NaNoWriMo has begun!

Or will, by midnight. Head over to my writing blog, Torrie Burke, to view updates on my writing project for the month of November. Hope to see you there!

Writing is a Chore... but I Can Whistle While I Work

While working full-time doing something that is just a little tiny bit like writing, I realized that I once again needed to bounce back into the blogosphere in order to give my creativity a renaissance.  I don't want my job to kill it, even though I stare at a computer screen for most of the day making sure the grammar is correct (with the irony being I am not going to get it right most of the time here, and frankly, I don't care so much here).

In order to resurrect the space without deviating too much from the original content, I have attempted to find something new and exciting in the world.  Zip. Nada. I have found nothing apocalyptic by which I might find intrigue, and pique a new interest in this jaded, old heart.

So I go back to commenting on my writing progress. Yes, yes, anyone who has read me for any amount of time realized that I am working on my own novel.  I got caught up in other things, because Life, after all, Does Happen.  After two revisions, I am STILL not happy with it, but I did find a writing course which has, so far, been taking it to a new level of satisfaction for me.  I recommend her courses because now I can actually afford them and the methods really work to build a crane over the work and pull it out of the mire in which it sank.

I thought what swam around in my head could be a great novel, but I realized I lacked enough scenes with great conflict.  Even though what I saw in front of me was prose, I resorted to reading Blake Snyder's book on screenwriting called Save the Cat!  It still proves to be a good resource so far, by giving you a basic skeleton for the three-act structure (screenplays or novels) and it allows the writer to see where they are missing material.  I suspect I have the same problem as a lot of people, in that I can come up with a great setup and slam my characters with a zinger of a main conflict to get them out of their comfort zone and into the thrill of the story, and I know how the story will end, and I can even see a few great scenes play out in front of my very eyes, but it is too thin. 

What it doesn't do, however is offer much in the way of how to actually fix that problem.  It just tells you what you needed when you were done. Seemed a lot like baking a cake without a recipe. Someone says "You mix ingredients, stick it in the oven and out comes a cake." That's true, sure, but not precise. What ingredients go in it? How much? What order do you mix? How long do you bake?

Enter the course "How to Think Sideways" by author Holly Lisle.  I stared at it for many, many months.  Lack of a job and accompanying pay made me balk at the price tag, but I kept staring.  I finally got a full-time job, had money to drop on the course and... wham.  She doesn't run it quite the same way.  BUT... she did release the courses individually online for a much more affordable price.  And, the courses were always on the writer's timeline, with no datelines or homework, as such.

I am loving the results, but I am not quite ready to post anything just yet.  Let me say that Holly is 100% correct in that little ends up being the same when you let your muse play.  I've come up with so many new things that really add the punch I looked for that I wish I had scraped up enough and taken the course way back when I wrote the first draft.

The bottom line is that I need to get back to writing, both working on my novel and writing here.  If I have any readers... drop me a line and let me know if I am taking too long between posts.  I need something standing behind me with a cattle prod.