52,000 words and still writing

Well the National Novel Writing Month is drawing to an end. I am really happy with this years progress. I am currently over 52,000 words and I still have to finish the ending chapters for the story. I can see this novel going to 60,000 words easily on this one. I may have to draft a sequel as I have many unfinished stories running in the main novel.

Still I feel really great about the progress. After all isn't life just a series of unfinished stories?

I settled for three separate story lines in the book. I have two main characters and then six sub characters in the book. I lost count on smaller characters a week ago, but suffice to say that there are plenty of minor characters to keep the story moving along. I have three deaths in the novel and two main plots one of which includes the total destruction of the earth as we know it!

I won't spoil the end of the book, as I have not written it yet! But hopefully it will have the ending that a story like this deserves. Next comes the hard part. I will print it off and read through the story to see where it falls apart. Once I have the timelines fixed I will find the details that remain unfinished in the story and fix those as well. Hopefully by the end of January I will have a working novel to sell. We shall see how things turn out. I have also decided to post a series of short stories here and on my Deviant Art page as well.

When next we meet here on the site I hope to have a more informative article for your enjoyment. Keep on writing and have a great week!

-Allan

Location:Hiawatha, Iowa

NaNoWriMo Day Ten

Well I am entering day ten in the contest for the month of November. My novel is going rather well and I am ahead of schedule by 5 full days. I hope to maintain this lead but I may slip a bit as I have a couple of really busy days ahead of me next week.

Still I think that the worst of the story is behind me, the plot is going along and I have already killed off not one but two characters in my novel.

In this contest other people offer challenges to other writers, one of these challenges is to include in the story that a person was killed with a traveling shovel. I am not sure what that is but I am going to include it in my story. I figure that I can always edit it out later on.

But to keep you entertained I am including in this post the 1700 word story that my new novel is based on. Happy reading and be sure to let me know what you think:

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The Mists Short Story
By Allan Zieser



Preface:

This is a short story that I created as part of my participation in the Annual NaNoWriMO that is held every year. For those not failure with the event it involves writing a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days from start to finish. This event is open to all who wish to participate at no cost. It is a fun time if you get involved with your local writing group.

In the past had been creating novels off the top of my head without the benefits of using an outline. But this year I decided to create a basic story to work off of for the novel. I think that the main advantage of having a base story to work from is that you are more prepared for each days writing. Planning becomes more a mater of reading a paragraph or two and then adding in the additional details that are missing from the short story.

So after I finish writing the final novel I will offer it for sale here as well. If you like this story then I am sure that you will also like the novel. I envision that it will be significantly different in the details of the story, but the premise should remain intact.

For more information on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) please visit www.nanowrimo.org.



The Mists ( Short Story Version)

The mist rained down upon the mossy banks of the Monatumba river in western Plaintown. Of course it always was misting or raining or outright pouring down on Plaintown. In fact it had rained non-stop since the settlers arrived some twenty years ago. The Earth built terrabots were busily transforming the alien soil into land suitable for growing the Earth based foods that the settlers needed to survive.

Carla had been born in Plaintown since the arrival of the settlers and had never known a day without rain of some sorts. Still for all of the rain she remained a happy child. I guess it is fair to say that a person's attitude can be based on things other than the local weather and surroundings. Carla's attitude was based on her love for her parents and the other settlers as well. The pre-fabricated dwelling Carla and her family lived in had been created by people that Carla had never met on a world that she would, most likely, never know.

Life here had been really hard on her parents, after their arrival here on the rainy planet they had developed an illness that forced them to isolate themselves from their children. For some reason none of Carla's generation had been susceptible to this mysterious illness. Still the settlers remained in their habitat sealed off from the group, while Carla and the others performed daily chores. The children were able to communicate with their parents via radio and the computers in the habitats and vehicles.

When Carla and the other Children were old enough the parents suggested that they should move out of the settlement. It was explained that in this way the parents could resume there outdoor lives while the children would remain at a safe distance.

It was with a sad heart that Carla and the other children disconnected from their parents and ventured into the rainy world to start their own community.

After several days of moving along the river they came to a sheltered cove that had been pre-selected by the main site computers. Clara and the others took their bio-scanners and checked the surrounding areas for any signs of possibly harmful life. Having found none they set to work on their new group site.

Carla had decided before the journey that she would choose Mark as her living partner. Having been artificially birthed after the landing and raised by the robot nannies in the home colony all of the children were of the same age give or take a few days.

Mark had just reached his 19th anniversary day for his birth just a few days after Carla. Mark and Carla had been best friends since childhood and it just seemed natural to both of them that they should be together.

Carla and the other children had no concept of marriage, but their parents had taught them that they should choose of a partner to live with. These partnerships were logged on the community computer systems as they occurred. Carla and the others knew that it would be important biologically to have a good record system of who was currently partnered with who in there new community.

Carla had positioned the nano-assembler unit and started the tiny bugs to work at the task of creating shelters. The design that they were using had been created on their parents computers, several of which their group brought along. Carla and Mark, as well as the others had brought with them a complete copy of their parents site library. There would be plenty of time for reading and learning.

The main issue concerning the survival of the group was food. The earth foods they depended on currently only grew inside the protective shelters. Luckily the nano-assemblers their parents had brought with them were rather good at their assigned tasks as well. They dutifully continued to create more and more nano-units as they built out the walls of the structure. In this fashion the units were done within a week of starting.

Upon completion of the new habitat structure Carla and Mark moved into their own private rooms. Carla was glad to be leaving the temporary tents that they had been living in for the past week. The main habitat building that housed the individual rooms was circular with each room being built along the outside of the ring and a common area and lift system in the middle of the building. There were ten floors including the three that were underground housing the communications and computer gear.

One day Carla was awakened by an unusually bright light over the horizon. It came from the direction of their parents living units. Could this be the fabled sunlight that her parents had told them about? She thought not as it was gone in an instant. Carla tried several time to contact their parents at their site. With no answer from the communications array Carla decided to go back to the parents site and find out what had happened.

Mark and Carla loaded up some supplies from their gardens and headed back towards the site. As they approached their parents building site Carla could not see the familiar shapes of the buildings. Carla noted their location on the units navigation screen, according to the unit she was at the location of the site. But there were no lights cutting through the jungle.

Carla drove ahead a bit and came to a fast stop when she almost drove into a deep rounded crater in the ground that was devoid of all plant life. The navigation units sparked to life with warnings of low level radiation. She yelled at Mark to hold on as she put the unit into reverse and powered her way out of the crater.

With little choice Carla and Mark drove back to their new home site and relayed the video to the others. Apparently their parents could stand it no more and had decided to end their lives rather than risk giving the mysterious disease to their children.

On the way back to their camp Carla realized that they were now very much alone here on this world. The people back on her parents planet would not likely come to find them, as they would assume that they had all been killed in some sort of accident.

After several years had passed them by, Carla and Mark and some of the other new parents in their group decided that they should move out of the protection of their habitat. The terabots had been successful in there mission and a good amount of the local land was now useful for farming with certain hardy crops that liked the rain. The remaining crops they had been able to grow successfully indoors.

As the new little group of explorers were packing they looked through the clear steel window to the outside of the shelter. To Carla the world looked different from any day that she had seen so far in her life. She motioned to Mark to follow her outside so that they could see what was happening outside.

As Carla went outside she noticed a change in the sounds of her surroundings. At first she could not figure out just what was different about this mornings sounds. But the more she listened the more she realized that it was not the presence of a sound but rather a lack of one that had started her wondering. She could not hear the patter of rain on the leaves outside. As they went outside they realized that their skin did not have the normal dampness that it had had for the past many years. In fact the leaves were dry as well. As they headed out on the path towards their new homes the people of Carla and Marks generation and their families, witnessed the most beautiful thing that they had ever seen in their lives, their first sunrise.

Afterward:

Several years later the Earth ship Exodus entered the atmosphere of the third planet from the local sun. It drifted slowly towards a cerecrete structure and docked. Having made its last voyage the ship seemed to die as they shut it down. The inhabitants of the ship donned protective suits to defend against the local suns hard radiation. They entered the structure and descended several hundred meters into the planets crust. The group left the ship and checked in with the remainder of the human population entombed in this deep underground shelter.

"Please report." said the head of the lone remaining Earth government.

"Well your honor we are proud to say mission accomplished. The children of our planet were successfully transplanted onto their new home."

"Do they have any idea of what has transpired?"

"None, they think that we were victims of a mass suicide caused by depression from our "illness". We lifted off and detonated a small device that left just enough trace radiation to be believable."

"You are sure that they have sufficient knowledge to survive life on this new world?"

"As certain as we can be. They have learned to adapt to the new planet's environment. The localized rain that we were able to induce into the area, along with selective cultivation, has allowed the terraforming bots to do their jobs. They will not have it easy, but they will adapt and continue to evolve until they are the rightful heirs of their new world."

"So we may have saved humanity after all. Let us hope that they grow and do not make the same mistakes that ruined this world of ours. Goodbye dearest Earth, we will miss thee."

The End.



About the author

Allan Zieser has been writing on and off for several years, he is the author of the writing blog "Writing For Life" found at http://azieser.blogspot.com/ .

He currently lives in the small town of Hiawatha, Iowa with his computers and the internet.

One Day Till NaNoWriMo and Tech Thoughts

Well just one more day of sanity then the writing begins. I have a good supply of electrons to begin my journey this month. In the olden days I would have a pencil to sharpen and many pages of unreadable notes to look over and review. But we live in enlightened times.

Isn't that what they always used to say all the time. Now matter what time it was they were enlightened times. In all honesty I think that any time after the invention of writing can be declared enlightened times. After all are we really any better because of all our our fancy contraptions? I think that writing and reading should be considered the actual height of mans achievements.

But not to belittle the many other inventions we have created since yesteryear. Let us take a few minutes to review some of the finer things we have received because of our quest for modernization.

1. Ozone Hole! Truly the most impressive feat as of yet. We have actually broken the planet. Talk about your instant tan, just stand under that baby and you will glow.

2. Smog. Obviously we deemed fog to be so very cool that we now have it all the time in certain areas. After all we have fog in clubs, movies and many other areas where we need the mood to be just right.

3. Melting of the polar ice cap. Well we did need a bigger ocean to swim in didn't we? And quite frankly those giant ice sheets were not helping in our ability to build houses at all.

4. Oil Spills. Yes from the ancient times of drilling we have had a wonderful assortment of oil spills to add rainbows to our oceans. Some of these spills were advertised whilst others were not. But on the bright side the seals and ducks are now some of the richest animals on the planet!

5. Giant Garbage Island! We have a patch of garbage circulating in the Pacific ocean that is bigger than the state of Texas. Weeee Doggie! I think in the future we will find a way to build houses on this and it will become the next state!

6. Space Junk! Yes we got so bored with pollution here on the earth that we actually put many tons into orbit so that we can see it always! That junk in space will be mans legacy to any other beings that happen to wander over here in the distant future. Although some of will manage to makes it's way back home via gravity sometime in the future. "It's a bird, its a plane, its a toilet!!"

There that sums up my top 6 benefits of technology. Seriously though there are some really great accomplishments over the years in the health industry. There are many people that I know that are alive today because of advances in technology myself included.

Well sorry for the rant, but I hate to leave a thought untouched. Anyway wish me luck on my novel and remember when it comes to a story or a novel you must plan ahead. I have pre-planned my novel for this month and I am already feeling much better about it than I did my previous novel.

So have a good November and I will see you on the other side!

The usefulness of the internet and your writing

Today I was writing on one of my current stories that I am working on when I came upon an idea that the main character would need to build a lie detector.

So I immediately opened up my web browser and looked up "how lie detectors work." It offered a couple of good sites that I had used before. One of them was the "How things work" site. I gathered my information and was back to writing within minutes.

After I had finished I realized just what had happened. You see in the "Old Days" If I wanted to know how one of these things worked I would have headed out to the library or a book store to find out the information. So I would have gotten into my car and drove for a few minutes to the library.

Once inside I would have searched the dewey decimal system card catalog for the term lie detectors and providing that someone had written a book with that in the name I would have found some books to look at. I would then spend a couple of hours combing the books that turned up from my initial search and writing notes.

Provided that I was lucky enough to find the information and get my notes organized I could then head back home and get back to writing my story. Of course if I was not able to find the information then I may have had to find out who manufactured these devices or local people who used them and scheduled an interview with them. That would have taken many days or weeks to get it done and most likely would not have been feasible at all due to cost considerations.

So basically the action of searching the internet, that took only a couple of minutes replaced many, many hours of work. Now these dark days of yesteryear sound like a long time off, but it was actually only in the early 90's, so within the past twenty years.

Considering the vast amounts of money and time that this now common day to day activity saves, I have come to a conclusion. My conclusion is that we are writing in perhaps the best age that writers have ever experienced. Each day I am able to gather the information that I need for my job and my writing in just a couple of seconds. I am sure that a lot of people who are writing take the speed of finding information for granted. But I, having lived through these earlier "darker" times do not.

So as you go about your day to day information searches take time to think about the amount of work you are able to avoid just by using the internet. Have a great week and keep on writing.

Pre - NaNoWriMo Update

November is fast upon us and NaNoWriMo is almost here. I have already discussed that I am participating for the second time this year, so I will not bore you with those details.

I received my invite email for this year's event and the creative juices have begun to percolate. They have updated the new site and have the scores reset back to zero.

Now I will go over the process of the event. First you start with nothing and then you start writing 50,000 words, then you're done. Well maybe it is a bit more complex than that.

The biggest hurdle for me last year was the reaching the halfway point. I was dutifully writing my 2,000 words per day as I had planned. When for no reason I decided that I was getting ahead of schedule. That was a big mistake, because from that point forward I was thinking that had already completed the novel and my numbers started to drop steadily from there.

Needless to say it caused a bit of stress the last week when I still needed 15,000 words and only had seven days to write them. Well I completed it on the last day of writing and was glad. Unlike most life lessons I shall pay attention to this one and I will be sticking to my goals sheet more carefully.

I had thought about taking some vacation to get complete days to write, however I want to take a full weeks vacation in December and I think I will have a more restful time if I am not writing during those days.

So I am planning ahead a bit more from last years voyage. I am currently planing on writing my novel called The Mists and I have a vague idea for the story line. This is about 200 times the information that I had for last years participation. In fact I did not decide to participate last year until the day prior to the start.

Not having an outline did not slow me in the least as I can be really inventive. But not having that outline did make the entire process more work than it really needed to be. I think having a good outline and a short story to go from is going to save me tons of time. It will enable me to be more creative with the story details while freeing me from the worry of losing my place.

I will post an update on a weekly basis along with select snippets from the story as it develops. I hope I will not bore you too much. Well that is all for this week so keep on writing!

Location:My Brain!

Writing for no other reason

In the past a lot of my blogs have been about giving reason to my infatuation with writing. In fact what I was trying to tell you about in all these past entries was passion.

Passion is a very difficult for many of us to describe to others. So it is difficult for me to explain why I feel the way I do, why I love to write. I was thinking the other day about this force that drives me to create works of fiction and works of fact.

There seems to be no real rhyme or reason as to why I write. I write simply because I love to write. I feel driven to place words down on paper on a daily basis. Writing is the one thing that allows me to create entire worlds using just my mind and the knowledge that it has managed to obtain over the years. I would continue to write even if no one ever read any of it. In fact the majority of my writings remain unread to this very day.

Passion is what drives most artists to pick up a brush, Passion is the force that drives the photographer spend hours working on one image to get the "perfect" shot. Yet passion can also be a hinderance to one's own creative force. Left untamed passion can force an individual to do many things that they would not normally do. Ask a criminal why they steal and they never seem to be able to tell you why. yes passion can be very elusive when it wants to be.

When you read a good story or novel it is not the words nor the descriptions of events or place that make it good. It is the passion behind what is written that causes you to like it. This is why no amount of technology will ever be able to replace the human being as a creative force. No processor, no matter how powerful will be able to come up with a sonnet, or a song, or even a simple advertising slogan.

If I am able to convey the emotions that I feel in a scene then I have done my job as a writer. I have conveyed the passion that caused me to create the work to you the reader. This task while extremely simple in concept, can be very complex in execution.

So ask me why I write and I will not make any excuses, I will tell you that I write because I write and that is all.

Have a good day and keep on writing.

NaNoWriMo starts November 1st!

Today I was thinking about subjects for my upcoming November novel writing as I participate in yet another NaNoWriMo. This is the global event where people from all over come together and write 50,000 words in just 30 days. I know it sounds like a lot, mostly because it is a lot of words to create in just 30 days. I tend to place extra stress upon myself by insisting that my words actually make some sort of sense when read.

I know that some people are just excited to be writing for 30 days straight, I am as well. But for me it is not enough just to get a basic idea down on paper, or the screen, as the case may be. I have a need for getting some sort of cohesive novel written regardless of the inevitable corrections that will occur afterward.

Last year I wrote a science fiction novel about a young man who enlists in a futuristic branch of the service only to find out that he was in way over his head. This year I was planning on writing the second book in the series, but I may decide to change it around a bit. This time around I think I will take a short story of mine called the mists and turn it into a full novel. That, for me will be more of a challenge.

The short story "The mists" is a 1500 word story, so there is not a lot of background to it. Mostly it centers around one colonist of a future world that has to leave the nest, so to speak, and make a world for herself literally. I feel that the idea behind the story makes an interesting situation and it should provide enough dangers to keep it exciting. I am hoping to make 50,000 words in 20 days instead of 30 thereby leaving me 10 days to edit.

Please keep in mind that I planned for this same amount of writing per day last year but ended up at around 1,900 per day instead. But I will stick to my goal and get as much done as I possibly can. I think that having written the short story will help because I will have a road map to follow for the entire story. Also with myself having created the world that it exists in, I will have a certain amount of creative freedom for changes.

Anyway that is all I have for this week, so have a great week and keep on writing!

Writing for less V

In this issue of writing for less I am going to talk a bit about Linux Operating systems. Maybe you have an older computer and your copy of Windows is running really slow. You may also be tired of paying out a ton of money for the privilege of operating a computer that you already had to spend money for. Well if that is the case then Linux may be for you.

From a writers standpoint it really does not matter what software you use to create your writings. Free software or open source software works just as well as the most expensive writing software on the market. Most of us are currently running Windows and have spent a lot of money over the years in upgrades. Even people who are running Mac’s have to spend more money for their upgrades and systems than they used to.

So, being frugal, I have turned to Linux on a number of my systems and I really enjoy not being under the roof of the large corporations. Linux systems have had an “App” store for a number of years and all the software in it is free! So if you need to get another machine why not choose one with free operating systems and free software?

Linux users can choose from a number of free writing software programs, Open Office is among them as is yWriter5 and Storybook. In fact the challenge with Linux actually has been choosing one program to write with. I have tried a number of them and most work excellent. You will have to look them over and find the one that meets your needs.

So there you have it free writing software and a free operating system to boot! That is all that I have for today, so keep your spirits up and keep on writing!

Writing for less IV

Today I am continuing my Writing for less series by covering another free option for your writing pleasure. Wouldn't it be neat to be able to access your writings from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection? Wouldn't be even better if you could save your documents online and have them automatically backed up for you?

Well your writing prayers have been answered, My Writing Nook is a free writing tool that is available now. This site has one of the less beautiful looking pages of any of the writing sites, but it is fully functional and free. Now the part that is a bit strange about this site is that they have a really nice looking iPad application that syncs to this same site.

I have been using the My Writing Nook iPad app and then doing some editing on the documents from my PC at home later on at night. At first I kept thinking how much better the iPad app was than the site, but it is only better looking. The excellent functionality carries over from iPad application to the website.

Did I mention that this lovely app also comes with a free dictionary, thesaurus and that it has a automatic word counter on the bottom of the page? Well it does, and these features are just the cherry on the top of this wonderful application. Also available in the iPad version are the ability to change fonts and to send your wonderful written creations to anyone you like via email. I have really enjoyed using this app and I highly recommend My Writing Nook for the iPad and any device with a browser.

The most interesting thing about the My Writing Nook app is the fact that I actually was introduced to it last summer while running the Alpha of a Linux operating system for a friend of mine. He had made a internet application for the site that I could access on my netbook. But at the time I was writing a novel using the Gmail Documents page and so I never really used the My Writing Nook site during that time. I think that not using it back then was my loss because I could have saved a lot of writing time using the My Writing Nook site.

Well that is all for today, have a wonderful night and Keep On Writing!

Writing for less III

In this exciting installment of writing for life, we will continue on our journey into the lesser things of life. Lesser in terms of cost but not in terms of value of course.

To date we have covered the old fashioned but still effective pen / pencil and paper method and last week we discussed using a program called WordPad that comes with your copy of Windows on your PC.

This we shall discuss a free option that is available to us from the wonderful people at Oracle. I am talking about the free alternative to the Microsoft Office suite, Open Office. I have been using Open Office on and off again since it was presented to the open source community, and I must say that I have been very impressed with it in terms of functionality.

Now it should be noted that the Open Office versions of programs do not contain all the functions of the Microsoft suite. But then again most people do not need most of the functions that are missing either. For a writer all of the needed components are present plus you have the ability to save your documents as a Microsoft Word format or a PDF without any extra programs.

To download Open Office simply goto Openoffice.org and look under downloads. Version 3.2.1 is the current version as of this writing. The nice people at Oracle have even been really nice about providing regular updates for this software. As with all Open Source software this project is user driven. This is because the users are also the developers and testers of this wonderful office suite.

Once you install this software you will have a complete suite of programs to choose from. You can create spreadsheets, presentations, brochures, and of course you can write. I know people who have created entire novels in this software. Some people I know have even created game systems using this wonderful, free software.

So have fun writing your novels, short stories, blogs or whatever project you are currently working on. Most importantly keep on writing.

Writing for less II

In this installment of writing for life I will cover more options available to writers for creating that perfect novel without going broke. Last installment we covered the good old pencil and paper method of writing. This is a tried and true method as we discussed last time. Today I am going to step it up a notch and bring us into the world of the computer.

I had thought about tossing in some methods that would be considered to be between the pencil and the computer, but most people these days have a computer so it seemed silly to discuss typewriters and the like.

So with the computer you have many options for purchase to write your stories, but we are trying to get cheap here and keep it as simple as is possible while still getting your writing done. Now if you have a windows PC then you already have everything you need as it comes with a program called WordPad.

WordPad is located under your accessories directory and offers everything you absolutely need to write. It will let you set the margins and choose a font to have your story or novel rendered in. It also allows you to print the document or to send it to an email program. Sounds like a great program, which is because it is a great program. So why not use it all the time? Well it is missing some useful features that many of us have become dependent on in our daily lives. One of these useful features is the infamous spellchecker. Spellchecker is a function that I am completely dependent on for my daily writing. So if you are going to use WordPad to write I would suggest purchasing a good dictionary. Come to think of it purchase a dictionary even if you are not using WordPad. Honestly how can you consider writing without a good dictionary?

Other features not found are features such as line spacing and some other optional formatting settings for writers to use. It should be noted that most publishers like your files as unformatted as is possible, so using WordPad may prove to be a great option for use in your writing.

So if you own a PC, and are interested in using a free writing program just open WordPad and start writing.

Remember keep on writing!

Writing for less

Well this week I would like to dive further into the idea of writing for less. By less I mean not having to spend an arm and a leg just to put down words on paper. When I was a child if you wanted to write something you just pulled out a pen or pencil and a piece of paper and in a couple of minutes you had your idea placed down onto paper. Publishing and distribution was easy, you just handed the paper to someone. No compatibility issues to deal with, no formatting errors at all!

This seemingly ancient method of writing goes back to the time of the Egyptians and their hieroglyphics and papyrus based paper system for writing. The reason that this simple method of writing lasted for so very many years is that is was cheap and easy to use. Enter the age of technology....

In this present era we will drive to special writing areas in our city and wait until our thousand dollar laptop computers boot up and the hundred dollar program on them launches to begin typing our wondrous creations.

These wonderful machines will check your spelling and assist you in structuring your documents. Heck there are even programs that will allow you to talk directly to your computer, eliminating the need to actually write anything at all.

Now the question that comes up the most is does all of this technology, all of this expense actually make us better writers? Are we more creative because of all the toys that we now incorporate to create our written thoughts? The answer is, of course, no. Only writing over and over again and practicing will actually make us better writers.

So when people ask me what you need to write a novel or any other document I will often tell them to sit down with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil and write a few short stories. This way they will find out if they truly enjoy writing. Now some people will know the answer to this question, as they will have been writing for most of their lives using this method already.

So in this series I will go over options for writing that do not cost as much as other, more popular options. I will present these to you so that you will know that you do not need to spend a ton of money just to write a short story. In fact the first suggestion I will make is the standard from golden days of my youth.

I suggest a 10 cent pencil and a 1.00 pad of paper. This method uses no electricity, works anywhere, is portable, and has stood the test of time.

Writing with a pencil and a pad of paper also has the advantage of time working for it. As it takes longer to write legibly, so you will be forced to consider each and every word as it hits the page. Now you may wish to purchase the optional correction unit for 30 cents in order to "erase", if you will, the mistakes that hit the paper.

Well have fun writing with your new novel creation device and let me know if it works for you as well as it used to work for me. Next time we will advance a little bit into a more complicated world of writing, but we will still be trying to save you some money where possible, as you continue your journey into world of writing.

Have fun and keep on writing!

Location:Boyson Rd NE,Cedar Rapids,United States

Writing for habit

As we travel about in life we form many habits, some of these are good habits while others are not so good. We develop these habits because we are programmed from the start to do so. Everyone on the planet has habits even if they do not want to admit that they do. So we must strive to form good habits in our daily lives or the bad ones will take over.

Some of the good habits that we can form that will assist us in our daily life as a writer can be important to our overall success as a writer. After all no one is born a great writer we all get some talents from our schooling when we are younger. It is then up to us to develop these talents into skills that will allow us to earn a living, large or small, by expressing ourselves to the general public.

Some good habits to get into include:

1. Learn a new word daily.
2. Write our daily goal of words no matter what.
3. Review our writing skills on a daily basis.
4. Back up our writing files so that we will have them for later use or publication.

Now I am not going to list the many dozens of good habits we could get into for each day. Rather I will leave the list at this small amount of topics. Your goal will be to perform these four new habits daily and without fail.

I think you will find that if you do this you will have an amazing grasp of the written word in a very short period of time.

Well that is all for today, have a great weekend!!

Writing for yourself

Writing for one’s self is an amazing challenge to take on. It is always easy to take up an assignment from someone else and carry it out. After all, the work of developing a theme or premise has already been completed for you. But when your writing is for you, a person tends to want it to be perfect. While writing the perfect novel or story is a wonderful goal it is not a reasonable one.

For me staring at that blank page can seem almost daunting. I look at it and I think to myself “Ok story get out of my head and onto that paper!” Believe it or not this technique almost never works. In fact I have had no success with it at all and I have had to resort to using my imagination.

Now luckily for me I have a finely developed imagination and I can think up stories ideas relatively fast. However putting these stories down on the written page and making sense of it can be a bit harder.

Generally when I am writing for myself I tend towards the mental side of writing. I like to think out the chapter as completely as I can, before I write it. This method however seems to make the process of putting the words down on paper a bit harder than it needs to be. The actual writing tends to take longer because I am trying to remember every little detail of the scene and how it played out in my head as I type.

For most people starting out in writing I suggest to keeping it simple. Only think about each action as it presents itself in your story and write it as fully as you can. It is much easier to work on smaller parts than to try and handle the entire chapter at one pass. Then go back after you have completed the entire chapter and make adjustments as necessary. This process will keep you from getting overwhelmed with the larger task of writing your entire story.

Don’t be afraid to experiment, after all this writing is for yourself and you are the only one you will have to impress. When you are writing for yourself it is the perfect time to adjust your writing style or maybe start into a new category of writing. Maybe you have always written romance novels but you would like to try your hand at a mystery story. Your personal writings are a perfect place to hone your skills in these new areas.

Well that is all that I have for today, have a great week and keep on writing!

Writing for character

Character development is a subject that gives many writers problems. Development of your stories characters is also the one area that you cannot afford to skimp on in your planning stage. Many times, as you are writing, you will need to go back and refer to your characters history.

So how do we develop our characters? Well I believe in a good outline at the very least and possibly some actual stories based on your characters history. If it sounds like a lot of work, that is because it is a lot of work.

Most of my characters have stories and histories that go for many pages in my development folders. A lot of this information is never revealed in the story but is present because someday I may want to revisit the story, or use the character in other related stories. This will give me a reminder of the characters history and will allow me to decide if each character is appropriate for the story at hand.

Generally I start with a simple character sheet. This is the easiest to create and it lays out some basic facts for your characters. I take a single sheet of paper for each character in my story and I write down all the physical characteristics for them. I include hair color, height, where they live, date of birth, what time they live in, education, talents, music interests, favorite color, where they work, etc. The more detailed you get with this sheet the better.

You can also create your character's bio on a computer using a notepad type program and some computer folders to store them in.

If you like you can use a more fancy program such as Microsoft's free online One Note program to do this. Also available are a number of online and offline "Mind Mapping" programs that will work as well. Just keep in mind that a simple typing program will work just as well for your writings.

Also keep in mind that you will be referring to these character sheets as you develop your story so make sure you have easy access to the program or file system that you use when you are writing.

Now take another sheet of paper, or make another computer document and work out a basic timeline for the story, be sure to include how long of a time period the story will span. For example if the story is to take place over the course of a 2 year period, then put down a start point and and end point and write the dates covered. Just add more points to this line, in the middle space,that shows major plot points in your story. Outline format will work very well for this also.

Now create smaller and more detailed timelines for each character. Include every major plat point and be sure and note exactly where each character is and what they are doing. Think of this step as the detective work for your story. You will need to be your very own CSI "Your town here". This outlining step will help you to avoid many common errors such as having the same character in multiple places at the same time. Or having a character appearing a great distance away in too short of a time period to be believable.

Then, based on your plot timelines, take each character and write down the things that they will be doing in the story during each time point. Also remember to list the skills that they have that they can use for each plot point in the story.

If your character does not have a needed skill then you have time now to decide how they will handle each event as it unfolds. If you feel that they cannot handle an event you can edit the character's history or skills on your sheet so that they can handle it better. Or you can add a new character to your story that will enable your character to handle the event utilizing the new characters talents. Basically how you handle each plot point is entirely up to you.

The main point behind all of this is that you will need to be really flexible with your characters until you get the story mostly worked out in outline form. Once you have your characters developed to the point that you are comfortable with the entire story based on your timeline, then the real work of writing begins. Using this outlining technique will save you hours of writing that will end up on "the cutting room floor".

So hopefully this will assist you in getting started with your character development. Please feel free to comment if you find this to be useful, or if you have a better way then be sure and list it below as well.

Have a great day and remember to keep on writing!

Writing for industry

This week I thought that I would touch on a topic that enters my life on a daily basis. I am talking about writing for industry.

Now regardless of what industry you work for or want to write about there are a few things that you must keep in mind. Below is a short listing of a few of them, I am sure that I am missing a lot of them but I want to keep this blog readable.

Know your facts!

First and foremost you must be sure of your facts before, and I repeat, before you publish or post your writings to the general public. Your success as a writer for any industry is dependent upon you knowing what you are talking about. Keep good notes and be ready to quote your sources to defend your work.

I recommend using a program such as Evernote (Internet Based) or One Note from Microsoft to log all of your resources and sources for your technical writings.

One Note is not free but a less powerful online version available from Microsoft. This online version is available online currently and has a fair amount of usable features. The drawback to any online only software is that you always have to have internet access to use it.

Get Permission to use materials!

This goes hand in hand with our first listing. Make sure if you are using materials from a document or web site that you have permission from the author or publisher to use it. Generally it is a simple matter to send a quick email to get permission, so be sure and do it to avoid future headaches.

Technical Definitions

Don't always assume that your readers will be reading your work with the same level of knowledge that you have in your work. After all you are writing the technical papers, while they are hoping to learn from your writings.

For this reason it is important to have a listing of technical definitions in your work for your readers to review as they come to technical concepts that may be new to them. These definitions can be inserted as footnotes or in a separate section at the back of the publication. Many of the companies that I write for have a online listing of technical terms for people to refer to as the different documents are released for public consumption.

If a subject is too broad for them to grasp from a definition then you may wish to list various sources for them to refer to as needed. Use your own personal judgement to determine how detailed you need to be in your own technical writings.

Be prepared for critics!

You will get emails, phone calls, post it notes, and many other means of communications sent to you from many people who will profess to be more knowledgeable in your field than you are. Do not let them get to you.

There are also a large amount of people on the internet who have nothing better to do than start a week long dialog with you on some little detail. I have seen many comment sections that will go for pages with one person keeping an argument alive just for the sake of doing it. My advice is to ignore the comments that are not constructive and answer, in great detail the ones that are constructive.

Follow through on your word to your readers.

If you say in your technical writings that you will be posting more information on a topic, then make sure that you do. I have read many official white papers, from many major companies that reference articles or charts that were never written or posted.

Keep it lively!

I always learn more from technical writings that are fun to read. You will also find that more people will read your works if they know that they will enjoy them. Even in the most serious of subjects there is room for a little levity.

Wrapping it up.

These are but a few of the many things you may want to keep in mind while writing for your industry. If you have any thoughts on this topic be sure and leave me a comment on it and I will get back to you.

Have a great week and keep writing.

Writing for profit

Well we have now gotten around to the topic that most people are the most excited to read about, money. Yes, it is possible to make money from your writing. Hundreds of thousands of writers are doing this every day.

Now the problem is that there are millions of people who aspire to make money writing. So the odds are that you won't make a dime from all your efforts. But does that make the act of writing a novel or story any less of an exciting thing to do? If anything the challenge makes it more exciting for me.

Writing is like potato chips. Once you start you won't want to finish until you get to the bottom of the bag. Even then you will most likely get another bag.

Food for thought;

• The more I write, the more I think about writing, the more I write. It is a vicious cycle that starts when you complete your first story. If you are bitten by the writing bug you will know what I mean.

Now as for money, more than likely you will finish your novel if you develop good writing habits and stick to your schedule. so when you do finish, you will be faced with many options like publishing or offering it for download on the various eBook readers. The good news is that there are tons of these devices and they are all looking for new content to sell. The bad news is that thousands of writers are flooding these companies with their works. So if you do offer your book for sale, be prepared to put up a promotional fight to get it noticed.

If you know some programming or can find a good service you can offer your book on the iTunes library. It is fairly easy to publish to this network and you can earn a few dollars selling your book for 99 cents per copy. Remember 99 cents times 10,000 downloads is a nice sum of money and more than most publishers will offer a first time novelist anyway.

Now if you like things the slow but tried method you can print out your manuscript and mail it out to the various publishing houses. Be prepared for tons of rejections and lots of advice from these publishers. If you decide you like the old fashioned method, consider hiring a manager that knows the industry. You can save a ton of time and effort this way. The only good thing about this older method is the advice you will sometimes help to get you on track with what is selling in the market. Remember you can write the best story in the world but if no one wants to read it... well, you get the picture.

So to recap;

• Do not expect to live off of your writing.
• Write what is popular, if you want to sell it.
• Get online or get a manager, or both.
• Do not forget to have fun writing!

That is all for today, have fun and keep writing!

Writing for summer

Well as the weather heats up for summer it is going to become harder and harder to not stay outside with each passing day. So how is a writer going to keep motivated to write during this lovely time of the year?

Here are some of my options:

• Write outside in the shade using a laptop or Ipad.
  
• Write later on at night when you are all tired out from your outdoor activities.
  
• Write less often, but write more content when you do write.
  
• Take a break during the week, and write only on the weekends.

Now these all have their issues, lets take writing outside. When you are outdoors with all of our new and wonderful devices the sun is your worst enemy. Take an Ipad or laptop outside in the sun and the screen becomes all but invisible. So you will have to find a nice shady place to write from. Also writing outside limits the availability to internet and power for your device. The Ipad with a 3G account will minimize these problems, but at a considerable expense to you. Also the Ipad is a terrible way to type.

Writing later at night seems like a more feasible idea, but you will be tired an not at your peek writing potential at that time.

Writing less often but more seems like a good solution to the problem, but it is easy to become burnt out from writing more than your normal amount of words that you have set for yourself. Also you may tend to feel rushed using this method. But still it is a good option for many of us.

The last option is perhaps the most dangerous, taking a break during the week. This will add five days worth of writing to your weekend and make for a seriously difficult time getting started back to writing. This is best saved up as an option for when you are taking a vacation to some distant destination.

Personally I will just write a bit more each day and that way I will have the flexibility of skipping days as the opportunity to do so appears.

For you kids out there summer break offers a wonderful time to get some serious writing done. Rather than sitting about wondering how to entertain yourself you can be exploring the many adventures in your mind with your daily writing. Also with self publishing available it can become an opportunity to make some summer cash as well.

But the bottom line is that no matter how you accomplish your writing goals during the summer the important thing is to keep on writing.

I would like to post an early reminder about NaNoWriMo month which is coming in November. If you plan on taking the plunge and write your 50,000 words in 30 days be sure to check out the site and get your username and page set up. After all November will be here before you know it.

Writing for clarity

Today I would like to discuss clarity of vision or lack there of in our written works.

How many times have I written or read journal postings on the web that sound like they should have a point. Unfortunately after reading some of these postings I am surprised that I will have no idea of just what that point was supposed to be.

Now in all fairness a lot of reading that I do online involve postings from friends and family involving their daily lives. So, because I know them personally these posts make sense to me. However if I were to stumble upon them without knowing the details behind these posts I would have no idea what they were talking about.

Unfortunately, I have read a lot of printed stories, and yes books, that are just like these postings. They have a story but some of the important details or background information are missing. This is a common beginners mistake in writing. When I started writing, I would type as fast as I could and try to get all of my thought down on paper before they had vanished. However upon revisiting these stories months later I would often have no idea of what I was trying to convey at the time. I had created a good framework for the story but a lot of the background information was not present to provide complete comprehension of what I was writing. In other words my story lacked clarity.

Clarity is even more important than having a good story to write. After all if I write something that I think is good and the person, that is reading it has no idea of what I am trying to say then the entire writing venture was pointless from the start. I will have failed to convey the information that I was wanting to pass on to the reader.

Now how do I know if my story has all the important background information in it? Normally I will ask someone I trust to read the story. Then I will have them tell me if they were able to follow my story with a good understanding of what I had intended it to convey. Many times I will be surprised by what they will tell me. Parts of my story or book that I thought were covered well, may have eluded them entirely. Sometimes the main message may have been missed entirely.

So in your daily writing plan ahead for your stories and be sure that you provide enough background information so that your readers will be able to fully understand them. Also be sure to enlist the aid of a good friend to read through them, before you post to the general public. If you are lucky enough to have an editor then this position in your writing world has already been filled for you.

Well that is all I have for today. Have a great day!

Writing for practice

Practice makes perfect, or so the saying goes. But practicing a skill incorrectly will only make you worse at it. So while it is important to practice our writing skills each day, it is more important to practice writing properly.

So why should we write daily? I write, as I suspect most of you do, because I love doing it and I get great satisfaction out of it.

But writing daily creates tons of manuscripts, so where is my secret library of written stories? Well, as it turns out, most of the writing I do is posted directly onto the internet. What, you mean that counts? Of course it does, as long as you are writing intelligently. Writing is something that most of us in this computer age do unconsciously. How many things have you written today? I bet if you kept track for just one afternoon you would be surprised at just how much you have created. Your daily word count should be a total of the writing you do across all forms of communication. Whether you are writing on a pad with a pen or typing into the most expensive computer money can buy, it is all writing.

Now speaking of daily word count, how high should you set that goal? I set my word count at 5,000 words daily. Now that sounds like a lot, but I write for an average of four hours per work day on various tasks and articles. I also write for my blog postings and in responding to emails and comments on various blogs that I belong to. As long as I am writing in proper English for all of these outlets I count it all towards my daily word count. Your personal goal will vary depending on the amount of writing you do all day, but I would keep it to at least 1,200 to 1,500 words daily.

Do your phone texts count? Well that depends on if you are using a lot of texting slang or not. While lol and :) are fine for texts they hardly have a place in any serious writing. Would you pay $20.00 for a book at the book store and be satisfied if it contained only abbreviations and slang?

Well we know that we need to write daily to stay in shape, and we know the amount of words we need to have written based on our daily activities and personal goals. Now where do we write? A lot of writers I know have a special place set aside where they go to write. That is fine if it works for you. I do not recommend purchasing any special furniture or building a separate workshop just to write. But if you have a special chair or a favorite couch with your laptop then by all means use them.

Personally I write everywhere that I go, the coffee shop, at home in my living room, in the bedroom, in my computer room, at the mall from my phone. Writing can and should be practiced where ever you are. I have found that writing my thoughts and happenings into a personal journal helps me to remember things in the future. Try creating a travel blog for your vacations, you will find that blogging the daily memories will keep the trip fresh in your mind for many years to come.

Also remember that not all writing has to be ground breaking work. It is okay to have lots of written drafts laying about on your computer. In fact the more bits of writing you keep about the more likely you are to use them in future stories. I keep many files and drafts on a separate hard drive that I take with me for inspiration. These mini stories or ideas also come in handy if you are asked to write a short story for a magazine of web site, so keep them around. I consider these many small stories and ideas to be part of my research, as they are often very useful.

Points to remember:

• Write every day.
• Write a minimum of 1,200 to 1,500 words.
• Write properly.
• Keep all your writings on a disk or online.
• Journals and Blogs are fun ways to write.

Well that wraps it up for today, thank you for reading and have a lovely day.

Writing for ideas

Well today I would like to talk about generating ideas for stories.

Discovering new story ideas is always a challenge for me. I often sit about the house and imagine all sorts of stories, most of which are useless. Most times I over think the entire process, clouding my mind with useless details. This is not a good way to discover new ideas for stories. So where can a person get ideas for new stories? Well I find that life provides a great many story ideas every day. The trick is to notice them as they happen and not ignore them.

Often I get a great amount of material just taking things that I witness and adding to them or changing the location for the story. If you see two people arguing about government, then take that idea and move it to an asteroid mining complex. Tada, instant story, however not a very good one. Relax we will fix it later. What is most important is that you have a new story idea.

So we take this argument and think about it logically, for this argument to have happened there were things that led up to the event, and there will be things afterwards. We only have to establish a point in time and work backwards towards the front then forwards to the end of our tale.

Maybe we add more details on the location, we will place our mining asteroid in an orbit about an unstable star. From here there are millions of variations. Maybe the changing star will make the asteroid shake from time to time. Maybe the people working there will discover that it is about to go super nova. Lots of ideas flowing now, don't let them get away write them down.

Now lets say we start writing on this idea and later on we realize that we have 12,000 words that are not working as a story. Well all is not lost, just go back through all that you have written to date and see if there are any segments that will make a good story. When you find at least one, write it down and start the whole process again.

There you have it, writing for ideas. I won't tell you that this little trick will work every time, but it works often for me. Let me know if this helps you with your stories and be sure to share your experiences as well.