrote original fiction last year, but for the purposes of being able to finish, I pictured Taylor and Zac as the male characters, ha!) And, I'm really excited about it. I just added another piece to my outline...and that increased my excitement level.

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it's the novel writing challenge of writing 50,000 words from November 1 to November 30 (11:59:59). It's really quite fun. So, if you want to know more, go to the site NaNoWriMo and look around. It begins one week from today, so if you're not considering it then join the rest of the crazies us!  :)

October 20 is National Day on Writing. Several companies/organizations have teamed up and asked the question why do you write. They are accepting submissions. I just thought this was pretty neat and wanted to share/pass it along in case anyone didn't see it. (It pretty much flooded my Twitter feed yesterday.)

Here's the link: Why I Write

I was going to do this last month, but I completely forgot. Oops :/ The end of the year is quickly approaching and I just wanted to touch base with everyone to see the progress we’ve been making toward our writing goals. I did a post similar to this in June. Have things gotten better or worse since then? If you were having success, have you found yourself slowing down or losing motivation? If you were struggling, do you feel like you’re starting to break through and gain new motivation?

It seems the Hanfic world is starting to boom again and, honestly, I love it! :D

"One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions." -- Salman Rushdie

Since the community has been slow recently I thought I’d do something a little different. I currently have works in progress, as I’m sure other people do to, but I know some people just aren’t motivated to write and want something to read. I thought it’d be something different if people gave their own recommendations for good reads. (Not saying if a writer or story isn’t on this list it’s a bad read.) I know a lot of what is posted to the site seems to cater to writers. So this can get everyone involved. Bethany (shewasred) has compiled a list of stories that are considered to be the most famous in around the fandom that can be found here if you want to read some Hanfic classics. Just scroll to the bottom and it's under Hall of Fame. This isn’t necessarily a “classics” list, just a list of personal favorites from different readers. It doesn’t matter what genre your recommendations for each one as long as it’s your personal favorite. And hopefully someone else will find a gem on the list too. You don't have to fill out every bullet point. If you don't have a favorite under one then you don't have a favorite. No biggie.

Just fill in blanks, leave it in a comment and try to provide a link for the story you’re recommending. I’ll add your name and them either to this post or make another one for easier access depending on how many entries there I actually get. And if you want to provide answers, but you aren’t comfortable doing it in this format then you can send me an LJ message or e-mail and I’ll provide your answers that way.


• Favorite completed fic
• Favorite work in progress
• Favorite “old school” story
• Favorite “new” story (2009 to present)
• Favorite series
• Favorite story with Isaac as the lead
• Favorite story with Taylor as the lead
• Favorite story with Zac as the lead
• Favorite story that’s on hiatus or “abandoned” (For the sake of being consistent we’ll classify this as a story that hasn’t been updated in over a year and one that the author has specifically mentioned that won’t be updated for a while or ever again.)
• Favorite drabble, short story or one shot
• Shameless plug (You don’t have to list one, but this is a story you’ve written that you’d most likely recommend to someone who may be interested in your writing or just your personal favorite story…in case that needed explanation, lol.)
• Any other good reads that wasn’t listed above

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” Louis L'Amour