Are you blogging too much?

Is blogging and visiting blogs taking up all your time?

When I started blogging I was hooked straight away. There are so many awesome blogs on writing, I'm sure I gained more information and help from the online world than I did from my studies at school. I was starting at scratch learning the art of writing and I wanted to share that with other peeps. I guess the focus of my blog is - if I can fumble through this, think how easy it will be for you.

I blogged my butt off. Some weeks I'd blog up to four times. My opinion now is that's just not necessary. I know you can reach out to other writers and build a platform for your writing. That's the marketing side, you'll also make great blogging friends, I know I have. BUT. Now I blog about once a week, twice if something special comes up. This gives me more time to visit other blogs, improve my writing skills and work on my books. Less blogging means each post is live longer and has more chance to actually be viewed by readers.

So rather than update you every time my dog does something cute or I have a weird dream, I think about what will be helpful to my reader. The tip I'm suggesting today? Social media is a tool, a great tool, but if your goal is to publish a novel or write flash fiction or poetry, then make your craft your priority. Spend time on your art and balance that time wisely with your platform building. Let social media feed and propel your productivity, not steal from it.

Are you making time for your writing?

12 Key Rules for Writing

Found this re-shared so much on Facebook, I have no idea of it's origin.

Check out rule 1. I've learned something about the writing process recently. I know we've all heard the saying, 'writers write' and we're told to just keep the hand moving across the page. But this is more. My writing workshops often sing the praises of free writing. 15 minutes every day. But what do I write about? And I'm told not to think, just write. 

What a waste of time, I have a novel to write, I can't be dithering away notes about my dreams and what I need to pick up for dinner. Honestly, for about the first week, that's what I came up with. Random nonsensical stuff that did not contribute to my fiction at all. But then I started noticing changes. Now when I free write (every day, like a good little author) I find new plot ideas for my story emerge, or a deeper understanding of a character's motivation. 

Practice writing and you'll become better at practicing.

Of course you need to actually work on your novel too, otherwise you'll only become better at practicing.

How to recycle posts and build worlds

You may get a feeling of deja vu reading my post today. No you're not imagining it, this is part of a great blogfest run by Denise Covey (L'Aussie to most of us online) over at Romantic Friday Writers. The idea is to repost one of your favourite posts from the April A-Z Challenge. I love to recycle, so here is my W post from April. Click on the pic to go sign up for the blogfest!

World Building Workshop

Build an amazing world for your story

Today I'm sharing a creative writing workshop I run for kids. It's on World Building and this is an important part of science fiction and fantasy stories. You can follow along and write up your own responses, or you can use the worksheet we use in class. It can be downloaded and printed from here:

World Building PDF

I've broken this workshop into two parts, the lists and the drawing. You can do either first, I love the lists, my kids will probably want to draw theirs first. 

 Step 1: The Written World Description

• Binaries and Parallels - What's the same as our world and what's different?

• Temperature - Is it below freezing or really humid? The temperature of your world will affect the type of vegetation you have, and even the action that can take place (imagine The Wizard of Oz without a tornado). Is your weather seasonal or is it always like this?

• Landscape - When your character stands still, what can they see and how far can they see? Can they see Mountains, ranges, hills or a horizon?

• Ground cover - Dirt, rocks, pebbles, sand, grass or snow? How does it feel to walk under your character's feet? What sound is made when they walk on it?

• Vegetation - Tree varieties, weeds, shrubs, edible fruits, mushrooms and flowers. This can create scents and colour to your story. Plants are used for more than shelter and food. Sometimes they can be medicines and sometimes they are just for enjoyment. Do your characters like to pick flowers? Or maybe there's a plant like tobbacco that they smoke? And maybe it's not good for them and they find out they could die from it. Maybe some yummy looking berries are poisonous.

Now beyond the ground.

• Laws of Physics - Will your land obey them? Is there gravity? How might this affect your characters?

• Sun/Moon/Stars - What is the natural light like or what alternatives are there for light? Does sun or moon or stars play a role in your character's religion?

• Civilisation - Is your world built up or entirely natural? Are there pathways, roads, houses, airports, industry?

Step 2 - Drawing

• Draw rough maps of the entire area and show how your different locations meet up.
• Draw up an outline of each town, where are the homes, the shops, the tavern, etc.
• Then go wild and paint or sketch lots of views of your world, be as artistic as you want!

Want to visuaslise your world but don't have crayon skills?

• Make a virtual world in a game like Sims3 or Second Life or perhaps you can suggest one?
• Search online, steal National Geographic magazines and travel brochures. Cut out all the elements that match your world and glue them onto a large sheet of cardboard. Layout the pictures to align with your map, showing where the rainforest is compared to the Castle and what you pass when you travel from one to the other. You can keep this by your desk while you write.

FREE LOVE!

First Loves Blogfest hosted by Alex Cavanaugh
Ignore the date...

Maybe I'm taking my chillin' challenge for May too literally, keep missing deadlines. Here is one blogfest I meant to take part in, the First Loves Blogfest. My first loves are:

Movie:

I don't remember which movie I loved first, but I do remember the first one that made me cry:

Song/Singer:

After the Disney album of Bambi, I fell in love with the songs from this hunky dude. At 14 I swore I'd marry him! My friends thought it was creepy 'cause he was all like old and stuff. My first song I loved was Coward of the County - but the one below became one of my favourites.

First Book:

I was reading before I started school, so I can't even remember which book I loved first, but two stand out:

Still a favourite, and sits on display on a little shelf I have halfway up the stairs. 

But when I was eleven, I read this book (Mum had no idea what it was about until she saw the mini-series...)

First Love:

Ugh! This one's shameful to remember. Stephen Joseph Abbot - I met him when I first moved to the Gold Coast and I followed him around like a puppy. I would even ride my bike past his house at night and just watch the family interact through their window (oh oh, did I say too much?). I threw myself at his stonewash jeans and vinyl velcro shoes! I even wrote him 'anonymous' poetry (yeah, like who else would it be from?). Give him his due, although good old Abby was a bit sleazy with the girls, he only ever treated me like a little sister and saved my virtue many times. 

Now, let us never speak of it again!

This is my more current love interest, which is convenient, seeing as he's also my husband and father to my children... we met at the Department of Environment and on a work night out he sang a Kenny Rogers song to me... that'll do it!

But wait there's more...

This weak I had the privilege of being a RAOK recipient (Random Acts Of Kindness). I was gifted a critique from Lynda Young at WIP It.

To commemorate the release of their book The Emotion Thesaurus, Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting a titanic Random Act of Kindness BLITZ. 

I tried to pick a candidate to pass this onto, I really did. But every time I'd visit one they seemed to already be 'RAOKed'. So I decided to dedicate this to anyone who would like it. And your gift?

If there is anyone out there who does not already have a copy of my book MY ZOMBIE DOG, then leave your email in a comment, and I'll send you the Kindle book FREE. Got a friend who'd like it? That's fine, send their email through and I'll send them one too. I'll leave this offer up until my next blog post goes up, so you have a day or two. If you don't like to show your email, you can just email it to me instead at charmaineclancy@gmail.com

And feel free to tweet and share this, I don't mind how many copies I give away :)

Using Episodic Plots

One of the writers workshops I'm taking is Toolkit for Writers from QWC. We will cover different devices writers can use to... write (it's starting to sink in that's the key to getting stuff written). This week our homework was to look at Episodic Plot Structure and create our own episodic plot based on our own lives over the past year.

Most of us think about story structure as a rising conflict to a point where it seems hopeless for our protagonist (come to think of it, now it seems like the story line should fall rather than rise, as the character struggles more and more...). Here's how that would look:

Picture found at 37Stars

But then there's also the old Hero's Journey, which is more circular. You can read more about this quest-style plot in:

Q is for Quest

So what's episodic? Simply put, it's a story told in episodes, very much the way television shows are presented. Each episode will somehow link to the others, but it might be a completely unrelated series of events. Episodes can be tied together by characters, setting or theme. Think of movies like Crash, each character is involved in a scene that revolves around the theme of racism, and each character links us to another character. This ties the movie scenes together into one story. The plot line can increasingly climb to an overarching conflict, but often it will look like this:

Picture found at Children's Literature

I struggled with this homework - I'm someone that invests a lot of time and energy into AVOIDING conflict, so I couldn't see how to present my past year as episodic. I also don't tend to read or write memoir, so I haven't honed those skills. But then I realised, there is conflict in writing, everyday (although procrastination doesn't work too well in fiction unless you're a master and make 'not doing stuff' dramatic, like in Hamlet). Here is my result, overall I think I'm a rising conflict or quest circle plotter, but hey, you have to try stuff:

Dog Show Detective novel finished! - Oh, needs edits.

Dog Show Detective novel finished! - Oh, needs edits.

Dog Show Detective… bugger it, start new project.

My Zombie Dog begins! Will finish in no time! Distracted by new plot idea.

Will write new plot idea for NaNoWriMo! 50,000 words in 1 month? Easy, I’ve done it 3yrs running… failed NaNoWriMo.

My Zombie Dog is finished! Beta readers suggest changes.

Now My Zombie Dog is finished! Oh, needs more edits.

My Zombie Dog, definitely finished! No, more edits.

My Zombie Dog perfectly formatted into an ebook! No, ebook needs more formatting, take it down and replace it.

Moved from Country Yass to Brisbane suburbs. Gave up work to focus on writing.

Joined the Queensland Writers Centre - signed up for just about every course they offer! Might need to work to pay for writing.

My Zombie Dog makes it to No. 2 in Children’s Horror on Amazon! My Zombie Dog quickly returns to its space at well over No. 100,000 in all books.

My Zombie Dog ready to become paperback! Changes needed to publisher’s digital proofs for paperback.

My Zombie Dog ready to become paperback! Changes needed to publisher’s digital proofs for paperback.

My Zombie Dog arrives at my house in paperback! Changes needed to physical proof copy of paperback. 

And so it goes…

Feel like having a go at this? Make sure you come back and share your link if you do, I'd love to see what you get!

The Art of Not Getting Stuff Done

We all have a lot to do. There's stuff you have to get done for work, family, the dogs, the house, your blog, your health and somewhere way down on the list is the stuff you have to do for your writing. Sometimes it can't be helped, we have to prioritise and we can't always ignore work deadlines, or leave the kids to starve, but if you want to get that manuscript written, it might be time to move it to the top of your list.

I blog a lot about lists, I've always created them and love ticking items off. There's different ways to manage your tasks, lately I have a tick-box list on my calendar on the computer. iCal has become increasingly more important as I've been going to more and more writers events and courses. If you're a visual person, you might like The Writer's Kanban. I used to use a day-to-a-page diary to write my lists, and I expected to finish every item before the next day.

This month I'm including at least one meditation session each day, which would seem impossible when I think about how quickly my day fills up. But this has been great because it's helped me to shift my priorities. I've still got a big list of things to do, lessons to prepare for my workshops, homework for my writing courses, signing up, visiting blogs, blogging, tweeting, reading and writing. Difference is, I don't need to tick everything off. I'm taking a mellow 'don't get stuff done' approach and it's working well for me.

My writing is prioritized and I just stop everything else sometimes to fill a page in my notebook, or take my laptop out on the deck to be alone and type. If you're feeling busy and overwhelmed, take some time each day to just do nothing. And if stuff doesn't get done? Eh.

Somebody who is very productive at the moment is my good friend Denise Covey, Denise and I are in a great writing group, but you might know her from .... Well, she's started another blog! Check it out:

FLASHQUAKE - Friday Flash

If you want to find ways to get more done in your day (not less, like me), or you want to prioritize your writing, you might like these posts:

8 Ways to Prioritise Your Writing

Best Free Apps for Productivity

Writing Fiction from Fact

Mummy collection visiting the QLD Museum

I've been bowing out of family excursions lately, choosing instead to hole up in the State Library to work on my manuscript. It's been very productive, but I think the kids would like me to join in. Yesterday they talked about the trip they would make to the Queensland Museum to see the Mummy exhibit. They asked if I would join them this time.

"Hmm, give me a plot involving mummies, then I'll need research."

"Mummified cat?" they try.

Pfft!

"Mummy comes to life?"

Now they were talking! So I went along, enjoyed the exhibit, made notes and have tossed out my war story to do a teen mummy novel.

Part of my May challenge has been to meditate each day. Straight after, I do some free writing, this has helped develop my story. Here's the blurb for my Mummy story (names and titles will likely change). I have no idea what the 'dark evil' will be, but figure there'll be some consequence to resurrecting a mummy...

Curse of the High School Mummy

Nim lives in the shadow of her big sister Isis, but that’s what happens when you’re related to a Queen and Goddess of Egypt. When Isis dies, fifteen year old Nimatehah is to be mummified before her time, just to keep her spoilt sister company in the afterlife. Only the High Priest, Jezzikah, shows sympathy for Nim and promises to perform the resurrection ritual.

She has no idea what went wrong, but her resurrection is three thousand years late. 

Zac Miller is on an excursion to see the museum’s Mummy exhibition. In his usual clutz manner, Zac bumps into a stand smashing an ancient priceless jar. The eternity amulet it contained falls straight into the mummy’s mouth. Before his eyes, Princess Nimatehah takes human form. Zac helps Nim try to fit into this strange modern world in return for help with his history paper on Ancient Egypt. Together they need to find the rest of the ritual to transcend Nim into a Goddess before a dark evil takes over the world.

Just Breathe

A-Z is over. Long live A-Z.

What a huge month it was, posting almost every day! Made it through, but admit I feel a little burned out now. Still feel like I owe so many bloggers comments. I had sworn not to partake in any more challenges. Ever. Hmm, how long will that last?

Not long. Came across this post and thought, YES! It's exactly what I need. I'm feeling quite pressured with my time and writing at the moment. Finally came up with a plot to use for my Year of the YA course, got started and now feel completely flat about it. Ugh. I need inspiration, motivation... something.

Perhaps this will help:

Feeling stressed? Ready to slow down? Show up for yourself and join us for A Month of Meditation: http://www.jodichapman.com/meditate/

Jodie Chapman is hosting a challenge where you make the commitment to meditate every day. It can be a long meditation or just 5 minutes. Whatever you can fit in. Well, the 1st of May has come and gone, but I'm still trying this. I could do with a month of quiet reflection. How about you?

I won't blog daily, but will keep you updated on what comes from my meditating. Tonight I intend to use a recording (available on iTunes and probably Audible):

Maybe clearing my mind will help me make a decision about my troublesome YA plot.