Planner's block [Ranting by Starlight]

Every writer has their own planning style. No one can tell you how to plan out the plot of your novel because, like most things in writing, you just have to do it your own way - which is very frustrating if you don't know what your way is. Or, as in my case, if you discover what your style is and it totally sucks.

Some people plot everything out on a flow chart before they write their first sentence. Or so I've heard. That would be very nice, to have a roadmap. Wish it worked for me. I've started way too many outlines and never finished a single one. So I've got this nifty story I'm working on and the beginning is awesome and interesting and I'm just reading it over and over again and adding to it until it's a more bloated and less awesome monstrosity because I have no clue where I'm going.

Turns out my style is to worry and stress out over where my plot will take me for about a year, then finally have the pieces click into place of a sudden while I've been writing all over the map for months. Anyone have a time-turner I can borrow to give my roadmap to my past-self so she knows where to go?

What's your planning style?

Day One of NaNoWriMo - It's on!

Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!

I suppose to begin I should explain what NaNoWriMo is. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it is what it sounds like: the month of November devoted to the painful endeavour of writing an entire novel. More specifically, the goal of participants of NaNoWriMo is to complete a first draft of 50,000 words, an average of 1,666 words every frigging day. Personally, I'm not participating in the traditional NaNoWriMo sense of planning, structuring, outlining and drafting an entire novel in a single month, from start to finish. Instead, I'm using the event as motivation for moving my already begun project from mid-completion to ending. Definitely taking advantaged of the NaNoWriMo site to get pep talks, participate in forum discussions with other writers, bounce ideas, and pop in for some community write-ins in Toronto. Such events exist in many regions worldwide. In TO there are write-ins in libraries and cafes, as well as social events at cool venues such as Snakes and Lattes on Bloor and Karaoke. Basically, make friends with other writers and create a support system for yourself. NaNoWriMo is looking for participants and donors to cover their costs. You can also participate by sponsoring a friend to write a novel (pick me! pick me!) If you're new to NaNoWriMo, you can get a mentorship, and visit message boards within your genre, your region, age etc. Definitely look into participating if you never have before. You'll be a newbie, like me! Contact if you want a writing buddy!

Atheist Tales - It's coming [story time by starlight]

Here's the website. Still not available to order yet but today it was published. Just waiting on distributors.

Follow on twitter @atheisttales. There's also a page on Facebook.

Thanks for the support!

What is Atheist Tales you ask? Check it out here.

From Above - A sneak peak of my story in Atheist Tales (2011) [story time by starlight]

Here is a sample of my story From Above. Within a few weeks it will be available for purchase online in an anthology entitled Atheist Tales. Enjoy!

               The unrelenting sun scalded the crowd of worshipers that had gathered to listen to the Messengers. It was only once a week that anyone faced the intensity of midday, for the bustling center of trade came to a complete stop when the heat reached its peak. Except for days of temple, citizens rested while the sun was highest in the sky.

              Today they would not complain of their personal ordeal -- the poor with their bare feet blistering on the baked ground and the rich with sweat soaking their silk garments -- for the wealthy and the poor served alike. On one day of the week they knelt beside one another outside the temple like equals.

              It had been the Messengers who had decided that fortune and class had no place in the sacraments. “The Gods reward those who follow their laws,” they said, “regardless of standing.” Those who were privileged enough to indulge in luxuries on any other day found no favor at the temple. They knelt outside on the ground next to the poor, albeit in their finest clothes and wearing palm fiber sandals to protect their feet. Heavy veils protected porcelain skin from burning.

              They knelt in silence. Even the most acrid of the merchants and the most arrogant of the concubines bowed their heads and remained still. Enduring the steaming temperature, the still air, the blinding sun and the stinging sand, not one person so much as whimpered at their discomfort. All wore faces of stone as they waited for the ceremony to begin.             

                A boy called Sajha knelt in the front row, staring down at his sun-stained toes. Like those around him, his face did not display the pain of sitting stiffly in an awkward position while the skin on the bottom of his feet baked beneath him. He tried not to think about his flesh cooking as if on a sun-heated stove, but the idea of his feet being charred like thick slabs of meat kept squirming, uninvited, into his mind.

              Instead of supporting him in his crouched position, his calloused hands were crossed respectfully over his chest. It was a struggle of the will to keep them there as his calves began to strain and cramp. Young as he was, he had lived for sixteen years under the reign of the Messengers, and followed their teachings as strictly as any of the adults. If the Gods willed him to kneel in wait for an indeterminate amount of time without moving a muscle before each ceremony, then he would. But even the Gods and their Messengers could not prevent his bitterness. He was still human.

Atheist Tales by David M. Fitzpatrick et. al, including yours truly - I think you're gonna love this [story time by starlight]

If you're an atheist and free-thinker, this anthology, Atheist Tales is perfect for you. It's a collection of short stories in the speculative fiction genre that comment on religion in various ways. I'm doing this out of shameless self-promotion, because my own short story From Above is included in the anthology, but over the next month or so I will be reading and reviewing the other contributions. I will also include a blurb about From Above.

If you're already hooked, check it out here. If not, I'll work on hooking you over the next few weeks :)