Three Weeks - My Biggest Hurdle So Far
Posted on September, 3 at 10:27 pm
I’ve been trying to get back into the groove of working on Three Weeks (the humourous novel I’m working on for anyone new). I’ve definitely run into what’s likely to be my biggest hurdle in novel writing, with this project and future ones. I need to find a way to get past it.
That hurdle is an editing obsession. I find myself second-guessing everything I write.
I do think this is a bigger problem with the comedy than it will be for other things though. Frankly, it’s hard to be funny!
I’m most in my comedic element when I’m just being myself - when I’m speaking my mind, no holds barred. My main character is supposed to have a similar dry, sarcastic kind of wit to her, albeit a bit more “obvious.” It’s very difficult to try to be like that on purpose. To do it at all, I can’t be writing - my character has to be writing (this is a first person piece), so I have to be so much in her head that her “thoughts” become my own. It’s kind of fun - kind of scary.
What sounds good when I’m “just writing” sometimes doesn’t feel right at second look. And I know the problem is that I’m taking that second look more than the actual words. I need to let her get from beginning to end of her story before I over-analyze her, and I’m very much struggling with that.
That said, I’m still in the beginning segment of the manuscript. 
Something else I’ve been thinking - these 15 sub-stories are just too much. I wanted them brief in short story style, but I really think some need to go. I don’t know how many I’ll keep (I always intended to cut about 5 at the end, so maybe I should cut them before drafting, so I expand the others as I write them instead of doing major fill-in additions later). The extra stories would actually be perfect for a blog tied to the book (I was actually thinking this entire book would make for a pretty interesting fictional blog instead of book format, but I just don’t think I have a good enough marketing scheme in me to pull that kind of project off).
So anyway… things aren’t at a stand-still, but they’re not moving as quickly as I’d like. Fortunately I’m not in a huge rush on this project, but I really should soon set a deadline to have the first draft completed - that might help me get over the editing obsession if I’m feeling a bit “rushed” to get from one section to the next. We shall see.
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The E-book is Finished!
Posted on September, 2 at 1:52 pm
Just wanted to update you on the e-book progress. All writing, addenda pieces, etc. are FINISHED! I’m sending it off for a couple of previously agreed upon reviews of the basic content, and I’ll be proofreading it later today and / or tomorrow (need a few hours away from it).
And for today, that is all.
Posted in E-Books, My Projects, Writing Nonfiction | No Comments »
E-book Nearing Completion
Posted on September, 1 at 3:54 pm
The primary project I’ve been working on lately is the first in my Web Writer’s Guide e-book series: Web Writer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Freelance Web Writing Career.
I’m thrilled to announce that the actual content of the e-book is finally completed! Yay! 
I still have to put together a few addenda pieces (templates and outlines), but once that’s done I’ll be sending it out for a few reviews, doing a final proofread, and getting it up for sale at www.WebWritersGuide.com.
Once that’s done, I’ll be able to devote more time to my fictional projects.
Posted in E-Books, My Projects, Writing Nonfiction | No Comments »
Weekend Workload - Light but Productive
Posted on August, 17 at 10:16 pm
I didn’t spend as much time on Three Weeks this past weekend as I’d hoped (only have a few pages down, but still moving in the right direction - while I “timed” my outlining, I’m not really doing that for the drafting, at least for now).
Other than that though, I did make some pretty nice progress on my e-book that’s been taking me forever to finish. I got through one of the longer sections, and it’s a bit of a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I’m probably going to try to knock out another big section tomorrow, and then the rest up until the addenda pieces should be a breeze.
Posted in E-Books, First Drafts, My Projects, Writing Fiction, Writing Nonfiction | No Comments »
One Page Down - A Few Hundred to Go
Posted on August, 14 at 11:49 pm
I finished all of this week’s planned client work early today as expected, meaning I’m officially on a long weekend at the moment. I decided not to waste it, but to get started on two business-oriented projects - one being to start drafting Three Weeks.
I’m thrilled to say that I did get started today (not a huge amount to be proud of, but getting started is half the battle with me).
I set up the manuscript - took care of basic formatting, put the cover page together, and took care of all of the chapter breaks and titles. Again, not a big deal, but I figure having it all laid out like that will make my life easier. Because Three Weeks involves an intro, and ending, and 15 “short stories” throughout the middle, this way I can just browse to whichever scenerio I’m in the mood to write about and take it from there.
On top of the formatting, I started working on the intro. I finished just the first page, and I’ll probably make changes tomorrow when I re-think it, but it was progress, which is better than doing nothing or taking a nap (although those are good too). Tonight was about trying to setup the attitude / personality of the main character and having the intro jump right into things.
If you’ve read any of my blogs (including this one), you know that I like to drag things out. So fiction is a chore for me (but also quite fun because it takes me a bit out of my element).
Something else I’m doing with this project is re-evaluating my main character’s career choice. I have some ideas, but I need to run them by a few folks (I’d like to do something that’s actually going to play into a promotional tactic for the book, but it may bring the character a bit too close to home - and there are already a lot of “me” details in this particular character). We’ll see.
Posted in First Drafts, My Projects, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
Book Writing Break Coming to a Close
Posted on August, 7 at 8:09 am
I haven’t updated here in a little while - I’ve been taking a break from my bigger writing projects for a few reasons:
1. I’ve been focusing on clients.
2. I’ve been focusing on the transition from full-time PR work to full-time writing.
3. I had a long break in there due to some Mother Nature-related damage which kind of threw my schedule off for a week.
Either this coming weekend or the following, I’ll be diving back in. I’ve decided to start drafting 3 Weeks (the most recent novel I outlined). I’m planning to handle this one a bit differently than I might otherwise. This is a first person book, broken down essentially into several shorter stories. This story revolves around a character I can get into the head of relatively easy.
So I’ve decided to start writing by recording. I’m going to be forcing myself into the character’s mind a bit, and then telling each of these short-form stories aloud into a voice recorder as though I’m actually “telling” it rather than simply writing it. I’m hoping that’s going to keep me a bit more natural. We’ll see.
Anyway, that’s the latest update on this front.
Posted in First Drafts, My Projects, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
Character Quirks and Novel Writing Software
Posted on July, 28 at 8:47 am
I may be taking a few weeks off before continuing with my next novel project, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about my projects or fooling around with some interesting tools, books, and such in the meantime. So I just thought I’d share a quick run-down of some of the things I’ve been toying with recently:
The Marshall Plan Software - The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing was the very first novel outlining system I used (and still my favorite, despite trying two other interesting plans). Evan Marshall got in touch not long ago to let me know he converted the plan into software. Cool, huh? I usually prefer doing my outlining by hand, but I’ve been starting to play with this. For now, I’m just trying to get used to it and how it works. When I get back to my writing work I’ll either be editing the outline I did under the Marshall Plan or I’ll be drafting another book. If I do the editing, I decided that I’ll move the hand-written outline into the software as I make changes to use it a bit more fully.
1001 Character Quirks - Before outlining Three Weeks I purchased a character trait / character quirk product through ClickBank. It’s essentially a huge list of character quirks (which came in handy when having to plot 15 male characters in that story). It was a lot of fun to peruse - definitely recommended.
I’ve also been spending time reading a variety of mystery writing books - nothing terribly exciting to share on that front. I’m just trying to make sure I haven’t missed important elements and such before moving on with edits to the dark mystery outline I’ve put together.
Posted in Characters, Resources & Reviews, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
Three Weeks - Novel Outline Complete in Just 9 Days!!!
Posted on July, 18 at 6:06 pm
Boy, am I happy! I was expecting my Three Weeks novel outline to be completed by Sunday evening. I thought I’d be busy all weekend with it. Instead, I finished it up today. Actually, it was all written up yesterday, but today I went back over everything, filled in holes, adjusted the order of some of the relationships, etc. for better flow.
So it’s finished, and in just 9 DAYS! That includes the 78-page full outline, the abbreviated outline laid out in “scene card” format with 17 pages (actually 5″ x 8″ note cards), 16 full character sketches, character notes for more minor characters, some very minor research (this didn’t need much at all), and my setting sketches / notes.
I’m glad I didn’t follow the Book in a Month 30-day plan, and instead just used some of the resources in it to find my own way. I suppose I’m most happy that I’m getting so comfortable with the outlining process.
Now that I have three finished novel outlines sitting here, I suppose it’s soon going to be time to get on some drafting. However, I’m going to take a few weeks off from these novels for now. I want to do minor notes on my other book ideas, work on my non-fiction book interviews quite a bit, and finally get this Web Writer’s Guide e-book finished.
Posted in Book Outlining, My Projects, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
Getting Into the Head of Your Characters
Posted on July, 16 at 11:23 am
While outlining Three Weeks, I’m doing what I can to get into the mind of my main character (Jillian). As the book involves her looking back over failed relationships, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately doing the same - trying to bring up old emotions for example. I posted about my efforts to “become” my character a bit on my newest blog - JennSays.com. Give that post a read, and then I’d love to hear about how other writers get into the head of their characters during the writing and outlining phases of fiction.
Boyfriends, Booze, and Broken Hearts
Posted in Book Outlining, Characters, My Projects, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
Comparing 30-Day Novel Outline Plans
Posted on July, 13 at 11:57 pm
I’ve mentioned this here before, but not in too much detail. When I launched this blog, I was nearing the end of one 30-day novel outline program for my book with a working title Sarah. With that novel outline (which finished up this past Saturday), I followed the plan detailed in First Draft in 30 Days. I’m currently outlining another novel, Three Weeks, very loosely following the guidance in Book in a Month.
Obviously I’m not going to be able to accurately compare the two methods, given that I’ve heavily adapted the current program to fit my own needs, working style, and comfort level (as mentioned in a previous post, I actually expect to finish the current outline in about a two-week period overall instead of the planned 30 days).
I think the biggest lesson of all of this is that, the more comfortable you get with the outlining process (this is my third novel outline), the quicker you’ll get through the process - you sort of streamline things in your own way. While it’s not the takeaway I was hoping to pull from this experiment, it’s a good one, and I’m happy with the progress and the fact that the experiment forced me to work productively on my projects rather than just telling myself “someday I’m going to start working on this novel idea.”
If you want to read my original review of each of these books, they’re currently published at All Book Marketing, with some details on why I wanted to test the programs in the first place.
Posted in Book Outlining, My Projects, Resources & Reviews, Writing Fiction | No Comments »
