Writing Space

Next to my notebook of awesomeness, I have to have a clean and nice writing space.  This one is pretty self explanatory, but I'll show you mine and give you a brief explanation. 

Here is an overview of the entire space.

If you click to enlarge, you will see a few notes I put on there about different things on my desk. 

What's that you say?  I write at a desktop?!  Why, yes, most of the time I do write at that desk with my desktop.  I am so out of style, it's okay.  Not only is that a desktop, it's a 10 year old desktop!  Yes, I would love a new desktop, but unfortunately I am not rolling in the money, so I keep my 10 year old desktop.  I also do some writing on my laptop, when I want to go out and about.  My laptop is also nothing fancy.  It is a 2 year old laptop that I got for 150 bucks at a big box store. 

So as you can see, my writing space is not all that fancy.  Neither are my writing gadgets or even my process for writing.  I would write on a typewriter if I owned one! 

Another big part of my writing space is the walls you see all around.  They are purposefully blank.  Why?  Because 9 times out of 10 you will see sheets from the sticky pad up on the wall holding information for characters or outlines.  Like so:

characters on my wall!

I use this method for writing because it lays everything out for me.  I love to have everything at a glance, and this is the best way I have found to do this.  This way if I'm brainstorming a new idea for a new novel I can just use my color coded sticky pads and just outline it and stick it to the wall.  Eventually this will be transferred to my notebook of awesomeness, but at this point it's just hanging out on my wall. 

I try to keep my writing space clean and clutter free, but that doesn't always work.  I don't live in a bubble, and with another person in the house sometimes my desk is the best place to put things.  I do find that when I take the time to keep the desk clear, I write more.  Isn't it funny how that works.

So there is the writing space and my outdated technology!

Until Next Time

Notebook of Awesomeness

Have you ever kept a notebook next to you to write down everything you think of a specific novel or short story?  Then you, my friend, have kept a notebook of awesomeness.

Years ago I bought a composition notebook for 50 cents at the dollar store.  Inside that notebook I composed my first novel.  It was poorly written and had the spelling errors and lack of depth you would expect of a 9 year old, but boy was I so proud!  And thus the idea of the notebook of awesomeness was born.

So what all do you put in the notebook?  Anything and everything related to your story.  And each story gets it's own notebook, so you don't confused ideas. 
 
 Inside my current novel notebook I have pages dedicated for each of the 3 main characters, then a page for scenery, a page that explains small things about the new planet they are on, a page that outlines the entire story, a page that I just write scrap ideas, and a page that gives the moral of the story.  Everything has a page so that I can easily find scrap ideas and expand on them as well as make minor changes to my characters while still keeping everything centrally located.

Random page in my notebook

It also gives me a chance to write down an idea and then scrap it later.  In the above picture you'll see a but of NO written around the page.  Those were ideas that I threw around in my head and wanted to write out, but once I got them down on paper I didn't like the ideas all that much, so I abandoned them.  I never scratch them out, however, so I can always remember that those ideas didn't really work.  Alternatively, it gives me a chance to revisit these ideas later if I need to spice things up a little. 

Character sketch from the notebook

I love having everything centrally located.  It saves me from having to pull up my file on the my computer in order to remember how old one of my character is or where they were born.  It makes the quick writing I do that much quicker.  It also allows me to write down any information I want to explore about that character. 

I love my notebook of awesomeness!

Until Next Time

Essential writing components for me

So I am getting ready tow rite out a series of posts on what I consider essential to my writing experience.  Yes, I am unpublished, no I am not a professional, but that doesn't mean that I cannot write tips and tricks that help me stay organized.  That way when I am a famous author, you can say you saw my tips and tricks way back when!  Lol.

That said, Each of these are going to get their own post.  This is more just to introduce you to the different components of my writing.  This series will cover:

The Notebook of Awesome
The come-together binder
The writing space
The backups of backups
The end results

Those 5 things are what I consider essential to my writing success.  Look this week for these tips and tricks!

until next time.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes

So I found this really funny and completely appropriate for a writing blog.  Please watch and learn.  And laugh, because this is all true, but really for a laugh. 

Until Next Time.

Today I wrote a prologue

In the writing world there are people of all types.  And each one of those peeps likes to give you advice.  One of the writing peeps in my world has a piece of advice she is famous for, "Don't write prologues.  No one cares."  Seriously, if you lived here and asked who was a local writer who said that, everyone would point to her.  She's not mean about it or anything, that is just how she feels. 

I, however, do not feel the same way.

I love opening a book and seeing what is written before the story starts.  Prologues to me should be short, but they tell me if I'm going to get sucked in to reading this book.  I feel like when I find a great prologue, I can't wait to get to the part of the story that the prologue is foreshadowing.

So today, I wrote a prologue for my current sci fi young adult novel.  I feel like we have had so much going on in our lives lately, that I hope to share on this blog someday.  I also feel like I have neglected my story in the worst way possible.  So today, this morning to be exact, I sat down before my shower and set out to write 250 words.  What I ended up writing was my prologue. 

And I am proud of it!  I hope to share it some day soon, and I will, but right now it's just sitting in my first edits binder waiting for the rest of the story to get as far.  I have 3 of my planned 9 chapters in that binder, I need to get cracking.

I do have a plan to do a post about my first edit binder, giving away a secret of mine, and on story planning.  After today, I hope to get to gettin' on these posts!

Do you enjoy prologues? 

Until Next Time.

Diverse characters in literature

One of things I pay attention to as a writer is the diversity of the characters in novels I read.  I write young adult and children, so I mostly ready young adult and children.  But even branching out to the adult literature I've read, I've noticed a stunning thing.  There isn't much diversity in the main/leading characters.  And that astonishes me at the same time that it doesn't.

photo credit: Photosightfaces via photopin cc

One thing, as a writer, I have always tried to do is make sure all my characters are diverse.  I never thought about it as a requirement, but more that I wanted my characters to be as different, yet similar, as humanly possible.  I grew up in a poorer, diverse rural area and I just wrote that into my story.  As an adult I see now how it is really needed to have some diversity in each book.

photo credit: Sailing "Footprints: Real to Reel" (Ronn ashore) via photopin cc

I started a goal a few years ago to pick up diverse books for my hopefully future family.  I wanted to make sure there was a set number of books containing diverse characters that were in the lead role in the book.  And I was incredibly disappointed by what I could find.  There are children with white skin tone all over the place in children's picture books, but I have a handful of books with children of other ethnicity.  The most diverse book I have is actually a Norwegian children's book!  This still, to this day, astonishes me.  I went out to find the most diverse books I could, and I was thoroughly disappointed in the results.

photo credit: Dietmar Temps via photopin cc

As a writer, I want to help fix this problem.  I want to make sure that children of all colors, nationalities, genders, sexual orientation, gender identity, and ethnicity have the ability to find books about themselves out on the shelves.  All kids deserve to see themselves in a character who solves a mystery, becomes a doctor, challenges the leaders and wins, and in general gets to do all the amazing things you see happen in novels.  As a writer, I am always aware that I can't fix the world, not even one novel at a time.

photo credit: thejbird via photopin cc

So what can I do?  Make sure everyone out there knows that there is a market for diversity in literature, especially children's literature.  Have you ever wanted to write a story?  Do it!  Not only can you do it, you can make sure that your diversity is written into the words on every page.  Children, especially, need to know that there are people like them out in the world.  They need to be able to pick up a book and know that it will apply to them, that they will see themselves in every character.  My goal, with the children's series I am working on, is to make sure each book has as many diverse characters as possible.  To make sure that they appeal across the board to a broad number of children.  In hopes that they can see themselves solving the mysteries and learning the lessons.  This is our future people, embrace them and let them learn!

photo credit: Julie70 via photopin cc

So what are your favorite books for kids?  Have you had success with diverse literature for children?

Until Next Time!

Writing

So an update on where I am in writing my novel plus the children's series. 

I am in the exact same place. 

Yeah, I haven't written a lick in the last month on the novel and I'm sad about that.  I always had great intentions.  I set up times to write, created my little writing nook, even got back out my notebook of awesome... and then promptly stared at the screen then played a Facebook game.  It was easier. 

But July is my month.  My goal is to write the first book for the children's series, just to see how that kind of goes, and then spend at least 10 hours a week on my novel.  I am only trying to get the rough draft out there on paper.  I have grand plans of sending out feelers by the first week in November.  That's the grand plan though, so we shall see what happens. 

How is your week going?  Have you written anything lately?

Until Next Time.

Straight to the heart...

So now that pride is over I am struggling to decide what content to put here on the blog.  I don't want to make this blog all about being gay 100% of the time.  That was not my intention when I started writing here.  However, I have had quite a few new readers to the blog who have come, often I'm sure, mainly for the fact that there was a blog about gay.  Or at least that's what my brain is telling me. 

This blog, however, was a place for me to write, and write often.  A place for me to constantly stretch my brain muscles and use my words to paint pictures and invite readers on adventures.  And I think I like that aspect.  But then I did just do a whole month of pride. 

So I am working quickly to try to fuse the two topics.  Perhaps keep up with current GLBTQ news as well as using this space as intended, to write. 

I am so looking forward to this next chapter of the blog and how it's going to all work out.  I am also so encouraged that people may actually want to explore this next chapter with me. 

So moving forward we are going to talk about a combination of writing and current events. 

Until Next Time.