Friday, March 8, 2019
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Day 32
1,192 words.
Just a few more scenes and I can get to the third act, which I've got pretty well mapped out. Well, except for the personality of the antagonist. He's a senile old man who was never very sane to begin with, but is he cranky? Good-natured? Both? Things to ponder.
Just a few more scenes and I can get to the third act, which I've got pretty well mapped out. Well, except for the personality of the antagonist. He's a senile old man who was never very sane to begin with, but is he cranky? Good-natured? Both? Things to ponder.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Day 31
1,075 words and 2 notebook pages.
Okay, getting settled into the school setting. FMC now has a friend, and she's set to make more. I've also firmly decided the exact purpose of the school scenes in the larger context of the story, and that makes it a lot less intimidating to tackle. It helps that she's not actually going to spend that much on-screen time there.
I feel a bit silly for how much I freaked out about it yesterday and the day before, but I feel it's important, for my own records at least, to be honest with myself about roadblocks I have. Especially because, like the last roadblock, it really doesn't take me that long to get over it and move past it, and knowing that makes it easier to get unstuck the next time something like this happens.
Okay, getting settled into the school setting. FMC now has a friend, and she's set to make more. I've also firmly decided the exact purpose of the school scenes in the larger context of the story, and that makes it a lot less intimidating to tackle. It helps that she's not actually going to spend that much on-screen time there.
I feel a bit silly for how much I freaked out about it yesterday and the day before, but I feel it's important, for my own records at least, to be honest with myself about roadblocks I have. Especially because, like the last roadblock, it really doesn't take me that long to get over it and move past it, and knowing that makes it easier to get unstuck the next time something like this happens.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Day 30
1,096 words.
Yesterday it finally hit me that writing middle grade means, at least sometimes, writing about middle school. I hated middle school. I'm not going to say it was traumatic, but it was not fun in a major way. I also work with youth that age in my church, and furthermore the library I work at is right across the street from a wrong-side-of-the-tracks-type middle school.
Every day at 3:30 we are inundated with some of the worst 11-14 year olds this world has to offer, and we have to spend the next few hours, sometimes all the way until we close, trying to keep them from fighting, yelling, bumping uglies, playing tag, leaving food everywhere, you get the picture. They are as immature as small children but old enough to start getting into some really awful mischief. There are probably worse (I know for a fact there are worse) groups of young people out there in this world, but they aren't who I have to deal with every day at 3:30.
The kids at my church are, in general, much better behaved, but the stories they tell me about what they have to go through at school are a bit hair curling — and my hair's pretty curly already. My own middle school experience was unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to what kids these days have to go through. I was pretty sheltered, and I think a lot of people my age were, at least relatively. Nobody shelters these kids. They can't. Ubiquitous internet kind of makes that impossible.
So when I realized yesterday I was going to be sending my 11 or 12 year old FMC to school, my first reaction was one of horror, terror, and desperation. I've calmed down a bit since then, especially when I realized that not only can I send her to a pleasant magnet school, but this is fiction! It only has to feel real. It doesn't have to actually be realistic. There is certainly a place for the kind of fiction that explores the almost war-zone-like school experience of the modern tweenager, but my fiction is not going to be that place. You can get away with a level of optimism in middle grade fiction that you really can't in most other categories. That's the reason I want to write in this age range. The kids I'm writing for are old enough to understand that the world is complex and not always pleasant, but life hasn't had time to make them jaded or cynical.
It also means I don't have to write about romance. Thank goodness.
Yesterday it finally hit me that writing middle grade means, at least sometimes, writing about middle school. I hated middle school. I'm not going to say it was traumatic, but it was not fun in a major way. I also work with youth that age in my church, and furthermore the library I work at is right across the street from a wrong-side-of-the-tracks-type middle school.
Every day at 3:30 we are inundated with some of the worst 11-14 year olds this world has to offer, and we have to spend the next few hours, sometimes all the way until we close, trying to keep them from fighting, yelling, bumping uglies, playing tag, leaving food everywhere, you get the picture. They are as immature as small children but old enough to start getting into some really awful mischief. There are probably worse (I know for a fact there are worse) groups of young people out there in this world, but they aren't who I have to deal with every day at 3:30.
The kids at my church are, in general, much better behaved, but the stories they tell me about what they have to go through at school are a bit hair curling — and my hair's pretty curly already. My own middle school experience was unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to what kids these days have to go through. I was pretty sheltered, and I think a lot of people my age were, at least relatively. Nobody shelters these kids. They can't. Ubiquitous internet kind of makes that impossible.
So when I realized yesterday I was going to be sending my 11 or 12 year old FMC to school, my first reaction was one of horror, terror, and desperation. I've calmed down a bit since then, especially when I realized that not only can I send her to a pleasant magnet school, but this is fiction! It only has to feel real. It doesn't have to actually be realistic. There is certainly a place for the kind of fiction that explores the almost war-zone-like school experience of the modern tweenager, but my fiction is not going to be that place. You can get away with a level of optimism in middle grade fiction that you really can't in most other categories. That's the reason I want to write in this age range. The kids I'm writing for are old enough to understand that the world is complex and not always pleasant, but life hasn't had time to make them jaded or cynical.
It also means I don't have to write about romance. Thank goodness.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Friday, March 1, 2019
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Days 25, 26 and 27
Day 25: 696 words plus a lot in my notebook.
Day 26: 988 words.
Day 27 (today): 1,003 words.
Even after that rousing post on Friday, I still didn't write anything on Monday and didn't reach my goal on Tuesday, though I did do some good planning in my notebook, including coming up with a new ending.
Sometimes it's tough to realize that the best thing you can do is delete words, and that's what I had to do. I'm not even sure how many thousands of words are now on the cutting room floor, but I know my story will be better for it.
Now that I'm not sick anymore I should be back to my regular upload schedule.
Day 26: 988 words.
Day 27 (today): 1,003 words.
Even after that rousing post on Friday, I still didn't write anything on Monday and didn't reach my goal on Tuesday, though I did do some good planning in my notebook, including coming up with a new ending.
Sometimes it's tough to realize that the best thing you can do is delete words, and that's what I had to do. I'm not even sure how many thousands of words are now on the cutting room floor, but I know my story will be better for it.
Now that I'm not sick anymore I should be back to my regular upload schedule.
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