Tag: writing

Onwards with all of my Writing Projects

onwards

This week I have been working on a few projects. A few, very important, Writing Projects.

First and, I daresay, the most important is ‘The Shapeshifters’ #1. This is a third draft and has brought me a lot of challenges in itself. But you can read all about it on the article Hello NaNoWriMo and lots of ‘Shapeshifters’

thI have been writing for it during this year’s NaNoWriMo and I had already passed the 50K mark. YAY!!! Good for me!

It just seemed wrong for me to share my last achievement in all of my other social platforms and not here. After all this is my ‘Let’s talk about writing’ special place!

So this is the short video I made of the moment when I managed to write the 50K words.

It has been a source of great joy, even if it’s been quietly celebrated.

But I am aiming at 100k for this project, so that I have lots of wiggle room to edit later 😃

Blog Writing

Another of my writing projects are my two blogs. The present one and my Portuguese counterpart.

I have been writing about writing, about books, about productivity and about writer’s resources over there, and it has been fifteen years of research and content creation, that have helped me a lot on my writing efforts.

I still believe a blog is a wonderful way to share our writing. After all, we want to write and this is a mean that demands for it.

Here, on this virtual space, I have narrowed the scope a bit more. The resources I want to bring you are:

  • help you define and achieve your writing goals;
  • Inspire you to focus on your writing projects;
  • creating the space to talk about writing;
  • and  sharing my writing journey.

Vídeo Scripts Writing

Launching VLook, my YouTube channel, has been transformative for me in so many ways.

And I just got my channel’s handle, @vlooksarafarinha and I am happy to put my name on it.

But back to the transformative parts of having my own YouTube channel…

First, I get to write for it, and compose what I want to say. Second, I am able to practice my English in a more inventive way. Third, it had worked wonders on my introversion and general shyness (call it traumas! It was what they were!). Four, I have been learning so much about filming, and editing, and writing for it, that it has blown my mind.

Even if I’m trying to discover what I enjoy doing, and how to do it, this process is helping me grow in so many ways it astonishes me.

So, these have been my major writing projects for this week and I did enjoy working on all of them.

But, tell me…

Are you entering NaNoWriMo?

Have you got some special question about writing, blogging or vídeo making, that you think I could help you with?

And, please let me know how’s your project going. 

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

A Writing Update about my First Week at NaNoWriMo

writing first week

This is a writing update on my current writing project.

This Monday I managed to pass the 25 000 mark, of my 50 000 goal, for NaNoWriMo.

I’ll confess, I had set up my goal to the 100 000, but I hadn’t had the courage to make it public, or official, in the NaNoWriMo website.

So instead of 1 667 daily words needed, I’ve been aiming at 3 333,3 and managing to do it… to much of my astonishment.

Why am I astonished? After all, I’ve prepped a lot for this project… It’s just a me thing. I’m always expecting the worse.

But this means I can be happy in the meanwhile, while putting in the work to achieve my 3 333,3 words, and giving it all during those hours.

As you may know, if read any of my older posts, I’m writing a novel, a young adult, romance, urban fantasy novel. I named it, for project identification purposes only, ‘The Shapeshifters’.

I have been working on it for almost two years now and I’, writing the first English draft of what I planned to be a trilogy, on the same Fantasy Universe.

First week of NaNo was great!

I had my banner up, my reminders, my scene cards, my character’s cards, my plan of scenes rolled up in one perfect tube, my laptop and a schedule to work on this project. 

I know this challenge can cause me some unwelcome stress, specially if a project isn’t ready to be drafted, or if I’m working on a first, or second, drafts. But this is not the situation.

2022 project is kind of a third draft, and I have been prepping for it for a while now, even if I changed the language I was writing it, I’m treating it like a third draft project… and I like it.

I hope this will continue to progress smoothly and that I keep managing to hit my goals without much fuss.

But will be checking in with you later about how this is going.

Hope you’re doing well and participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo. If so, how’s your project going?

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

***

References ✍🏼

Pantser into Plotter

pantser into plotter

I guess as time passes, and we get to practice more and more of our writing, some things about ourselves are bound to change.

It’s not by chance that most writers start as pantsers and after a while evolve into plotters.

Why? I’ll tell you as much as I’ve lived it. 

something about yourself

I don’t believe this was meant to be taken literally. But, yes. When we start to write our first novel we discover many different things about ourselves.

Not all of them are as deep as implied here. But most most of them are of the life changing variety. 

The 4 Creative Paradigms

Picking up on the Creative Paradigms as explored on ‘Writing Fiction from Dummies’, meaning the methods we may use while writing the first and subsequent drafts, we have:

  • Seat-of-the-pants (write in one sitting, without planning or editing)
  • Edit-as-you-go (write without planning but edit thoroughly as you go)
  • Snowflake (write a general plan, adapting it as you go)
  • Outline (make a detailed plan, than stick to it regardless)

Our beliefs

When we start writing we want to be good immediately. We want to become the best. We learn how to do some tricks (those things that we read and thought them out of this world good) and pray they carry us into an organic, and not too troublesome, writing practice.

But, at that time, we hadn’t put in the how many?!?!?! working hours we need to have some proper insights on the work itself.

The pantser kind of is our first and most dearest friend. And he can stay that way if used for the parts where he does his best work, like imagining a plot.

So, a pantser writes his stories using the Seat-of-the-pants creative paradigm. A pantser writes fast, without planning much, making it up as he goes along.

A plotter write his stories using the Outline creative paradigm.

A plotter uses outlines to plan and write his story. He works out the kinks before getting himself into the trouble of writing a full draft.

My journey

Looking into my own writing practices, I have used all of the different creative paradigms.

Experimenting on what best fits my writing needs, seems to be my method, and I use them in different parts of the writing process also.

I believe it’s a good thing to respect each project and leave to it to dictate which method would serve him best. There are projects that ask for a quick plotting session and others that are best left to the heat of the moment inspiration.

But, one thing I had been noticing in my writing practice, other than it evolve regardless of should’s and shouldn’ts, is that each project seems to ask from me a different creative approach. 

As I’ve been working on different lengths and types of stories, I understood that some require a bit more planning from the get going than others. As well as, some ask for more improvisation in order to flush out more creative ideas.

Also, there’s a creative paradigm more fit for a first draft of a story, and another quite different, for a second or third drafts. Why? Some give us more leverage to explore, while others are more suited for working out the things that aren’t good enough.

permission

I had been using all of them, sometimes both pantser and plotter on the same writing project, just in different phases (drafts or composition materials) of it.

But I kind of figured out that, when we start writing, and have a practice for some years, we get to evolve naturally into using more wholesome writing methods. 

We do not have the thrill of the major plot twist. I mean it in a sense of spilling everything onto the page with just that big goal in mind, not delivering on all the other requirements for a good story.

With practice we get to appreciate the composition of the story as a whole. Enjoying it best when we can work out all the details that will help us deliver that plot twist emotion seamlessly.

And it’s kind of easier to draft an entire novel if we have the guidelines previously written out.

Writing an extensive piece of literature is a tiring long run, a marathon, not a sprint. If we have the road clear, and all set up, we can walk it until the finish line, without many path corrections.

But I believe, the important thing to retain in this subject is: we show up to our work, we practice, we experiment, we write stories and we evolve as writers. Then, the creative paradigm will be our own, perfectly suited for our way of writing and being.

Hope you’re doing well and participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo. If so, how’s your project going?

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

***

References ✍🏼

Hello NaNoWriMo and lots of ‘Shapeshifters’

Hello NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is here!!!!

Let’s make a resume of this project during all of it’s existence.

A few years ago, I plotted, planned, and wrote a book in a Universe I called ‘The Shapeshifters’. It was 2012 and it was entitled ‘The Pariah’.

I devoted a lot of time thinking about this concept which, being far from a novelty, I wanted to work out in my particular way.

Fast forward a few years… in the beginning of 2021

Freshly out of writing a Vampire Story… I decided to enter The 100 Day Challenge. 

During the development of some short texts, which were my #the100daychallenge object, and with some twenty days in, I started to write this story in the Shapeshifters Universe.

I began in it’s middle and then, worked my way through until the end, and then wrote the beginning.

The idea to write about a particular scene, in ‘The Shapeshifters’ Universe had been there for a while. I had a vivid snippet of events that kept coming back, and didn’t stop until I got it on a page.

Finishing the #the100daychallenge I kept going, until the first rough draft was finished.

Then I gave it a rest.

On November of 2021

I got back to it, writing the Portuguese second draft during NaNoWriMo. With 50 412 words, just in time to accomplished the word count.

And then, it went into the back burner again. There was something about this story which seemed to be incomplete. It just felt pale in comparison to what I wanted to convey.

I’ve kept thinking about it, and spending a lot of time trying to work it all out in my mind, after all it’s a project into which I had put a lot of my faith into.

June 2022

With the approaching of June, entering in my first Camp NaNo ever, getting back to ‘The Shapeshifters’ seemed the right thing to do. So I started to rewrite a third draft, but…

Suddenly I noticed I had been reimagining a new first scene in another language. Going with it, I thought ‘I’ll change this later…’

Then it got me thinking again. Maybe this was my opportunity to strike another milestone on my path: to write a book in the English language.

Why? Quite frankly, because it seemed exciting, adding several more complex layers to this task.

I know, it isn’t some big deal but, to me, it was a strange and almost providential turn on this life’s project.

Now I had a new draft to rewrite, in a new language, in his full right of existing separately from the previous drafts.

Camp NaNo didn’t saw my expectations of advancing on a third draft fulfilled. Instead I added more layers to the complexity of this task.

But, at the same time, it got me thinking in all that I wanted to do with it; All the backstory I missed including; All the characters which were appearing shallow and unidimensional; The entirety of a Universe that palled in its previous versions.

In September…

I got really focused on polishing my notes for this project. From polishing notes to expand on the things I thought were missing, was a short step.

And then, with the proximity of this year’s NaNoWriMo event, it grew exponentially. I went from having a sketch of a story, to plotting a trilogy with all it’s flair.

On the 1st of November of 2022, I’ve started to write ‘The Shapeshifters #1’ which already has another title, but it will remain with this one until the trilogy is completed.

I am stoked by all of this process. I’m loving to bring to life the ideas I plotted for this story. I’m focusing on meeting my writing goals and in the task of building a good story… and trying to ‘never mind the rest’.

Are you entering NaNoWriMo? Let’s be buddies?

(I’m sara-farinha from Portugal)

And, please let me know how’s your project going. 

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

Grounding the Writing Practices

grounding the writing practices

Today we are talking about grounding our writing practices.

Having trouble to face that blank page? To begin something? To just put your tutu on the chair? 

Yeah! I know where you’re at. Been there too many times to be willing to face them all.

A few years ago, my first big discovery to help me cope with this matter was a book (not a big surprise here! I tend to go looking for answers in books). 

It was “The Artist’s Way” by Julian Cameron, and it helped me face some things about my life and my choices, which stayed with me until today.

Other books helped me as well, but let’s not get on to all of those. It’s quite an extensive list.

Throwing in this mix, is a decade and a half of fiction and non-fiction writing, and I realised I have been teaching myself how to properly ground my writing practices.

Meaning of grounding

grounding merriam-webster

Grounding as in training or instruction in the fundamentals of a field of knowledge. But it isn’t fully that.

grounding free dictionary

Grounding as connecting something to its ground. To provide a basis, to justify, to instruct in fundamentals.

Grounding my writing practices in solid foundations to which I can return to every day.

What am I talking about?

When I start a new project, any project, like cooking a recipe, writing a paper, cleaning my house, take on a 9 to 6 job… the first thing I worry about is to learn about the task at hand.

Organising inside my head what it needs to be executed. Which are the rules applied, what tasks needs to be done, how to do it the best way I can. Reaching into past lessons and composing a how-to-do-this the best way I know how.

When I’m feeling less okay about it, or not enjoying the task at hand, I tend to avoid it by diverting my attention to other things… even if they are writing related tasks.

And by doing that, I loose my ground on the task that got me overwhelmed in the first place.

I had to learn how to ground myself on those works, that I wanted to be doing, even if they feel overwhelming.

Warming up to it

Trying to start something without proper warm up can cause injuries. I remember this from gym classes and it applies throughout.

To start writing without a proper warm up is just an injurie waiting to happen.

Inducing a mind space welcoming to the activity, is essential to avoid the black page block.

To ground myself onto my writing practices isn’t easy or learn-to-never-forget type of atitude. No, it’s hard and constant work.

So, in each day, I’ve come up with a few practices that help me ease myself into writing for the different projects I’m working on at the moment.

I first do something which usually gets me thinking and taking notes on something else. I set a scenery, a time, a place, in which I know that as soon as I enter it, I’ll sit and perform.

What I use to warm up

I choose to ground myself into my writing practice by using other means of input and output.

These include journalling, goal cards, collage, vídeos, music, meditation, even reading emails is good warm-up and a thoughts collector.

These practices help me ease myself into a mental state in which Flow can take over.

For example, “today” I started to write on my Mind Tools Journal and ended up with my notebook open, writing some short-story fiction, which occurred to me while trying to find a rhyme and reason on my yesterday’s tasks. From there, I went to this very blog post you are reading, and a short essay on a non-related theme… because I started to listen to some video-talk and it got me these ideias…

Producing isn’t Consuming

Please do not mistake these strategies with consuming stuff online. It is purposefully used to help me sit on this (or any other) chair, and proceed with my writing schedule.

And it’s not every day that I am working on building new stories. Sometimes, I’m editing, or revising, or marketing, or making other types of content.

Also, I have now a broader sense of what is included in my writing time.

Sitting myself to write fiction, also includes writing a story plan, some notes, scene cards, and whatever material I need to come up with a story.

It was not a very long time ago that I didn’t include my preparation work as writing time. I just saw the hours, in which I wasn’t scribbling away, inside the text document, that held the current work in progress. By those standards, I never did enough writing. (Not that I think I do enough. I don’t. I could always be writing more and I am working on that)

Copywriting is still writing. Poetry is still writing. Blog posts… daily journalling, ideas for books and videos, scripts for VLook…

I draw the line on writing shopping lists and excel files. Those I don’t consider writing, even if they are essential to the writer’s life.

How to make it work?

Grounding my writing practices, interconnecting them with my life’s daily tasks, feels like any other new habit we integrate.

For example, when we meditate we go to our mental space of calmness (some times more than others). We focus on the practice, ground ourselves to it, and let the breathing and the directed attention do their thing, to help us let go of all that stuff that’s weighting down on our minds.

Grounding on my writing practices started to feel the same way. Letting go of all the noise which emanates from our daily life’s and just focus on allowing myself to create something, to bring something forth.

It feels like entering a space, being transformed enough by being there, calm enough to play, focused enough to mentally open and let ideas flow.

Does it always work?

As much as any other focused practice.

Introducing a few grounding practices at a time, experimenting with what helps get our minds engaged and producing ideas. Allow these practices to form a true constancy in our daily life. Tying them to our writing practice.

There are a lot of exercises, like gratitude practices, keeping a schedule, or collaging next months goals in front of our desk, which can serve us in several ways.

And there are different practices. There are people which tied their writing practice to going somewhere, for example. Going to a coffee shop to write. To seclude themselves in an hotel room (like some well known writers), or go to a writing retreat… even to writing live on Twitch.

All these are grounding writing practices. They anchor the writing activity to some other event so, each time we are doing it, we have all the cues to start writing and no other solution than to write our time out of there.

It took me a few years to learn how to do this and a few more to understand why and how they worked for me.

And you? Do you have some grounding writing practices? What incentives do you use to perform? Are there any other practices you use to unblock your writing?

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

Setting up my NaNo Project and Prepping all the must have’s

nano prep

This week’s post is something a bit strange.

I have been in an all consuming mood regarding ‘The Shapeshifters‘, NaNoWriMo, and a few of other ongoing projects…

Like the upcoming 48 hours read-a-ton (you can know it all on VLook) and register to participate here…

While planning to write a draft during next month’s NaNoWriMo, I figured I should have things better planned out. Yes, I mean it like this. I should have planned the plan! Or maybe I’m just nervous with the whole thing.

It’s my first big English writing project; I’m kind of contemplating the thought of making it a trilogy; and wanting to put this story into paper, after so many years in my head. I guess I am a tad nervous about it!

At the same time, there’s a lot of ideas regarding NaNoWriMo, and things I want to do, before the first day of November arrives.

Things I want to do, in order to feel more at ease with working on this project, uninterruptedly for a month… and then some.

Let’s start by listing some thoughts and try to get my grip on what’s going on.

First,

I want to start by confessing that I think I botched my NaNo projects page. It looks like this… [minus the ‘let’s be buddies!’ part]

nanowrimo projects

I had a Portuguese project, from last year. Then, I created the English project for Camp NaNoWriMo this July. And then I created a new project for upcoming November’s NaNoWriMo.

Maybe I should have created a new goal… but wouldn’t it be Camp NaNo, instead of November’s NaNo? I don’t know!

Question: Do you have some thoughts on the matter?

Second…

I have written, and added some scenes, contemplating the major plots, transversal to the three books in the trilogy. [Seeds are evolving here and turning into sprouts.]

Organising these scenes has been my main prep activity for some time. All of my nights for the last three weeks, minus a day, due to a medical appointment.

I wanted it to be easy and perfect, and to be able to fix all the things I had messed up in the Portuguese drafts. Instead it just feels like a big mess.

More of a mess than before because, now I also have my english to contend with.

I am planning for a three act structure more openly now. For this book and the trilogy. [Just got myself into a big, three parted mess, didn’t I?]

While trying to visualize it all I got a bit confused… I am a visual planner, and I need to have some sense to where I am going… even if it’s a three year’s long project. I need to plan!!!

Third…

I am planning to make a billboard out of my 3 act structure. There is no way I can see the story just with my cards. Even if I’m using A5 cards! I need to have a sense to where all of these bits and pieces fit in.

[Thank you, Universe! for I am a crafter, and have plenty of supplies, including a children’s roll of paper from IKEA!]

With a huge billboard in toe, I expect it will be a long, crowded November, in all of my writing corners of this small house. 

Fourth…

I am still hesitant in my working hours for this project.

I have been using during/after dinner time to write my scenes, but I don’t know if it’s the best fit for me. I prefer to write in the mornings. Usually I am more tired in the afternoon and in the beginning of the night, and less aware of idiotic writing (not exclusively) decisions.

But if I choose to block two hours, first thing in the morning, I’ll have to get up at 6… again. This means that by 9:30 pm I’ll be praying for rest and not getting any. I have a child. She doesn’t abide to my sleeping needs.

Scheduling two hours on a middle of the day would be complicated. Conflicting activities will always be a given.

And who says I can write 2000 in two hours? Every day? For a month? I write kind of slowly and usually cut too much of the fluffily prose that would serve a word count, but doesn’t make a decent writing product.

I am still mulling over this one… but it probably will affect my blogging consistency, and I’ll just end up writing during small increments of time, all day long.

Fifth…

I wanted to make a reminder for myself… but, this time, put it in front of me.

camp nano
Shouldn’t the reminder be in front of me?!

I thought maybe a banner. Why? You may ask…

To help me focus, and get in mood for this project, and to remind me of my most immediate goal, and to just feel some support of the objects-displayed variety.

At the same time, I hope it would serve as a reminder for other people, in the apartment, to accommodate my November’s writing needs. But that’s just wishful thinking.

Sixth…

Deciding on my writing spot.

I now have four possibilities… five, if I count the living room couch. I’ll be alternating between them, I guess.

These are: 1. The kitchen table. 2. My desk in my(shared) office. 3. My bedroom desk. 4. My child’s desk, in her bedroom.

Choosing a spot to write will be intimately connected with the day of the week, and at what time I’ll be working on this project. But I have choices and this is kind of a novelty for me. 

I have written entire books on my couch. I have revised books from my bed. I have layered story cards on the spare bedroom floor (before my child’s arrival).

And there were times I didn’t had a proper desk to write on, nor one suitable office chair to sit comfortably. Proofs are pains all over my back and legs. But, even though it wasn’t healthy, I still miss sitting cross legged, writing on my lap.

Now…

Now I have this list, and my thoughts a bit more organised. I have been taking notes, parallel to writing this article, because putting stuff into paper, even if virtual paper, always helps me make sense of my to-do’s.

Have you been planning for NaNoWriMo? Are you planning to write a novel soon? How is your prepping activities going?

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼

Writing Scenes in Preparation for NaNo

writing scenes

This is the month before NaNoWriMo. As some people call it it’s Prep October… and I am starting to feel the pressure. 

I have been working on a manuscript, for a couple of years now, and in this year’s Camp Nano I saw myself setting its first two drafts in a limbo on uncertainty (more than usual) and started to test writing an english version instead.

I can tell you, it has been a wild emotional ride.

But first, some backstory. I’m writing a novel named ‘The Shapeshifters’ since 2021. You can read more about it the article: Drafts, writing plans and mind the gap

I have been imagining, and reimagining, and trying to create a story that has been with me for a long time. Mainly because I choose some difficult themes to work with… but this is personal, and it’s not for full disclosure at this point.

I was so happy when, in the beginning of 2021, I was able to put pen into paper and craft the major parts of this story.

Then I started working on a second draft, adding to the story, and getting my sub-plots aligned. Second draft completed and then…

I started writing the third draft in English.

It just came out that way!

This change gave me a pretty good amount of difficult feelings. I was supposed to continue this project, as planned, just trying to get it written in Portuguese, and polished to the best of my abilities.

But there I was… writing a new first scene, in another language.

It’s not that I want to translate what I have written. No, I want to write it anew, as if the first two drafts were totally exploratory.

And this added to the complexity of the writing process.

Very well, then!

What now?

One of my main goals/tasks for this Autumn was to finish my third-or-first draft of ‘The Shapeshifters’. Third draft because it’s the third time I’m rewriting this story. Or-First because it suddenly got rewritten in English.

It was reiterated in July’s Camp NaNo but I am still struggling with it.

As I wrote before… 

“I need to go back to the drawing board and write a new plan for this story. There are some changes, that I want to make, regarding characters and story line. I’ve noticed that I designed a lot of backstory but failed to put it to good use. 

Characters backstory, connections and past traumas are important and need to be carefully embedded in the story. How could I write a story with 79341 words and not put enough density is beyond me.

I’m always careful about not overdoing on what might be considered the boring stuff, an excess of whatever isn’t required. But it seems I trimmed it too much, leaving out even the important story details.“

As much as I see the need for all of this, the overthinking about the details, the decision making process, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the subject. I needed to get my real bearings and find a way to get back to ‘The Shapeshifters’.

And the Muse has to find me working, so…

Five days ago, in a fit of “I am really fed up with all of these thoughts that lead to nowhere, and mind as well stick with the program!“

I took a seat in the most improbable place of my apartment, (not the toilet, it must be the only place where I don’t find myself inspired to write) at the kitchen table. Accompanied by somme draft papers (basically A4 sheets, half used my my daughter’s scribbles, cut in A5 format) and a pen, and started chipping away at the work of putting all the scenes I had in those.

Oh, and it was after dinner, a writing schedule I usually don’t think very well of, since I’m more of an early bird, than a night owl.

It took me 4 blocks of about two hours to finish that work.

Looking ahead

Now, I’m on a crossroads… again. I need to have a visual of the whole project and need to make a better effort.

So on the fifth day I went back to the drawing table and started rereading and adding and adjusting. 

I do not know how this will turn out. I know I’m prepping this project to be properly written during this year’s NaNoWriMo, next month.

But let’s see how all of this goes.

So this is the situation at this point… and you? Are you doing the NaNo challenge? How’s your writing process going?

Please leave a comment and subscribe for more content.

Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼