Jane Toombs writes an article entitled The Disease of Writing.
Author: Joely
Conn Writes a Poem
Never seen anywhere else, an exclusive poem written by the sexiest English professor alive, Dr. Connagher himself! Check out his response to “Lecture vs. Teach” over on Susi’s blog and wish her a happy blogoversary while you’re at it, for a chance to win a free e-copy of Dear Sir, I’m Yours or an advance e-ARC of The Bloodgate Guardian, releasing June 14 from Carina Press.
Plotting with Notecards
My only MayNoWriMo goal this year was to get a synopsis written for Maya #2. The only catch: I haven’t written the book yet.
While I haven’t had as much time to work on detailed plotting as I hoped, I have made some interesting discoveries. The main color scheme for this book has been purple and blue (every book has a color scheme–The Bloodgate Guardian was orange and green). No theme song yet.
I spent a lot of time developing Quinn and Tara. I researched more about Ix Chel and Yum Cimil. I had several scenes from an earlier draft of BGG, but I wasn’t sure if I could still use them.
The more cards I wrote up for the beginning sections, the more confused I got. I couldn’t figure out how the new stuff I’d developed still fit with the old things I really wanted to keep. I was getting bogged down in details, little scenes at the beginning that hid the main path.
The trick (this time) was concentrating only on the hero’s journey. I wrote up the main event cards for each character without worrying about the other’s hero journey — and then I was finally able to figure out how they fit together. I made cards for the key turning points/journey events in their own color — and then filled the character-specific stuff around them. MUCH EASIER!
Tonight, I sat down with hot pink notecards and did the same general thing for the romance journey. Instead of inciting incident — I have first meet. I still need to work on these cards a bit more, but it’s really helping me figure out the arcs.
When I’m all finished, I’ll take a few pictures.
MayNoWriMo Guest Elisa Diehl
Elisa explores ways to find motivation while editing in her MayNoWriMo post On Editing.
MayNoWriMo Guest Isabelle Santiago
If you’re going through a tough spell with your writing, you’ll want to check out Isabelle’s article Drawing Images from Music where she shows how music has helped her get over the hump.
Maya Free Read
As I researched the Maya and developed the mythology and premise for the Bloodgates, I wrote a short story, Well of Sky. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and some of you may not have seen it yet.
Only Lady Jade Mirror can save the Itza people…but who will save her? Download Well of Sky (pdf).
MayNoWriMo Guest Bloggers
My apologies for being so late in getting these links up. The birthday celebrations have been intense this weekend!
My beloved sister writes about Stephen King and the Renaissance Writer and Kal Cobalt has written an article Anger as Fuel. I hope you check them out!
If you missed our transformative sex panel at Coyote Con, the transcript is available.
MayNoWriMo Guest Maria Zannini
With another great Killer Campaign post, Maria writes: Darlin’, It’s Not About You.
Guest Blogging about Ruin
Leah Braemel was kind enough to host me today where I talk about the hero of The Bloodgate Guardian, Ruin: The Trials and Tribulations of Naming a Hero. Coming June 14th from Carina Press!
For vacation day 2, Littlest Monster was home again. She probably could have gone, but it was field day, aka play outside all day, and her ear was still hurting. Plus she fell asleep in the car on the way home from taking Middle to school, so she just wasn’t feeling the best yet.
I still managed to work on my plot and had a huge revelation — that totally changes everything I planned to do in this book. Squee and sigh, because it’s a cool twist, but a pain, because I can’t keep as much of my subplots as I hoped.
I’m still struggling with the romance aspect too. I’ll continue working on that today on my first “vacation” day with no monsters at home!
Tomorrow, I’m taking a beginning knitting class in the afternoon at a cool new yarn place that opened here in town. I can’t wait!
MayNoWriMo Guest Teresa Wymore
If you’re interested in writing effective erotica, check out Teresa’s post Writing Erotica: Do You Know the Sex Code. Also, don’t miss our Tranformative Sex panel this weekend!