Stories are a way of life

Last month, instigated the Every Day Challenge, I did two writing projects every day: 1. to write 100 words, and 2. to share my work. While I was unsuccessful in raising money, I wanted to continue to do something.

So I have renewed these in lieu of the Refugee Ban in the USA. Inspired by the-cassandra-project and their Every Day Challenge, I am writing every day to raise money for the Urban Justice Center. You can donate here or please spread the word. Thank you.

Here is a list of Day 1 -- Day 11 with sentence previews:

Day 1: Ice Soul - Ice glitters on her soul.

Day 2: Straw to Gold - Agony twines across the spindle and around the spinning wheel.

Day 3: The Barrier - Golden and red leaves crinkle in the wind.

Day 4: Uncertainty - Fear coils through her stomach, a venomous vine spewing nasty knotted briars

Day 5: Contained Time - Time ached. Every second throbbed with pain, dried out by the depletion of Fortune’s River.

Day 6: Take a Drink - Wind whistles through the trees, sprinkling golden and crimson leaves on the sluggish river.

Day 7: Snow Flowers - Snow plummets down, an arch of fluffy cold crystals, coating the desert with a heavy white blanket.

Day 8: Unlooked for Sweetness - A tantalizing sweetness buffeted the air, coy and floral.

Day 9: Sifting Revision - Thoughts, possibilities, and plots weave together in complex knots.

Day 10: incomputable - Patterns repeat: Flower 1, Flower 2, Flower 3 — scorch, heal, et. al — wood, water, fire…

Day 11: The Winter Ones - Snow poured from a white sky.

 Well, this is later than I intended. I got actually distracted yesterday. (And not with the new book my sister loaned me on the Romanov sisters.) And then I wanted to try to organize the arrangement of chapters and characters/events by chapter for Book 1, so I would know where to put which scene and where I had to revise or rewrite.

That did not lead to successful results. And by then it was getting late enough that I just decided to put this post off until tomorrow, even if it would be a day late.

So.

This morning I realized that what I realized earlier this month was applicable here. I had a lot of ideas but how much did I care about them? More importantly, were they all necessary to the story? Instead of looking at the events, I was recycling the events. But do they work? Do they make sense?

For example, in the original draft, one MC and another character meet at the early midpoint of the story. And I had taken that for granted that that was how it happened. Ruminating today on character wants and character flaws (which would interfere with said wants), I realized that having that MC meet a different character at that point in the story opened up a much more interesting dynamic, because of their personalities and attitudes.

That's not to say there wasn't anything compelling about the original set up. The problem stemmed from a lack of cohesion between events and character progression. (This was applicable not only to the development of that MC and the original character she met, but that character's character arc.) Additionally, by swapping the character that MC meets, it actually allows stronger focus on familial or friendly relationships. Which is more important in Nights of Heroes as a whole, more than romance.

A bit unrelated but I'd like to write more short stories. Especially about NoH characters; I think it'd give me a better grasp on them. Also want to write more about the awesome parents of characters unrelated to NoH.

I guess that's all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 19 Jan 2017!

What's fascinating about my writing is that the most prominent aspect people comment on is my description (or illustrations if there are any). Not the characters or story. Which fascinates me since 1. one the earliest lesson I got from another potential writer was: show don't tell so I spend an inordinate amount of time working on my description, and 2. some of my favorite stories have simple or straight-forward characters (e.g. fairy tales, mythology, heck even One Piece to an extent*). So it's interesting that my characters are less dynamic than my description or scene-setting.

I'm thinking I might want to spend some time crunching down on characterization-in-writing. (Not necessarily character-building, but conveying strong characters in words.)

*by that I mean, there's established traits that help define the main cast

 I'm gonna go write a background story for a character's mother 'cause these two main characters in a story idea have the coolest parents ever. (I already wrote one for one of their fathers. And re-reading it today, I was surprised how engaging it was. It's weird, when I re-read my writing now it's actually...good??)

I've been wanting to try to write 400 words every day in Wild Moon, White Tree (rather that my earlier count of 100 words per day) but I've hit a mild anxiety attack right now, so I'm leaving it at 186 words today.

Also, I finally finished a short NoH story I'd been letting sit for awhile. And it actually seems good. Like what's up with that? It clocks in at 6,600 words.

Because I am not one for creative titles.

Any kind of journal-like blog I have will usually change a lot as time goes by. I doubt this will be an exception.

Anywho:

Yesterday I finished typing up my NaNoWriMo from last year. (Yay!) It's still really, really, really rough, but I kind of love it? Like I don't know if that's the OTGW influence or because I really love the main character or the atmosphere (yay! colonial USA New England setting). Or maybe it's all of it. Anyway, I have a soft spot for it. I probably won't think about getting published for awhile. I have enough other things to work on.

Today I wrote some more in my "Tales of the Moon" which is my (hopefully last) attempt to complete Wild Moon, White Tree my mythological demon and moon lineage story. My goal is to write 100 words every day. It's going pretty well. Even if I forgot yesterday. (I've been having low-key bad days). But I DID write 444 words today. I thought it was pretty.

I'm also working on trying to finish some "Nights of Heroes" short stories. Cause I love a lot of those characters. I have one completely done, one that needs a final edit, one that needs the climax and some cohesion, and two that need to be written. Actually, I've discovered that it's a lot quicker for me to write if I have a clear idea of what I'm writing. For example, I just wrote a short story (3,500 words) in two days but I knew precisely what would happen. The first NoH short story (5,500 words) I finished way back in November I wrote in three days. Again, I knew what was going to happen and what the conflict was. I wonder if that's what it is. Having a precise idea of what's going to happen AND what the conflict is. In the case of the short story (5,800 words) that needs a final edit, I actually had it done, but when I re-read it, I realized the plot (which had Riding Hood allusions) wasn't working. So I rewrote a huge hunk of it. And then I re-read that and I decided there was a scene that didn't work and rewrote that. And that's where I am now.

To expand a little on what I mean about "having a precise idea", it's the difference between writing (in an outline): those character meet vs said character bangs into said character after slipping on ice. One gives me a scene, a way to focus on description and action, a way to write the scene from the character pov I've chosen.