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What Is the Dear Diary Workshop?

April 27th 2010 12:42
The Dear Diary workshop began with an idea on the Wriye forums. Someone said they were thinking about writing a diary for their character for one month, and titling it 'A Month in the Life Of __________'. I decided to write a diary for Astarael, Goddess of Death in the world of Tamraq at the time of the first two Jihad books.

It was a great experience. I got accustomed to writing in Astarael's voice, got to know her on a more personal level, and managed to write a thousand words every day, even though I didn't get around to posting all the Dear Diary entries I wrote. I chose to call it the 'Dear Diary Experiment' because I started each entry with 'Dear Diary'. (There will be links to some of these posts at the end of this one.)

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and later did the experiment again, writing from Alaendril's point of view during the war. Alaendril is an important character both in my series and in the world of Tamraq, where they take place. Again, I managed to write every day, get to know one of my key characters, and get used to writing in his voice.

This workshop is designed to help you create a diary for your character. During the workshop I'll be posting prompts, things to get you thinking about who your character is, and ideas for different ways to write the diary. I will be doing a Dear Diary project in the month of May myself, so you'll also get to see some of the diary entries I write.

If you are a member of the WriYe forums, there is special content that will only be posted there, so be on the lookout for interesting stuff in the challenges forum. If you aren't a member, I'm not sure if it's too late to sign up, but if you want to participate in the forum activities there, the link is here(clicky).

If you would like to read some of my previous Dear Diary posts, take a look at the following:

~Dear Diary is a post introducing the concept of the Dear Diary exercise and Astarael.

~Dear Diary 2 is the second Dear Diary post. I seem to have misplaced the first one.

~Dear Diary 13 is the thirteenth Dear Diary post, in which Astarael talks of the toll the war is taking on the people as well as on the Gods.

~Dear Diary 18 this post is Astarael remembering the day she told the Council the Demon is a traitor.

~Dear Diary 1 (Alaendril) this is the first post of my second Dear Diary workshop.

~Dear Diary 3 in which Alaendril discusses the difficulties of trying to help a girl he found on day two who doesn't speak his language.

~Dear Diary 6 in which Alaendril returns to the border of Appollinia and meets a God.

If you want to read more, check out Best Of Fictional Worlds 2007-09

Expect more posts about the Dear Diary workshop in the coming days.
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Some Reading Suggestions

April 9th 2010 12:54
I don't know about where you are, but up here the weather is miserable and wet. It's spring and the world is alive, but this weekend I plan on staying in, getting some work done, and reading a new book. If you're looking to stay in and do some reading yourself but don't know what to read, I've got a few suggestions.

I'm going to start with some books:

~Newes From the Dead, which I reviewed here.

~Phantom Feast, which I reviewed here.

I've also got a couple of interesting blog posts for you to read:

~Did You Read These 13 Popular Blog Tips: 5 Retro Posts is a post at Problogger with links to some previous posts. If you've got a bit of time and are interested in starting a blog, this is a good jumpiing point.

~Writing Prompts for Creativity? Or a Waste of Time? is an interesting post on M. Lori Montley's blog talking about the use of writing prompts-are they really worth your time? It's an interesting debate.

I hope you enjoy these links. I've started working on a website for myself and my blog, so posts here might be a bit brief until the Dear Diary workshop starts. I'd love to hear your ideas on how to make the website I'm working on a great place for all of us.
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Thoughts On Nanowrimo 2009

December 2nd 2009 12:08
I have a lot more to say on this, including the big 'credits' post that I'm planning, but I just wanted to get in a few words now.

It's early morning inmy part of the world and I'm still recovering from a hectic month and a wonderful TGIO party. A lot of the people that I saw last night I won't see again until next Nanowrimo, until October or November. Some of them I might see once, twice, three times if I'm lucky, during the rest of the year. The forums begin to die and the Tonano chat dies with them, slowly but surely.

Christmas is right around the corner and although most of the world is spreading Christmas joy, there are many Nanoers just like me who are crying on the inside because Nanowrimo is over, because the month and the challenge are over, those who will still roam the forums until they shut down again in preparation for next October.

Later today the 'I Wrote A Novel, Now What?' page will go up, and I suggest you take a look through that. Some of the links in my credits post will be repeats if you do check out this page (and it looks anything like last year's) but I feel they are sites that deserve to be linked to multiple times and really deserve a proper look through.

I've been doing some brainstorms and I've decided that I'm going to do a series of short workshops designed to help you edit your novel. I will be asking the Wriye moderators about that and hopefully having a 'Dear Diary' month challenge that works in conjunction with their website in one of the short months of the year.

What you can expect to see from me over the next week or so:

~A 'What I Learned from Nano '09' post talking about my experience this year, because every year I learn something new,

~The 'Credits' post, with which any luck will go up tomorrow, but today is dedicated mostly to schoolwork,

~A 'What Now?' post detailing what my plans look like for 2010 as far as this blog is concerned,
and
~The beginning of my Nanofimo posts, which will detail my process of outlining/figuring out my story and then my writing experience.

I'm also going to be updating the archives with posts from the last two months on the 'Best Of' page that I've created over the course of this weekend and planning out the next year.

The first of December this year brought with it an emptiness, and from that emptiness a spring of new ideas has come forth. I've got all sorts of ideas for expanding this blog in my effort to help you, the readers, join me on my writing journey, but more on those later.

Bye for now,
~Dianna

If you have a Nanowrimo experience that you would like to share as either a guest post or part of one of my posts, please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com. I'm also always looking for feedback on the blog itself, what you would like to see and what you like about the blog.
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Praying To The Muse

November 30th 2009 17:39
Nanowrimo is over in just a few short hours and I'm almost thirty thousand words away from my goal. For those of you who have insane numbers of words to write today-I wish you luck. It's going to be a long day, a hard day, and you and I are going to have to push to make our goals, but the effort is oh so worth it.

Pray to your muse. Beg and plead with it for its blessing and its kindness. In the next few hours the last thing you need is writer's block. You need to be able to just keep going, keep going in a frenzy with one plot point, one action your character takes leading fluidly into the next. You and I need a miracle


[ Click here to read more ]
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Excerpt: Snapshots

November 23rd 2009 12:15
This is kind of a long scene for an excerpt, but I can't just give you guys part of the scene, because that would not be very cool of me.

Dreaming of Eternia
[ Click here to read more ]
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Learning

January 17th 2009 03:52
Writing is in large part a learning process. A writer needs to be open to new things; this is why we have classes and workshops and books about writing. Not all things will work for you, this is true. We're all different. You probably won't find a class that's absolutely perfect for you. A method won't always work.

But if you don't try new things, how can you possibly know? Everything changes; our writing should too. Let's take the example of a well known author, JK Rowling of the Harry Potter series


[ Click here to read more ]
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Want to keep writing like you did during Nanowrimo? This is a great site to challenge yourself to write a certain number of words in a year-you can pick your goal!

Really Long Link
[ Click here to read more ]
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When Everything Is Just Too Much

October 4th 2008 23:28
So let me tell you something. School is stressing me out; I'm trying to force myself to go but it isn't working very well. Things at home aren't pleasant either. I'm stressed; so stressed that I've been sick on and off for two weeks now. Nanowrimo is on the horizon.

It's times like these when anybody-writer or otherwise-starts to wonder about all their obligations and if they're worth it. It's times like these when normally I would abandon the blog for weeks at a time; I'm trying not to. It's sort of working. It's times like these when we just want to throw in the towel


[ Click here to read more ]
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Dianna G's Blogs

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