Day 3

Hooooooooooo...... such a long day... I wrote about 3,500 words this morning in a spurt of word wars and creativity... I'm at 16,300-something... I'm so tired...

Woke up at 5:45, dumb alarm wasn't set so I freaked out and woke up 15 minutes early. Then my friend came over for math tutoring this afternoon and there went two more hours.

Dinner had better be good...

Now I'm listening to sad Japanese music and wistfully gazing at Word while instead I search for science resources. Oh well, at least the novel goes well.

I've been thinking a lot about the villain's motive. It's not very well thought-out but it has a lot of validity behind it and if I'm very, very careful I can pull it off. Meanwhile I have to build up the connection between the minor characters with the main one intricately or else my epic climax won't be as epic as I'd hoped.

So some notes to self:

-STOP! Do NOT separate the MC from the minor MCs!
-My second favorite FMC is not in character. Change that!
-Start using flashbacks! It's never too early!
-Find more muse music, the same 9 songs are getting old.

I send my heart out to other 'WriMo's. PERSEVERE!

~Silvermist

A New Beginning (kinda)

Readers,

If you are still alive, or view this blog on any one out of fifty occasions, then thank you. For those of you who don't, please start. I'll try to make it more interesting, if that's the problem.

So, here's the deal.

I'm beginning to look into some serious publishing (so serious that I have my first rejection slip under my belt), and I'm starting to do various things around the internet that would help me to boost my "reputation" among writers. Here they are, if you're interested:

My DeviantArt account, which sports pictures of my OC's, as well as occasional blog posts of my activity, etc.: http://azedarach.deviantart.com

My Teen Ink account, which I'm sure you'll find interesting once I begin putting up more stuff. I have part of a novel, a fanfiction, some poems, and some pictures up. Please take note of this one especially, it means a lot to me: http://teenink.com/users/HauntMystic

My Twitter account, which has been largely inactive for a long time, but will hereforth be used to further my motive to tweet story-related stuff: https://twitter.com/Hauntmystic

My Pinterest account, which is waaaaaay much more fun than it sounds: http://pinterest.com/captainterch/

My alternate FaceBook account for Merry Johnson, who is the main character of my novel, The Truth, this month: http://www.facebook.com/ryka.novenden

Thank you all for reading this, if indeed you did. I look forward to updating all of these soon! (When I get back from work on Saturday... I'm gone all week. *Sob*)

~Silvermist/Azedarach/HauntMystic/CaptainTerch/Merry

...but mostly Silvermist

Wasp

I mentioned in my last post that I keep a list of my character's birthdays. Well, today is one of them. January 4th happens to be the 18th birthday of my female April-Wri-Mo character 'Wasp' (Chloe). She co-starred as a minor FC in my April double challenge novel 'Flight', in which she was a teen girl with the power to control and communicate with insects.

Wasp is sometimes stubborn and strong-willed, and tends to keep her emotions on the contemptible side, but in reality she is a loving, tender, caring person who looks after her long time, France-native, friend (and boyfriend, if you don't mind my saying) Lucas.

Since she is officially an "adult" today, I decided to feature her in my blog. Here is her year-old portrait (sadly, I have no more recent photos):

Today is a fun day, especially since her friends are treating her to whatever she wants. (We can guess that it includes bugs).

At any rate, it is especially fun for me because it serves as a reminder that on April 1st (and until April 30th) I will write the sequel to 'Flight' in all its wonderful superhuman glory. I have absolutely no idea what to call it, but that's ok because it's going to start with, you guessed it, a bang. I wonder if I should call it 'Flight, the Seqe- *BANG*'.... forget it.

At any rate, Harpy Earth Day, Wasp! (private joke, don't ask). I hope you have many more (considering the April novel is dangerous).

Tootley oo,

~Silvermist

Character Birthdays

I've found a fun way to keep in touch with characters and their updates is to keep a list of their birthdays readily at hand. Seeing as we are approaching a New Year very shortly, I see fit to start birthday-ing fairly soon.

Anyway, the first step I like to take is completing the character profile thing I posted back in October:

http://silvermist-thefeatherpen.blogspot.com/2011/10/character-profiles.html

Once your characters are fleshed out and you have the dates of their b-days, you can save them in a notepad document (or scribble them on a sticky note or whatever. Don't judge me, I have no sticky notes!!!)

Aaaanyway, once that is done, it should look something like this: (alphabetical order) [random names, I swear I don't use such mundane tags on characters]

Aaron - December 1; Abel- August 7; Betty - November 28; Corey - November 3

Etcetera. Or, it can look like this:

January - [list of characters whose birthdays are in this month]
February - [list]
March - [list]
April - [list]

And so on. January 1st marks the 18th birthday of January, one of my more recent characters. I hope to do something nice for that, and then look readily forward to the rest of the year and all the birthdays that come with it. Shew.

Anyway, so long and thanks for all the fish. Hope you had fun with this post.

~Silvermist

Mid-November Rut

It's mid-November in two days (the 15th) and I realized it's about here I always get stuck in a rut. Yep, a rut. My novel is having trouble moving, even though one of the minor characters is about to die... The characters are starting to realize my evil plans for them and are trying to throw me off, I suppose.

I've been wondering what to do to boost my word count without too many word sprints... those tire my fingers and although they can help move the plot along, I find they usually make my work seem mediocre because I don't have time to focus. Which is bad.

Anybody have any inspirational thingie-ma-bob ideas I can use to help me?

Many thanks ahead of time,
Silvermist

Character Profiles

Do you fill out profiles for your characters? If you do, how long do you wait to fill the profile out, and what critera do you use? If not, you should! It's not extremely detailed, but it helps you keep track of your character's strong points, weak points, personality features, basic appearance, and even basic background outline. It's quite fun, and gives you references to go back to.

Example: You're writing your NaNoWriMo novel (or any story, perhaps, that is longer than 20 pages), and you realize you forget the color of that one guy's hair. Well, now you have to go scrolling back up 60 or so pages to find what it was. And then you do it again 40-some pages later. Now what?

Yeeeep, this keeps that from happening. Here is the basic character profile template I use, and I hope you'll enjoy using it too:

Profile for: [character name here]


Gender:
Race:
Age:
Date of creation:
Birthday:
Height:
Measurements:
Hobby:
(Twist):
Status:

Basic Description:


-------------------
Current Information
-------------------
>family background

>birth place

>history, background

>home

>possessions, make-up, jewelry, etc.

>pets

--------------------
Physical Description
--------------------
>hair style

>eyes

>body

>physical condition

>marks,scar,tattoo


>clothing

------------
Personality
------------
>likes

>dislikes

>fears

>goals

>hobbies

>occupation

>favorite food

>least favorite food

>most prized possesion (important or emotional value)

>vernacular (way of speaking)

>psychological condition

>character behavior

>aptitude

>social and other pressure, problems

>relationships (with who and what kind)

>beliefs, superstition, moral value

>positive characteristics

>negatives characteristics

>personality

>other

------------
Abilities
------------
>physical

>magical

>other

Enjoy!

~Silvermist