Personal Writing Contracts

National Novel Writing Month site.
The Weekend Novelist
The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Hello.

It's been a while, has it not, old friend.

I decided to blog about an idea that occurred to me. It's very much like National Novel Writing Month, which is an informal contract to write a 50k novel in a month.

Why not a writing contract, with yourself? Say, x number of words per day, y number of days per week. You can set z as a penalty for not meeting the conditions of x and y. Making it a sort of game, you can make it a bit of fun, as well as motivational. You should not set more than you can handle, as that is for the bigger ,more important contracts. Not that writing is not important: but it is better to set lower goals first, until you are in the habit of accomplishing these goals Then you can "up the ante".

National Novel Writing Month is a 50k madhouse; but there's nothing stopping you from exercising your literary muscles a bit at a time, to stretch them.

Life is going to happen anyway, you may as well write around the events, right?

National Novel Writing Month site.
The Weekend Novelist
The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Bad enough, not writing anything for some time. Now I'm sick. <,< Have been for a while, actually. I hate post-nasal drip. I've spent a lot of the previous week sleeping.

I also figured, it's about time to write a new post, too. That way, if the spammers have my blogs marked, I can report more of them. And yes, I moderate all comments. Trust me, Juicyfruiter was harmless in comparison. I'm not letting a lot of spam through, especially for porno sites, as they have nothing to do with writing.

Spam I will consider are office products and business cards: in a sense, they're related, albeit by a long shot, to the writing, which could be considered a home-based business. Note: I said I'd consider, not automatically post, it.

Now, if I can only shake this cold, and the post-nasal drip.....

Odyssey 2009 Press Release

National Novel Writing Month site.
Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

****************************

Publicity Release

January 2009

ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP

ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2009 SESSION

About Odyssey

Since its inception in 1996, Odyssey has earned a place as one of the most respected workshops in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing community. Odyssey is for developing writers whose work is approaching publication quality and for published writers who want to improve their work. The six-week workshop combines an intensive learning and writing experience with in-depth feedback on student manuscripts. Top authors, editors, and agents have served as guest lecturers, including George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, Jane Yolen, Terry Brooks, Robert J. Sawyer, Ben Bova, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Hand, Jeff VanderMeer, Donald Maass, Sheila Williams, Shawna McCarthy, and Dan Simmons. Fifty-three percent of Odyssey graduates go on to professional publication.

The program is held every summer on Saint Anselm College's beautiful campus in Manchester , NH . Saint Anselm is one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country, dedicated to excellence in education, and its campus provides a unique, lovely setting and state-of-the art facilities for Odyssey students. College credit is available upon request.

Jeanne Cavelos, Odyssey's director, founder, and primary instructor, is a best-selling author and a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, where she won the World Fantasy Award for her work. Being a writer/editor makes Cavelos uniquely suited to provide students with constructive and professional critiques of their work. "I give the same unflinchingly honest, concrete, detailed feedback that I provided as a senior editor," Cavelos said. Her typewritten critiques average around 1,000 words, and her handwritten line edits on manuscripts are extensive. In addition, she guides students through the six weeks, gaining in-depth knowledge of their work, providing detailed assessments of their strengths and weaknesses in private meetings, and helping them target their weaknesses one by one.

Odyssey class time is split between workshopping sessions and lectures. An advanced, comprehensive curriculum covers the elements of fiction writing in depth. Students learn the tools and techniques necessary to strengthen their writing.

The workshop runs from June 8^th to July 17^th, 2009 . Class meets for four hours in the morning, five days a week. Students spend about eight hours more per day writing and critiquing each

other's work. Prospective students, aged eighteen and up, apply from all over the world. The early admission application deadline is JANUARY 31^st, and the regular admission deadline is APRIL 8^th. Tuition is $1900, and housing is $700 for a double room and $1400 for a single.

Meet Our 2009 Writer-in-Residence

Odyssey's 2009 writer-in-residence is Carrie Vaughn, New York Times bestselling author and Odyssey 1998 graduate. Carrie is the author of the phenomenally popular "Kitty" novels, about a werewolf who hosts a talk radio show. The first novel, Kitty and the Midnight Hour has over a hundred thousand copies in print. Books five and six of the series, Dead Man's Hand and Kitty Raises Hell, will appear in 2009. Carrie's short stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series, and other anthologies. She has a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been a lifelong science fiction fan and reader.

Other Guest Lecturers

Odyssey is pleased to welcome its 2009 guest lecturers: bestselling author Jeffrey A. Carver; award-winning authors Melissa Scott, Patricia Bray, and Jack Ketchum, and Editor-in-Chief of the Ace and Roc science fiction/fantasy imprints, Ginjer Buchanan.

Odyssey Graduates

If you're reading science fiction, fantasy, and horror, you're reading the work of Odyssey graduates. If you've read recent issues of some of the top fiction magazines in the field--Realms of Fantasy, Asimov's, Analog, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, Intergalactic Medicine Show--you've read stories by Odyssey graduates Theodora Goss, David Barr Kirtley, Eric James Stone, Clayton Kroh, Larry Hodges, Matthew S. Rotundo, James Maxey, Carrie Vaughn, Carl Frederick, and Andrea Kail.

If you've been to the bookstore lately, you've seen books by Odyssey graduates, including Superpowers by David J. Schwartz, published by Random House; Dragonforge by James Maxey, published by Solaris Books; Maledicte by Lane Robins, published by Del Rey; Bloodstone by Barbara Campbell, published by DAW; Red Dragon Codex by R. D. Henham, published by Mirrorstone Books; The Mirror by Natalia Lincoln, published by Space & Time Books; The Eunuch's Heir by Elaine Isaak, published by HarperCollins; and Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn, published by Warner.

Comments from the Class of 2008

"I sold three novels before I came to Odyssey. I just wish I had gone to Odyssey before I wrote them--they would have been better books. Odyssey freakin' rocks!"

--J. Justin Gustainis, author of Evil Ways

"You will never be more eager to work yourself to the bone. Nor will you have as much reward for doing it. The six weeks at Odyssey have done more for my writing career than my bachelor's degree in creative writing. I only wish I'd known about it sooner."

--Breanna Wojcik

Other Odyssey Resources and Services

The Odyssey website www.odysseyworkshop.org offers free podcasts, writing and publishing tips, a class syllabus, and more information about how to apply. An overview of the Odyssey Critique Service is also available on the website at http://www.sff.net/odyssey/crit.html. This service provides authors with professional-level feedback on their writing, done with the thoroughness and depth for which Odyssey is known.

Those interested in applying to the workshop should visit the website, phone/fax (603) 673-6234, or e-mail jcavelos@sff.net.

National Novel Writing Month 2007

Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

What, you may ask, is National Novel Writing Month?

You there, in the back row, stop laughing, there are actually people who have never heard of NaNoWriMo. Be nice...

Anyway, it's one month, out of twelve, where you try to write 1,667 words per day for the entire month, to have a total of 50,000 words by month's end. At the conclusion of this month, assuming you reach the 50k, you get

1. A downloadable certificate exclaiming that you won by writing 50k for the month. Even if the novel's not finished, and you may want to write past that to reach the end, the 50,000 words makes you a winner. Why? Because look at how many words you wrote, and on the same book!

2. An icon you can use most anywhere, declaring you a NaNoWriMo winner.

3. You may be able to get a free copy of your book, at least in e-format, from Lulu.com. It was past my time (I won in 2004), but they started offering something like that. I don't know if they will do it again this year, but you can check on it at the site.

4. The camaraderie of other writers, plus meeting a lto of people on-site that you already know, only you didn't know they were crazy enough to NaNo.

Hey, you never know, after the revision/rewrite, if you go back over your novel at month's end, you might just have a best-seller on your hands. If not, well, hey, it was fun!

Sprinting

Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

GAH! I need to make my coffee. I'm gonig to stat sprinting at 12 and do a couple before taking


A) a shower

B) the trash out

and (maybe)

C) up the laundry.


Gotta try to get this first book finished by the end of this month, so I can start on the next one.

I may be getting a new computer soon. Rose talked with David, who may be putting together a P4 system for me (I say "may", since it's hard to know if wires didn't get crossed, or anything). Regardless, though the cobbled-together system I'm using now works half-way, there's a lot I cannot access with it that I need to, when looknig things up (or even visiting bloody YouTube).
I mean, if you can't watch sometihng, and people don't get why you can't watch it, well, that's awkward.

Also, the way the hard drive is going on this system (used to be Terror's, but it's taken much abuse over the years), I'm not really sure how much longer it's going to last...

progress and current word count

Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

I have posted my progress and current word count to my DeviantArt account. I have also uplaoded a couple of really crappy comics to my scraps. Sorry. I just finished a couple of writing sprints, then a spell check, and then the one update, so I'm a bit tired, lol.

Fast Draft

Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

I am up to ten pages so far today, and aiming for twenty. This is going on my AugNo total, when I do the word count bit.
     BTW, if you like, blog about a UFO flyby on August 30. ;-) I just want to do this for the fun of it and take as many people with me as I can get, when I go. Granted, August 30 is my birthday, but... ;-)

Random Last Name Generator

Weekend Novelists Forum Index

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Ha. I have to write the first draft of a horror story for the next anthology. I already have it in mind. I went to a name generator for proper names, but I need a surname (and possibly more than one). I decided to look for a generator to use in a pinch, so I ended up Googling the above link. Even if the surname changes later, at least I can generate one in a pinch. ;-) Thank you, Simthing Different 2! And yes, that is the name of the site.

MayNo Daily 500, Update #4

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

3,168 / 10,000 (31.7%)

Included in the count is my bible, since the reference will help with the story. That's the writers bible, or rather, my story bible.

You Can Write A Lot Of Story, Based On A Little Idea.

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

I have tried plotting out a novel, but the characters always get in the way of the action. *snicker* Not always, but it is not the same thing as when writing a short story, where you often deal with one simple idea and run with it. I think that is why they tell you to expect to change your outline several times while writing.
   Take April Fools. I knew what I wanted to write, but the words would not come, so I had to resort to an analysis of the story I wanted to tell. I don't know if anyone else has this particular problem but, when planning a novel, I have a tendency to overplot. It seems that I did the same thing with my ideas for this novel. There was a little too much happening, with the different characters and the conception, for one book to do the story proper credit.
   The idea became one for a trilogy. Fine: but the words still were not coming. I had written a few scenes, but nothing major, nothing that really sparked for me. When I analyzed the best of these scenes, I realized I needed a minor character as a foil to help add interest to it, one that could interact with my character and, perhaps, make the story a little less—boring, is the word that I am inclined to use, though I do not know if that properly expresses the feeling behind it. It was an okay scene, but it had the potential to be so much more than that. There was a missing element that I could not place my finger on.
   Finally, I hit on it. A talking staff. But what were the reasons behind the talking staff? That was a bit of a puzzle.
   In a nutshell, with what I learned about the character, and how he had come to this stage (and you will note that the staff is no longer an "it"), he's not only become the alpha character of the trilogy, but also adds the proper impetus for the story. The idea, generated by all this brainstorming, had been born, and had won out.

Writing Ain't Easy.

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

        Not that anyone ever said it was: but writing takes commitment.
        I recommend that you read How to Quit Your Day Job to Write Full Time if you are, in fact, thinking of writing full-time. It mgiht be better to wait for that until you have the nice home, and the fancy car. Not to mention a decent home office set aside for writing. You need a printer, a computer (or typewriter, or both), notepads, notebooks, paper of all sorts. Strunk and White's Elements of Grammar is a good reference book to have. Eats, Shoots and Leaves is also a good book ot read. Punctuation is important, accurate punctuation doubly so.
        The dictionary is your friend. Two or three are great! I have one that's so old, it's lost its paperback cover over the years since the 1970s, but it lists certain foreign words and phrases (I wrote a poem using it for inspiration once, that went into my campus literary magazine), mythological figures--lots of references that I have seen in no dictionary since then. I have large print, small print, and I have two online dictionaries bookmarked—more, if you count a couple of naming sites which let you look up various names in different languages by their meaning and intent.
        A Jacuzzi Is Not A Mythological Creature (Thought It Sounds Like One). Yes, up until I was around eighteen, I had no idea what a jacuzzi was. I had no interest in them, seeing as I had no dealings with them. A lot of what we write, what we come to know, derives from our own experiences, and in what happens in our daily lives. "Write What You Know" doesn't mean that you should go out and write odes to a pencil sharpener (Although that sounds like fun, so maybe I will write one later). The nuance, the word choice, choosing representations—in fantasy, a car can become a dragon, especially on days when the engine gets overheated and the muffler decides to take a nap in the middle of the road while the rest of your car continues on, down the road. Er, well, things like that, yes. ;-)

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

          It's times like this, when I finally get to open uo my old newsletters, that I really miss hearing from Phaedre each month, and I miss getting the SFFW newsletter, too. The past issues are located at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter Archives.
          In case you're wondering, Phaedre is Kathleen Woodbury. Her kind words of encouragement, in the face of improbable odds (and versus someone's graceless and tactless non-acceptance of a critique) is what's served to keep me more active in writing and the like, then I would have been. Not that I would not have ended up writing, anyway--once it's in your blood, it's an infection that you cannot shake, this insidious bug. Her kind words of encouragement are what kept me going, early on, in my first workshop/writing group days.
          Anyone who's starting out, anyone who feels a bit lost with feedback, and the like--I encourage them to check out the Hatrack River Writers Workshop. Phaedre's still there, and still involved with new writers, too. That should be enough recommendation for anyone, IMO.

It's A Dirty Job, But...

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

      Meh. I have to see about constructing the opposing army on a battlefield now. It's not my initial choice, but there is no other option for what I'm writing.

      I know that the war is between opposing kingdoms. One's been through a period of civil unrest, from which it's recovering, and consolidating its losses. The other is looking to expand its territories.

      No wonder I'm having trouble starting the story. I have the outward action, the war, and then the inward action, ghosts and possession.

      I mean, what's a girl to do?

Yet Another Quote

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

- Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Om Lagging Behind Writing Challenges

The Free Dictionary.com

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

If I don't play catch-up soon, I'm going to be eighty pages and 20k words behind for Fast Draft. *gromble*

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

From The Desk of Liz Ensley:

Aargh. i have some things to do before I get started writing--shower, shop, make doctor's appointments, take care of the lease. Other than that, I'm signed to write 5k words tomorrow. I also have something due for theweekendnovelist.com (not affiliated with the publisher--we're just doing it together), and--well, let's just say that I have a few things to write this week, this month, this quarter, this third, and this year.

Fun!