News From the Gray Camper Van Writer
Learning to be more organized while writing my new novel.
Photo taken by Carol Seymour
It's pretty hot here in the Sonoran Desert. Yesterday the temperature rose to 102 degrees. It's hot, dry and windy. The wind blows dust inside the gray camper van and reminds me of a layer of cake flour. Even though I have an AC, max air fan and a fantastic fan that blows wind at 10 mph - it's barely tolerable when noon day comes.
The break of day comes around 5 a.m. here in Arizona. It's so bright, I wake up right away and start my day off by reading and listening to podcasts.
As a writer, reading is mandatory to improve the craft of writing. And I have tons of reading material laid out on my bed for reference.
I'm writing my first novel and don't know what I'm doing. I'm willing to learn though, so I invested in a writing course - -The Eight Crafts of Writing. We use Moodle to communicate and comment on each other's work.
I find the interaction and engagement very helpful.
But my biggest hurdle is organizing myself, staying motivated and writing every day. Even though there are plenty of youTube videos out there to watch how other authors write consistently, you have to find your own "path". What works for me may not work for you. So true.
Life happens 24/7 and we never know what emergency may pop-up that requires our attention. But as writers, we still need to produce and show progress.
So, I came up with the following plan that works for me and may work for you, too. Let me explain, please.
I created a plan to write Monday through Friday from 8–10 a.m. Even though I start reading, checking email, create notes, dreaming in my muse, meditating (which is all necessary to write). I set a realistic goal to write 500 words a day - -five days a week. It sounds simple, doesn't it? But if I could write 500 words a day for four weeks, I would have 10,000 words written by the end of the month.
Here's a list of my writing tools
Scrivenger
Obsidian - -second brain software
Emotional thesaurus
Visual thesaurus
Various other reference writer's books
Besides enrolling in The Eight Crafts of Writing - I've invested in the Ninja Writer Guild, Darius Foroux's Digital Business School and I watch most of Jerry Jenkins youTube videos on writing. I resonate well with Jerry and Darius. Both authors inspire and motivate me to keep writing.
Jerry Jenkins How to Write a Novel
Works in Progress
About six months ago, I saw a man living under a freeway underpass at a busy intersection. He inspired me to write a story about a homeless veteran living under a bridge in New Orleans.
Four months later, I've chosen my protagonist and antagonist and planned a general story outline in my mind. I'm gathering inspiration to plan the story structure.
Jerry Jenkins mentions in his youTube videos - -there are two ways to write your story -. 1 write as an outliner and 2. write as a pantsier. I use a little bit of both methods.
I need the outline method to give me a direction to where I'm going with my story, and writing from my muse keeps my imagination sharp.
I've written my title, which I will probably change later and now I'm working on creating my character arc.
I've chosen the name for my hero character. Smitty Randall Smith and Adalida Fonenot is the antagonist. Next I will build my character's personality traits based on my experiences of people I've known in my past. I go on the web and view pictures of homeless people and get new ideas for my story characters.
I write for self-satisfaction and entertainment. It gives me a sense of myself. I know 500 words a day is not much, but I'm in the learning state and the most important thing to me right now is to build my momentum and a solid lifelong habit. I'm not out to publish a book in 30 days and get rich quick. I'm seeking gratitude and joy from producing art that will resonate with like-minded readers.
Thank you for reading. I'll be posting comments about my writing journey as the weeks unfold. Maybe you are like me, you want to write a story, but don't know how to begin. Maybe you will enjoy some reference tools that I use.
More next week.
Kindly,
C