Morning

 It's funny how one can complain about life being too eventless to be fun, because when they actually become busy, all they can talk about is how nice it is to not be so busy.

 I don't like to be busy in the sense that I hate going out and doing errands. Just forget about trying to convince me to spend time with my fellow teenagers--what a waste it would be to drive to some place and pay good money to be a part of a 'camp' or 'workshop' that teaches me nothing and smushes me in a room with a bunch of attention grabbing-iPhone listening-unresponsive kids and expect me to have fun.

 This summer, I volunteered at a business that happens to have a lot of kid volunteers. There was one girl who found out I was older that her and afterwards would not even look or respond to me if I asked her a question or for help finding someone. I know I can be moody sometimes, but I hope I'm not that moody. Thankfully the volunteering session is over for the summer, because there was more than one issue with the place. But it's over, so I'm not going to go on and on ragging about it.

Girl: "Your a SENIOR?!"
Me: "Well, kinda. (didn't want to get into the homeschool/odd grade thing) Most people think I'm 12."
Girl: "No, I thought you were a Freshman or something."

Yep. True story.

Give me some fun loving, interesting adults any day. Or some sociable homeschoolers. Contrary to popular belief, homeschoolers are actually more sociable than today's average teen.


 On a good note, all of my free time has led me to write a lot more (anddomorechorescoughcough). But more than that, I've learned about the importance of making my own writing habits and rules, instead of listening to the NaNoWriMo system or the Writer's Digest techniques all by themselves. The truth is, I don't like to just write a whole novel in a month and spend the next 30 years of my life editing it. If I'm going to write it, it doesn't need to be perfect but it needs to have a good structure. And I'm also not into conventional plot arcs. Things become too predictable if you write in the same way that the bestsellers in Writer's Digest do.
  Newbery medalist Gary D. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars, Okay For Now) uses a typewriter for his first draft, only pounding out about 500 words a day.  I really like that pace for myself. The average Young Adult novel has a chapter length of 2,000 words. I prefer to write by hand, so this means that with 500 words a day, I can easily write about two chapters a week. To be honest, I'd rather have two great chapters than a whole pile of irrelevant scenes crafted during NaNoWriMo.

 That's all for now, folks! By the way, if it crosses your mind I would love if you'd vote in the Verve Lit Awards. The deadline is August 15th.

Have a lovely day,

-Jessie

Camp Verve

 I have this thing with NaNoWriMo. Under the right circumstances, I love the challenge. I even fight until the last week, even though I haven't won the adult's challenge yet. But this month, for the first session of camp, I have decided that I'm just too dang busy to write 50k. The goal requirement for the 3rd day is 5,000 words, and I'm only at 2,300. So Instead of getting frustrated with these scenes that I will never put in a published novel, I'm going to call Camp NaNoWriMo quits. But in turn, I am starting Camp Verve.

 Instead of 50,000 words, I am challenging myself to 5 complete, sound, and awesome chapters. Chapters are weird for me. Ever since I started NaNo I've been more used to doing scene segments. I've only one chapter that I can think of that I've written in the last two years that actually seems complete (and it's a snazzy 3,000 words, thank you). This 5 chapter challenge will be good for me, because my writing will be more productive.


 Official Writing Rules:

• Write 5 chapters that are well-rounded. Long scenes do not count unless they make a full point.
• Each chapter should be at least <1k. No wimpy stuff that lasts 400 words, unless it's a cool prologue.
• 2 of the 5 chapters must be from the same story.

Now this sounds like fun! If anyone has NaNoWriMo woes, you are welcome to join me.

MAY THE HORSE BE WITH YOU.

Y'know, it's just fun. Don't knock it. xD

titles are little buggers

 I have not been very exciting lately, have I? The truth, my dears, is that often writers are nothing more than short glasses-clad research freaks with lots of ink stains on their long fingers. It could very possibly be a crime that pulp fiction writers get published before the slave laborers.

 There has been a whole exciting pile of nothing going on lately; I'm afraid I got sidetracked working on a novel that no one will probably want to read so I'm writing for myself.

 My predicament is often that I work on too many stories at once. When I really get excited about a scene that I wrote, I often beg my friends to read them. While I'm expecting some feedback along the lines of...

       "I think Mairy is a little quiet in this chapter, you should make her chatter as her father cuts the wood. And I don't like how slow it is in this spot, if you'd cut it out or add a different adjective it would lend a nicer transition. The tree description was my favorite part!"

...it is often a hollow and dull remark of "Oh, I liked that a lot." or a complete scrutiny of grammar rather than real help, and so then I feel like a completely useless writer and don't want to work on a story again until I can make it so that when one reads it they fall out of their chair, sobbing and blubbering around that that story changed their life forever and they love it so. But I don't want to completely give up on the story because I love it, so it goes to the back of my head.

 At the moment I'm detailing Deceptive, battling against opinions with other writers about the world building elements of my Christian Sci-Fi novel (writing messages boards are privately thought of as psychological battle grounds), doodling around with my own private novel, and writing a line or two on my typewriter.

 This is the quandaries of life some times. Not to mention that it's very hard to work on a near-death scene when your dad is singing a very, very dated Spanish disco song at the top of his lungs while he makes coffee. Eh. Don't tell him I brought that up.



 Camp National Novel Writing Month June starts on Friday. Hope to see you there!

Plot - a - Lot

 Here it is: I just finished my first ever real story outline. Sort of.  Using the method from Script Frenzy's Outlining Tips post, I was [FIIIINALLY!] able to find something that had the right flow for me. Here is a quote from said post:

She suggests getting nine 3 x 5 cards, and writing on each card what happens on page 1, 3, 10, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, & 100. Once you do that, you have your “9-minute movie”.

Post these cards near your computer, and voila! You’re ready to get started.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the common things that happen to characters on those pages:

Page 1 – Set up story, mood, tone, and place.

Page 3 – Introduce the central question your characters will explore.

Page 10 – Tell us what the story is. Tell us what the hero wants.

Page 30 – An event occurs that moves the hero into new territory.

Page 45 – We see the initial growth of your character. You’ll tell us where we’re headed from here on.

Page 60 – The middle of Act Two: your hero is in big trouble, he reaffirms and makes a deeper commitment to what he wants.

Page 75 – It looks like all is lost, and there might even be a scene where the character is about to give up.

Page 90 – The resolution of the problem begins.

Page 120 – The audience gets the resolution they deserve, and the audience is satisfied that you gave them the story you promised.

  Brian Klems, editor-of-something from Writer's Digest, had a fabulous article: "How to Write a Manuscript" (#5 HAVE SOME FREAKING FUN) about noveling that can come in handy even with this situation. Another good article on Writer's Digest is "Choosing the Best Outline Method for You", in case I feel like being a perfectionist with a scene. ;-D I gotta say, that article took away some of my beef with outlining. There really are more ways to outline than just the 'rollercoaster method'!

  So that's it! Simply by not worrying about EVERY SCENE, I successfully sorted out a synopsis-like outline for my Script Frenzy endeavor. Because of this, I will be able to take on Aubrey Hansen's personal invitation to a Page War Throwdown. GAME ON.


 The first person to say "Let the games begin," or "May the odds be ever in your favor," is going to get a serious glare from me.

Your ever excited writer,

One of Those Mornings

Because you're a homeschooler, you have a strange need to do schoolwork on the weekend and skip Mondays. So when you wake up on Sunday morning, you start reorganizing all 5 billion of your flash cards, and mistake Adverb for something that goes in the Algebra pile.

 Once finished, you realize just how hungry you are, but you don't want to wake up the sleeper inners with the rocket-powered microwave and a strawberry muffin, so you go for the cereal. But there is no rice milk. So you have the dry, uninteresting brand of organic Chex knockoff. With some sugary organic Frosted Wheats knockoff for some sugar. You pawn one of the uninteresting cereal bits to you dog to shut him up.

 "Go back to sleep already."

 Then, because you're in a scholarly mood, you contemplate correcting Taylor Swift on Twitter for posting 'Tonight we ended a 13 month tour.' at ten o'clock in the morning, until you realize that she is in Aussieland or something and it actually IS night there. She has graduated highschool, she's old enough to recognize a subject/verb tense disagreement (that's what you call it, because it sounds more correct than subject/verb agreement) Isn't it ironic that Owl City and Tay Swift and everybody seems to be in the Down Under this week?

 Then of course, you have to go through a typewriter club photo album to drool at a salmon colored Alpina.

This is not my photo and I did not mean to rip it off from the owner for selfish gain I just wanted to share the awesomeness with you guys and not make money off of it for any reason in any country in any hemisphere the intentions were simply for drooling purposes and you can stop staring at me like that for making the worlds second longest run on sentence the first longest is probably in some paranormal romance novel which we will not mention here because then it might be considered slander by those stuck up teenagers on nanawromo young writers program and I'm tired for this sentence so it ends here.

Since your purpose for getting on the computer was to go scroll through Author Agent websites, your mind starts to wander and you wonder how much your going to want to yell at the agent sites. They said in their Writer's Digest profile that they take all young adult fiction, but you are very suspicious when you see their gallery of published works. So you check out their blog to get a more in-depth idea of their prefrences, and it is admitted that they really only like teen witch stories. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Post Script

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt is a really good book.

Novel Self-Help

Is it pathetic that I'm still working on my NaNoNovel?

“It already sounds stupid.”

 The plot keeps evading me. I want the narrator, Jane, to be the FMC, but the secondary FMC keeps stealing the spotlight every time I work on the outline. It's always 'Jill' this, 'Jill' will do that.

"The key word here," she smiled out of context. "Is desperation."

  So I've been reading this novel-help book (gasp) that I used to hate, but actually has some great ideas and thoughts in it. Teach Youself: Writing a Novel by Nigel Watts. It's some none-existent British version of Idiot's Guide. There is little room in my writing world for talk of structured outlines and roller coasters and arcs. So I usually skip all of that. Here is a random good bit:
"Not every novel you read will have a clearly identifiable thesis [. . .] Such books are often like low-grade fast food: tasty in an obvious sort of way, but without much nutrition. [. . .] The market for junk food and junk literature is ever-expanding, and there is a lot of money to be made. Whatever sort of writing you are drawn to write, don't resist the tug. If you self-consciously inject meaning into your work, you will probably seem fake. Even junk has its own integrity." -From Teach Yourself: Writing a Novel
 But I'm a nerd for the study of fiction writing, so that probably doesn't interest you. You probably want more quotes from my book.

 “Enough said.” I held up my hands and grinned awkwardly at the table.

Deceptive (indented quotes) copyright 2012 Jessica Verve.

Script Frenzy 2012 PREP PEP!!!!!

OFFICE - AFTERNOON

 A writer sweeps into a cluttered and sweaty office to the computer, sitting down and clicking crazily through websites.

JESSICA

(narration)

Next month is Script Frenzy. To prepare, I've been jump-roping vigorously, watching movies...

CUT-IN: Jessica attempts to jump rope, even though the rope is too small. Rope tangles and Jessica nearly falls over.

JESSICA

(aside)

...sort of...

(narration)

...and typing randomly. It's quite interesting to come up with scripts, and Script Frenzy is the best time to be lazy and not worry about prose. It is a time solely for narrative, action, and setting, my friends. There are times in life when it is needed.

BLOGGO

No, really?

JESSICA

Who invited you to interrupt my narrative?

BLOGGO

You. You just typed me into this page.

JESSICA

Well, what, are you useful for anything?

Jessica rests her chin on her palm.

BLOGGO

Plenty. For instance, it's a little weird that you're talking to yourself. Whaz wrong with you?

JESSICA

(ignoring Bloggo's question)

Well, then, do something funny.

BLOGGO

(scrunches face-screen)

I can burp the alphabet.

JESSICA

Forget it.
Turns to audience.
What are your favorite ways to plot a script?