NaNoWriMo 2016: VICTORY!

by Lillian Csernica on November 30, 2016

 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bouquet of Rivals, Book 3 of The Flower Maiden Saga, weighs in at 50,064 words.

 

Deep story goodness for writers via The Mother of All Cheat Sheets

This is brilliant. And helpful. And entertaining. Did I mention brilliant? I’m down to my last 5,000 words for NaNoWriMo. This is what I call HELP. Thank you, Guy Bergstrom!

The Red Pen of Doom

If you’re attempting NaNoWriMo and are on track to finish the Great American Novel, congratulations. Carry on.

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo and there’s no way you’ll give birth to a full novel by Dec. 1 without quitting your job, getting divorced and downing pots of coffee along with stimulants sold by a sketchy long-haul truck driver—then congratulations, this post is for you.

Click with your mousity mouse to read Part1—Why NaNoWriMo is noble nuttiness–and 8 steps to make it easier (big thanks to WordPress for featuring this post on their front page)

Click here to read Part 2— Why first drafts are always flawed and how to fix them

Hear me now and believe me later in the week: given the choice of holding in my  hands (1) an absolutely finished hot mess of 100,000 words or (2) a single page blueprint of a brilliant story, I’d…

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More News From NaNo Land

by Lillian Csernica on November 24, 2016

 

 

I have just reached the 40,000 word mark.

Six more days. 10,000 more words.

A whole new novel.

And I just received the inspiration that will be a key piece of plotting Book Four.

 

They Blinded Me with Science!

by Lillian Csernica on November 19, 2016

 

Today I took my son John and his two best friend to the Museum of Technology and Innovation in San Jose, CA. This was John’s big birthday wish. Despite lack of sleep, heavy rain, and my general preference for sparing myself the ordeal of driving over  Hwy 17, we arrived only a little while after the museum opened at 10 a.m.

Oh my stars and garters. We did everything there was to do, and some of it twice!

The boys built a catapult for firing a small wooden ball across the model of a river. That particular activity comes with a tool kit and a wall of supplies, which including PVC piping, thin wooden dowels, fat plastic screws, and all the blue or green rubber bands you could possibly need.

Once the catapult was built, the boys carried it over to the river, fired it successfully, and received the “I’m a Mechanical Engineer” magnets awarded to everyone whose device was successful.

The general theme of John’s birthday this year is Superman. With this in mind, the trio of teenage mad scientists built a robot that stood about three feet high. It had colored lights that rotated through the spectrum. It had a shield on the front that spun around, along with two smaller shields, one on the end of each arm. It had infrared sensors and a motion detector. It even had a cape!

Once they’d finished building the robot, the boys recruited a staff member to help them attach the electronic brain. With that in place they could begin programming the robot. This took some trial and error, some experimentation. I am proud to say Team John got the superhero robot working!

Another high point included each of the boys designing a roller coaster. Once complete, the video equivalent of the design played on a large screen. The really great part was the four seat ride car equipped with a low grade version of DBox. Each of the boys’ designs managed to make me want to throw up, so I pronounced them all a success.

The Gift Shop is full of amazing educational toys, science experiments, books, jewelry, and a great space-themed “ugly Christmas sweatshirt.” John chose a gyroscope, which he’s learned to operate quite well.

The Gift Shop included one of those bins of red jasper, moss agate, tiger’s eye, and the usual quartz and agate dyed a hideous blue or pink. I can’t resist rocks, so I was digging through the bin looking for something worthwhile. A young man (in his teens) happened to be interested in the rocks as well. We got to talking about various stones. He kept asking me questions. I know enough to identify many of the more common rocks, along with the more popular semiprecious stones. I also know a fair amount of folklore regarding the properties of stones.

The young man listened in apparent fascination. Every time I apologized for going on and on about a lifetime hobby, he wanted to know even more. We must have been talking for a good fifteen minutes when I finally had to excuse myself to go find out what John and his friends were doing. It’s wonderful to meet someone hungry for knowledge in a subject that also fascinates me.

Tomorrow we have John’s official birthday party with cake, ice cream, and presents. On the anniversary of his actual birth, we plan to see Fantastic Beasts. And then comes Thanksgiving!

 

News from NaNo Land

by Lillian Csernica on November 13th, 2016

It’s a good thing women are neurologically wired for multitasking. Without that advantage, I would be a smoking pile of rubble right now.

In addition to cranking out seven pages of fresh writing every day on my NaNo novel, I’ve had to edit and polish two short stories. The first weighed in at 3300 words, the second at 5300. Both were due today. I sent them to my editor last night. Go, me!

As if all that wasn’t enough fun, I’ve had brainstorms for at least two new short stories.

This is all good, but it feels like Finals Week. I’ve been downing so much caffeine I’m surprised my arrhythmia hasn’t started up again. The only cure for mental fatigue is getting away from reading and writing for a little while. (I never really thought of grocery shopping as being therapeutic, but today’s trip to the market qualified!)

So this is what the Big Names do all the time. Wow. Let’s hope I can keep this up after the formal end of NaNoWriMo. It’s good to be preoccupied with my writing. That really keeps the depression under control.

Capere keyboard!

http://www.selectric.org

How to Write 10,000 Words in a Day

Here’s something for all of us about to hit the middle of NaNoWriMo 2016. Many thanks to Faye Kirwin!

The Sprint Shack

We word sprinters like to push ourselves. The pressure of a time limit makes us more productive and we thrive on the challenge. And what greater challenge is there for a sprinter than writing more words in a day than we believed possible?

For those of you looking to really test yourselves, the 10k Day Challenge might be just the thing. If you’re interested in giving it a go yourself, here are my six steps to writing 10,000 words in one day.

(Before I start, I will add a small note: although the focus of this post is on writing 10,000 words in a single day, the steps listed can apply to any word count goal you set yourself, whether that’s 1000 words, 10,000 or more.)

Step 1: Break down your target into manageable chunks.

10,000 words is a BIG number. To some, it seems impossible. It’s not. It’s all…

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How to Squeeze More Words Out of A Tired Brain

by Lillian Csernica on November 6, 2016

I’m sitting here yawning. Yesterday I left the house at 11:30 a.m. and didn’t get home until around 10 p.m. That means ten and a half hours. I spent three of those hours driving.

When I finally staggered up the stairway to my office and dropped my bags, I realized I had 90 minutes to get the day’s NaNoWriMo quota done. At midnight, that’s it. You’ve either written that day or you haven’t.

You know how your car engine sounds when you turn the key and the engine tries to turn over, but it just won’t catch? Yeah. That’s the sound my brain was making.

I was a bit ahead of the minimum total word count for Day 5, so I was strongly tempted to just let it ride for one day. No no no. I’d signed up for NaNoWriMo, so I’d made the commitment to write every single day in November. Every. Single. Day.

I did cut myself some slack. Make it to the ten thousand word mark, I told myself. Write that much, and you’re off the hook. That meant three pages, or 750 words.

Great. Now what? <sound  of car engine failing to turn over>

At times like this I brainstorm. I write down every horrible thing that I could possibly do to my characters. It doesn’t have to make sense, really, it just has to be possible within the story content already established. If all goes well, inspiration will strike, the engine of my imagination will turn over, and the writing flows.

Want some specific examples of how I torture my characters and get the day’s writing done? I’m happy to share.

 

 

After Happily Ever After: Somer Canon

I also find it fascinating to learn about another writer’s process. Well done, Somer!

claudia quint

After Happily Ever After Cover by Dean Samed, banner by Rohit Sawant

If you haven’t heard about the After Happily Ever After anthology, this interview series is a front row seat into the creative minds of the authors who have re-envisioned the fairy tale world beyond the final credits. Somer Canon adds her unique brand of fiction through a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale, and keep reading because there’s a Halloween treat at the end!

You have a fun, quirky bio that plays on the contrast between the normalcy of the suburban life you find yourself in and the deeper facets of your creative self-expression. Would you like to give us a glimpse into how the “mini van revving suburban mother” who plays “video games that sate her need for blood, gore, and things that disturb her mother” got her start on this writing journey?

I’ve always been…

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