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One Last Thing To Look Through

October 10th 2009 18:31
The workshop will be starting on Monday, and I will not be posting here tomorrow. I just wanted to give you guys a link to one more useful thing:

The Educated Worldbuilding Guide is a wiki (and a thread on the Nanowrimo Fantasy forum) which has information on different cultures, geography, linguistics and other such useful information.

I want you to spend today and tomorrow reading up on different cultures. Pick up to five to read up on. You'll want to bookmark useful websites for each of these cultures, because we will be coming back to them during the workshop.
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Course Materials/More Thoughts

October 9th 2009 11:59
To participate in this Pre-Nanowrimo course, you're going to need lined paper, graph paper, blank paper, pens, and pencils.

You want to think about what themes you might enjoy exploring in your writing, what kinds of religion you're comfortable writing, what kinds of climates you're comfortable writing in, and what viewpoints you're comfortable with. All great writers will at some point challenge their comfort zones as far as these things go, but your first Nanowrimo (or even your second) is not the time to challenge those comfort zones.

Some reading for the night:

Creating Convincing Religious Characters

Avoiding Gimmick Worlds

Have a good weekend everyone.
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5 Wonderful Writing Communities

August 22nd 2009 23:07
Writing is, for the most part, a solitary thing. You spend hours by yourself on the computer typing away, getting your story out onto the screen, replacing the blank white screen with a screen full of black text.

But one of the things that has influenced and helped me most as a writer is community, starting with some communities I've mentioned in previous posts (some of them quite often). I'm a mamber of several writing communities, and each one has helped me in its own way.

Here are five of my favourite writing communities, which I visit every day:

1. Nanowrimo.org Anyone who has been following this blog for any significant period of time (I know there are at least a couple of you) will know that I can't talk about writing communities without mentioning Nanowrimo.

Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge every November to people from every walk of life, every profession, every class, every country, to write 50, 000 words of fiction in one month. There are incredibly active forums, especially in November but also all year round. The members are absolutely amazing, coming from all different places in their writing, all walks of life, and helping each other without a cruel word.

Nanowrimo is one of the most amazing things in my life. Not only is the online community absolutely amazing, with great forums where people will help you with anything writing-related, cheer you on, and where you can do the same for other people, but they have Municipal Liasions and actual offline groups in a number of cities around the world. I absolutely adore Toronto's Nanowrimo community, and I've known a lot of them for several years.

I grew up with Nanowrimo. Nanowrimo inspired me-as it has inspired thousands of others-to write my first novel, and many more since. Nanowrimo is my most productive time of year, and I absolutely love this event and community.

I can be found on Nanowrimo and a number of Nanowrimo related sites with the account name Litharukia.

2. YNaNoWriYe Forums Nanowriye, or Wriye, was inspired by Nanowrimo and is one of many spin-off communities. The goal is to write a certain number of words (this can include monthly challenge word counts, creative non-fiction, poetry, et cetera) over the course of one year. While the community is nowhere near as large as Nanowrimo, it's an incredibly supportive community with some great members.

This challenges you to push yourself, and gives you leeway if for some reason you can't write for a few weeks-you still have time to catch up. You can also change your word count goal at any time throughout the year.

I've been doing Wriye for the first time this year and I'm absolutely loving it. I'm having a great time with the community and I'm working hard toward my goals, finding myself motivated.

3.Accentuate Writers Forum This website includes a number of forums for freelance writers of both fiction and non-fiction, including listings of paying markets and contests for fiction and non-fiction, a general writing forum and forums discussing a number of freelancing websites.

I don't spend nearly as much time on this forum as I do on some of the others that I currently take part in, but it's a great resource, as is the blog of the woman who runs it, which you can find links to in her signature (Michy, the one who started a variety of market listing threads).

4. Critique Circle this is an online workshop for critiques. You can critique a variety of work from any genre, of any length depending on your free time. You can also put your work up and receive critiques-this is where I've gotten my most in-depth Critiques. The forums are good but I don't spend as much time on them.

The only sad thing about CC is that unless you have a paid account, you have to wait for your short story/chapter to go up through sometimes multiple critiquing rounds (stories go up for a week from one Wednesday to another), up to three or four weeks at times. I don't really have the patience to do this with a whole novel, so I've never put a full one up for critique, just a few chapters of each. I spend a lot more time working with other people on their novels/stories, because I love to read and here I find stuff I'd never see otherwise, and because I have a lot of fun critiquing others' work.

This is a great site, especially if you can afford a premium account, which gives you the ability to start your own private queues.

I'm Diannaskye on CC.

5. NanoPubYe The goal for this is to get your novel (Nanowrimo novel or other novel) out to agents and editors within one year. I originally joined this community in 07, and worked on my 06 Nano for some time before realizing that there was no way I'd have it ready to send out queries in that year, because I had to basically rewrite the novel from almost-scratch.

This community isn't too active, unless it's changed since, with a burst of activity in December/January and many people dropping out throughout the year. I do intend to take this challenge on again next year though, with Moonshadow's Guardian which was my 06 Nano and is almost ready.

My username there is Diannaskye.

...And now it's time for me to head out to the Nanowrimo summer event in Toronto: Nanowrimo Karaoke! *Waves*

Have a good night everyone.
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What I Accomplished This Week

August 21st 2009 18:30
I'm almost at 70, 000 words and my mother is forcing me to rush out the door before I can make it. I've gotten pretty far in my story with Eternia Falling, sort of. I'm realizing that it's going to need to be more like two or three books, because I've just gone over a week in something like fifty thousand words.

I'm busy all weekend, so I have no idea how much I will or will not be able to write. I'm frustrated and rather worried that I won't make 100K this month, just because I'm busy almost 24/7 for the next two weeks


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10 Things To Look Forward To On Fictional Worlds

August 14th 2009 00:11
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


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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


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Water!

August 9th 2009 17:57
Well, I got great news today. Tomorrow night I will be heading off to the cottage. This means a few things, but the most important two are 1. No internet and 2. No computer which means no real writing will get done. I probably won't be back by the thirteenth, which is my two year Blogaversery (whoever gave me this word, I love you. I think it may have been Wilson, not sure).

What does this mean? It means that I need to write 10, 000 words today for AugNoWriMo, meaning I need to write a few thousand words in Eternia Falling and I really need to write out the myth of the Green Man, the one I've decided would be best for the AugNoWriMo short story anthology


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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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Apparently

September 8th 2008 04:43
Apparently I've burnt myself out and need to fix my sleep schedule yet again; this isn't going to be an easy thing to maintain. (Social lives get in the way three times a month) But I'm determined to maintain it to the best of my ability.

Sadly while I try to fix my sleep schedule I won't be coherent for the next couple of days, at least not enough to write a blog post. I'm going to bed soonish, and slowly resetting my schedule over the next week. If I hadn't have had something both days this weekend I would've been fine, but as it is, I need to fix my schedule. So... I won't be around for a couple days. I also have more editor work to do


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Writing Work

January 22nd 2008 21:26
I'm praying right now. Praying that I'll get a big gigantic break in my writing. I'm looking for places to submit one of my short stories to (the one that's been sent around and around) and praying that someday SOMETHING will come along.

Right now I'm also on the lookout for poetry competitions and publishers. I'm looking everywhere and hoping that something soon will come through. Within a couple weeks I should know if one of my pieces is getting published


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Writing Is Difficult Without Computer

January 20th 2008 00:35
I've got very, very limited computer access right now (as in I only have it at my bf's), so my writing is flopping and so is my blogging.

But I AM alive. Yay.
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Writing Work

January 14th 2008 16:11
I'm coming back with a vengeance. I'm writing again-yay-and I'm looking for places and web opportunities to submit to. I'm looking for places to put my writing again.

Right now I'm praying that somehow I'll find a way to become a writer within two years, a way to earn the money to get out of this hellhole I'm forced to call home


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Been Sick But I'm Back Into It

January 14th 2008 04:16
I've been getting hugely back into my writing as I recover from my stress sickness. I'm getting seriously into it because I want to make a career out of this.

This is my life, this is my dream, this is my career. It is everything to me and it is my only passion-honestly, it's the only thing other than my spirituality that I care about


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Not much to say

January 8th 2008 20:10
I wrote a couple poems, but they sucked pretty badly. So guess what? I've got nothing else to say, I'm just updating to update.
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Writing stuffses

January 6th 2008 22:39
So. My life is dull, boring, and nothing unusual. I mean, seriously, nothing unusual. Okay, that's utter crap, but hey.

I'm going through an incredible dry period when it comes to writing. Seriously. Even getting up the motivation to post here is an incredible amount of work. I don't have much else to do, though, so I figured I'd write up a post


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Let's start on these resolution things...

January 2nd 2008 05:37
So here's my plan. I'm going to spend the next few days doing market research. I'm going to write out a list of likely markets and listing those here. That way I'll be motivated to write and submit, and you guys will see some possible markets.

I'm going to restart this blog fully ASAP, it's just I need some time to get myself organized and to get myself with ideas. Eventually everything will be back in good shape around here, but it will take some time [ Click here to read more ]
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Schedule

August 8th 2007 06:53
This is very loose, and it's Canadian time. Here ya go:

Daily-Editing Pains basic update


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