For the last week or so, I’ve been working on the novel I wrote in November during NaNoWriMo. Today I admitted to myself, that while effort has been expended [passive voice has been used], I’m flailing. I’ve been changing this, changing that, working obsessively on that all-important opening scene, but with very little strategy in mind. My novel’s in pretty good shape considering it was written in a month. I started at the beginning and moved through it in an orderly way. I u

As for the book itself, I’m still not sure about my title, “Plasticity.” I like it and it fits the subject matter, but it probably sells nothing. Perhaps that’s something to worry about three years from now when I’m still whipping the story into shape. Or…maybe it could be the title of the series. Hah. I know what that is. It’s my Delusions of Grandeur, which rise to the surface when I’ve just completed a first draft…of anything! Here’s my pitch: A young scientist reluctantly

The thing I’m most proud of after successfully finishing NaNoWriMo is that I made no foolish pledge to blog everyday during the month. The first five days I wanted to. It was a good feeling to complete my main course and then finish off with a little blogging dessert. But after day five, the novel filled me up. I got a lot of pleasure knowing that I hadn’t made a stupid public promise to blog the process! Now, having completed the month in fine form and having had a couple of

from Astute Graphics Today, my main character showed her character. Up to now, she’s been more self-involved and confused than anything else—for good reasons—but, that had to change. Even though she still has more questions than answers, she reached a point where she had to take a stand, to declare herself on one side of the conflict or the other. I’m proud to say that she did it unflinchingly, in a way that provides no possibility of turning back. She can’t undo what she did

Today, I could not get to The Point. I planned on writing the MC’s Fateful Decision. That point at which she makes a decision that will forever change her life and set up the action for the rest of the book. Without this, I could ramble on about the situation she’s in for chapters and chapters, but there would be no point, would there? I know what her Fateful Decision is. I know I want it to happen as soon as possible, so I was shooting for it to happen in Chapter Three, thir

photo courtesy of practicalowl Yesterday, my MC was walking home from her job, exhausted and worried, when she suddenly decided to climb a tree. They are huge trees with low, sturdy, spreading branches. Of course, she would want to throw her leg up and hoist herself into one of them! But it came as a surprise to me. It’s one of the great things about writing fiction. The surprises. See, I’d only just made up that tree. I’d thought about the setting of my novel a lot. If you

I’ll let you know when that day comes. I worked on the Pitch again. It’s getting closer. Still not ready to post it on the Nanowrimo site, but I’m happier with it. It’s a good exercise. I feel that I’m narrowing in on the crux of the plot. Try it if you haven’t already. I posted the Scrivener logo on this post because that’s what I’m using to write my novel this time. I had the software on my old Apple laptop and I used it anytime I wrote on the Apple which wasn’t that often.

I was surprisingly anxious about beginning, but found it neither too hard nor too easy. Maybe that’s what we call “just right?” Yesterday, I worked on the Pitch, but couldn’t make it as succinct and gripping as I’d like. I’m going to work it over every day until I feel it’s right. Maybe that can serve as a compass to tell me whether I’m still on the map. The map, the map…I need to make a map of my setting. Impressions as I wrote: Everything needs saying all at once. It’s hard

In case there is anyone out there who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s an idea, a concept, a month-long event, a website that has grown from 20 something people in the Bay Area of San Francisco in 1999 to hundreds of thousands of avid subscribers around the world. The idea is to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel (no starting ahead of time or working on a work-in-progress) in the month of November. That’s 1667 words a day and the rewa