Tag: NaNoWriMo 2014

How to come up with a book idea.

You have a goal to write a novel. Perhaps you want to do so in one month’s time. You are pumped and ready to go. You sit down at your keyboard and

 

 

 

You got it, nothing happens. Blank. Headache. Pit level feeling of nausea. Despair.

I know of what I speak. I think I just proved that. What do do about it.

How to come up with a book idea.

Thousands of books are unleashed upon the world every day. Therefore there must be thousands of ideas floating around out there somewhere. But you want yours to be original and not a copy of someone else. I get that, I really do. I actually avoid reading at times because I want my story to be my story.

How do I come up with ideas?

I’ve written perhaps . . . well we’ll say in the double digit numbers of books, ranging from children’s fantasy to adult paranormal detective. A lot of weird ideas float around in this bruised brain of mine.

  • I wrote a little girl a bedtime story that turned into perhaps 5 fantasy books.
  • A book I am working on now I found the bases of from a literary agent who said what they would like to see. It clicked with me and I in turn knew exactly who to use as a model for the main character, at least visually. And the story has gone from there and into more stories.
  • I took a prompt challenge to write a scary story, which isn’t my style, but the short story came out pretty good. I am thinking of expanding it.
  • I have  a favorite video game that I spun off into a YA science fiction/action novel.
    • This is probably an easy one to let yourself loose on. You know what you like about the video game and you have thought about it being real in your mind. Put that on paper, but of course change it up so it’s not the video game but your own world with your own names and creations. You are the hero or heroine or whatever. I wonder how many novels Zelda has inspired.
  • If you must, look at an old story, a classic novel, or your favorite book, and put it into a different setting. Take Gone with the Wind as an example. Take that and put it in the future and have the war be over some type of whatever that might be valuable or maybe a piece of land that whoever controls it controls all of the lands around it and thus controls that realm. Just make sure you make it your own story, names and all.
  • Write about yourself. Who do you know better than you? Turn yourself into a character and write a book about you. Perhaps you are a hero or perhaps you are named President of the USA. Think about that. What would you really do and include humorous things as well as serious. Be sarcastic if you like or very matter of fact about things you would do that just make sense to you to solve world problems.
  • Just looking around you, your friends, events that happen in your area, world events, relationships you have with your family, all of these things can be turned into books. For some you just turn the things up a notch or three. You amplify or pump up what is real and turn it into the fantastic and overboard type things. Sure you can keep it real if you like, but if you just want to have fun, have fun.
  • Is there an unfairness that you see that you want to change? Write about it and how it affects you and what you would do to change it.
  • Is there a recent national event that happened in your area? Write a book based on that and use your emotions and your knowledge of it to tell your point of view. It can be a work of fiction just based on the events.

There are a lot of ways to come up with an idea for a book. These are just a few and perhaps not even a great few. But I know people are sitting and thinking about writing a book and are frozen in place. Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you about writing a book, about getting that idea going. You ready? Write. You see that advice all the time. Write. The reason you see it is because when you start writing the thoughts start flowing and your brain kicks into gear. And guess what? If you don’t like what you write, who will know? You don’t have to share it. Write.

 

I hope this gives you a way to jump start your own thoughts into how you can come up with an idea.

 

Ronovan

Ron_LWI

 

 

 

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Living NaNoWriMo and the writer’s life

Surviving Living NaNoWriMo

 

Writing

 

I am thrilled and excited, vicariously, that is, by NaNoWriMo. Time does not permit my participation and thus prompted my thinking of time and what the participants of NaNoRiMo will be going through, which led to this post.

This is what I figure, this is a month of creating, not just the novel you are writing, but habits which will inform your writing life. So why not start as if you intend to continue.

 1        Fuel up

Let’s begin with an obvious and necessary element. Remember to eat and eat healthy. I know from personal experience, the excitement of jumping into a project first thing in the morning and before I know it, it’s way past lunch time, starving, grumpy (yep, that’s me) and less than productive.

So, take time to eat – it provides fuel to the creative mind of yours.

 

2          Rest

Have enough sleep. Not catnap (though if you need to, go for it) but solid sleep by which I mean sleep when your body requires it in uninterrupted blocks of at least 4 hours.

Optimal sleep patterns improves consolidation and organization of information. When we sleep, our amazing brain works to ‘cement’ the links and correlation of bits of information, which means for us writers, after a good night’s sleep, the way ahead becomes clearer, and it increases our capacity to re-interpret information to reach novel, non-obvious conclusions. And that my friends, is creativity.

Sleep helps us to handle stress better. Seems most appropriate for NaNoWriMo, does it not ?  🙂

 

3          Breathe

When you hit the metaphoric brick wall, or even when ideas and/or sentences are not forming as you please/wish, when you feel that frustration forming…stop. You probably know being agitated is not conducive to writing. Hitting your head against the wall can only give you a sore head… so do something else to get around that brick wall.

Stop and breathe.

I practice mindfulness. It is not so much meditation but rather a habit. It is a simple exercise but to master it requires practice.

Begin with this:- stay where you are, notice you are breathing, and focus your attention to it. Lengthen each breath … and feel the breath as you inhale and exhale.  Yes, the plot is still bugging you, the characters don’t seem right… well, let those thoughts go by and pay no attention to them, but instead on your breath for 5-10 minutes. Once you feel calm and centred, you are ready to resume.

 

4           Move

When you feel you are running out of steam, and you will no doubt during this period, move. Get up and stretch your legs. And while you are at it, don’t be a ‘walking worry’ or ‘stomping stress’. Alright, I stomp around when I am stressed, so I catch myself and re-set my system, often. Anyway, when away from the writing, go admire the flowers in your garden, frolic with the cats, cook a delicious meal savouring the aromas…do them mindfully that is, with attention. Don’t be distracted by the writing you’ve put aside intentionally.

I do mindful espresso making and drinking…there is something meditative about it. Perhaps I should clarify, I use a manual espresso machine and I love the manual process… it engages my 5 senses. Bliss! Not sure about the movement part except I do walk around my home with the cup of espresso, surveying my domain :-).

Any movement, large or small, re-energises.

 

5          Socialise

For this month while it may seem counter-intuitive given you have to write 50,000 words, it is probably more important that you take time to engage with your community.

Connect with your fellow writers, within or away from NaNoWriMo. By all means talk about what you are doing, discuss your frustration or your ideas… Writers have always had communities. When we hang around each other, we get inspired, we feel a sense of solidarity and identity…it is in communities that ideas are generated and shaped.

Creativity takes shape in a social context, focused socialisation sparks creativity.

So, remember to spend time with your writing friends.

 

LIVE this month of NaNoWriMo as a writer would, don’t just survive :-).

Enjoy, revel and flourish!

 

Wishing you well
– Florence

 

© 2014 Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

LWI #Tips for #NaNoWriMo and authors and #AmWriting people everywhere.

What kind of Literary oriented site would we be, an author centered environment without mention today of . .  .

NaNoWriMo 2014

nanowrimo

I’m actually taking part for the first time. Other member of LWI are involved as well. A lot of us think it will be difficult, yet we do blogs where we write more than 1700 words per day on average. The challenge here is that we write those words in the form of a story that links together 50,000 words.

Here are links to tips from our LWI crew and one of our friends who has gone through this before.

From Author Jo Robinson:

NaNoWriMo Time

Get great Survival Tips from Jo, who should know, so read before you go.

From Author P.S. Bartlett:

Here is my personal list of advice for you for NanoWrimo

Another one who knows of what she speaks. Nice reminder to take bathroom breaks.

 

From Author Jenna Willett:

Jen’s Top 10 NaNoWriMo Tips

“I volunteer as tribute?” I have no idea what she means. I am frightened.

 

From me

Stop With an Idea

Basically stop writing for the day before your brain does.

 

There will be more tips as the days go by. Some good, and some perhaps just fun ones. Okay, and some fun good ones.

Good Luck To the NaNo people, and good luck to the writers out there who can use these tips just the same. Writing is writing.

Write like a NaNoWriMo and get that novel done.

 

Much Respect

Ronovan

Ron_LWI

 

 

 

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2014 © Copyright-All rights reserved by litworldinterviews.wordpress.com

 

NaNoWriMo Time

I took part in the NaNoWriMo event in 2012, and completing that crazy, epic sprint to the end taught me more than I expected about the job of writing. First and foremost is the daily word quota. The more you fall behind, the less chance you have of catching up, and writing just under 1 700 words a day seems daunting. The thing is, that most of us write more words than that every day without thinking about it. We blog, we interview, we write bits of our works in process. It’s absolutely doable though.

The beauty of the NaNo is that you get to leave chunks out. You just pop over anything you’re not sure of and write on, because editing during NaNo is death. The urge to go back and at least read over what I’d written so far nearly took me out, but I knew that if I did I’d get to editing, and that would mean I’d never make it. NO editing. That month taught me that ongoing over-editing can cause more grammar problems than not editing your first draft at all. I only decided to join at the last minute, so I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write apart from the fact that I was going to write in a genre that I didn’t think I could. I had no idea from one minute to the next where the story would go, or if it would be absolute garbage in the end.

At the end of that November I had completed just over 50 000 words of a book I loved. I found that I loved writing in a genre I believed that I would be hopeless at, and had the beginning of a series that is now well on its way to book four being published in early 2015. To any of you thinking of having a first try at the NaNoWriMo this year, I say a hearty Go For It! You’ll learn to write every day to meet your personal goals. You’ll be way too busy to angst over all the writing things we usually angst over. You’ll feel the warm camaraderie of fellow scribblers from around the globe. And if you win – well then, you’ll have a novel to edit. A couple of tips I learned from my NaNo month….

• Tell your family what you’ll be doing, and ask for their support. Let them know that there probably won’t be any homemade pudding or cookies in November. Suggest that there might be days when you aren’t going to brush your hair, and expressions of repulsion aren’t conducive to a happy muse. Support will be key this month.

• Whatever you’re cooking now, cook more and freeze what you can. You’re going to be far too wrapped up in your story to chop and peel anything. I froze piles of fillings, and pancakes were so prevalent during my frantic scribbling month that they were banished for a long while afterwards.

• Don’t feel guilty – it’s only a month, and perhaps you’ll be better appreciated for all that you usually do after a month of eyeballs firmly on computer. Prepare for a month that’s all about you and your writing.

• I never did this, but it would have made my life a lot easier. Write an outline and a rough cast of characters now. Think of where your story will play out – think scenes and settings. Plan your ending so that you can work towards it as soon as you type your first word.

• Keep a notebook and jot down important scenes, names or anything you’ll need to remember later in the book, because you don’t want to be wasting time reading through what you’ve written to find anything during the process.

• Don’t edit. At all. Really.

• Make a rough cover now to inspire you. You can change it later.

• Plan to have fun with it. When you hit that word target you’re going to feel on top of the world, and NaNo rewards their winners with quite a lot of writerly swag, deals, and a gorgeous badge to share your impressive accomplishment with the world.

• Go for it. You have all to gain and nothing to lose.

nanowrimo