Sunday 23 October 2011

ROW 80 Check-in 23rd October

Very quick check-in today as I am just in from an amazing weekend at a University friend's wedding and I need to quickly pack as I am heading to my sister's house for a few days.

This week has gone well with my cast list written and thanks to a productive train ride on Friday every character has a brief description and I am trying the technique of finding a famous person who looks like each character to help me with descriptions. I am fairly daunted as the chick-lit piece I was working on before had three main characters and a handful of secondary characters but this piece has 21 characters (not all major characters obviously) so I am concern about keeping track of them all!

I have definately done 30 minutes a day and probably exceeded it as I am constantly scribbling bits down and saving notes to my phone. I can pretty much guarantee whenever I get in my car to drive somewhere a brilliant idea strikes.

I am not at work this week so the next three days especially are all about the NaNo prep. I need to create a fictional village, flesh out character profiles and work out my sequence of events. Oh and also work out everyone's alibis and break the murderers so they can actually commit the murder! SO MUCH TO DO! But am grateful we have a school holiday so for a few days atleast I am not confined to evening hours only. Next weekend I am away (well from Thursday) and I might be able to grab bits of time but really I want to crack on over the next three days.

The end of November seems to be filling up quickly with work things so I want to try and get a good start to NaNo and really use my weekends to get some extra words in. I am so excited to start writing and loving reading tips and hints other writers are blogging about. Don't forget to check out mine and Lena's NaNo Fun not fear website if you are taking part in NaNo or can offer some support and encouragement to those who are if you are not!

I will be around checking out check-ins tomorrow morning as now I am running late and not packed! Hope everyone has had a great week!

11 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had a great weekend and that you have a mini-writer's retreat in the making at your sister's house?

    I've also been thinking about looking at pictures of famous people for inspiration in character description. 21 characters sounds like a lot, but I'm sure its necessary to have lots of players in the mystery game. :)

    You're doing good. Keep at it.

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  2. I'm so glad that you had a blast at the wedding. And go you -- you've done so much planning and plotting! One thing you might think about doing is using a spreadsheet to keep all your characters handy - I used to do that when I had stories with large "casts," and I might end up trying it again this year for NaNo, since I seem to have all these secondary characters that are popping up.

    Enjoy the upcoming holiday!

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  3. Have a great trip. Sounds like fun. And congrats on the progress. It's so much fun to build characters and match faces to them. Keep up the good work!

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  4. Good luck and make those three days super productive :)

    I feel like November is already gone and it hasn't even started!

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  5. Oh I love the way you plan your murder! (I'm a mystery buff in a big way!)

    I do the picture thing for my characters. I keep them in a small notebook, printing out the pictures on regular copy paper and cutting/taping them each to their own personal page.

    The facing page is used for notes about them, quirks or facts that are important.

    I do the same thing for major places in my setting. A Victorian house in my last novel was a montage of three other houses. I even drew a map of each floor.

    Good luck on your goals this week!

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  6. I'm so glad to hear you're having so much fun with your Nano. Me too!! There are so many people that are depressed already! Just checked out the Fun Not Fear site, and it's awesome. I was wondering when it was going live...somehow I missed it! It will be a great hang out :) Have a wonderful time at your sisters. Hope you get lots done!

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  7. I hear you about the high number of characters. I had always written with just one main character and a 'sidekick' shall we say, but now I have 6 main characters and in the third book of the series I will be adding at least 4 more.
    30 mins a day is good. Consistent writing every day is the key. Habit building or whatever buzzword you want to throw on it.
    Keep up the great work, it will pay off for you.

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  8. Sounds like you are using your time wisely! I am impressed with how you even jot things down while outside the house. It must make a difference when there is so much to be done. Keep up the good work and best of luck for when Nano starts.

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  9. Nicole - Definately trying to see it as a mini writer's retreat! I had to knock some characters off list to get down to 21....some will be very minor!

    Lena- spreadsheet sounds like a great idea, may have to have a play around with that!

    Thank you Wendy! First job today is finding the famous faces!

    Thanks Claudia, I got up earlier than expected today so hope to get more done than I expected!

    Marji, it is my first attempt at writing a murder mystery so is a sttep learning curve! I drew floorplans of my setting yesterday!

    Hey Lauren, glad you found our site! I have to say I haven't been on the NaNo forums as I am worried I will spend time there and not get all my prep done!

    alexlaybourne - I wonder if I have too many characters but I think I need them. Some are going to have tiny roles though!

    mistressofthedarkpath - thank you! I have scribbles everywhere as I don't trust my brain to remember things later on!

    Thank you everyone for stopping by!!

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  10. Way to seize your moments, Em! Great job on the NaNo prep, you are actually ahead of me on the character bio's (I'm an oddball that plots first then deals with characters). The "famous person" idea is a good one simply because it is easy to find the images. Purusing photobucket and other shared photo sites is fun as well. People on vacation and all, less airbrushed.

    Have a great week :)

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  11. That is a nice idea Gene, a couple of my photos I think are just everyday people who showed up whe I googled hair types! The plot is what I MUST focus on today and tomorrow, don't want to get to Tuesday and not know what to write!

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