"The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story—and then your story!" - Ford Madox Ford
So... I had challenged my fellow JaNo-ers to write a scene about chicken and/or chickens last week. I posted my scene (I think I'm the only one who did the Spontaneous Chicken Incident, lol) at the JaNoWriMo blog and then remembered how much I loved those characters...
I've decided I'm an ADD writer. Seriously. I can't seem to stay focused on just one story and keep spreading the love around. At this rate, I won't have anything finished for another year... but then I'll have twelve complete novels! LOL...
Currently in progress: Camilla, Playing House, The Cartoonist and the Cat Lady, Drive Me Crazy, A Jewel for Geoff, Perilous Love, Queen and Assassin, an unnamed story geared for HQ American, and about fifteen short stories.
I clearly need focus. I think I need to sit down and work through rough outlines of all of them... some are nearly finished (Playing House IS finished, but then I made a plot change and it needs so many edits, it's essentially being rewritten, and Camilla is at 44,000 words) and some are just in their infancy, but I love all the story ideas and truly wish to get them all done.
So...
Instead of actually writing for the next week or two I'm going to try something I've never done (except once in F102 on Playing House): writing outlines. Anyone have any tips or ideas on how to write a good outline? All you plotters out there... this pantser is crying for help.
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I checked back to last year's Pillar Place to see when we found our first butterbabies and it was on June 15th. The eggs I saw laid a couple weeks back must not have hatched, because we never found any pillars, darn it.
None of my parsley came back this year, which concerns me greatly as that is what they laid most of their eggs on (and the dill, which is also not growing yet).
What to do? should I got buy more parsley plants? I don't WANT them to lay eggs on the dill, so that doesn't bother me, but the only thing we have for them currently is rue (and carrots... which, if they lay eggs on those we CAN'T bring them in and this distressed DD to no end).
Being a butterbaby parent is a lot of responsibility.
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7 comments:
Girly-Girl was all excited yesterday. She was sitting on the front porch and a pretty caterpillar crawled right up her ankle! She brought it in happily and asked for our butterfly house. I got the house down and then had her show me the little critter.
It was an evil Spring web worm who was out taking a stroll after chowing on my especially beautiful crabapple tree. I smiled at my lovely daughter, "Honey, this caterpillar has only 2 choices: He goes in the cage and STAYS in the cage or I KILL HIM!"
Her philosophical reply? "OK...Whatever."
Good luck with the outlining. Not all that great with that, myself.
I think I'd buy some extra parsley, just to make sure you're covered. Today I'm going to plant tomatoes for the third time. Fingers crossed the frosty nights are finally behind us!
Hope you have a great day!
One of my favorite outlining tools is a calendar. I print off blank calendar pages and write down key events and details on it. That gives me a nice overview that is really helpful in plotting.
Elle Parker
http://elleparkerbooks.blogspot.com/
I'm not a writer, so can't comment on your writing exercise, though the subject-chickens-is hilarious. *G*
I say buy a little more parsley for the butterfly babies. *G*
I hope you have a fabulous day!
You can't go wrong with the hero's journey (okay, technically, I suppose one could, but you know what I mean). I need to jump back in and revise Fine Art, and I'm thinking of using it for two plot lines in the story.
Of course, I might also be crazy.
I believe you have to write how you know best. If the outlining helps you then that's a good thing.
I would buy more parsley.
Okay... so i have a new method. Make one of Charity's playlists and use that to plot. It worked, actually.
Loved it!
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