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This is a list of ten things you can look forward to here on this blog over the coming year. I've been planning quite a few workshops and things to do around here to make life more interesting. I've also been debating making a forum for these workshops. Anyone who would be willing to help me run it should contact me at diannalgunn@gmail.com about it.

Here are some things you can expect to see:

1. Early Releases Of Ebooks Bleed and Myths of Tamraq will both be announced here before anywhere else. I will also be releasing a couple free PDFs of myths. A Cutter's Journey will be announced here and on its own website a week before I go to any of my regular forums and places to announce it.

2. Nanowrimo World-Building Workshop This will be a two week workshop, with a half hour exercise every day. You can expect things like building a God, building a religion, looking at architecture, looking at weather, culture, and art. It will be run in the second week and second last week of October.

3. Nanowrimo Pep Talks I will be doing a weekly pep talk for Nanowrimo once again on this blog this year, because I had lots of fun last year. I'll also be looking for a couple other Nanoers and asking them to do guest post pep talks.

4. Dear Diary Workshop This will be going on next February. I will be doing my own Dear Diary, and each day have a list of questions to consider when writing your own. More on this later, when I have a proper 'course' outline type of thing.

5. World-Building Workshop This will be a multi-post workshop, each post focusing on a different part of the world building. There will be two exercises a week. This and the following few workshops already have basic outlines, and I'm seriously considering starting a forum for the different workshops on this blog.

6. Religion-Building Workshop This is another multi-post workshop which will be six weeks long, one exercise per week. It will cover how I usually build my religions and have various questions to ask. One of the exercises will be myth-building.

7. God-Building Workshop The Gods are characters too. This will be a four post workshop, two posts each over two weeks, about how to create a God.

8. Culture-Building Workshop This will be a six week workshop like the Religion one, with exercises focusing on art, myth, music and language.

9. Character-Building Workshop This workshop will be like the others, showing how I develop characters.

10. Plot-Building Workshop This workshop will cover various ways to build plot, including my reviews on two or three different methods and an overview of my own personal method.

These and much more will be coming over the next year. Thinking about it, I will be creating a forum in October which will have sub-forums for each workshop so that people who do the workshops at any time can discuss them.

Thanks for reading,
~Dianna
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2 Year Blogaversary

August 13th 2009 23:40
This is my official two year blogaversary for Fictional Worlds. Today, that is. So I'm writing a special post to talk about the last two years of my writing.

When I first came here, I had never had a poem published. I was completely unknown, unheard of, and no, I could not be found on Google. But I did have one good thing going for me: a talent and passion for writing.

When I was offered a domain name, there was only one thing that I could think of that would provide me with a lasting blog. This thing was writing, and thus Fictional Worlds was born. I didn't have any other specific topic, nothing that really struck me, at least not that I could write about constantly for a very long time.

Early on I made some great friends. Jeanne Dininni, author of Writers Notes, Kleonaptra, author of Kalika Psychosis, and Katyzzz, author of a variety of blogs found here, among others. Some have come, some have gone. Ruby Soho, Morgan Bell, various characters throughout the network of Orble have all contributed to my blogging experience in some way.

I've spent a lot of time and effort building this blog. The average post that I write takes ten to thirty minutes. But half an hour every day spent writing-that is without reading various posts on how to increase the quality of my blog and draw readers, and keep them-adds up over the course of a month, let alone the eight or nine months total that I've spent constantly blogging.

At first, I had a specific, rigid formula for the blog. I've realized that this doesn't work for me, yet again, not really a surprise; very little in my life is 'properly organized'. I need a certain amount of freedom, of flow in everything that I do. I can't follow rigid routines very well for more than a couple weeks, I think this is my biggest problem with school (other than stupid teenagers everywhere.)

Since I've come here I've had poems published in a few places. I've become findable on Google (Google Dianna L. Gunn and see what you get) and a lot more disciplined in my writing. Knowing that I have expectant readers here looking forward to gobbling up my content keeps me writing more each day.

I really and truly love blogging. I love the people that I've met through it and the things that I've found, sometimes in the sidebar on my own blog, links to the best writing posts on Orble. I love being a part of this site, even if other people think it doesn't have freedom of speech, I am free to talk about what I love, writing, and I even get a domain name from this site, which I couldn't afford on my own. Score. I get to read the posts on the network, comment, make friends, all that good stuff. Score.

Thank you for all of my loyal readers, the few that have been with me since the beginning and those of you who have only recently come to this blog. Thanks to everyone who takes time out of their day to read what I have to say. I'm glad you think I'm worth it.

So what do I want to do on this blog in the next year? Well, I want to do a monthly book review-or more than one in a month-here, starting this month. I will be releasing Bleed hopefully late next week, if I write enough poems at the cottage, but if not before Halloween; before Halloween to my readers, that is. It'll be cheaper for the first week, and only known about by those who read my blog. After the first week it'll go up slightly in price and I'll announce it in various other places.

I plan to release Myths of Tamraq, or two of the myths, on PDF and only inform blog readers of this; it will be free. The full ebook will be published early next year. I will be running a Dear Diary workshop type-thing in February, wait to hear more on that. In October I will run a two-week worldbuilding and character building workshop for Nanowrimo.

I have a lot in the works here at Fictional Worlds. If you've stuck with me this long, why not wait around to see what's next?
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Believe

August 10th 2009 16:44
Believe
-----------
Believe me
when I say I'm sorry
when I say
I loved you once
but no longer
do I feel that
pull on my heart
the urge
to lie with you,
in your arms.

Believe me
when I say
I wish
it could have
lasted;
you asked me
to marry you
and I agreed-
but then
you threw me
away.
Why?

Believe
that love is
just a broken dream;
something
I will never
really achieve-
all love does
is bring me pain.

Believe
that the most
important three
letters in the word
believe
are 'l i e'.

~Dianna
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I'm Sorry

August 8th 2009 06:46
I'm Sorry
--------------
I'm sorry


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A Short Poem

August 4th 2009 05:18
Lost
------
I am lost


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Best Of...

July 30th 2009 05:34
So. My two-year anniversary of blogging is coming up. (Agust 13th) I've decided that on the date itself I will be doing a special post, thanking those who have inspired me since I came here, talking about why I blog etc. etc. It will also have links to some of my best posts since January.

I'm going to do four posts, total, in relation to this. Each one will contain 10 of my favourite posts from a certain time period since I've been here


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How I Got Into Poetry

July 9th 2009 03:08
Those of you who read my blog regularly and have been for some time now (I actually think that might be most of my 10 or so readers) will know that poetry is one of my greatest passions. For me it flows easily and quickly; I don't have first drafts and second drafts of poems. I have one draft, and you either see that draft or you never see the poem at all.

The first writing I ever got really into was short story writing. Since I've started writing novels, I've found it much harder to write short stories now, as when I try, they end up growing into novels. It's somewhat frustrating but I get through it


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Developing Your Voice

July 8th 2009 23:20
I often see writers on various forums asking the same questions. Usually they're questions about things like chapter length, pacing, character building-all those important things. One of the most frequent questions asked isn't specifically about your story though-it's about developing your voice.

Writers ask 'How does one develop their voice


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Working Towards Your Goals

July 3rd 2009 12:51
As writers we must set goals. Without knowing where we want to go, how are we supposed to get there? Especially considering that writing can be such a vicious industry-when we're going for professional publication, we have to be twice as willing to do the work as when we're writing for friends or family.

But once we've written our goals, how do we push ourselves to achieve them


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Heartless

June 30th 2009 12:00
Heartless
---------------
You told me you loved me


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For Young Writers

June 30th 2009 04:48
A long time ago (something like a year and a bit, I believe) I signed up for the Fundsforwriters newsletters. (Fundsforwriters, Fundsforwriters Small Markets, and WritingKid respectively) WritingKid is a newsletter which focuses on displaying markets for young people. (From the age of 'I can write' to college age.)

My publication in Teen Ink was largely thanks to this newsletter, and now I've discovered a small press which publishes books by teens. Because of their restrictions on violence, none of my proper novel-length projects are suitable for this publisher


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I Wish

June 26th 2009 07:18
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Something About You

June 24th 2009 18:36
Something about you
---------------------------

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Fallen Angels

June 20th 2009 12:20
Fallen Angels
--------------------

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Bleed

June 18th 2009 07:40
Bleed
----------------------------- ----------------------------- ----
Your crimson tears


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Updating

June 18th 2009 05:12
So... as everyone who is still reading-thank you, by the way, for bearing with me under the circumstances-is most likely aware, my laptop got sat on a couple months ago. I'm still really upset about this and have not gotten the money back nor a replacing computer.

As such I am now MONTHS behind my writing schedule, which is awful. I haven't been able to actively work on novels and I've only really gotten back into my worldbuilding in the last week or so-losing the computer was not only a blow to my writing in that I then had no computer, but also in that I kind of lost my willpower for a month or two as far as my writing is concerned


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Lost

June 14th 2009 00:16
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Cut

June 3rd 2009 05:13
Cut
---------------
It's just a little cut


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Facing My Past

May 16th 2009 03:21
Hi everyone; sorry I've been unable to post. My laptop still has not been replaced. This is a post to let you all know I'm alive and a quick poem. Some things that brought me a lot of pain last year have returned. Tomorrow I will face them; I will end this war with my past.

Facing My Past
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Passion

March 28th 2009 19:17
Due to recent events I am currently staying with my boyfriend who I met a couple of weeks ago. Despite the pain of my memories I feel safe with him; I trust him completely. I fell in love and though I hate the weakness emotions represent I know that this is how I feel.

This poem is dedicated to the man I love


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