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Saturday Snippet: October 17th

17. October 201518. October 2015
by Cicilie

Saturday-Snippet

Saturday Snippet is a bi-monthly column run by Catrine, where you post a snipped from something you have written. It can be from your book, poem, or anything else you have written. Post it, link to it in her post, and check out what everyone else has posted!

This weeks snippet comes from The Afterlife Occurrence, still on he first chapter, as that is as far as I’ve made it in the editing process. Now, if you’re thinking I’ve been on the first chapter for months, you’d be right. This is in fact the fourth or fifth edit of the first chapter. Or sixth.

Yes, I have a problem.

Now forget I ever admitted that, and read the snippet. Then check out Catrine’s blog for other snippets, and if you write, post and link you own. Even if it’s not in English, post it anyway.

At 28, Adrian Lynx Peterson was pretty happy about his life. He had a good job, rented a nice and clean apartment, and had just enough friends. He lived a normal, boring life, and everything about him was just the way he wanted it; one hundred percent ordinary. Of course, that was before the day he had a rather unfortunate and somewhat sudden encounter with a large moving vehicle, and died.

Writing

Worldbuilding weekend

3. October 201510. October 2015
by Cicilie

For the past two weekends I’ve been working on The Plan! I’ve been trying to figure out the countries and capitals, also known as bullet number two on my list. Last weekend I got all the countries down, and got started on the capitals. I’ve had a few of them for a while, but for the others, I wanted to find some that would fit with the country, and the people I imagine living there.

I continued that work today, and got the rest of the capitals on the main continent sorted. I found using Tanzania and Zimbabwe as a base for the cities worked really well with the language I have for the series (not at all a proper language yet, but bits and pieces that at some point will need fleshing out).

With all that ready, I declare bullet point number two of The Plan! completed! I was only supposed to do the main continent now, but the second continent is taking form in my mind, and I’ll try to get that figured out by the end of the weekend as well. It’s become an empire, which is pretty awesome, and also works really well with the story. Makes more sense for it to be an empire made up of five provinces, than five separate countries.

Next step on the list is geography, rivers, mountains and climate. I’m off to a pretty good start there, having spent a few hours in Photoshop this past week making a map of the main continent. Took forever just to get the coastline right, but with that done, I can focus on the mountains and rivers. I have a lot of mountain ranges in my world, but some places they don’t need to be quite as massive as they are on te current map.

Of course, soon I need to let this rest for a bit, as I am falling behind on editing TAO. The dreaded editing. But with Nano just a month away, and December 12th two and a half months, I really need to get my butt moving and edit like my life depended on it.

Also, Nano planning must be done at some point before November. Detailed planning. Which requires some worldbuilding in itself, as the Nano novel is Remnants, which is sci-fi in actual space with planets and stuff.

I may be slightly screwed.

Writing

Saturday Snippet: September 26th

27. September 2015
by Cicilie

Saturday-Snippet

Saturday Snipped is a bi-monthly column run by Catrine, where you post a snipped from something you have written. It can be from your book, poem, or anything else you have written. Post it, link to it in her post, and check out what everyone else has posted!

The snippet this weeks comes from a short drabble I posted to Wattpad a few weeks ago. And since I’m devious I’m not posting the entire thing here, and am instead sending you over there for the last half of the drabble. *insert evil laugh here*

There’s nothing on the radio but static.

The final transmission came five minutes ago, right on time, heard not only by a room full of scientists, but the entire world.

All according to plan.

Want to read the rest, head on over here. You may need to log in to view, which you can do using Facebook with just a click, so shouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes when logged out I can still read it though, so hopefully it won’t be too much of a hassle.

The drabble (100 words!) was written in reply to the Wattpad Sci Fi account’s Radio Transmission challenge. I plan on continuing to take part in their challenges, as a way to keep working on my writing. It’s also a lot of fun!

Writing

Notecarding: An introduction

19. September 2015
by Cicilie

I’ve mentioned before how I plan on notecarding TAO this coming month. Now generally, notecarding might be something you want to do before you start writing your story, as part of the plotting process. I’ve found that it can also help you get a pretty good overview of your story once you’ve finished the first draft.

This is especially helpful when most of it was written during Nano. Because anyone who has ever taken part in that November Madness knows that sometimes, stuff just happens, characters die and is still there four chapters later, and at some point you may have random turtles on a beach.

So for TAO – The Afterlife Occurrence – I am notecarding before I get started on the editing process. I need to know what it there, what is missing, and what I need to scrap ASAP. Of course, there are several different ways to notecard, you don’t even need actual notecards! Post-it notes work just as well, or just random pieces of paper (though if they are the same size it would help). You can also notecard directly in Scrivener (which I do when plotting before and during the first draft).

I’ve figured out how I want to do it for TAO in a way that works for me. You may want to do it differently. And that’s ok. My way reflects how my brain works, or at least how it would prefer to work. I’ve got some links in my resources you can check out for more notecarding information.

Notecarding TAO in two parts:

The Chapters
- Write down one card for each chapter. Write what happens in a few lines. Not too many detail. If there is room, write down new characters we meet in this chapter.
- Once you have one card for each chapter, look through to see what is missing. Add a chapter if needed, or even remove one.
The Scenes
- Once you have all the chapters written down, go through each of them and write down the different scenes in each chapter on a notecard. If you use post-its, using different colors for chapter and scenes is smart. If you don’t, highlighters are your friend.
  - PS: I love my highlighters.
- Now look at all the scenes you have. What is missing? What is in the wrong place? What needs to go away forever? When you are done removing and adding scenes, you should have the whole book notecarded and outlines, and ready for the next step.
  - PS: That next step for me is editing.

In the end, when I am done with this, I should have a firm grasp of where my book is going, what happens, and more importantly, what is currently not happening but seriously need to!

Writing

Saturday Snippet: September 12th

12. September 2015
by Cicilie

Saturday-Snippet

This week’s snippet is from The Afterlife Occurrance again. From the very first chapter, second draft, but will be going through it again when editing the whole novel these next few months, as it still needs work.

Three hours and five customers later Jayden was still talking, having had to take breaks in his retelling of the most awesome weekend in Cabo ever whenever a new customer needed his attention. Adrian had been half paying attention, it did pass the time if nothing else, and was currently handing back copies of posters for ‘Free Kittens’ to a soccer mom with three surprisingly obedient and quiet children.

I can’t quite put my finger on what it is yet, but something doesn’t feel right with this paragraph yet. But hey, that’s why I’m editing, editing, and then editing some more. Yay!

Writing

And so it begins . . .

12. September 2015
by Cicilie

I have started working on The Plan! Of course, if I had any idea where all my worldbuilding notes were, it would make things a lot easier. As it is, a couple of the steps are a bit hard without those notes. Mainly the country and geography ones. Cause without the notes, I am stuck. And I don’t want to start over, cause I know I liked it the way it was, I just can’t currently remember how it was.

The first bullet point on The Plan! is done however, the D-squad must be renamed, cause they no longer all have names starting with D! Duke is now Jonan, Darling is Marcan, and while I love the duo of Duke and Darling, the names will have to find a home in another story universe.

Second and third bullet points will have to wait until I locate my worldbuilding notes. I know they are in the house somewhere. At least they should be.

Now all I have to do is find them. Which might require searching everywhere. Oh joy!

Writing

First five steps of worldbuilding

8. September 20158. September 2015
by Cicilie

With worldbuilding for the Fantasy series in mind, I’ve come up with the first five things I need to focus on. So dear self, here is what you gotta do first:

Rename the team of mercenaries formerly known as the D-squad
- You’ve got Dylan, Duke and Darlin (or was it Darling..). Which during Nano seemed like a spiffy idea. Now, you’ve grown attached to Dylan, so that name is staying, but the other two have got to go. They need new names, and you also need to work out the basics of their past.
Get the countries and capitals sorted
- All the countries need names, and more importantly, they need capital cities. Might want to get on that.
Place a few mountains, drop a few rivers.
- While you are settling on names and such, you might as well figure out the final geography, place a few mountains, a couple of rivers, and look at the climate. All that fun stuff you’ve been putting off for ages.
Religious overview
- Get the basics of the three major religions down. And by basics I mean all the stuff that is in your head. Get it written down. In an organized fashion.
What do you look like again?
- Settle in stone what the main characters look like, cause the first book is a Nano book, so their hair color has more than likely changed three times in the first five chapters. And though you know in your head, that counts for nothing. Also, you have the memory of a goldfish, so are you sure you know what they look like again?

This will be a good beginning. Once I finish these, I’ll come up with another five steps, then another, and then another. And before you know it, the world I have been building in my head for almost ten years will no longer exist just in my head.

Writing

How to do everything and survive

6. September 20156. September 2015
by Cicilie

With the first draft of Memories finally finished, I’ve tried to find out how I’m doing in terms of all the things I want to do in 2015 but I probably won’t have time for. Which, as it turns out, is a much longer list than I had originally thought. In other words, well shit!

Ignoring the second draft of TAO for a moment, I still have quite a few others things I want to do before the end of the month, and not all of them are writing related. Some of them will also be pretty darn time-consuming, which means the actual time left over for writing and editing is a lot less than I would prefer. In fact, it’s not looking good at all.

I started a new job in June, and for that I’ll have to take a certification test in november and december. Which means I am back in school for the first time in years. The certification is set up with five modules throughout the est few months. Three to four days will be spent in Oslo, learning all the things I need to learn for the two exams I’ll have at the end of the year. Now usually this wouldn’t be a problem, except as I found this past week, I have no creativity left at the end of the day after having spend 7-9 hours in various lectures. A lot of it is practical work as well, so it’s not all listening and taking notes, and trying not to fall asleep in my chair.

Now if you’re thinking, but you have a masters in archaeology, you should be used to lots of lectures, let me point out that as a student, I had class 2-3 days a week, and those were usually no longer than 2 hours. Sometimes four, but those were a rarity. In other words, I had it easy.

But yeah, so, no creativity at all. I watched Netflix and that was about it. Oh, and did some shopping, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that I can’t count on those trips when it comes to writing or editing. Then there’s the weekly riding lessons every Thursday, as well as another two to three trips to the gym during the rest of the week as well. Right not that is usually Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays, but the mid-week workout may be moved around a bit. Because I also have Gandalf, the student radio show I am a part of. I am no longer the program director, but I still want to take part as often as time allows.

After all of this, I need to have some time set aside for friends and family, though sometimes that can be combined with writing. As is the case with Catrine and I, who often meet up to write (and talk. There is a lot of talking going on. Maybe more than writing. Sometimes. *cough*).

And then there is the writing stuff, and the editing, and the reading, and seriously, I am running out of hours of the day here. So I had to make some decisions when it came to which projects I should focus on. And I came up with a plan. A good one. (Honestly!)

TAO: Notecarding the whole darn thing. Find out what goes where, what is missing, and more importantly, what can go away!
TAO: Do the actual editing. DO IT! Also known as, finish the second draft by December 12th. Cause that is when you hand it over to Catrine.
Remnants: This is now a NaNo thing. Cause doing this AND doing something else for Nano is the kind of madness you don’t have time for anymore. So write it. 75k words is the goal, but seriously, if you can finish it in 50,001 words, YAY!
Remnants: Editing stuff. Get started on it. No, you won’t finish. Who cares? Get started, and maybe you can post the first part on Wattpad by Christmas!
Fantasy-series: World building. Seriously! Get it sorted! At the very least, get the basics down. Peoples names. Countries. Loose the Duke and Darling, cause seriously, three mercenaries with D-names is only a good idea during Nano. Also, get a working title if you’re still too scared to share the real one. Plus last names are a thing that characters should have. No really!

This plan might be a bit ambitious. And by a bit, I mean are you freaking kidding me?

But I’ll never get stuff done unless I try, and this is all stuff I need to be working on. So, I put it in The Plan! The Plan is awesome. It might very well be the end of me, but let’s not dwell on silly little details.

Writing

I did it!!!

29. August 2015
by Cicilie

I finished the first draft of Memories today!!

It came it at 167,012 words, which is about 7012 more words than I had planned. This feeling, the one I am having right now, it is awesome! I’ve been working on this book for years! This last chapter has taken me months. And now I’m done!

Until I have to start revising it of course. Which at the rate I edit, will be around the year 2025.

So until then, YAY!!

Writing

Saturday Snippet: August 22th

22. August 2015
by Cicilie

Saturday-Snippet

I’m currently at the local Starbucs again, trying to finish Memories, and enjoying my frappuccino. When thinking of the snippet I wanted to share this week, I ende up with the opening paragraph of The Afterlife Occurrence.

Death is final. For most of us, human or otherwise, it’s pretty much the end of the road. Weather or not you believe in the afterlife, your life on earth is over. For most people that is. For Adrian Lynx Peterson, a man who liked his middle name about as much as he liked spiders (that is to say, not at all), death was the end. Sort of.

This is the second draft opening, which is much improved from the first draft. Still not entirely happy with it, but then again, will I ever be?

Category: Writing