Jacward and Some Face Painting Fun.

 

Just thought I'd put another plug in for the Twilight contest by posting my Jacward photo.  I mean, seriously! Those are some awesome looking books. It doesn't matter if you already own the whole series. You can get bragging rights to owning the white UK additions. Think about how jealous your friends will be! Aaannnnndd..  You get the opportunity to write some fun fan fiction. Finally, you can end up with the werewolf/vampire of your dreams...at least in prose. 

The Jacward photo leads me up to my next proposition. I'm taking a detour of writing and going to have some fun with my other creative side. I'm adding another contest, of sorts. Except there isn't a tangible prize. In light of the upcoming Halloween holiday, I'd like to throw in some face painting.

Here is your challenge. In the comments section of this post, give me a book/story character you'd like to see me paint on myself. It can be from old fairy tales to new titles. Villains or Heroes, I don't care. Give me a brief discription in case I'm unfamiliar with the character you've chosen.  (OA buddies, you can play too.)

Next week, I'll pick one that inspires me and do a video transformation and post it on the blog! Challenge me! Let's have some fun!

Succeed Through Faliure

 

Sooo, how is everyone's 1k a Day going? Getting your word count every day? 

(crickets)

Mine hasn't been the best either. I've been getting in about every other day. Most days I write, but I don't always achieve the 1k. Some days I have to delete so much that I get no positive word count at all.. So does that make me a failure? To some, yes. For me?   No.

I want to share with you a little bit about goals. I am not the type that often achieves my goals. It's because I set goals that are often out of reach. I tend to shoot for the stars.


Let me explain in a more presonal way.

My son has autism. Every year we sit down with his teachers and set his IEP goals. We could set nice low markers for him, to be sure of his success. Instead, we set our sights on percentages he probably won't achieve. Why is that? Because if we don't aim high, his improvements would be minimal.  It is the results that are important, not necessarily meeting the mark.  We set high expectations for him to get the highest levels of improvement. And in the end, he benefits more though his failure.

So 1k a day. I've been reading comments along the line of, "Oh, I can't do that."  I knew it would be a stretch for me, especially since I am getting back on my writing horse. Let's just say that in the last year I've had stretches, months at a time, where I've written nothing. But if I only challenged myself to 100 words a day, I would've never gotten the 1k.

So where are you aiming? How much word count do you expect of yourself? What expectations do you have on your progress, on your goals of publication? Do you only aim for things that you can see, that you know you can reach? Instead of insuring your success, why not shoot for the stars to see how far your arrow will go.

Note: Tonight is our chat on Magic Limitations. There will be awesome door prizes as well. 

Also, don't forget our Twilight contest. Tweet it out to all of your Twilight friends.

Awesome Chat: Magic Limitations and 1K a Day update.

AWESOME CHAT:

Next Tuesday, October 5th from 5-6pm EST, come join the Operation Awesome girls in the OA Writing Lab (password: awesome) for some tantalizing discussion about magical limitations in your writing. The OA bloggers LOVE their magical story elements. In fact, I think every single one of us is writing a sparkly-magical story right now, so we have lots of opinions/tips/thoughts about how to do it convincingly, and we'd love to hear yours as well.

Door prizes include:

1. Prada and Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard 
2. Voice of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready 

1k a Day:

As promised, here are the buttons for the 1k a Day challenge. Put it up on your blog as a way to commit to this challenge. Also, if you post about the challenge on your blog and then post a link to that post in the comments under this thread, I'll give you a chance at winning your choice of either a blog button, banner or a ten page critique by yours truly.

Edit: I've been having some technical difficulties getting the text box to link the buttons. For now, you can save the images and post them on your site.

Here is the button for 1k a day

And for the less ambitions, here is a 1 Page a Day tag.

It's not how much you write that is important, it is writing consistently. So if you can't pull off the 1K a Day, make a go for the 1 page.

How To Plot Your Awesome Novel

In case you haven’t heard, Kristal’s started an awesome 1k a day challenge. This challenge got me thinking about a bunch of stuff (like how I’m procrastinating… a lot… please don’t tell my crit partners…). But mainly, it made me ponder something I’ve recently become a fan of.

Outlining.

I know, I know—a 1k a day challenge is no place for pre-plotting. BUT I’m not here to tell you to map out everything beforehand. I’m here to share some uh-may-zing tips on what to keep in mind while you’re writing.

Confession: Heidi Willis is a genius. She blogged about what a novel’s plot should consist of, but in a way that even I understood it (yep, I’m sort of slow with the technical stuff…). Since it was such a great post, I decided to share it with all you pretty people.

Here’s how Heidi breaks down plot:

3 Act Method

Act I (25%) Set up characters, motivations, backstory. At the end of this section, a dramatic event propels the main character into conflict

Act II (50%) In the middle of this, the MC discovers a secret, by the end is the start of big confrontations with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Conflict rises steeply.

Act III (25%) Obstacles are overcome, MC must make choices

Percentage Method

Stage 1 (10%) draw reader in, identification with hero

Turning Point (10%) new opportunity, new journey often followed by MC refusing to take the journey or by into the opportunity

Stage 2 (15%) hero reacts, formulates plan

Stage 3 (25%) hero is overcoming obstacles

***Turning Point (at the 50% mark) hero must commit, there is no turning back

Stage 4 (25%) goal is more visible, stakes are higher

***Turning Point (at 75% mark) Major setback, a do or die moment

Stage 5: (15%) Final push; conflict becomes overwhelming, MC must give everything; accellerated pace; MC determines his or her own fate.

Stage 6: Aftermath, what life are they living now

When Heidi plots, she uses 300 pages as her guideline. Thus the above percentages would be:

p 1 - 30

p 30 - 60

p 60 - 105

p 105 - 180 (turning point at p 150)

p 180 - 255 (turning point at p 225)

p 255 - 300

I don’t know about you, but I feel all smart after reading that :)

Here’s the link to Heidi’s amazing blog:

http://heidiwillis.blogspot.com/

And here are some links to other plot-related posts around the blogosphere:

http://kidlit.com/2009/12/09/writing-a-hot-plot/ (by Kelly’s agent, Mary Kole)

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/08/find-your-plot-fridays-what-to-do-what.html (by MG fantasy author, Janice Hardy)

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/how-to-write-novel.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NathanBransford+%28Nathan+Bransford+-+Literary+Agent%29 (by the ever-awesome Nathan Bransford)

Go get that 1k a day, everyone!