Tag Archives: creative writing

Yes I’m alive

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Daily Drivel

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I know those that follow my blog will realize that a bunch of posts disappeared this evening. For those of you that may be concerned, know their removal was completely intentional. I realize this has caused some big gaps of time in the archive, but rest assured that there is a good reason. All those private passworded posts have been added to, and have finally morphed themselves into a novel, that will hopefully be ready for release sometime in late August 2017.

I understand that I should make more time to blog, but the majority of my writing efforts have been put into finishing and editing the novel that is now titled Hereafter. I now have a website devoted solely to my writing at: aurorawildey.com and that means that this blog will mostly likely be used from now on for posts of a more personal nature. I hope you will all stay tuned during the revamp, and follow my other blog to keep up with my writing related endeavors.

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Almost camp time again…

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Creative Writing, Daily Drivel, Escape From Reality, Fun Stuff, My Writing, NaNoWriMo, Random Tangents, Random Thoughts, Randomness, Writing

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CNW_Participant

 

Yes it’s almost that time again…

I’ll be joining the usual list of suspects as a member of Silver Beaver Cabin for the third session of Camp NaNoWriMo in a row April 1st-30th of this year. Camp is a little more relaxed an affair than regular NaNoWriMo in November of each year. Not only can you set your own word count goal, but you can also choose to work on what inspires you whether it be fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, book covers, or illustrations. Being able to set your own goal, can also make it a good test run for people that want to attempt NaNo, without all the pressure of the 50k goal right from the beginning.

My project for this session of camp seems to be coming out quite differently than normal. I know my setting, and a rather detailed cast of characters, and I have a general idea of who they are and how they relate to one another. What is the issue then? I have no plot. To quote Chris Baty: “No plot, no problem.”

I am what we NaNoers like to call a “Pantser.”

I write entire novels by pulling them out of thin air as I go along. Rarely if ever, is anything I write planned in advance, except brief little snippets of scenes throughout the story I have foreseen ahead of time. The getting from point A to point B stuff is always an interesting feat for me. I’ve been known to skip or gloss over entire sections of novels to keep momentum getting to the next part when I don’t know what to write in between two sections. Loss of momentum, not just perfectionism is what kills many stories before they even see light of day.

That’s the point of NaNo, get it on paper, go back and fix it later…

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes…mistakes are what editing is for. You can’t be afraid of writing something that completely sucks in the beginning. Everyone, even a lot of famous authors are convinced that their first drafts are drivel. (and they usually are)

Get it on paper, save the fear and self loathing for this masochistic thing we like to call editing…that comes in December…or May…or August.

See you all at Camp! Someone better save me some smores!

Why write about the hard stuff?

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by in Creative Writing, Daily Drivel, Faith, In Hindsight, My Writing, NaNoWriMo, Random Thoughts

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1_hope_quotes_love.com_Someone asked me recently why a lot of the stories I write contain such damaged characters. I’ve been asked more than once why the stories often have a melancholy tone, or deal with difficult subjects. I’m sure many people are skilled at writing stories that are sunny escapeism, but those don’t seem to be the sort of characters that come to me with stories to tell.

I get the inspiration for my stories through a variety of places, music, dreams, and sometimes stories of their own lives that people have told me over the years, though no one character in my novels exactly resembles any one specific person. Sometimes when one of my characters deals with a difficult past, or a disturbing situation, it may be as simple as trying to work those thoughts, or that situation out in my own mind. I will likely never tell which ones are real, and which ones only happened on paper unless asked by someone privately to tell them.

Sometimes the point is to not ignore or gloss over the difficult things in life, but to learn to live on in spite of them. Living on afterward is not always easy, but hopefully in the end, these stories prove there is hope, that as long as life continues that better days are surely coming. Perfect days do not exist surely, but better ones…