Today's news. I have been looking at all these writer's tips sites, workshops, what have you because I'm trying to find out plot and synopsis. Methinks my parent and sister just might have something with the neon colored "Gullible" on my forehead. Sometimes, I surprise myself. At least my mom has faith in me. She says "You're so smart, you're dumb." Which, when one thinks about it, just may be true.
For instance, yesterday, I was looking up plot. The search bar gave me a web address. Apparently, I had looked at this blog prior and it was "Plot Synopsis Project" posted on 17 March 2008 by Joshua Palmatier. I didn't read far enough. Reason to save some reading for when one has time. Lucky for me, it came up and I clicked it. Dare I say this and risk tarnishing my image? {After my father's bit of fun with me, I think...not much left to tarnish. My image was tarnished to begin with. I find more layers under the tarnish. Polishing is hard work at times.}
Last night, I found out there was more to the post than I had thought. Lo and behold. What do I see but a plot synopsis. There were links to others as well. Light bulb flashes with strobe light intensity. My wondering eyes and shaken up brain beheld the very thing I start my novels with. {Shaking my head in disappointment with myself.} Must go lie down and ponder the situation.
Showing posts with label topics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label topics. Show all posts
04 August 2011
28 July 2011
Fiction is the theme for August
I was able to post my blog link on Nablopomo to begin posting every day for a month. The theme for the month is Fiction. Fiction is what I want to get published. Yay. I've posted a summary of the projects I am currently working on earlier. I have a total of 43 posts since I started way back in 2008 or thereabouts. Should have 76 or so by the end of August. I know there are prizes for people who do post every day. Will I make it? "Only the Shadow knows" as my dear dad likes to tell me.
I'm giving fair warning what my posts will be generally. This is like being in school, getting the assignment, planning, wondering how I'm going to fill up the space with the required words. Luckily, this theme doesn't have a required amount of words. I have all sorts of ideas pushing themselves around trying to get my attention. Fiction can mean so many different things.
There's the fiction one tells one parents when one is out past curfew. Fiction is usually the basis of explanations for why something is not done. {Lies, all lies. You know who} Fiction is found in all areas of life. The one I will focus on is the fiction I write in the hopes of being published. This will entail self publishing because I don't have the patience to send out queries, wait for a rejection, send out again. That is a loop that weeds out those less serious about writing. Then again....One needs to decide why one writes.
Fiction also means books, image on the badge for the month. I may or may not write about fiction books, because those books can be so boring when they're written to a formula. Or if the world they build is not believable. Or if the writer tries to hard. I have taken the time in the past few years to analyze writers whose work I admire. I've checked how they did what they did, why they put this and that in the story. All the elements that in high school, I found so tedious when I had homework assignments. {the reason it's taken me 30 years to read Pride and Prejudice. I noted 40 years earlier because I have been reading books since I learned how to read in first grade.}
Besides, the hallmark for me is if I find a book I like, I read til I finish it. Thus, depending on the number of words, I may find myself reading when I "should" be writing. That would put me in a terrible dilemma. It would be a battle between reading and writing. I'm not sure I want to find out which would win; reading or writing. Cause I have the feeling that reading just might win out.
I'm giving fair warning what my posts will be generally. This is like being in school, getting the assignment, planning, wondering how I'm going to fill up the space with the required words. Luckily, this theme doesn't have a required amount of words. I have all sorts of ideas pushing themselves around trying to get my attention. Fiction can mean so many different things.
There's the fiction one tells one parents when one is out past curfew. Fiction is usually the basis of explanations for why something is not done. {Lies, all lies. You know who} Fiction is found in all areas of life. The one I will focus on is the fiction I write in the hopes of being published. This will entail self publishing because I don't have the patience to send out queries, wait for a rejection, send out again. That is a loop that weeds out those less serious about writing. Then again....One needs to decide why one writes.
Fiction also means books, image on the badge for the month. I may or may not write about fiction books, because those books can be so boring when they're written to a formula. Or if the world they build is not believable. Or if the writer tries to hard. I have taken the time in the past few years to analyze writers whose work I admire. I've checked how they did what they did, why they put this and that in the story. All the elements that in high school, I found so tedious when I had homework assignments. {the reason it's taken me 30 years to read Pride and Prejudice. I noted 40 years earlier because I have been reading books since I learned how to read in first grade.}
Besides, the hallmark for me is if I find a book I like, I read til I finish it. Thus, depending on the number of words, I may find myself reading when I "should" be writing. That would put me in a terrible dilemma. It would be a battle between reading and writing. I'm not sure I want to find out which would win; reading or writing. Cause I have the feeling that reading just might win out.
14 July 2011
Getting a library or Kindle figured out
Figured out the Kindle app on my computer. It's great. Now, I'll have the problem of not enough time again because of my love of books. Dragons feature prominently. I looked at the available titles on Amazon. I haven't figured out yet if I can download from other sites. There are some free sites listed under the free collections. Went to one and the system was slow.
The best thing is I can get a lot books that I don't have the physical room for. The house is currently full to the point of walking around the boxes. Getting to ones I want to read again is tough. Books are moved because there are eight of us who read. Oh. I remember when I used to want to live in a library. "Be careful what you wish for" seems to fit right now.
Being able to get the books I'd like may mean getting a second job to pay for them. Many of the ebooks are under $5. It'll be hard to resist the temptation of overbuying. I looked at a few on the Smashwords site. Luckily there is variety of formats to choose from. If you have the time, you can use the web page view and read without downloading.
I have just a few more edits on my short story. Will be publishing it. Haven't decided which self publisher to use yet. There are a couple that I'm thinking about. Soon as that is figured out, I will be back to posting various items I call random thoughts or whatever catches my attention. Most likely something to do with the latest black hole on my favorite haunt. Or... something to do with the latest misadventure with the black hole located in my bedroom that sucks up all my important items such as my USB cord for my camera which also happens to be the charger for it.
I swear, I think the little people are out having fun these days. Forgot about them. Pays to remember such things and keep stuff put away. Haaahn now that leads to organizing the area around the black hole which leads to getting storage things to put my items in. Then leads to putting those things in a spot inaccessible to gremlins who may be the ones responsible for items being put near the black hole.
Hmmm. They may be experimenting with such things as: How close can they set an item such as my USB cord to the edge of the hole before it gets sucked in. Or maybe there is another being such as the one that eats socks in the washer. Hmmmm. Must ponder on this for awhile.
I have just a few more edits on my short story. Will be publishing it. Haven't decided which self publisher to use yet. There are a couple that I'm thinking about. Soon as that is figured out, I will be back to posting various items I call random thoughts or whatever catches my attention. Most likely something to do with the latest black hole on my favorite haunt. Or... something to do with the latest misadventure with the black hole located in my bedroom that sucks up all my important items such as my USB cord for my camera which also happens to be the charger for it.
I swear, I think the little people are out having fun these days. Forgot about them. Pays to remember such things and keep stuff put away. Haaahn now that leads to organizing the area around the black hole which leads to getting storage things to put my items in. Then leads to putting those things in a spot inaccessible to gremlins who may be the ones responsible for items being put near the black hole.
Hmmm. They may be experimenting with such things as: How close can they set an item such as my USB cord to the edge of the hole before it gets sucked in. Or maybe there is another being such as the one that eats socks in the washer. Hmmmm. Must ponder on this for awhile.
27 September 2008
Random Thoughts for today
I'm trying to keep up with many other interesting things. I'm writing as well as working on that project for my youngest son. I was surfing for writing topics and read Richard's Grammar and Composition Blog at about dot com. I was especially interested in the one on the apostrophe. Lots of different views. Still, I was looking for topics and continued on to Ginny's fiction writing blog. Today's topic was "Writers and Money" and I went to the link. I started to add a comment on Amanda Clayborn's blog "The Good, The Bad and the Money." From there, I needed to sign in and now, I am writing an entry on my blog. A typical day spent surfing the net.
I spent a couple hours off and on playing games also. Added a line or two to my son's vest. I spent six hours researching the Battle of Luzon. My father was there. He was in the 880th Airborne Engineer Aviation Battalion. I'm in the process of writing his biography. My sisters have requested that I write down his stories and memories. It's now getting to be a good sized book.
My nephew spent a couple hours with my mother and myself. He plays the Wii while we do our thing. [Since reading that bit about the apostrophe, I'm getting conscious about my writing.] He received some new games today. His birthday was celebrated this afternoon.
The reason I was looking for topics-organizing my writing schedule for the next couple months-is because I joined a critique group for short stories. I finished the critiques and found myself not able to enjoy reading for pleasure the last two books I read. I'm noticing the amount of mistakes in famous authors books, a couple of them are my favorite authors. I know a lot of manuscripts are submitted on disk or through email and I can tell when I read. Some of those mistakes are proofreading errors. Others are spell checking errors.
Does this mean that emerging writers don't really have to pay attention to their writing? What is the purpose of critique groups if published authors' books contain many of the mistakes that a critique group points out? I pointed out grammar errors, missing words, misspelled words, places where I thought the author could improve his/her plot line. I pointed out where they had double words, past/present tenses mixed, unclear meanings, something not explained or too much explanation. Instead of concentrating on the pleasure aspect of my reading, I was looking for and finding errors that I hadn't seen during the previous six or seven times I read those books.
I used to just get annoyed with the occasional mistake. Now, I'm wondering if I will be critiquing all those books I read for pleasure and not getting any pleasure at a cost of anywhere from $5.95 to $24.95+ per book. My son, my mother and I will have to go back to watching movies maybe. No, that gets to be annoying too. I don't know. I'll have to keep reading all those books that contain those mistakes and hope I don't notice them. [Total 16 apostrophes in my entry today.]
I spent a couple hours off and on playing games also. Added a line or two to my son's vest. I spent six hours researching the Battle of Luzon. My father was there. He was in the 880th Airborne Engineer Aviation Battalion. I'm in the process of writing his biography. My sisters have requested that I write down his stories and memories. It's now getting to be a good sized book.
My nephew spent a couple hours with my mother and myself. He plays the Wii while we do our thing. [Since reading that bit about the apostrophe, I'm getting conscious about my writing.] He received some new games today. His birthday was celebrated this afternoon.
The reason I was looking for topics-organizing my writing schedule for the next couple months-is because I joined a critique group for short stories. I finished the critiques and found myself not able to enjoy reading for pleasure the last two books I read. I'm noticing the amount of mistakes in famous authors books, a couple of them are my favorite authors. I know a lot of manuscripts are submitted on disk or through email and I can tell when I read. Some of those mistakes are proofreading errors. Others are spell checking errors.
Does this mean that emerging writers don't really have to pay attention to their writing? What is the purpose of critique groups if published authors' books contain many of the mistakes that a critique group points out? I pointed out grammar errors, missing words, misspelled words, places where I thought the author could improve his/her plot line. I pointed out where they had double words, past/present tenses mixed, unclear meanings, something not explained or too much explanation. Instead of concentrating on the pleasure aspect of my reading, I was looking for and finding errors that I hadn't seen during the previous six or seven times I read those books.
I used to just get annoyed with the occasional mistake. Now, I'm wondering if I will be critiquing all those books I read for pleasure and not getting any pleasure at a cost of anywhere from $5.95 to $24.95+ per book. My son, my mother and I will have to go back to watching movies maybe. No, that gets to be annoying too. I don't know. I'll have to keep reading all those books that contain those mistakes and hope I don't notice them. [Total 16 apostrophes in my entry today.]
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