June Goals

I haven't done goals every month this year but that's oaky. Here are the goals I have for June.

Finish reading 3 books.
50,000 words on Angel/Demon novel for Camp NaNo
Keep up when the classes for Paper Doll Gang (group on writing.com).
Move (find apartment, pack, move by July 1 at latest)




What are your June goals?

June Camp NaNo

It's almost June and I'm going to take part in the summer Camp NaNoWriMo event. A few of my friends were already signed up and despite everything I have going on, I figured why not join.

I'm going to use the challenge to work on my Angel/Demon paranormal romance novel. Maybe with this challenge I'll be able to get a first draft done since it's one of the novels I want to finish a first draft of for 2012. I haven't done outlining or anything but that's okay. I can't wait to get writing.

I haven't been writing much as of late. I've been working on reviews of other people's writing and trying to get things together for some of the activities I run over on writing.com. I have written a couple of poems but not much on the story front. But June will be my month to turn it around.


Are you taking part in one of the camp nano months?
What are you writing for June?

Z is for Zany

zany |ˈzānē|
adjective ( -nier , -niest )
amusingly unconventional and idiosyncratic : zany humor.
noun
an erratic or eccentric person.

This picture was a prompt back in June, 2010 for a little writing challenge I took part in. And actually, the scene I wrote has a character who is rather zany. Enjoy.

It wasn't easy.

Well, the spell was easy comparatively speaking but that's only the first part of the experiment, and the single aspect that I had any control over. The rest was up to my magical creation and the idea that there might be enough sustainable, aka not polluted air, for the birds to survive. It was a long shot but I decided to go for it. No one believed it would work in this industrial waste of an empire and I was going to prove them wrong.

I have one ray of hope. Sometimes when the wind moves the sky a certain way, I have detected a hint of blue. The bright bird egg color in the old animal encyclopedia books that showed brilliant colors of all animals that once ruled the land, sky and sea.

Despite every warning from my old mentor and the gossip of the city dwellers, all called me insane in my idea creation, I went to the perch I'd chosen especially for the spell. It was the best launch point for the birds to fly up into the sky on. After much watching of weather, I determined the perfect day for the experiment. It wasn't long and no matter how much I prepared there was this small bit of doubt that I can't shake. If I was wrong, then all hope of a healthy environment past the clouds of steamed industrial residue would become lost. I can't stand the thought of living in that world, of no true nature. The truth is... this was my last shot.

It's not easy doing a spell with that doubt, but I shoved it down to a dark recess of my mind and pulled out the two special cubes I'd created in the lab. With a tense moment of concentration, I breathed life on them, willing the change and it happened. The cubes morphed into two perfectly white birds that began to fly up into the sky at one.

They don't die right away and that is encouraging. I have to find them again to make sure they survived. It's not going to be easy but I'm up for the challenge.

Y is for Young Adult

Honestly, when I first started writing with the idea of writing novels, I never thought I would ever write anything young adult (and certainly not one that leans towards middle grade in book 1). I really didn't. That was not the plan. I thought I would be an adult fantasy writer and that is all.

Then came the mutant series. Yep, the first idea was for a young adult one, though it's actually the sequel to the one I have written (Tattle Tell). The adult mutant idea came after. And from there I have several young adult ideas that include Lighting the Wall and Ottohahn in E Minor, among others.

So, here I am writing young adult and guess what...

I enjoy it.


Do you write young adult stories?

X is for Xebec

Xebec (also spelled zebec) is a small Mediterranean sailing vessel that had three masts, a lanteen and sometimes square sails commonly used for trading.

(image link)

I am looking for ships to use and need a couple different kinds because in the world I'm building there are going to be water ships and air ships. Though for sure the air ship will have to involve a bigger base since there are many people that will fit on the ship. But there might be ones like this that are water ships. Very interesting, and it works for X. Yay.

What X word do you like?
Know of any more ships?

W is for Worldbuilding

Even though I have posts on here where I talk about worldbuilding but I'm still terrible at actually doing it before writing. But why worldbuild?

For one, I tried to write a scene from the novel that I'm kinda sorta worldbuilding through these posts and not having figured out the world stalled me for over 30 minutes. What caused the stall? I had no idea what to call the "store" that sold the fake starlight that had been ransacked. Just calling it a "store" didn't feel right for the world. So, because I hadn't figured out the world, the writing stalled.

I have a new idea that I've been working on for a character sketch challenge. However, since this is a science fiction story, I think I will have to worldbuild for that one too.

Guess I'd better get worldbuilding.


Links:
http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/
http://hiddenway.tripod.com/world/
http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/
http://yamuses.blogspot.com/2011/12/world-building-checklist.html



Do you worldbuild?
Why or why not?

V is for Violence

I'm not very good at writing it. So far my stories have way more dialogue in them and less on the action, especially on the violent actions. I have done a few one on one fight scenes over the years but not very many. I've never been much of a fighter myself, so that might be why some of my characters are against violence.

On the other hand, the times when the non-violent characters resort to violence can be almost more interesting than say someone who is prone to violence, at least to me.

Noah, the mutant main character from the adult novels, he is against violence. Since he tries to hide his abilities (or at least to make sure no one knows exactly how powerful he really is) in order to not become a weapon for anyone, he is not a violent character in general. Sure, he will stand up for himself or someone else when the moment calls for it but he tries to go the nonviolent route first.

Some of my characters aren't necessarily against violence, they just aren't very good at it. Feynethom, the elf, is terrible, for example. He can kind of use a bow, though not the greatest at it, but any other weapon and it's best to keep away from him cause there is no telling if he will hurt someone else or just himself.

While many of my novels don't venture into violent scenes, I'm going to have to learn how to write them because there are some stories that require those scenes to be shown.

Do your characters handle violence?
How do you write a violent scene?