A Learning Process

"Little Gavin had woken out of his deep sleep with a loud wail, as if he had been pinched. I rushed into his room and leaned over the bassinette, cooing softly, and was startled by his worsening yellowish complexion. His eyes were glowing as black as coal. I reached down to pick him up and comfort him but as I started to lift him to my shoulder, he turned his head and bit my arm so hard he drew blood. I quickly set him back down and took a deep breath to steady my nerves. She couldn’t be right, I thought. Sylvie is crazy. Changelings aren’t real!

I glanced down at my arm, which was now swollen and bloody. It dawned on me that Gavin wasn’t even two weeks old; he wasn’t old or strong enough to bite down and draw blood. He didn’t even have teeth for God’s sake! I felt my heart start pounding with terror. What is going on? Sylvie’s words came back to me. “They will take your baby if you do not watch him with the utmost care the first three days of his life. That’s when babies are most vulnerable to the Sidhe.”

It’s not real! My logic tried to scold me, but I felt on the verge of hysteria. I thought back to that joyous day that our baby boy entered this world and tried to recall exactly what Sylvie had said."

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The above is the vignette I wrote for a Creative Writing class, that eventually led me to writing my very first Fantasy novella.

Re-reading it now, over a year later, it makes me smile.

My characters are wooden and the reader cannot emphatize with them. The plot is full of holes and, to be honest, kind of boring. The ending is actually pretty good, but it could still use some work.

It's so fascinating to go back and read all of the stories, poems, essays, and letters I've written over the years and to see how my ideas and the way I write have changed. I still have a lot to learn and a lot to work on.

The weaknesses I can identify, so far, are:

1.) Wooden characters. I need to make them more believeable, more real. I need to view them as my readership would.

2.) Hole-y plots. I need to tighten them up and have a specific premise in mind.

3.) Boring scenes and unncessary information. I need to find a better way to carry the story from scene to scene.

4.) Too many adverbs. 'Nuff said!

I guess I'll have to go through a few more of my stories to identify more weaknesses, but it's really a learn-as-you-go process. The only way to become a better writer is to write!

Thirty days 'til NaNoWriMo!

Well, the count-down to November 1st officially begins today!

November 1st marks the 10th annual NaNoWriMo event.

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The premise of this month-long event is to pound out a 50,000 word novel (roughly 175 pages) in thirty days. This challenge is not for the faint of heart. It requires dedication and tenacity, not to mention a ton of caffeine!

When Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, first launched this event back in 1998, only twenty people joined him. Today, ten years later, over 50,000 participants have logged on and signed up to join this crazy quest. Why? Part of it is for sheer punishment, I'm sure, but the other part is simply because it's a challenge. It's a challenge to break out of the mold and pound out a novel in thirty days without giving yourself time to think about it.

Personally, I am the type of person who will look at a sentence or a paragraph for hours, trying to make it look and sound as perfect as possible. Perhaps this is why I have yet to be a published writer instead of just a writer ::grin:: So, for me, NaNoWriMo is the perfect excuse to just... well, write. I don't need to worry about grammar or punctuation or run-on sentences (although I know I will anyway.) I just need to sit down at my desk, block access to the internet, Sims 2, my cute boyfriend and other distractions and let the words come forth.

If you want to know the truth, the last time I wrote anything, aside from various essays and letters, was back in 2007. Yes, that's right, it's been a year since I've written a story. It was my first venture into Fantasy and I wrote it on the encouragement of my Creative Writing professor, William Denson. My class was required to write a vignette and I chose to write about a new, young mother who discovered that her baby was a changeling. I submitted the vignette and to my surprise, Prof. Denson took a lot of time to reply to me, and told me that he was interested to see what happened next. So, for our next project, writing a novella, I continued the story of the terrified mother and her child changeling. I received not only a ton of great feedback and encouragement from my peers, but I also received an "A+"!

You would think after my first "successful" venture into writing Fantasy that it would just fuel me to write more, right?

Wrong.

I pretty much stopped writing after that.

Thinking about it now, I was probably scared that anything I wrote after that wouldn't be "as good," or worse, it wouldn't even be good.

All of that is out the window now, though!

This NaNoWriMo, I dedicate myself to letting loose and allowing myself to rip the written English word to shreds! I dedicate myself to drinking copious amounts of peppermint hot chocolate, hot apple cider and coffee to stay awake every night to meet my word quota! I dedicate myself to the capture of plot bunnies and writing muses!

I dedicate... myself.

Here's to NaNoWriMo, and to all of the other crazy writers who join me in this great adventure!