Category Archives: Other Projects

Is There A Cliff I Can Jump Off?

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The whole time I read Stab My Back, I felt like jumping off a cliff.  I’ve never read something so funny in my life.  While I expected that it would be bad, I never expected it to be so hilariously bad.  I kid you not, I couldn’t stop laughing, especially for the 1st half of it.  I figured out what I wanted to do with it, and where I wanted it to go after about 25k.  I’m still not completely sure what it’s about, but what I’ve managed to figure out, it’s about this girl betrayed by her friends and family, and she has to lead the magical world to…something.  So here’s a sample of what I found:

  • adttingrer picking them up.  (and once you do that, Izzie, can put the pieces together after picking them up?) 
  • I would look fairly unrecognizable, rather unlike myself.  (that would be the point of disguising yourself, yes?)
  • So, I aslked for an paplicatrion (You asked for what?)
  • I hated not knowing things- and when I did know things, I only knew aprts of things, and not the whole thing, so the pieces of things I did know did not make sense uintil after theyt happened.  Unless I happened to know the whole thing, which was not very often (can I go jump off that cliff now?)
  • a pink and white swirl of light swirled around us.   (Swirling colors swirl?  You’re kidding me.)
  • This was all so confusing.  And I hated being confused, because being confused meant that things were confuising.  (Yes, I’d like to speak to the manager of the department of redundancy department manager.)

And believe me, there’s more where that came from.  I seriously felt the need to bang my head against the wall.  Because this is what happens when 1- you write 100,000 words in one month, especially for the 1st time, and 2- when you start a new novel a few days in, with no idea of what I’m writing about.  I may have to try it again sometime, just to see what would happen.

Pacts

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So yesterday, I did a little planning for one of my untitled plot bunnies- the one about the pact that has far-reaching consequences.

  • so the two friends are Poppy River Addison and Jordan Connor Scott, and they’ve been best friends since they were little
  • Jordan gets left behind in the wake of what happens
  • I have no idea what happens yet, or what the pact entails
  • of course, it changes everything for her friends and family
  • Jordan feels guilty because he couldn’t protect her
  • she left behind journals and letters so he would understand what happened
  • It’s going to go back and forth between present time and her letters and journal entries

While I don’t know for sure what exactly this pact is, the notes I’ve come up with point to Jordan protecting Poppy from something and not being able to.  I also have the distinct feeling she didn’t tell him everything, because she feels like leaving her journals and letters to him will help him understand and deal with what happened to her.

I definitely need to come up with friends and family.  Alternating between letters and the present time will be an interesting challenge for me because I’ve (usually) stuck to present time, and going back and forth between past and present will be a lot different.  I’ve done the occassional flashback, so it’ll be interesting to see how it actually turns out.  And NaNo is the perfect time to try something new.  I’m pretty excited about this one now because it’ll test the relationships of everyone that she left behind and how one event/pact can change everything.

When Plot Bunnies Attack, Part 3

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Today’s edition is about some of the plot bunnies I have just floating around.

  • some variation of a girl who is trying to get away from a terrible home situation; she gets out of it by either leaving in the middle of the night or is saved by someone that she’ll eventually fall in love with
  • one plot bunny I found was about a girl who moves to Starville for school and falls in love with an EMT

I also have a few plot bunnies that came from the most fabulous group of people that I spend my Saturday mornings with, so I didn’t actually come up with these ideas myself.

  • fictional autobiography of someone- using a real person, but making up their life story
  • someone who gets dragged into something (I have accidental spy written down); they’re incompetent but get the job done
  • an amateur detective solving something small (like who stole their wallet) but instead solve something big (like a homicide) 
  • a teen comedy

I definitely will not be working on any of the above ideas for the next year, as I have 6 different novels and 3 potential novels.  Plus, the first couple ideas, I’ve completely lost interest in because it’s something that I’ve gotten out of my system by now.  The ones from the brainstorming thing with my saturday morning grow don’t interest me at the moment, but I’ll just leave them in case they ever grab my attention.

When Plot Bunnies Attack, Part Two

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So today’s post is about the original, non-NaNo stories and the poetry I found.

The first story I found is about a girl who had an alcoholic/abusive father.  She and her mom left, and started a new life, and the girl ends up getting accepted into a prestigious performing arts school, and follows her through her junior and senior year of high school.  It was posted over at fictionpress, so I had to consolidate everything into one file, but it wasn’t too bad, since it’s only around 4100 words.  I skimmed it, and it could definitely use some work, but it’s not something I’m interested in working on anytime soon.   

The other story I found was this girl who leaves home because she can’t handle having to take care of her grandparents.  It’s around 9500 words.  I definitely won’t be working on it anytime soon, since I’m bored with the whole theme of a girl with a terrible home life leaving home.

And poetry!  I used to write quite a bit of it, and I started reading a few of them.  It was rather depressing, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of it was about death and hate and sadness.  I apparently had a lot of trouble dealing with what was going on during the couple years I wrote all of it.  I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to writing poetry, so I’ll wait it out and see if it ever strikes my fancy.

There will be a 3rd installment of when plot bunnies attack in which I will talk about the different plot bunnies I’ve accumulated and actually found.

When Plot Bunnies Attack, Part One

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I haven’t written much, other than a couple hundred words or so for Wildflower.

But I’ve been very productive in other ways- I finally went through the notebooks sitting in my writing drawer in my desk, and consolidated all of my ideas, weird dreams, interesting things I’ve seen and heard, and interesting people I’ve come across into one file, currently saved in my brand new writing folder on my laptop.  I also have a written copy in my magical writing binder. 

I also went through the stuff I wrote in high school and my 1st couple years of college.  I found 3 Harry Potter fanfics, 2 original novels, and a bunch of poetry. 

I found a Fred/Hermione story, which got to around 33,000 words (around 45 chapters or so).  And because I posted it over at fanfiction.net, each chapter was in a separate document, so consolidating them into one file was mildly annoying.  I only read certain parts, but it’s really not that bad, considering it was my first attempt at writing anything, much less something that long.  I’ve read most of it, and decided it’s something I want to pick up again, especially since I invested a couple years into it. 

I also found a Draco/Hermione story, which was around 3200 words before I pretty much abandoned it.  And like the previous story, it was posted on fanfiction.net, so every chapter was in a separate document, but it wasn’t too annoying consolidating it.  I’ve only skimmed it, but I’ve definitely decided I want to keep working on it as well. 

The last fanfiction I found was Snape and Tonks, and while never posted over at ff.net, I think at some point I was planning on posting it, because yet again, the chapters were in individual documents.  Since it was only 2 or 3 chapters, consolidating wasn’t bad at all.  And according to a note at the beginning of the 1st chapter, it was supposed to be a side story to the Fred/Hermione one mentioned above.  I’ve skimmed it, and I will work on it, I just don’t know how much. 

Random story: I knew I had started working on the Snape/Tonks one, but couldn’t find it anywhere, until I got the brilliant idea of going through the stack of cd’s I have sitting in a shoebox.  I couldn’t find it on any of the cd’s, so I thought I’d go through the box of…FLOPPY DISKS I had in the shoebox.  Until I realized I had no way of seeing what was on them.  And then I found a floppy disk drive in my desk- just plug it into your computer, and all of a sudden, you can use a floppy disk!  I found it on the 2nd one I went through, before throwing it into the shoebox.

Historical Fiction

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Unfortunately, I haven’t been as productive as I’d like, so not much got done in the way of writing. 

What I do have, however, is another potential project.  Historical fiction popped into my head the other day, and it certainly posed some interesting problems.  One: I love history, so narrowing it down to one time period would certainly be hard.  Two: I’d have to do research.  The amount of research would depend on which time period I go with.  Three: Knowing me, I’d get way to involved with the research, and not focus enough on getting the story out.

That being said, I could always attempt to ignore most of the research I’ve done, or do just enough research to get me through the first draft.  Tudor or Elizabethan England is definitely one of my choices, as is the American Civil War, something set in ancient Rome or Greece, and something set in medieval france.  Or possibly the early middle ages, or anthing set in the U.S. before the 1950’s. 

Right now, I’m leaning towards something set during Henry the 8th’s reign or something during Elizabeth the 1st’s reign because I have a few books on the time period, so researching the time period wouldn’t be too hard.    

I’ll definitely be doing some research, quite a bit, by the looks of it.  I may end up with a few novels to plan, by the looks of it, so it looks like I’ll have plenty of potential novels.

Historical fiction scares me a little, because it’s something I’ve never tried before, and it’d have to be detailed and at least somewhat well-researched.  On the other hand, it’s something new, and there’s no better time than NaNo to try something new.

Plot Bunnies!

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Sometimes plot bunnies are great, especially when they come out of nowhere.  However, sometimes they show up at the worst time.  They usually right before NaNo or sometime during November, and never when I’m trying to come up with ideas, so I try to remember different people I see or ideas that pop into my head. 

I have a few ideas in my binder, and I think I have a document or two saved on my USB drive, so I’ll have to compile everything into one document. 

I’ll be working on my plot bunnies.  I’m still not sure if I’m going to be saving them for November, or if I’ll work on them before that, so I’ll start planning them and see how it works out.  I want to save them for November, though, because that’s my best bet for getting anything done.  And for now, I have enough to work on, so I’ll wait and see.

My first idea came from watching this one special on the History Channel, about whether there’s a presidents book of secrets and what would be in it.  In the special, they were talking about how there was one agency that was kept from the public for a long time, and also about whether there’s stuff the president doesn’t know.  An agency that was so secret that even the president doesn’t know about it would make an interesting premise for a novel. 

My other idea came from a book called The Pact by Jodi Picoult.  I’m not going to go into details about the plot of the novel, as it’s in my top 10 books.  I don’t want to be redundant or anything.  What if there were two friends who made some kind of pact that had serious consquences?

I’m definitely looking foward to working on these ideas, and it’ll be nice to have something new to work on.  I’m not sure how often I’ll work on them, just here and there.  I haven’t done any writing today, but I’m not going to worry about not writing every once in a while.