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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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Prompt: Falling In Love

February 23rd 2010 12:16
Every Tuesday is going to be prompt day here at Fictional Worlds. These prompts are simple phrases or words meant to trigger an emotional response. You can write anything you want to them. I suggest you do a freewrite, either from your point of view or from that of one of your characters. You could also write a poem or even a short story about it.

Sometimes these prompts will be more rigid exercises, like letters or diary entries. If you would like to submit a prompt that you've found useful, please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com.

Your prompt for today is 'Falling in Love'. My own response to it is below.

Falling In Love
PoV: Aslandial

For centuries I have watched other people fall in love. I have written of lovers many times in my histories of the Isles. Important humans have a habit of doing strange things when they are in love, and changing the course of the Isles by the things they do in such a state.

I always thought that I was above love; that, like Those Who Are, I was unfeeling. I have since learned two terrible secrets. The first is that even Those Who Are have fallen in love and are capable of feeling emotions. The second is that I am the closest thing to one of Those Who Are in this universe except for Loki.

I am in love. And my love is terrible. I have fallen in love with an Elvish woman who, no matter what she does, cannot fall in love with me in return. She belongs to the Lord of the Elves. She was smuggled on this ship so that once here she could become wed to him. They are fighting now, but even still, he would have my head before I would have even a moment with her.

But I think the fall was the most painful part. I never really believed in love at first sight, although in my histories I speak of it often because it is what the humans thought they had. I fell in love with Emilia from looking upon her beautiful face once.

It haunted me, it plagued me, it followed me around. I was hers in my mind but not in my body, and that is the way it still is. But I was not at first conscious that this was what was happening to me. I thought that the image of her face returned to my mind so frequently because I was terrified when I saw her. I feared she would come for me.

She did not come for me. I grew ill upon reaching the Guardians-hell, I was ill before that-and they told me that I must go back for her. My love is as strong as that of one of Those Who Are, they said, and I must be with her or I will only be ill.

So I returned, and the walk was long, and I was ill, and so it became twice as long. And now I am here, and I am with her, but not really with her, and I am in love.

I never thought this would happen to me.
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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


[ Click here to read more ]
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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


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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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Tired

September 27th 2009 22:59
I spent the weekend running around the city, partying, trying to figure stuff out, and more partying. I didn't get out to Megan Crewe's book launch, which was kind of sad, but I had a great weekend nonetheless.

Last night was the official end of my summer. I went out, I partied with my friends, I danced so hard I hurt myself (which I did several times this summer) and I had a great time


[ Click here to read more ]
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5 Excellent Writing Blog Posts

September 10th 2009 12:17
Hi everyone. So, in keeping with my blog posting schedule (I'm surprised I've kept to it this long) today's post is a list of five great blog posts about writing. I've been wandering around the blogosphere looking into different writing blogs for a while now, always looking for something new to read, and today I found some great new blogs and posts.

1.25 Best Writing Blogs 2009 I found this linked to on another blog, and I've found some great posts for this entry on blogs that I've been looking through found via this list. Editor Unleashed is a popular blog amongst writers, and while I don't read it often, I do find it useful sometimes. The blogger asked people to nominate blogs and then vote on them for this, and the winners have been selected and are now linked to for all to find. Muahahahaha


[ Click here to read more ]
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Outline Review: Phase Outline

September 3rd 2009 12:25
This is the third post in a five-part series about outlining. The first two posts are:

Outlining Part One
[ Click here to read more ]
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Review: Stephen King's On Writing

August 24th 2009 21:04
On Writing by Stephen King


Not having finished the book that I'm reading right now, which is a very very long book (but great) and not wanting to do a website review, I decided to review a great book I've already read


[ Click here to read more ]
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Outlines: An Article&Call For Help

August 23rd 2009 15:23
Fiction Factor: Outlining

The above is an article about outlining which some of you may find useful. It lists three different types of outline and describes them briefly with advantages and disadvantages. It's a good article on a great website for writers at every stage in their career


[ Click here to read more ]
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On Fiction: Outlining Part One

August 20th 2009 22:18
I've decided to write a series of posts about outlining. There will be five posts in this series, each one focusing on a different type of outlining. The first post will focus on my style of outline and the following ones will be reviews of different forms of outlining available online.

Not every type of outline works for every writer. Personally my outline is very basic, showing the biggest scenes that need to happen and what order they need to happen in. Some writers on the Nanowrimo forums (Kateness, who wrote 800K last year, being one of these) write outlines that can be up to 10, 000 words in and of themselves


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5 Reasons To Start A Blog

August 17th 2009 06:32
In light of my recent blogaversary I've written some posts about blogging, which is not usually my focus here, as I like to focus more on fiction writing. (I do a lot more of that.) Over the last two years I've really come to love blogging. If you're a writer, and you don't have a blog, I think it's high time you started one.

Here are five reasons to start a blog


[ Click here to read more ]
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Continuing along, plodding as slowly as I am, I am now on the seventh excersize in 31 Days To A Better Blog. The ones that have been going on behind the scenes have been reading exercises and I've found some great reading along the way. I'm happy with the way this is going so far.

So I'm going to link to five great blogs for writers, and tell you exactly why they are great blogs for writers. They aren't in any particular order of awesomeness, it's just in the order I thought of them


[ Click here to read more ]
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Harry Potter Review: Part One

August 10th 2009 17:47
Just thought I would let you guys know that I decided to do the first part of my Harry Potter review lens before leaving for the cottage. I've also decided not to do any best-of posts, seeing as how I worked my butt off yesterday making a best-of lens. I spent two or three hours working on the darn thing, so I figure I'm going to just leave that as it is and not to a best-of at this moment in time.

Here's the link to the Harry Potter review lens


[ Click here to read more ]
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Book Review: The Screwtape Letters

August 6th 2009 15:41
The Screwtape Letters is a book written by C.S. Lewis during world war two. It is a series of letters written from one more experienced 'devil' to his nephew, trying to help him corrupt a human.

This book is quite interesting. Some time ago I tried to read it but couldn't get into it. I don't remember why, quite possibly because I got distracted. I started reading it again a couple of weeks ago and found it quite interesting. I finished it last night before falling asleep


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Hi Everyone

July 29th 2009 16:01
Note: I've decided to do one last Dear Diary. This way it will be somewhat more wrapped up and not just end; I'll be tying down a couple loose threads and making it feel more like an ending.

I had a good night last night; went out and partied with friends on the beach. Saw some people screwed up on drugs-they're always funny-and some beautiful water. Got to watch the sun set, this time, on the beach


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Dear Diary 1

July 1st 2009 15:12
Dear Diary,
Though they hail me a great warrior I grow sick of this fight; we all hav our beliefs, why can't we just accept it? Fidolius and Appollinia can never fully be one. Not after the scars that tore the countries apart centuries ago. And we Elves would never submit to a human ruler, nor to be made to worship Fidolian Gods.

[ 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


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Writers Read

December 24th 2008 13:01
Part of becoming a better writer is reading; not just books about writing, though those are good, but books in your genre, outside your genre, nonfiction, everything and anything. They can show you how to put a book together; how to write back cover copy; how to weave stories. Nonfiction can teach you, can generate ideas, et cetera.

For those of us who are broke (like myself), or who want to read books under public domain but not buy them for whatever reason, this is a great resource to help you read


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