I've been writing a lot this week, aiming for 3000 words daily. I've made good progress and tonight just finished chapter nine of my latest project, a middle-grade historical novel called River Girl.
I've also done a lot of research for my CPS-exposé non-fiction project. I found a good research software called Scribe. If you're doing serious research, this might help. I'm still testing it out but like the idea that it can search documents to find similar themes easily.
I've been writing most of the morning. I got about 1400 words done on chapter six of the new children's novel, tentatively titled River Girl. I'd like for that name to change but I don't know what to. I also wrote a sketchy outline for the rest of the chapters so I'd have some better ideas about where I'm going with this. I've known the ending and some of the happenings all along, but it helps to know what to put in each chapter to move the plot along.
I also did assignment four in the two-year novel project I'm working on. We were to choose a main goal and at least two conflicts. My novel, Perfection, now has some new conflict ideas to help make my protagonist totally miserable. Its a writer's job. Now I'm aching to do the same for the other eight or nine novels I've got planned for this year.
This is a children's novel based on the true story of a girl who immigrated to California from Mexico not long ago - she was the writer's grandmother! The book chronicles her journey from a wealthy plantation to a meager farm labor camp where she was compelled to make some challenging ethical decisions as she adapted to her new environment. Great book!
I read the book at the end of last month, right before I read Cold Mountain and then forgot to write about it. I've been busy! But I wanted to say something. I used to live in Tulare County, just north of where the writer grew up, in the Bakersfield area. I've visited many farm labor camps and it reminded me of all the years I spent in that area.
I got a tape of Wuthering Heights from the library and spent most of a writing night listening a few nights ago - because I couldn't stop! It went way too fast, so I suspect it was abridged though I couldn't find the evil A word anywhere on the tape box or the tape itself. I really don't like abridged versions. Give me the whole thing, or nothing at all!
So.. one of these days I'll get a paper copy and read it again. The book inspires strong emotions.
I'm working on the start of a 2004 Reading Challenge page - this is to keep track of my attempt at reading at least four books monthly during the coming year. I'm determined to do this because I believe the more I read, the better I'll write.
Anyhow - I designed the page to be similar to this one but to use tableless CSS - this page uses tables and I'd like to eliminate them so the pages will load faster. Here's a sneak preview of what this site may look like if I ever get time to fully implement it.
I just have to mention it - when I finished my work on A Curious Woman... last night - I did a word count and came out with 131313 - three 13's in a row. It would seem an ominous sign to some, but I always considered 13 to be my lucky number since I was born on the 13th of July.
I have just one more section to do now - about 2000 words, maybe slightly less. This last section is intended to wrap it up, end it, and put all issues to rest.
Child Welfare - My Non-Fiction Project
4317 words so far
I plan to go slow on this manuscript. I have no plans to rush through it. My goal is to write about 500 words daily. Not much! The reason is that I'm doing a lot of research and will be working on that simultaneously. It isn't like writing a novel where I can rush right through picking out details from my memory and imagination. Tonight I added 635 words, mostly to chapter one. l wrote 758 words on this project last night.
This book helped me get through many days of power outages and a terrible ongoing series of snow and rain storms when I first started to read it. Though this is a first novel for the author, I found his prose to be deep with description and of a style uniquely his own.
Upon finishing the book, I kept thinking how cold it all was. Almost everything about this book was cold. It depicted some of the worst in human depravity and pathetic living conditions. But that should be expected in a Civil War novel. I couldn't help but wonder if the author had to be so graphic. I wonder if a female author could have written it. I know I couldn't have.
I look forward to seeing the movie.
After reading the book I feel more accepting of my own less than perfect circumstances as I think of the terrible conditions people of that era survived in. The best homes of that day don't equal the benefits I have in mine. I live in a cabin-like house in the mountains, but with electricity, plumbing, and all the modern luxuries.
I hope Frazier will have more of his novels published. I loved the author picture on the back inside cover... its very unique.
Here's an interesting website featuring some of the literature Frazier mentioned in his novel.
At this site he discusses what inspired him to write the novel.
This week Zette's two-year novel class assignment at Forward Motion was about choosing a theme. My novel - tentatively titled Perfection - will have a theme of (what else?) ...perfection!
I got enthusiastic about the theme writing and brainstorming project and spent the night writing themes for all the other novels I have planned for this year. Most of those novels are middle grade and young adult historical novels based in early California pioneer days. I've got a bunch of them planned for writing this year because they will all be rather short, of the proper saleable length (less than 50,000 words each). Some of the themes are life's unpredictability, trust, courage, friendship, work ethics and responsibility, racial prejudice, deception... and I think there's more, but you get the idea... they are on a lot of different subjects. Two of the novels are to be mysteries. The novels aren't meant to be a series - they're just a lot of ideas I've had over the years that I'd like to work on all at one time.
On Sunday I worked on a writing marathon and completed 5214 words in less than 24 hours. That was mostly done on my River Girl novel - a middle grade novel set in the Klamath River Valley in 1919. I've now got 10340 words done on that novel. A Curious Woman Wants to Know is coming right along too. I'm so close to the end and hope to get it finished sometime this week.
I'm still working on A Curious Woman Wants To Know but am finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The manuscript now has 127159 words. I expect this can be wrapped up with just one more chapter after the one I'm working on. I'm in chapter 26 now.
Speaking of tunnels, I just wrote this one into the story.
So far I've written 21809 words this year and am 15891 words behind my goal. I'm going to be working on the Word Count Marathon this weekend at Forward Motion.
Both kids, my daughter included, have been giving me great suggestions for making The Scribe of Irohila turn out better. I've been surprised - their suggestions often center on making the details of the story more closely match the local native indigenous culture and the biology/geology of the forest we live in. That wasn't my original focus because I wrote the novel as a fantasy set in an ancient civilization - not the Karuk culture which is local to us, but something that in my imagination preceded that by millions of years. But I'm happy to see my children have managed to discover a lot of local facts and know more about this area than I realized.
I finally figured out what I did wrong with my comment template thing... and fixed it. You see, I didn't realize I had two HaloScan accounts. When I did the template for this weblog, I accidentally installed it in the account for another weblog, one that I very rarely use anymore. So one day I was fooling around with that weblog and noticed the comment popup window had the colors for this weblog! Anyhow, check it out if you want and you'll see its easier to read my comments now.
I've been reading the first chapters of The Scribe of Irohila to my children, ages 13 and 14. I've read them dozens of middle grade novels in the past because we homeschool, but this is the first time I've read them a novel I wrote.
My son said to me, "Compared to the Narnia series, your book is just about on that level. And those books are popular, so why shouldn't yours be?"
I'm so excited to get that kind of feedback. My brother (who never reads children's literature anymore) will be reading a copy of this novel for me too. He's decided to take up the writing of creative non-fiction after he retires and I'm looking forward to seeing what his subject matter choices will be.
Next - I'll be sharing The Scribe of Irohila with my critique group at Forward Motion.
I had a good writing day with over 3000 new words. I started working on a project I've let sit for over two years - a middle grade novel I started in 2001 before I wrote The Scribe of Irohila. I call this the River Girl novel. It doesn't really have a title yet. I had three or four chapters done and sitting all these years. Most writers have these kinds of old projects, I'm sure. It was from before I knew I really could finish a novel.
Its about a young girl growing up in the community I now live in - from 1919 to about 1923. I had a good reason for choosing that time period but you'd have to read the novel to understand. I'm trying for as much historical accuracy as possible.
I've started a non-fiction book-length manuscript project. Its about family rights and child welfare services. This issue has inspired my writing for many years. I own an activist website called Fight CPS - so writing the manuscript is a natural extension of what I've already been doing for fourteen years now.
My daily goals are 1700 fiction words and 1200 non-fiction words. Sorry to say I've completed the goal only once so far this month. I hope that having the non-fiction project to work on will help me complete that part of the goal.
That's how many words are in my novel, A Curious Woman Wants To Know as of last night. I wanted to finish it by the end of the year but it didn't happen due to power outages during the last days of the year. At this point it looks like after Chapter 25 I'll still have one or two more chapters to write to finish things up.
Mmmm... that's a long novel! I see an intense editing job coming up! Each chapter is over 4800 words.
I'm already behind on my proposed writing schedule but am beginning to get into the swing of things, picking up the pace. I've written 6813 words so far but my goal for the first four days of the month was 11600 words, so I'm 4788 words behind already. I'm sure I can catch up at this point but I need to get serious about this writing schedule if I'm going to make it work.
That's the working title of my new Work in Progress (WIP). I'm still in the initial planning stage, but expect a mainstream or suspense-thriller kind of novel. Since I'm writing this one with a group at Forward Motion I know already it will be a two-year project. Lazette Gifford is our fearless leader, ready to guide us through every phase of novel writing. This should be fun!
We've had 19 inches of snow this week and expect three more days of the fluffy white stuff before the temps rise to rainy weather. Despite the beauty, there's been hard times. Our power was out for three full days and outages continue sporadically. What's worse, today my neighbor's roof collapsed under the weight of the snow. Not a good sight, and I felt terrible for them.
I've started my writing count for 2004 and have more than 2000 words done already. I need to pump it up and try for more than just 1000 words/day, but I'm not quite ready yet. Today I rewrote the main page of this website. I like to update it from time to time. I also updated my reading list.
