On this day before we all start writing our novels, a serious topic must be discussed. Mostly because I've seen this happen to friends and family alike. It's happened to people that I don't know and maybe you don't even know. It could even happen to you. Your computer decides that this is the day it bites the bullet. It can happen at anytime, especially during NaNoWriMo, and, if you haven't taken steps, you can lose all of the hard work that you've done.
However, there is hope. It's known as backing up your work. In this day and age, it's not only smart but insanely easy. There's OneDrive, Dropbox, and even Google Docs. You can buy a thumb drive to go on your keys for as low as a venti Starbucks Pike's Place and you should. There is no excuse to not back up your work and to do it every night before you turn off your computer. If you can set it up so your work automatically gets backed up to an online source, even better.
Now, you might be thinking "but Liz! Those can be hacked!" to which I go "then get a freaking thumb drive". There's no excuse people. None. While I will be sympathetic if your computer bites the dust, I will shake my head at you if you haven't backed up in some way. It's really not that hard.
So, yeah, getting off the soapbox now. Rest up my friends! NaNoWriMo comes. I'm starting at midnight central, what about you? Feel free to poke me on Twitter or Facebook or even blow in the comments. Until next time, happy writing!
Monday, October 31, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Friday Five: Podcasts of Note
Thought I'd bring this back for a little bit of fun before we head into November. Also, you might find these a bit better while writing as you just have to listen to them. You don't really need to spit your attention to two screens. All of these can be found on iTunes but I cannot say if they are on Soundcloud or other ways of listening to podcasts. I will say that I've got a lot of political podcasts that I listen to, with one listed as the bonus #6 because I feel it needs to be highlighted, but, for the most part, they're not listed here. If you want to know what I'm listening to political wise, hit me up in the comments below, Facebook, or Twitter.
1. Coffee with Chrachel: Their iTunes description says "the only thing filtered is the coffee" and that's so true. They talk about everything and anything. I love listening to them and find myself laughing along because they're funny. I recommend this podcast, especially when you're feeling down, as they get me laughing and I can't remember what I was feeling bad about. It's nice to listen to when writing, even if I have to stop and rewind to make sure that I heard something right. Definitely check it out.
2. Good Job Brain!: This is a trivia show centering around different themes. Every five or so episodes, they do an all quiz bonanza. It's fun to listen to, although sometimes I get caught up in listening and answering the trivia vs writing.
3. The West Wing Weekly: So... I love West Wing. When I heard that Josh Molina (he played Will Bailey) and Hrishikesh Hirway (Song Exploder). It's an episode by episode discussion of the show with guests - past guests include Aaron Sorkin and stars of West Wing. For someone who loved the show and was sad when it ended (it was a perfect ending though), this is a very nice cherry on top. Also, hello perfect timing for this during the election season.
4. NaNoWriPod: Why, yes, there is a podcast centered around NaNoWriMo. They do other podcasts during the year, but it is mostly about the event we're all gearing up for. Or you might just be watching me gear up for it and laugh. That works too!
5. Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!: This is NPR's current events quiz that I like listening to here and there. Like with Good Job Brain!, I sometimes get too caught up with the trivia vs writing. But it's nice for a bit of a brain break, which we will all need during the month.
6. TWiB Prime with Elon James White: This is my bonus and has a special place for me. There are a ton of politics and going off the rails but they speak about current events with a spin that I don't hear anywhere else. Also, they cover stories that you sometimes won't hear on the regular news, which I think is always an added bonus. You can also find them on YouTube at Blackness.TV or search for twib. It'll be the first search result that comes up.
6. TWiB Prime with Elon James White: This is my bonus and has a special place for me. There are a ton of politics and going off the rails but they speak about current events with a spin that I don't hear anywhere else. Also, they cover stories that you sometimes won't hear on the regular news, which I think is always an added bonus. You can also find them on YouTube at Blackness.TV or search for twib. It'll be the first search result that comes up.
Also, T-minus 3 days until NaNoWriMo! Are you ready yet? I am! Have a good weekend everyone - see you Monday.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
What to Watch While Writing
You're probably looking at the title of this post and going "really Liz?". I know, I get it, you're supposed to write in a place where there are no distractions but for light jazz or classical music. If you can do that, then I really need you to teach me your ways. My mind wanders too much while classical or jazz is on. I need some rock and lyrics but this isn't what music to listen to.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Real Life vs NaNoWriMo
This is one part procrastination and one part how not to be a dick to your friends and loved ones in November. I say this with love but, honestly, we as writers cannot completely shut out the real world. It is very tempting to do so and I get why some go off and shut themselves off in their rooms but it's not practical. It's mostly not practical because I believe a lot of us have day jobs. Even if you don't have day jobs, you have responsibilities and so on that need to get done during the day. Therefore, we're going to try and balance out real life and NaNoWriMo.
Pretend it's day one of NaNoWriMo (1 week and a day people!). You decided to start right at midnight and stayed up until 3 am writing. However, you also need to get to work at 9 am or earlier. What you should do instead is only stay up until either you have half of the day word's count (834 words) or until 1 am instead of 3 am. Now, you can do the other half on your lunch break. Or when you get home or on your commute home if you don't drive. What I am saying is not to be a hero and sacrifice the fact that you will fall asleep at your desk if you stay up until 3 am being a writing machine. Go for half of what you really want to write or cap your nighttime writing.
Another idea to try that I've touched on before is figure out what time of day is best for you to write. It might be just after dinner, before anybody else is up, or after everyone has gone to bed. You don't need to go and be a hermit. You can wait until everyone else in your family is off doing other things and write. If you have housework that you need to do during that time, then do 20 minutes on, 30 minutes off. In 20 minutes, write as much as you can and then do 30 minutes of whatever housework needs to be done. Or flip it and write for a half hour and do 20 minutes of housework. Continue to do this until you reach your goal for the day.
Now, the one big problem of November (if you're in the US) is Thanksgiving. There's two ways to deal with this. Inflate your daily word count so it doesn't matter that you have to take anywhere from 1 to 3 days off before Thanksgiving or do it at the end of the month. I highly recommend doing it before Thanksgiving as you're going to be riding high on the feeling good part of writing. You're not going to be at the hard parts of your plot or writing (the dreaded middle) and you'll be able to get more words out of your fingers. Another idea is to give up the nap that you're going to want to take after eating turkey. Power through it, possibly with coffee, and use that time of everyone else sleeping to write.
Those are the three big ways to help you continue to write as real life creeps into your writing time and your writing time creeps into real life. Unless you are cool enough that you can basically go on a retreat for 30 days, you're going to have to learn to balance the two. If you've done this before, what are your best coping methods? What hasn't worked at all? Feel free to leave it down in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter. Until next time, keep on writing and plotting!
Pretend it's day one of NaNoWriMo (1 week and a day people!). You decided to start right at midnight and stayed up until 3 am writing. However, you also need to get to work at 9 am or earlier. What you should do instead is only stay up until either you have half of the day word's count (834 words) or until 1 am instead of 3 am. Now, you can do the other half on your lunch break. Or when you get home or on your commute home if you don't drive. What I am saying is not to be a hero and sacrifice the fact that you will fall asleep at your desk if you stay up until 3 am being a writing machine. Go for half of what you really want to write or cap your nighttime writing.
Another idea to try that I've touched on before is figure out what time of day is best for you to write. It might be just after dinner, before anybody else is up, or after everyone has gone to bed. You don't need to go and be a hermit. You can wait until everyone else in your family is off doing other things and write. If you have housework that you need to do during that time, then do 20 minutes on, 30 minutes off. In 20 minutes, write as much as you can and then do 30 minutes of whatever housework needs to be done. Or flip it and write for a half hour and do 20 minutes of housework. Continue to do this until you reach your goal for the day.
Now, the one big problem of November (if you're in the US) is Thanksgiving. There's two ways to deal with this. Inflate your daily word count so it doesn't matter that you have to take anywhere from 1 to 3 days off before Thanksgiving or do it at the end of the month. I highly recommend doing it before Thanksgiving as you're going to be riding high on the feeling good part of writing. You're not going to be at the hard parts of your plot or writing (the dreaded middle) and you'll be able to get more words out of your fingers. Another idea is to give up the nap that you're going to want to take after eating turkey. Power through it, possibly with coffee, and use that time of everyone else sleeping to write.
Those are the three big ways to help you continue to write as real life creeps into your writing time and your writing time creeps into real life. Unless you are cool enough that you can basically go on a retreat for 30 days, you're going to have to learn to balance the two. If you've done this before, what are your best coping methods? What hasn't worked at all? Feel free to leave it down in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter. Until next time, keep on writing and plotting!
Friday, October 21, 2016
The NaNoWriMo Reward System
You're going to be writing and you probably need a bit of carrot on the end of that stick. Now, the NaNoWriMo website has these nifty badges you can get on the website for doing things. Some of them are updating your word count, getting to a specific word count, validating, and so on. These are nice and they're nifty if you're really gung-ho about NaNo. I know that I liked them when they were introduced last year and I'm happy they're still there this year.
However, what if you want more reward than just that? What if you want a physical reward? Well, that's what this post is going to be about.
However, what if you want more reward than just that? What if you want a physical reward? Well, that's what this post is going to be about.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Time for the Outline!
We talked plot, now it's time to talk about how to do your outline. There are several ways to do an outline and I'll walk through one or two of them before I get into how I do my outline. As always, these might not work for you but I suggest that you try them.
Monday, October 17, 2016
In Order to Plot, Pick Your Genre
Happy Monday! We are two weeks and a day away from the start of NaNoWriMo. You get a few minutes to panic and then we'll start with the topic of the day. I'll time you.
....and done. Today, we are talking about plots and I know this is a weird time to talk about them. We've done the ton of world building, the characters, and now I want to talk about plot. Here's the thing about plot... when you're doing the rest of it, you might already have the glimmer of an idea in your head. I mean, you've created an entire world, you have a cast of characters, therefore, you must have an idea of why you did such a thing. Now, that's not to say that you didn't lay out your plot first and then built up everything else. It can go either way.
Let's take a baseline plot of a hero going off to save the world from something that will end it. For example, let's say that it's a evil overlord who, if he or she takes over the world, will plunge it into darkness for the next untold generations or something of the like. From that one little idea of a plot, you can do so much with it when you decide what genre you want to write in. If you're writing fantasy, then this is your good old fashioned standard plot line. You will need to do more in order to not appear stale. This is where a good what-if would come in handy. Perhaps write it from the world view of the evil overlord. Or perhaps a minion who really is the hero but works a crappy day job under said overlord. You will need to work on it.
Now, let's say you're writing dystopian fiction. You're somewhere in the darkness, possibly right after it happened or a generation or three in. You're going to need to figure out how your main character fights back against it and what he or she does to take down the evil overlord. Or, maybe he or she does, but realizes that, by taking said evil overlord down, it's going to kill off everything. So, now you're at a crossroads of what could really be done because your hero doesn't want to destroy the world. Or he or she could as destroying everything is a way to set everyone free.
For the third and final example, let's take mystery / thriller. For this one, it doesn't really need to be an evil overlord. It can simply be someone who is making the main character's life hell and he or she decides to do something about it. Or, someone else tried to, and now they're dead and your main character has to put the pieces together in order to find the killer. With this genre, you're going to want to figure out if you're dealing with the main character as the killer or as the solver. The killer needs to figure out a way to keep one or three steps ahead of the police in order to win. The solver needs to figure out the puzzle and catch the killer. Be wary of the hybrid unless you're willing to dive deep into what you're doing with your outline. Also, have a way out. I know it's cliche, but I never say no to the idea of an evil twin.
So, yes, the genre you write in will drive your plot. It's best to pick that before you fully flesh out the idea of your plot and what your story is going to be. However, you're got two weeks and a day - so not a reason to panic yet.
Until next time, keep on writing, plotting, and not panicking.
....and done. Today, we are talking about plots and I know this is a weird time to talk about them. We've done the ton of world building, the characters, and now I want to talk about plot. Here's the thing about plot... when you're doing the rest of it, you might already have the glimmer of an idea in your head. I mean, you've created an entire world, you have a cast of characters, therefore, you must have an idea of why you did such a thing. Now, that's not to say that you didn't lay out your plot first and then built up everything else. It can go either way.
Let's take a baseline plot of a hero going off to save the world from something that will end it. For example, let's say that it's a evil overlord who, if he or she takes over the world, will plunge it into darkness for the next untold generations or something of the like. From that one little idea of a plot, you can do so much with it when you decide what genre you want to write in. If you're writing fantasy, then this is your good old fashioned standard plot line. You will need to do more in order to not appear stale. This is where a good what-if would come in handy. Perhaps write it from the world view of the evil overlord. Or perhaps a minion who really is the hero but works a crappy day job under said overlord. You will need to work on it.
Now, let's say you're writing dystopian fiction. You're somewhere in the darkness, possibly right after it happened or a generation or three in. You're going to need to figure out how your main character fights back against it and what he or she does to take down the evil overlord. Or, maybe he or she does, but realizes that, by taking said evil overlord down, it's going to kill off everything. So, now you're at a crossroads of what could really be done because your hero doesn't want to destroy the world. Or he or she could as destroying everything is a way to set everyone free.
For the third and final example, let's take mystery / thriller. For this one, it doesn't really need to be an evil overlord. It can simply be someone who is making the main character's life hell and he or she decides to do something about it. Or, someone else tried to, and now they're dead and your main character has to put the pieces together in order to find the killer. With this genre, you're going to want to figure out if you're dealing with the main character as the killer or as the solver. The killer needs to figure out a way to keep one or three steps ahead of the police in order to win. The solver needs to figure out the puzzle and catch the killer. Be wary of the hybrid unless you're willing to dive deep into what you're doing with your outline. Also, have a way out. I know it's cliche, but I never say no to the idea of an evil twin.
So, yes, the genre you write in will drive your plot. It's best to pick that before you fully flesh out the idea of your plot and what your story is going to be. However, you're got two weeks and a day - so not a reason to panic yet.
Until next time, keep on writing, plotting, and not panicking.
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