auroracloud: a fountain pen against a sheet of paper and writing (writing)
Aurora ([personal profile] auroracloud) wrote2018-04-02 09:36 pm

Write Every Day - April Day #2

If you are wondering what this is about, I explained more in yesterday's post

Today was a really blah day for me for some reason. I would have had tons of time to do things, writing as well as anything else, but most of the time I was just tired and listless and didn't want to do anything. I did buy five of the books I was looking at yesterday, though. Well, they weren't expensive. Oh, the peril of e-books...

Today's Writing (and optional question!)

I felt like writing poetry, so I wrote some. I also spent a bit more time planning my novel. Not nearly as much as I hoped I would, but at least some. It took the form of a mind map about the personal relationships of one of my protagonists, as well as an attempt at sketching her home.

What forms of planning/preparation do you have that aren't writing as such? I'm not a very visual person, so I don't do a lot of visual things, like some writers do, but sometimes mind maps work nicely for me - they allow me to see what I already know and offer an easy, noncommittal way to come up with new things. Like, today I wrote different categories of relationships my character would have - family, work, study etc. - and jotted down the characters I knew, and then I came up with some new ones to fill in the blanks. I used lots of colored pens. :-) Sometimes I've tried to create plot graphs, but I don't know if they're any use for me. Time lines can make sense some times, for example to see how different subplots advance. I know some writers create playlists for their stories/characters, but I usually can't listen to music while writing, so that doesn't really happen for me.

Well, one of my constants is just taking a walk with the story, going round walking while letting the characters and stories spin in my head. Works with some other activities, too, like doing chores at home, or travelling/commuting.

Tally so far

Day 1: [personal profile] auroracloud, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] st_aurafina, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme


Let me know if I missed you or if you wrote but didn't check in yet! You can join us or drop out any time.
carenejeans: (Default)

[personal profile] carenejeans 2018-04-03 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
I've gradually realized that while I don't write outlines, with novels I need to write a sort of meta/brainstorming/notes journal as I go along. It's like a shadow novel. I've done this through several Nanowrimos, and at first I didn't want to count it in my daily wordcount, since it wasn't part of the story, exactly (and sometimes feels like just flailing and whining). But I finally realized that if I didn't write it, there would be no novel, so now I include it.

I don't do this with short stories, since I tend to write a sketchy first draft in one fell swoop.

As for my writing today... it's been a really hard day and all I've got is an alibi sentence. I'm pleased with it, though! 8-)