Dark turns to gold light
The first birds chirp timidly
All is born anew
Morning
0
“Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.”
-Andre Gide
Frost imprisons the grass
Crows caw raucously, seeking shelter from the storm
The bitter taste of cold on the end of my tongue
Nose frigid, useless as a brick
And me
Thawing my toes by a crackling fire
I listened to an interesting podcast that was talking about how if you want to be a creative writer, you must also be a creative reader. According to the podcast, here is how (and it is not word for word, because in that case I would have to include the name of the podcast and I really don’t feel like looking it up right now):
1. Go to a library.
2. Go into a section that you haven’t been to before. If there aren’t any, then go to one that you don’t very often. Maybe a new genre or subject. Poetry would work too. But no nonfiction; it has to be some form of creative writing.
3. Find two books with titles that you find interesting, and take them. No judging by the blurb on the back or the color. Just the title.
4. Read through them as fast as you can, even if it’s boring or difficult. Make notes on things that you continue to find interesting.
5. Combine the things from the two books that you found interesting and write a story from them.
6. Do it again.
7. And again.
I must say I ‘ve never tried this. I am going to need to work on being a creative reader
I have just devised a new way to organize writing notebooks! Instead of just grabbing whatever notebook is nearest and writing whatever I want to write, I am now going to have:
1. A notebook for… Well, okay, this one is for whatever I want to write. A notebook to take everywhere I go and write anything I need to.
2. A notebook for prewriting.
3. A notebook for novels.
4. A notebook where I will put anything that I find inspirational.
Actually, it just dawned on me that it’s probably much easier to just have one all-purpose notebook. Maybe. I don’t know what I’m going to do now… Oh well. You do not need to hear about my notebook dilemmas any longer than I have already forced you to. Farewell.
`Today, there will finally be a book review!
On a side note, I read an interesting post on the blog of Kristin Cashore the other day about reading like a writer, here’s the link: kristincashore.blogspot.com/2011/12/worlds-smallest-readingwriting-lesson.html Okay. The book review now.
Title: The Westing Game
Author: Ellen Raskin
This is a really clever mystery with great, vivid characters that always seem to stay in character. The answer to the big puzzle in the story is that sort that seems like it should have been completely obvious, and still manages to be completely satisfying. If anything should be different, it’s that the beginning could have been more grabbing, but by the end of the first page, it gets interesting, so it’s not like one of those terrible stories that takes 102 pages to get going. Also, toward the conclusion, it gets a little confusing. On a better note, another thing I like is the epilogue, since I love the ones that go decades into the future, i.e. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I think this book is probably good for ages 8-13, or maybe 7-13 if a 7-year old is fairly good at reading.
Bye! Happy New Year!
First, sorry I haven’t been posting. I thought I would be able to post at least once a week during November, but I was waaaay too busy, using every free second working on my novel. But I finished NaNoWriMo! And I’m less than thrilled with my work…
So I wrote the full 50k, but I didn’t really finish my plot. I just pulled a fast one and wrote “To be continued…” I guess now I have to write a sequel.
The quality of the story is definitely questionable. I kept starting random plot lines and abandoning them, so it’s a mess… That’s what revision is for! Though I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.
I think that writing my first full novel has helped me grow as a writer, just because now I know that I can, but really, I expected to be much happier about it. Proud of it, at least. And I sort of am, but I think I’ll be much more excited when I’m finished revising and it’s actually good.
So all of you finish your novels, it’s worth it! I’ll try to post more consistently, probably something like every Saturday. Next chance I have (not now, since I’m sitting in an office without any books to refer to) I’ll post a few book reviews and/or recommendations. It will be mostly fictional books for children about 8-12. Stay tuned!
Lastly, for any other users of WordPress, I just got their iPad app and I highly recommend it. It makes it really easy to post from anywhere.
I’ll try to post next weekend. Bye!
Deep
yet Bright
and full of Light
bursting through
the cracks
in the dark mystery.
Eva’s notes: This poem is about how I see the color blue. I hope you like it!
Does writing a novel in a month sound crazy to you?
In less than a week, National Novel Writing Month is starting, and I’m participating. I’m very excited, but also terrified.
For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo is a sort of writing marathon where you try to write a 50000 word novel in a month. If you write, I recommend you google it and sign up. There’s a young writer’s program as well; if you’re under 13 and want to set your own word count goal, that’s where you’ll want to go.
To me, it sounds manageable, but I don’t know yet. We’ll see…
I have an idea and some characters lined up, but I hope that this weekend I will have time to scratch out a rough outline.
I dislike outlining too heavily. It seems like there is no room for surprises in a story if you already know every single tiny movement your characters are going to make. It’s like they’re being monitored as suspects for a crime. Characters have a right to freedom! Or they should, at least.
But I think just the vaguest of guides is probably a good idea, since I get writer’s block about every other time I sit down and work on a story.
Here is a list of the things that will help me survive next month:
1. Halloween candy! The day after Halloween seems like perfect timing for NaNoWriMo.
2. My notebook full of character interviews and ideas, which I will probably refer to every other second.
3. This blog. I can post my frustrations, and sometimes writing something down, I will automatically think of a solution.
4. Some carefully selected books that will hopefully make me say, “I want to go write something like that!” And then I will. Well, at least I’ll write something. (I’ll post reviews on the books sometime in December.)
5. I’ll take a tiny notebook everywhere. (This won’t be hard to remember, since I already do.) Usually, almost every single thing I do inspires an idea, so I hope this continues to work so effectively.
That’s everything I can think of right now, and good luck to all of you fellow NaNoers out there!
EvaScribblesMadly 