In-Thread Writing Competition - part 5

Hi all, don't forget to check out the In-thread writing competition part 5! You can see my entry and get to the competition page by clicking here. Rules are as always, that the story must be 150 words exactly, no more, no less. The words for this week's competition are: questionnaire, dictator, riding, penguin and troop.
Happy Writing!

Hit the 1500 word mark!

I hit the 1500 word mark on my novel. A total of 1588 actually. It's still the rough draft, which will need a lot of re-writing and editing, but it's a good start. I find it good to walk away from it when I know exactly what comes next, and I'm excited to write about it... That way when I sit back down to keep going, I'm not staring at a blank page. It keeps me pumped up about getting back to it. I suppose the same argument could be made for not leaving the work when you are still passionate about it, but so far this works for me.

New Contest Entry

I entered another writing contest on writing.com. I didn't win, but I got some great feedback from it. If you get a chance, check out my entry by clicking here - or check it out on my contest entry page. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

What a way to wake up!

I woke up this morning, groggily rolled out of bed to find, a special someone had sneaked into my apartment and left a hot fresh Timmy's by my computer. (Tim Hortons, it's a Canadian thing). I opened up my email to find I had won my first contest on writing.com! And the feedback! Wow, there are some awesome people out there who really take the time to leave encouraging words of wisdom. You can check out my winning contest entry here, or view it through my "Contest Entry" page above.
I was hoping the rest of the day would hold on to the awesomeness of the early morning, but my tea pot exploded all over my counter - so i guess it's back to business as usual.

Stretching to pat my own back

I finished my goal of outlining all parts of my novel, that I have figured out, up to this point. I also managed to add 458 words to the novel writing itself, bringing me to a grand total of 958 words. Of course 90% of those words will probably be thrown in the trash can during editing, but what the hell... you can't edit what's not there, right?
In addition to my oh-so-very-productive-novel-writing-bout, I also managed to sneak in the time for a brief writing contest, a visit to my mom and I watched the golden globe awards. My life is so exciting, how do I contain myself?
For now I'll be running a hot bath and mulling over what happens next in my novel while I soak.
Check out the Contest entries above and follow the link to read my latest piece of work.

Outlining by storyline

I tried with my novel, to just write and write. I really did try. But I got easily confused. I have 4 hooks/threads going at once and a hard time figuring out how to introduce them, keep them in order, integrate them, and know what should go where and when. Plus I still have a lot of unanswered questions as to what happens with certain characters, plot-lines and back story. So I consulted the experts, both in physical published format and in cyberspace.
I took a plethora of ideas and "how-to's" and made them my own. Instead of doing an outline and following it according to the experts, I did an outline for each hook/thread. Being the visual and gadget-happy person that I am, I used colorful paper, and trinkets and such to divide each section and started actual outlining.
The results? PRODUCTIVITY! I had fun filling in the blanks, I progressed the plot while answering each question, and made notes for myself explaining what scenes needed more thought and solutions.
I'm hoping that by tomorrow, I have entered into my pretty-little-outline-pages, all the information on my novel that I have floating around in my head. I'm not going to assign myself the unattainable goal of finishing my outline by tomorrow, just the parts I'm already sure about(and can easily change should some parts take on a different direction).
So a big ol' YAY ME!

New page to check out

Being a total newbie at blogging and all this fun technical stuff, I'm quite proud of myself for getting the new page working on my blog. (See Writing Contests above). A big shout out to Stories Inc. who gave me the awesome idea, and for having such a great blog layout to get ideas from. In the meantime I must apologize to all who saw many new posts show up in their threads today, my bad, like I said, I'm new at this:)

So if you get a moment, read my contest entries and give me a little feedback if you would be so kind.

Does your writing scare you??

I recently entered a contest on writing.com that has me a tad bit worried. I begin to wonder if Stephen King ever re-read his own work and thought to himself "Dang! I am one twisted F%ck!"
Have you ever written anything that has scared you? Something that has made you wonder what dark recesses of your mind came up with that story? Have you ever written something that has made you wonder if you need deep psychological help?
I would love to hear that I'm not the only one out there that is disturbed by what comes out of them when writing.

New contest

Big thanks to Stories Inc. for the lovely award posted in my last entry. As part of my prize for winning the last contest, I get to host the next competition. Check it out here!
Remember that it must be 150 words, no more/no less. And the story must contain the 5 following random generated words:

Mixing
Business
Eye
Grind
Urge

Have fun and Good Luck!

I won! I won!

I won the in-thread writing contest! Big thanks to Diego for informing me of the win. My prize is to determine the next contest's outline, and I have no idea what to do for it. In fact, I'm not even sure where to go to get started. I'm sure I will prevail at some point. To view the contest and the complete thread check it out here.

What is your novel about?

If you happen to mention to someone that you're writing a novel, the question of "What is the story about" is bound to follow. I personally have a really hard time with this answer. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, so many twists, turns and sub-stories that a brief 1 minute explanation just would not do.

So an exercise was generated after this very issue came up. In between 200-250 words, what is your novel about? Write it out for yourself, not for anyone else. Don't worry about sentence structure or proper tenses, just do it for you.

Let me know how it goes!

Happy New Year!

It’s time to dust off those keyboards, remove the cobwebs from our piles of motivation and file away our stocks in procrastination. Happy New Year! I’m sure all writers out there are listing up a tome of New Year’s resolutions to spent more time writing, finish that book, getting published… whatever it may be.

Here’s hoping you are successful in all of your endeavors for 2011!