mc

my mc needs flesh and blood and bones...
she needs width and bredth and colour...
i want to know her better... hmmm, i should say i need to write about her and create her and DECIDE who she is... the way I want her to be.
the readers should like her and be on her side, see her vulnerability and relate to her

it is so hard to write today...

it is 38 degrees in my house and i am just too melty to write... which sucks bigtime because i am really into my book... plotting, characters... all going sooooo well... yeehaaah!

i'm looking for the best way to make my writing bite sized each day... this new way of writing - being in charge completely - is wonderful... and i will need to make a new daily goal to suit it.

i used to write about 2000 words a day... which works well for the old 'flow' system of writing... now that i'm in charge, i need a new way to measure my daily progress... hmmm

maybe a list written the day before?
maybe a big list and i pluck tasks off it daily?
i like that one... it's liberating and yet keeps me on task!

this blog is so helpful! it's like a little writers therapist online!

naming characters

i'm working on naming characters today... a last name for my main character, a name for her mum and her gran, best friend, nasty girl at the new school.
i want all the names to fit the book as a whole, and i want them to fit their owner to a tee.

i have the main characters name, that was pretty easy... she just IS her name and the story grew from there.
i am gonna have some fun having her spend money...

how i write

I'm reading a great book about writing by Janet Evanovich. It's called 'How I Write" and it is chapter after chapter of q&a that she has compiled over the years.
I'm loving it, and have gleaned some great tips and one thing in particular... the author is in control and gets to choose and decide EVERYTHING... the story and the characters are not in charge no matter how much they demand to be. WOW I never thought o it like that before, and have always tried to listen to where the story is going and just follow along. This has always made rewriting a hard job... with the demands of the story/characrters nagging at me when I try to make improvements.
I wonder how this new attitude will help my writing process? I am a bit of a control freak. :) I think I will LIKE it !! Me in charge!

it's really hard to write today

That is my favourite way to start free-writing...

'it's really hard to write today'

Somehow that phrase just frees me up creatively once i write it then extrapolate on it. There is ALWAYS something in my day that is a challenge when trying to write, and the job is to write every day DESPITE or even because of the challenges.
Writing is about getting the story down, discovering the hidden parts, flying off on the tangents to see if they have real wings, typing, handwriting, sketching, lists, daydreaming...
Writing is NOT about the 'mood' for me. It is about the time and the space... whether I have a 3000 words day or a 20 words day.

not waiting for the feeling to hit - just writing !!

That is my method of writing... just doing it every time i have some time. Sometimes only ten minutes, sometimes 5 hours. From the first day I decided that I would write every day and see if my lifetime of scribbling could become a book, I have just written every day when I have the time.
Here is what I call 'writing' every day...
Some days I sit there staring into space, dreaming up the fun stuff, writing lists, names for characters, twists in the story, visualising locations.
Some days I power into the story, writing page after page of story, not planning or plotting, just flowing with THE STORY lol
Some days I look through magazines for inspiration. Almost any magazine helps me along, the pictures trigger all kinds of stuff. Sometimes stuff I'd forgotten for years!
Some days I do brainstorming with mind maps. I write...
a characters name
or a part of the story
or a location
or an event in the story
...and then I totally let loose and write absolutely anything that comes into my head all around the word/idea. This leads me to great new tangents I would never have gotten to otherwise.