Outlines

Lots of periodic discussion about outlines amongst the writers. It's always the classic debate - do you outline, and why? Some people don't. Some people do. The answer seems to be as random as the writers themselves.

Do I outline? Not really. But kind of. Lemme 'splain.

I don't do traditional outlines. There are no pieces of paper with bullet points, or horizontal timelines with little explanatory offshoots, or synopsis-like paragraphs explaining where the hell I'm going with my writing. Hell, I tried doing one page character summaries/biographies and besides the name and some general characteristics I didn't even stick to those. (I didn't even use a couple of the characters!) What do I do, then, that could be considered outlining?

Well, I usually know what I want to happen to certain characters. I might not know the when but I generally know the what, and the rest of it comes later. For example, on my current werewolf thing that I'm trying to revise, when I was writing the story I knew a couple of things. Number one, it was a Thursday night when the story started. Number two, the full moon was going to be the following Tuesday. I knew I wanted an attack to happen sometime right around the full moon, but I didn't have the exact time pegged, nor did I know yet who I wanted to be the attacker. I started with that general idea in mind and just let the characters flow onto the page.

As I wrote I got more ideas for the characters. Early on I started thinking a death needed to happen. Did I know who I wanted to die? No. Did I know when? No. So I kept writing. It came to me about halfway through the book, and so I generally wrote the story with that future event in mind, and it didn't happen until the last few chapters. I wrote a bad guy into the story, but I didn't yet know his identity. (He appears as a werewolf through most of the story so I had wiggle room to decide what person he was as a human.) As I continued I got other ideas, like how my character's ex-boyfriend could contribute more to the story, how I could squeeze certain events into the narration, how I could give all of my characters just a little more depth...

And you know, the story turned out okay. It turned out more than okay. It certainly turned out way better than I thought it was going to. And I did it without a traditional outline.

I won't lie, I sometimes had to go back and tweak things as I got new ideas. But you know, I figure that would have happened anyway even with the outline. If I wrote an outline to the point of knowing each step the characters would take as I wrote, I wouldn't follow it. Why then would I want to take so much effort making an outline I already knew I probably wouldn't follow?

So I stick to my "kind of" statement. I plan with a general idea, and write towards that goal, but I don't organize myself into a rut.

Someone mentioned the left vs right brain thing. I don't know that it relates to the writing. Hell, I don't even remember which side of the brain is which. I do know that I'm right hand and right eye dominant, and when I feel the need I'm extremely OCD about being organized (the shirts in my closet are organized by type, tshirt to long sleeve to sweatshirt, etc, and used to be arranged in rainbow order), but at the same time I don't like to over-organize my writing and my house is in a constant state of disaster. Whatever that is, it's contradictory. LoL.



Quote of the day:

(The Whole Nine Yards)
Jimmy: I'm telling you this like a friend because if you screw this up - I would hate to... I would really hate to have to kill you. I would hate it more than mayonnaise. You know how much I hate mayonnaise.


~Sass~

Happy 4th!

It's that time of year again! Hamburgers, hotdogs, illegal fireworks, hot weather, and best of all... paid vacation. Oh yeah.

My husband had his appendix out on Tuesday and he's recovering nicely, but I highly doubt he's going to feel up for taking a walk/drive to someplace where we can see the pretty explosions in the sky. Best we can probably do is see if any fireworks are visible from the backyard, but even then, I don't know that he'd want to sit in a lawn chair for that long. Might aggravate his stitches. Oddly enough, I'm okay with this. I don't feel a horrible urge to see fireworks this year. Would much rather keep working on my novel (I can has finished??).

Or clean the house, which I was supposed to be doing yesterday and didn't. Oops. There's only so long I can procrastinate when my sister and two of my cousins are coming to stay from Tuesday to Sunday. I did get most of the dishes done, though! (Hush you... that counts.)

So I'm making pretty good progress with my revisions. I'm nearly to the halfway point in the novel and it's picking up speed (mostly because the really exciting stuff is happening and I'm more motivated to get it done). I really hope I can get the whole thing done sometime this month. I want to put the damned thing away and work on another project for a while. Got ideas floatin' around that need to be realized on paper! Or in a word processor. Whichever happens to be available.

Alright, time to get up off my butt and go do something. I leave you with this funtastic quote:


The Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Um... I think so, Brain, but what if the chicken won't wear the nylons?


~Sass~

Instructions: Insert Foot In Mouth, Proceed to Offend

My deepest apologies to family members that have recently read my blog. I should have, and didn't, realize that one of my posts was offensive and invasive. It's been removed. I know I didn't name names but it doesn't matter... you all know who I was talking about.

I feel like an ass. The next family get-together is going to be very awkward.

Fun with YouTube

Wow, it's been a while. But hey, I'm posting again right? So let's have some fun!


First up, retarded dancing around the world. Kinda brings a tear to my eye. Guy can't dance to save his life but that's part of what makes it fun!

And yeah, I know it isn't YouTube. Shoosh.

Where the Hell is Matt?


Jon LaJoie sings about being a normal guy:

Everyday Normal Guy


Best. Music. Video. Ever.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X2_m4LYAcdI


Safety videos at their finest. Skip the first couple of minutes if you have no patience.

German Safety Video


So, those are my four picks for the week. I'll come back next week with more classics or possibly some entirely new shenanigans!

Movie quote of the day:

(Serenity)
Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting".
Wash: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?


~Sass~

TLDR

Some of you might not understand this, but I know the writers will.

Why is it we as writers can't seem to respond to anyone without critting people with a massive wall of text?

For instance, there has been a lot of guild drama lately in Teh Sass's online world. A few of us try to post great responses to the drama, and yet a majority of people simply look at the size of the post and walk the other way. I had a guildy email me and I wrote him *pages* worth of response, most of it I'm sure he's still reading between actual work.

In the office I often find myself writing long explanatory emails. Even as I'm writing it I know I could simply get it over with in a few sentences, but something makes me pour my soul into what I'm writing, to make them understand what I'm thinking and feeling and the why of it. I simply can't write anything in a shorter format. Too much meaning lost if I shorten.

Sometimes I envy those of you that can respond in a short, concise manner. Then again, it's freakin' awesome to pwn someone six ways to sunday with a massive wall of text.

Anyway, just a funny observation. Thought I'd blog about it.

Funny movie quote of the day:

(Super Troopers)
Farva: Just cleaning out the old locker, she stinks like ass but I'll sure miss her... I guess you could say that about all my girls.


~Sass~

The Fist Bump

So, unbelievably, Obama's fist bump with his wife has been dubbed "the fist bump heard 'round the world."

Yes. I'm serious.

Why is this news? Guys have been doing this for decades. Even the females pick up on it while mocking the males. I guess since Obama is the first black presidential candidate, and apparently the first government official to ever perform such a casual gesture on national TV (I find this hard to believe), he must be news worthy.

So far I've found articles from:

TIME
Chicago Tribune
Daily News

... which then spawned Joe the Peacock's article about male non-verbal communications.

Damn, us Americans really have a knack for blowing things out of proportion. Like Rachel Ray's scarf. (Seriously... this is PC gone rabid. Though this article had a good response to it.)

I'll be eagerly awaiting the next big riot about something insignificant. After all, if we can't find any drama, we create it.


Random movie quote of the day:

Scary Movie 3
Cindy: Something weird is going on at your farm. I know it.
George: I don't know what you're talking about. Sometimes a sheep just needs to be pushed through the fence.


~Sass~

Chiaroscuro (chizine)

Chia-what? I didn't know either, until another writer friend linked me the yearly contest they hold.

THE 14TH CHIAROSCURO SHORT STORY CONTEST

Dark fiction. I read through some of the entries and it made me shiver with anticipation. I felt that familiar thrill of dark reading, that nice sense of unease that creeps along my spine as I delve into the darker side of human imagination. It was a feeling I'd almost forgotten about. I've been reading a lot of humor-based thrills for years now, and it's mostly what I write. But at one point I was able to tap into the scarier stuff. I used to write similar things, darker things.

Which made me wonder... can I still write dark fiction?

Humor is a surprisingly hard habit to break. Understandably so. It's enjoyable. I've gotten the hang of it. Especially sarcasm. Dark fiction is enjoyable, but for entirely different reasons. It's like trying to compare apples and crabcakes. They're just too different, as is the mind set you need to be in to write either of them.

I probably won't submit anything to this contest, but I might challenge myself and try it anyway. I know I can write dark. I just need to find my (not so) happy place and dive into the abyss.

Now, if only I had a suitably dark character to write about...

Ponder of the day:

Is Santa so jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live?


~Sass~