Category: NaNoWriMo

If there is one thing (out of 489) that I’m bad at, is physical description, as evidenced in my current NaNoWriMo project. I try and sprinkle character physical descriptions into my writing as opposed to having them stand in front of a mirror, scrutinize themselves and tell the reader what they look like. (True story).

And something Jenna says really hit me between the eyes, allow the reader to picture the character in his/her mind. It’s important to give readers a general idea of what someone looks like, but it’s true, no matter how descriptive you are, readers will likely picture someone different in their minds.

I know physical descriptions and describing locales in stories is important but that’s the part I find the most dull to write and read. Anything overly descriptive and I just find it pretentious and tedious. (Oh, look at you use your words – how precious). I like stories that are fast paced and exciting, describing someone’s acne or the color, texture and function of someone’s kitchen drawer immediately turns me off.

Forget the flowery prose, let’s dump your character in acid and see what happens.

 

NaNoWriMo Update: I’m at 6,210. I finished Freedom Riot – (you can find the story here – I broke it up into four parts because it’s 6200 words and no one has the attention span for that Part One, Part Two – I haven’t posted parts three and four yet – patience grasshopper). I wrote A LOT yesterday. I don’t know, I was excited for it. I was READY for it. I think reading all year long also REALLY helped – I felt like I had been transported into one of the stories I read this year.

By the way, the prompt I used for Freedom Riot was: A world wherein employees work nonstop with no vacation—a riot ensues.

I feel like I’m more interested in writing crazy, weird stuff. Not really horror, definitely not romance, but somewhere in between. I’m really interested in mystery, thrillers. I love twists and turns and stories that keep throwing stuff at you so you’re forced to duck and dodge incoming missiles. And you know what? I was watching more of Jenna’s videos (I’m sort of fan girling on her, not gonna lie) and something she said really resonated with me – write what  interests you, not what you think you should write. Not that I have to write romance, but honestly, there are only so many ways to describe In flagrante delicto, or caught in the act for those that have no idea what that means. But human depravity? Endless options here. So, I’ve learned that about myself. I want to write more twisted, fascinating, disturbing stories, without the blood and guts. More psychological stories – stuff that mess with your head.

I’ve also been thinking about the repercussions of putting my work online. I’m going to think of the works I post as teasers. I feel like most of my stories could easily be expanded on, made longer, into novels. So if I ever feel compelled to take a story further and try and get it published, the part I posted online will be an excerpt of that bigger story. That way, that gives me the freedom to post a little something-something for you all and the flexibility to make it bigger, put some meat on the story bones, if I choose to. Though I didn’t feel particularly invested in Bianca and Trey this go around, I definitely felt like I could have taken Freedom Riot much, much further.

So, dear reader, I apologize in advance, but you’re going to get a lot of excerpts and very little “finished” projects.

I already have an idea for my next short story and man, is it going to be dark. Stay tuned.

Hi. My name is Karen and I’ve been clean for six months.

To be honest, it really wasn’t that hard to go cold turkey – I think I had gotten so fed up with the inconsequential fluff and the fact that it was sucking all of my time into a black hole of mindless clicking, that I tripped a wire and a light bulb went off in my brain illuminating a dark corner I had forgotten existed.

My desire to actually WRITE something.

Hi. My name is Karen and it’s been six months since I quit Facebook.

I haven’t missed it.

Like. At all.

My original intent of quitting Facebook was to give myself more time to do two things I REALLY enjoy:

1. Read
2. Write

I’ve been successful on the reading part. My Goodreads goal was to read 100 books this year and I’m currently at 93. I’m ten books ahead of schedule – on purpose. BECAUSE, I want to now turn my attention to my second goal: writing.

And now that it’s November, we all know what that means – NANOWRIMO!!!!

The site has been updated and my old stats are no longer there, but I think I’ve actually “won” NaNoWriMo … three or four times. This was back in the days when I was a stay-at-home mom and had A LOT of time on my hands, very little stress and got copious amounts of sleep.

But since I went back to work full time eight years ago, I’ve had to use every single brain cell I owned just to keep my head above water and keep up with the highly intelligent (and younger) people I work with. (Hello Heather and Tiffany!)

But my writing itch has come back and I feel compelled to scratch it again. The itch started small, a rub here and there, a momentary, mindless scratch on my arms, neck. Then my itch was occurring over bigger parts of my body and happening more frequently. Now, it’s all I can do not to attack my body in front of people and embarrass myself by scratching parts of my body that should NEVER be touched in public.

*ahem* But I digress.

My point being, I’m ready to start writing crap again.

And this, of course, means subjecting you, my dear cyber friend, to the wonderfully dark, disturbed world I like to call my imagination.

Dust off your straight jackets.

I’ve decided to do something a little different this go around. I’m not really ready to write a novel, hell, who am I kidding, I will likely NEVER be ready to write a novel, but rather, I’m going to stick to what I enjoy doing the most – writing short stories. Only, I’m going to stick to nine characters. I won’t use all nine characters in every single story but rather, pluck a few ones out of the lineup and toss them into the gladiator ring and see how much I can abuse them. You can see these characters on my fiction blog.

I’m not going to publish these stories here, but on my fiction blog. (And the girls I work with only THOUGHT they knew all of my secrets – bwahaha – silly girls). If you wish to read along, you can visit https://fictionfix.wordpress.com/. If you’re playing along, you can find me here on the NaNoWrimo site.

In the meantime, I have stumbled onto a really witty, funny, sarcastic writer on YouTube who not only makes me laugh but who flips my creative switch every time I watch one of her videos. I will post one of her videos on my blog daily (?) or as often as I remember to during the month of November in the hopes that it will spark your creative fire as well.

I am purposefully putting my NaNoWriMo goals out there because I’m hoping the girls I work with, who now, to my complete and utter horror, know about this blog and now my fiction blog, will give me so much hell at work that I will have no CHOICE but to complete this damn project if only to shut them up.

(Love you girls!)

Okay, let’s have some fun. *rubbing hands*