Naming Characters
So far I have three main characters in this manuscript. I had to change the names of the protagonist and her kid brother to better represent their backgrounds. It's important to never be "married" to anything while writing a novel. Not even character names that you love. So, I kept her name by giving it to an eleven year old secondary character. Simple.
There are four more characters who are in the story with minor roles. One needs a full name which I will have shortly. Two others only need last names. It's funny when I write and don't have their names yet. For example, I type "BROTHERSNAME" when I name the brother in the story. Then, I go back and make a list of all the names that I need to create. I've done this for towns and cities as well. I didn't know how else to do it because I wanted to keep the writing flow going.
Author Website Complete
I have completed this website. Well, almost. It has taken me eight weeks to get everything where I want it. There will still be things to add and I'll get new ideas, but most of the heavy lifting is done. I played with the colours for about four weeks. No kidding. It started off blue, then it was light green, and finally I settled on this colour scheme. Brown, green and blue. I hope it feels comfortable. That was my intention.
Rolling Along
My manuscript is going very well this month so I am pretty happy about that. So far, I have written just under one thousand words. I put over two thousand words in an out file. Clearly, I write much better when I know the direction I'm going. Being prepared has always helped give me confidence.
Starting Over
I have made the decision to scrap the first two thousand words of my manuscript. After a week with the flu, and reading a book written by Beth Revis called Paper Hearts, it just seems like the direction to go. The story is still the same but the way it will be written is going to be different. There were many mistakes that would have to be edited anyway so it's better to take care of them now.
Learning about Character Archetypes
This past weekend I finished reading a book about learning how to write better. It showed me what not to do in certain situations. The characters that I made were created without any flaws. The problem is that they are almost perfect. I mean, it’s okay to make your protagonist polite, but she was going to be good the entire book. Nobody in real life is that perfect. She needed to have some flaws or make a mistake somewhere.
Reading Goals
Does anyone else set a reading goal for the year? For the last two years I have managed to make it happen. If you are not on Goodreads then you might want to take a look at it. It's a great place for keeping track of what you read.
At the beginning of the year you can set a goal to read a certain amount of books. You can update your progress as you read. For 2019, I have set a goal to read twenty books, one non-fiction and one fiction concurrently. So I will always have two books on the go.
Two Thousand Words
Currently, my manuscript is about two thousand words long. When I sit down to write, I visualize what my characters are doing in the story. They are having real conversations with each other, in my head, as I write. The visual images just keep coming to me one after the other. When you find something you love to do time seems to fly by. For me it's real. I love writing.
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