The Autobiography Challenge Is Off To A Good Start
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Being an Author

Four days into BioWriMo I'm right on schedule.  I missed yesterday though since I was gone for the day running errands and seeing my grandmother.  But I made up for it today.  I think I'm feeling a bit hypomanic - for those of you who don't know me well, I've recently been diagnosed with Bipolar II.

I'm writing essays about various times in my life and what I think about certain topics as I think of them.  When I get stuck I have a list of chronological milestones to jumpstart my short circuits.

My working title is You Are What You Read, but I haven't written anything about reading yet!  We'll see what happens with that; I may have to change the title.

To see what I have written go to http://www.kellylee.info/autobiography

New challenge - Autobiography
Mood:  party time!
Topic: Being an Author
BioWriMo (Biography Writers' Month) starts in two days - June 1st!  It's not official like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers' Month) but the challenge is 50,000 words of autobiography in the month of June.  I've already been writing some of the essays and they can be found at www.kellylee.info/autobiography.

Writing in Fits and Starts
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Being an Author

I'm writing in fits and starts these days...meaning that I'm either spending my days doing a lot of writing and planning and doing for my book or I'm doing absolutely nothing about it for days on end.  I can't seem to get myself into writing daily - I simply forget!

Oh, well!  As long as I'm getting SOME writing done, I'm not going to worry about it too much! 

April Fools Begins
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Progress Update

April Fools Novels month begins.  My goal is 10,000 and I'll be mostly writing prep for Beyond the Gentile Generation.  I can, however, also add other writing that I do, so I don't anticipate have any problems reaching 10,000 words in a month!  In fact, I get to count what I'm writing to you now!

Stay tuned!

 

0 / 10,000 (0.0%)

And I'm In Business Again
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Prgrs: Gentile Generation

Yesterday I got back in the writing saddle again. 

I have two characters in the book Beyond the Gentile Generation who can't stand each other.  One is a devout Christian mother of two who does volunteer and non-profit work in her town, and the other is a similar-aged never-married non-believer who thinks religion is for nuts.  They can't stand each other.

Yesterday, for back story, I wrote about a meeting both attended: one part from one's pont of view, and one part from the other's point of view.  Very interesting to write that way - helps me really get into each character's head.

I have more backstory to do today, we'll see what comes up next!

I Promise I'm Not Being Lazy
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Being an Author
I'm still just trying to get things done to the point where I can spend some time on my writing and not just attack it hit or miss - I just can't work that way!

No-Progress Days
Mood:  sad
Topic: Being an Author

I haven't gotten much done in the last day or two.  I've been busy trying to keep up with had to be done, and, with my depression, my thinking hadn't been very clear or organized.

We'll just have to see what the next few days bring.

Busy Doing Other Things
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Being an Author

Just like everything else in life, sometimes being a writer gets pushed aside to make room for other things.

For the last couple of days, I've been busy getting my computer back to normal after having the hard drive wiped and re-formatted due to a problem I THOUGHT I had.  Turns out it wasn't the hard drive after all, but a sound card I'd bought and installed some time ago.

Anyway, it's back and I've been installing this and loading that and creating this and downloading that, so I haven't done much writing. 

And Life Goes On
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Being an Author

Yep- the Leroy novel is history; I'll have to start writing it over again.

I'm just working away on the other novel and making lots of progress without writing a word.  I'm interested to see how this will all pan out in the end.

I'm using some resources I got very reasonably priced at HollyLisle.com to work on the new novel - Beyond the Gentile Generation.  She has lots of articles to read for free, but I bought and downloaded her e-books Create a Language Clinic and Create a Culture Clinic.  Together they make up her Worldbuilding Set.  Soon I'll be downloading her Character Building Clinic, and I'm not sure after that, but I'll probably find something I can't live without!

I also found calendarhome.com, a great resource if you need to know a specific day of the week for a date or even to just print out calendars for various uses.

Planning Gets Interesting
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Prgrs: Gentile Generation

Today I worked a little on my language for the humanoid race of aliens in my novel.  I came up with another name for a male character and developed their system of representing in words the numbers 0-100. 

I began an outline today of what topics/scenes would be in the prologue and the first section of the book.  I didn't think I'd be able to come up with ideas for scenes unless I was writing and letting them just flow out, but I did okay today - I had to look at my notes a couple of times and make some clarifications in my notes, so I can see how this planning in advance thing might make things easier for me in the writing phase.

Yesterday I had created a page for chronological notes.  Today, I went on http://calendarhome.com and found dates that I wanted to use in my book.  I printed out three years worth of calendars (12 moths per page) to use while I plan and write to keep myself on track as far as time of year and stuff.

A little while ago, I printed all the notes I have made on the computer for this novel, except for the character profile of the main character.  For one thing, I'm not done, and for another, it's going to be over 20 pages long and I don't want to print it out more than once.  After I do THAT printout, I will being taking the question-and-answer format I'm using now and putting it into paragraph-style report format.  This will reduce the number of pages for the whole profile and help solidify the character in my mind.

I have three more characters that I will go into this kind of detail with.  The rest will have some profiling, but only a few pages, if that much.