Finding Inspiration - WriYe

The WriYe blogging circle has started up again for 2013 and the first post of the year is a good topic to get started with, because it's what gets my writing started - inspiration. (Yes, I'm in a stupidly corny mood today. My fingers have detached themselves from the part of my brain which usually censors out such ridiculous-sounding sentences...)

So the question is 'Where do you get your initial spark of inspiration? Is it from anything important? What else about inspiration intrigues you? What is your advice to other people to kick start their inspiration?'

I get by inspiration from all over the place, but these are the most common places I go to or things I do when I'm stuck for an idea:

• Find an interesting picture via Google and write about it. People can be interesting, because once I've created a character I usually think of a setting for them to be in. Places can be useful if I'm stuck for a location, or if I just want to practice my descriptions.
• An item of clothing, eg. a scarf. Describe the item of clothing in detail and then go on to what the person wearing it might look like. If there's no person, then where has the item of clothing been left? Why has it been left there? Etc, etc, etc.
• Word lists. Do an internet search for 10 word prompts and go from there, or just open a newspaper to a random page and take the first word from each line (excluding things like a, the, and, and so on) then write a few paragraphs using those words somewhere. As an example, the newspaper in front of me offers volunteers, heritage, market, learning, thank, before, running, eight and cakes.
• Wanted adverts or for sale ads. Why is that person looking for a tonne of horse manure? Why is the double memory foam mattress for sale having never been used? What could you do with that free brick rubble on offer? These are real adverts I've seen, but it can be just as fun to make some up.
• Obituaries can be just as interesting. I've seen death notices requesting that all people coming to the funeral wear fancy dress. Why? What kind of person would have a fancy dress funeral?
• Go for a walk. Watch the people you pass and the places. There's a house with a boarded up window? Why? What could have happened? You pass an old lady who walks with a limp and wears a very expensive looking coat but a cheap haircut. What's her story? A bollard is dented in the middle of the road. Who dented it, how and why?

There are other things I get inspiration from as well, but this is the main list of places.

New Year's Writing Resolutions

I'm someone who works best from a list. If I'm writing a long story I write out a list of scenes I want to write in any given day and then work through them, and I find I'm much more productive that way that if I just sit down and try to pick up where I left off.

Having said that, it's logical that my writing goals for this year have to be in a list form, so here are my 2013 writing resolutions:

• Write 150,000 words of fiction in 2013, whether that's character sketches, flash or novels.
• Finish the first draft of Witness.
• Try writing a different style to my usual YA/fantasy - perhaps something steampunk or romance?
• Take part in NaNoWriMo (note: take part, not neccesarily win).

A word game for Christmas

I'm sure several people have done this before, but this is a word game I'm doing with my family at Christmas (they don't read my blog so are unlikely to find the answers here!).

Essentially, what you do is to take a couple of lines from a Christmas carol and run it through Google translate several times and then back into English. I find using Chinese or a non-European language makes it more interesting because they come from different reference points.

As an example; 'Once in Royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed' becomes 'In Imperial David's city, bad bullpen'.

Read the translated lines to your family/friends/people in the works party and see if they can guess what the carol is. Usually there will be some clue in the translation as to what it is (like Imperial David's city), but some come out so crazy that it can be fun trying to work out what it's supposed to be.

Here are 10 that I did for my family party. The answers are underneath the clues, so highlight the blocks of black to see the answers :)

Sitting on the floor at night, shepherds watching their teacher

While shepherd watched their flocks at night all seated on the ground

Hall of fields, all local flying angel
Angels from the realms of glory wing your flight o'er all the earth

Listening to the Herald Angels Sing newborn King Glory
Hark the herald angels sing glory to the new born king

Christmas, Christmas, three ships sailing
I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas day, on Christmas day

God bless you all happiness, gentlemen, let nothing you afraid
God rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay

Obviously, at midnight, age, and glorious songs
It came upon the midnight clear that glorious song of old

Was moaning in the dark cold winter wind
In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan

In a manger, no crib bed away from the
Away in a manger no crib for a bed

The difference between the field and lay the first Noel the angels, shepherds
The first nowell the angels did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay

Oh, come on, you are faithful to win 
O come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant

I didn't win NaNo but...

I've decided that what with one thing and another, I'm not going to reach 50k by midnight.

I had an assignment due in yesterday, I work full time, I've had meetings that I had to go to in the evenings, and basically that all added up to no time to actually sit down and write.

But! I've decided I'm not going to look on this as a failure. This month I've written a heck of a lot more than I would have thought I could squeeze in around all the other things I was doing. I've got a good proportion of a story that I'm actually very pleased with, and I'm determined to finish writing the story in December. And having decided to accept that I'm not going to race the clock to write 12k words in the next 6 hours, which I probably could do if I really BICFOK'd*, I'm going to not stress and just enjoy finishing my story in December.

Anyone else not going to finish but taking a positive from it?

*BICFOK - Bum In Chair, Fingers On Keys

NaNoWriMo progress

After a bit of a shaky start I'm finally getting back on track with my NaNoWriMo. In the end I decided to focus the story mostly on Lois McBride, and Morgan and Ellie Callahan, and write an origin story for Lois. I touched on it in Thief, my Camp NaNo story from last year, but she was a fun character and I wanted to revisit her.

In the process of finding out she's got unusual abilities, Lois is having to cope with usual teenage issues like school, friends and parents, and finds herself in the middle of a disagreement between the Callahans and a casino boss they ripped off when they were in Vegas.

My NaNo stats:
3 - number of days I've written nothing
6 - number of days I've written less than 400 words
8 - number of days I've actually managed more than 1667 words
10,000 - number of words behind where I should be
26,792 - number of words I've written to this point

Things I slightly regret doing in the story:
• Setting the story in Alabama. I've never been to Alabama and have no friends there. I'm not even American! I've been spending a lot of time on tourist websites and Google maps.
• I have no major character who's male. Lois's dad plays an important role and two of Lois's school friends are guys, but they're not major characters. Morgan is, but she's a girl at heart, even when she's a guy.
• The bad guys have a somewhat backseat role until the end. They're vaguely implied as they chase Morgan and Ellie, but they don't appear in the flesh until half way through, and the big Vegas baddie so far has only made an appearance via a phone call.

Do your characters talk?

This caught my eye when I was searching for something (and I can't for the life of me remember what).

I find that I know when I'm in the proper writing zone when it seems like my characters are talking to me rather than me having to think about how they will act. And when I have writer's block, my imaginary friends don't talk to me ;)

Ahchooo!

It's quite late on October 31, I have an assignment due in in just over 12 hours, NaNoWriMo will start at midnight, and I'm ill. This is not a good combination. My head is all stuffy, my eyes are streaming and won't focus properly, I keep getting either too hot or too cold, and I feel like death warmed up. On the plus side, it looks like I'll be having tomorrow off work, so I'll have a few more hours to get my assignment done...