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Showing posts from May, 2017

Story Book started

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I had actually managed to get the first few chapters of the YA Novel written this week along with some of the storybook images. This morning I had a bee in my bonnet and was trying to visualize how the story book would look as an ePub. The curiosity got the better of me, and I launched my InDesign and got some stuff laid out. I'm so pleased with the results. It also informed me where I needed to do another illustration, so this afternoon's job is going to be doing that. The Facebook page was created two days ago, although I am not going to start really pushing on that till nearer the self-publishing date, for those who are interested, the link is. https://www.facebook.com/Figmentasia/ I can't believe how rewarding this is. Even if the book doesn't make any money when it's launched, just doing it for my friends and families kids is going to be rewarding enough,

Community Spirit

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It never ceases to amaze me the generosity of people. My friend has an English Teacher friend who has said she will look over my writing for me and help me with grammar which is one of my weaker points in writing. I have finally broken through on a design ethic I like for the website, and am pushing away with that when I am now writing or illustrating. Finished another illustration today, and it will be the one that kicks the story off in the storybook version.

Motivation for a first time writer

Although I have a complete plan of my novel written down, I have found myself writing in a nonlinear form and doing the chapters I know are easy to write. I have reached the halfway point and it is now the time where I need to do research and think very carefully how I thread the interweaving chapters together so that the are no inconsistencies with charchter motivations. This s the bit I am finding hard and I guess the point where most first-time writers give up. I have found this week I am having to force myself to write. Yesterday I only managed 900 odd words instead of my usual 2 to 4 k. For me, my motivation changes from day to day. One day it may mean speaking to my sister or one of five other girlfriends who know how my brain works and keep me going. Other days it may that I just need to do some of the storybook version's artwork. Tuesday I had one of my friends over and I was just going through who the characters were, and a plot device that had been eluding me made itsel

Research

I ended up having to go to the library yesterday to get books on tall ships and sailing. I came away with The Mary Rose Story by John Christopher and Sailing Boat Manual by Dennis Watts. A third of the quest I have my heroes on is set aboard a tall ship and is their way of getting to each island, and towards the climax, I want to have them face off against a sea god and dragon. How do ships move? What are the different parts of the ship called? What is each crew member's role? How many crewmen and women are there? I can't make any of this up, so I need to find out so that what I write onboard the ship sounds real. Because I am dealing with magical and mythical situations, the stuff that the reader can relate to needs to sound believable. Hopefully, that way when the fantastical happens the reader is on board and will go with me on the journey.

Illustrations for the Story Book Version

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Quest two complete

I can remember trying to write as a teenager and never getting very far. It was in the days of good old-fashioned pen and paper. I'd get a couple of chapters in and give up the ghost. The great thing about today is not only the fact that you can write in a nonlinear fashion, but there are so many apps to help you block out your story map, create your character and objects reference library, store reference images, and create accompanying artwork. So this week I dived into Teban Thelba's (my lead characters) second quest, and over three chapters I managed to go from start to finish with one tiny gap left for me to fill in when I have a substantial good enough idea for it. They say the conflict is the spice of writing, and as difficult as I initially found it, I actually managed to get some good stuff in there. I need to get a good row between Teban Thelba and her friends into the story at some point, and so far that has eluded me. The resolution point is mapped out though.

Fight the guilt

Gosh. So learning to write on this scale requires a lot of my brain having to rewire how it works. I started the process to kill the time as I was getting frustrated being in all the time and wanting to keep busy. Ironically the thing I am having to do for at least half an hour a day is actually just sit down with my coffee and do nothing except let my brain wander, explore and play with ideas for the structure of Figmentasia. I'm having to develop new animals and device behaviors and attributes to their eco system and it's a fascinating thing to do. But because I am sitting down physically doing nothing it makes me feel incredibly guilty. I've watched a few videos on youtube about this, and it seems it's quite common to start off with. Hopefully, i will get to the point where I am not distracted by the dusting I may have missed, or the washing and other household chores.