Revising What You've Written

When I find that I'm just not in the mood to work on adding to a story but still want to work on it I find that that is a good time to revise what you've already written. I start from the very beginning and work my way up to the last thing I have written (of course, in the case that the manuscript has surpassed 20,000 words this would be very time consuming so I suggest starting from where you began writing two days prior). When you're re-reading your work try to 'watch' your characters. If you can picture your writing as a scene right in front of you then chances are that your doing something right.

Also, it always helps to have your work read aloud. No matter how many times you read a sentence you can still miss a forgotten letter or misspelled word. With my last manuscript of 54,000 words I went online and downloaded a free text-to-voice reader. This allowed me to clean my room for a few hours as I listened to my book being read aloud by the electronic voice.

Competition

Is it bad to be motivated by competition? My cousin is also participating in NaNo this year. She's a few years older than myself and she's majoring in editing. If I had not found out that she was participating this year I might not have bothered to join at all and left the novel at the "I'll get to it" stage. I just wanted to finish NaNo before her so I got my butt together and started.

Currently I'm at 7,115 words. The NaNoWriMo page has a neat chart that displays all the stats for your project- how many words you have, how many you should write per day to reach the goal, how many words you're behind, and so on so forth. At this stage in the game it's recommended to be at 28,334, so I'm more than a little behind. Still, I just passed my cousin's word count and I couldn't help letting out a little "ha, ha!" as I did. Well, as long as I don't tell her that it's fine....

NaNo story picks

Sometimes, even if you really like an idea, if you can't get into you just can't get into it. It's never a good idea to force yourself to work on a story when you're not enthusiastic about it. In the end the reader can tell when your heart wasn't in something you wrote. So, for the first half of November I kept trying to work on a story but no matter what I did, no matter how any out lines I wrote I just couldn't get into it. Then, two days ago, I decided that I needed to pick a different idea to work on. Lo and behold, I've gotten to 3,000 words and I can't wait to keep working. Wish me luck!

Write-ins

Today I went to borders with my cousin Heather and our friend Josh. The intent was to sit in the cafe and participate in a mini write-in  since all three of us are participating in NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know, a write in is when a group of writers get together to, you guessed it, write. It wasn't entirely productive, but we still ended up having a lot of fun. We ended up taking over the children's section and giggling more than we actually typed. But at least I had people to brainstorm with. I asked what object could be used to describe olive-toned skin. Their answer? A Mediterranean bread loaf.... They were a really big help. Even if you barely keep any of the work you do while in a write-in it's still a lot of fun.

Characters in Video Games

Ah. THIS topic. If you see me walking down the street do not get me started on this. I'll go on and on about how the writing in video games has progressed over the years, citing examples from countless characters and story lines. Because I'm a little strapped for time right now, I'm going to keep this short.

The past few days I've been playing a game called "Deadly Premonition." Sounds cheery, right? Well I've played my fair share of the survival horror genre and from the moment I picked this up I knew it was an odd one. For starters it was a budget title, only $20 (compared to the usual $60) on the day of it's release. The low price could be chalked up to the abhorrent graphics but, even still, DP has turned out to be a brilliant game if only for the characters in it.

You take control of FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan. But just call him York. Everyone calls him that. Normally a survival horror game would start with some serious opening scene in which the main character gets trapped in a spooky alternate world. This does in fact happen to York, but he is trapped while making cryptic references to the Tom and Jerry show to an unknown person on the phone. Flash past some average game play against some creepy zombie-like things and you've brought York back to the normal world and to the forest town of Greenvale. But don't worry about it. His coffee warned him that morning so he was prepared.

Greenvale is where DP really shines. The inhabitants of Greenvale are just plain wacky. In a good way. From Thomas, the shy, biscuit-making assistant sheriff, to Wandering Segourny with her pot full of mysteries, the characters are never a bore to interact with. They always have something to say and, most often, it'll leave you laughing on the floor. The fact that the game developers were able to mix this humor into a survival horror title- and still manage to keep some creepiness in tact- signifies a well written game to me.

NaNoWriMo

This month is National Write a Novel Month. The goal is to motivate writers into starting a novel on the first of November and getting to 50,000 words before the end. I have an idea that I would like to try but I really need to focus! Whoever can actually complete the challenge will get a pin as a trophy. For reasons beyond my understanding I REALLY WANT THAT PIN. However, to get to that, it would help if I got started on page one...