Writers Untie!

Excitement is building

I'M SO EXCITED FOR FRIDAY!

posted by Lindsey Charlton @ 5:43 AM 1 comments

Research begins!

Fellow novelists, today marks the first day of the seven days of research for the novel, if you so choose to take advantage of it. Seize the day!

posted by Anna Clare @ 7:26 AM 0 comments

Magna Carta I & II

Magna Carta I

i.e. What makes a good novel

- sarcasm

- witty characters

- characters who know what they are after

- a bad guy or organization

- fast cars

- random or entirely fictional settings

- little description (i.e. NOT Tolkein)

- plot that moves and can be read easily at night what I start to get tired (i.e. CS Lewis); or can be read while one is working on an assembly line and has a miraculous space of 30 seconds in which to do nothing between whatever is being assembled (not that I would know anything about this, haha)

- Dialogue that has a purpose/shows something

- Animals that talk, and some that don’t

- A dark forest

- Not taking itself too seriously

- Not eternally long

- Not just a bunch of people moving around and talking without purpose

- A quest

- A bookish character

- Good friends with lots of evil enemies

- An ending that is either happy, or an ending where everyone dies

- A governess without parents

- A secret

Magna Carta II

i.e. What makes a bad novel

- unnecessary length

- a main character with no feelings and who reacts to little (i.e. the main character in ‘Forever’ by Peter Hamill)

- boring women characters

- overly ambitious woman characters

- the idea that there has to be one really good looking woman character

- ones that could almost be true and make you wonder if they were or not and it the ‘real’ stuff in the novel is as ‘real’ as it’s portrayed to be (i.e. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown)

- lots of swearing

- sex with no point (i.e. the Notebook)

- characters you can’t pin a song to or relate to in any way

- tons of description

- too much action and movement (like if ‘Armageddon’ would be turned into a book)

- a non-compelling plot

- apathetic characters that don’t want anything

- teenage girls

- lack of revealing conversation

posted by Lindsey Charlton @ 7:27 PM 4 comments

Magna Cartae

One of the things that No Plot? No Problem! recommends is writing a Magna Carta of things you do want in your novel and things you don't want. In the spirit of accountability, I share mine:

Magna Carta I--Things I Want in My Novel

1. J.Pat's Pub
2. Bodhrans
3. Roadkill
4. "Pretty sympathy"
5. Daniel's guitar
6. Pete the accordian player
7. That forbidding J.Pat's exterior and its warm, welcoming interior
8. The old couple who plays checkers
9. A dayjob
10. A luthier
11. Guinness
12. A wise old bartender
13. A romantic conflict
14. Good friends
15. Jimmy Egan
16. A gig
17. A car breaking down
18. "Parting Glass"
19. A sad good-bye
20. A shock
21. A redemption
22. A dream/goal
23. A quirky instrument repair shop
24. A York piano
25. Uillean pipes
26. Coffee/tea
27. Fun old tables
28. A thunderstorm

Magna Carta II--Things I Do Not Want in My Novel

1. Drunken hookups
2. Excessive whining
3. Teen anxst (please see above)
4. Accents
5. Long monologues
6. Nervous breakdowns
7. Old flames
8. Obnoxiously loud feminists
9. Super bohemians
10. Collegiate reminiscing
11. Bad hair

Oh, yes, it's going to be an amazingly crappy novel. I can feel it. And I can't wait to get started. Research begins this Friday, in keeping with the seven days allowed for information-gathering before the actual writing. Linny and Eddie, I can't wait to see what you've got!

posted by Anna Clare @ 7:22 PM 4 comments

Important announcement

I am writing this to inform the entire internet community that Anna Clare, Eddie James, and I, Linny Jane, will all be taking on the pleasurable and inevitably stressful task of writing 50,000 word novels in the month of September. Between the three of us, there are jobs, full time school schedules, and other important projects that some of our obligations must go to. But for the rest of the time, we will all be working on our individual novels.

Start date: September 1
End date: September 30

Yes, I know, we picked a month that has one day less than a bunch of other months we could have chosen. But seeing as how week leads to week, and month leads to month, well, we knew that things would only get more difficult as the semester progressed. On any other occasion, we would hold out and do our novels-in-a-month during November, which is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Anna Clare happened upon this discovery whilst reading Chris Baty's "No Plot, No Problem", an exellent read and important in this undertaking. It can be found here

This is really just a post to get anyone else on board who wants to join us.
Also this is a way for us to stay accountable. So ask us how the novel is; belittle us when we can't tell you because we haven't worked on it all week; and, more importantly, threaten all kinds of harassment and rejection should we fail to complete our novels.

We will be using this web site to post pieces of our work if we feel so led, and to post updates on how we are doing, for our own record and for your amusement, as posts will undoubtably become less and less coherent as the month progresses.

So, that's it. Three writers, one month, 50,000 words per writer. Join us, and togeher we shall take over the world!
Or just write really crappy novels. Either way, it should be fun.

posted by Lindsey Charlton @ 6:35 AM 2 comments