Tag Archives: writing

Novel as Not Even Thinly Veiled Autobiography??

    Probably not a good idea, at least so all of the writing experts tell us.  But why, or why not?  I’ve heard it quoted that ‘all novels are autobiographical,’ which makes sense given that any and every line one writes tells much about the writer, no matter what that writer’s intention may have been.  Every word you write reveals something about you.  But you never have a chance to explain or give your own interpretation to your writing.  Once it is out in the world, readers will see in your writing what they wish to see.  Even if it is a true event which they would prefer (and you would also have preferred, for that matter) were not true, or a time when you wondered if you yourself might not be some alien artifact merely sent here to record these odd human goings-on, or if you always thought that life might be some gross diabolical experiment, or maybe even just a fun bet, between two or more un-empathetic beings or species.  Every word your write will pass through the filter of each and every person who reads those words, and thus be judged according to someone else’s experiences and ways of thinking.  From a light-skinned Black child being taunted as ‘white’ by other Black kids, painful for that child, but reduced to whining angst by others, to the fear of a woman that she might be seen as dating across races being turned into mere criticism of interracial dating or marriage.  Our experiences and the thoughts and feelings within those events are always subject to interpretation, measurement, being weighed in the balance, and found wanting by others who have not experienced those or similar things.  The feeling of lost opportunities when potential and ought-to-have-been alliances turn out to be physical aggressions of the first order, all downgraded to a mere fight.  The feeling, when told to take care because your skin is just the right color to get you excluded from every group you have ever even heard of, judged to be simple self-pity.  Your desire to explain that not a single human being ever born has a “pure” bloodline, wiped out by those who simply want you to suffer because you are a convenient target, when they are in fact, acting in precise accord with the racists from the other side who also agree that “the races don’t mix.”  The irony and the agony of being a human being, when it is all so clearly an exercise in futility, just as the writer of Kohelet, aka  Ecclesiastes,  said so long ago:  “הבל” /  “emptiness” -it may all really be emptiness, but we must keep trying, anyway.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through TV or Film story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

or

Learning in the obvious way: Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

     Thoughtful Reading Writers, please consider reading and then also writing something about #ProjectDoBetter.    Phase I includes freely sharing with others about how consumer debt  statutes-of-limitations   related Statutes of Limitations are meant to protect society, if only everyone knew about them.  The work is still heavy, and the workers are still few.   But we human beings  can still seriously Do Better.  cropped-dobettercover.jpg

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka:

ShiraDest  (and by the way, I have written several narratives about these incidents mentioned above, if anyone wants me to link in to them either by editing this post, or in the comments to this post later…  Just let me know in a comment here.)

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, And More Novel Journal Results  

        I noticed that I felt rushed, back when I first began drafting this novel, partly because I’d been outlining and researching for months, and was getting tired of it, partly because people wanted to know why I’d not begun writing words after so long, and partly because it was November, and I wanted to join in again with NaNoWriMo.

   All three reasons were mistakes.

    So the lesson I have learned in looking back at this page of my Who By Fire novel journal is that cooperation is good, but cooperative writing of a novel, or even cooperative listening while writing one, is not so good, at least for me.

  whobyfireiwilltmpcover

    Also, sequencing and ‘causing’ out ideas, aka plotting (what happens in what order for what reasons…) before beginning to draft is crucial for me, and also, word counts for scenes are not so crucial for me.   Further, sequence charts that I can see laid out on paper help, but pinch points and spines do not, so much.    And for me, writing the Back Cover Copy first, very bad idea, as it is a waste of time due to changes during drafting (and unneeded because I plan out my plots, so no need for a BkCvrCpy to keep my pantsing on some sort of track…),  and finally, starting out with a separate Research Notebook really would have helped, rather than mixing my notes in with outline and excerpts.  Tension level plans were maybe a tad redundant while planning my scene outlines, I suspect, since one really has to feel out the pacing, but that is something that Ann & Anna showed me much more effectively as it turned into essentially a serial novella, sort of.  But this chart did help me as I outlined:  PlotOutlineTensionLvls  Finally, remember:

“Forever is a very long time.”

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts on writing, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: H. Jacobs’ Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, Family & Novel Research  

        I mentioned, last week, how I kept feeling bothered by my family history, as if I were  ignoring some ancestors who wanted, demanded, to be remembered, in some way.   I also mentioned the reactions, rather unfavorable, to Louisa and her mother H. Jacobs Created with GIMP  narration of Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, which was long said to have been fiction before finally being accepted as truth.  Professor Fegan yellin’s book is a superset of this particular book, as the original work itself along with Yellin’s commentaries and sources.  Here is a new-ish look at that initial book by H. Jacobs, written by Prof. FaganYellin:

 

Prof. Yellin has not only brought to life a remarkable woman whose daughter could have ‘passed,’ but chose not to. Yellin has brought to light, through the life of Harriet Jacobs a series of community connections from the Deep South to Boston which were created and used to help people in the most desperate of circumstances during the overcrowded wartime Federal City.

 

       She was referring to the book by Jacobs herself, which I was stunned to see modern reviewers reviling for its mention of the violations of enslaved women.  Yes, it is difficult to read about, but yes, it needs to be dealt with, and still has relevance today, as T. A. Gordon pointed out (reviewed recently…).  I still shudder with horror at the thought of what may have to happen to our story’s Fancy, Lucy, before the end: FancyQuadroonNYMet  Horrifyingly enough, even I., our hero, himself, could also be treated as Fancies under the worst of circumstances.

But, at last, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, finally seems to be coming together, but  

  While my research on The Fancy Trade for this novel project, which I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted, centered on that of women, boys were also obviously available as part of this trade.

I had a dream about this topic, one that was just a bit too personal, frankly, as some ancestor seemed to find it necessary to put me directly into the skin of a Fancy Maid, in this dream, and I felt compelled to write a short short about it, which accidentally turned into the series Ann & Anna (referenced in the .sig at the end of this post…).  I will admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic: BchrFancySaleBigger      Ann and Anna was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, whose suffering is not unlike that of Harriet Jacobs.   Then, I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain.

Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

     Historical Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.   Sharing my research for this historical  fantasy novel (Who By Fire is still intended to become an urban portal fantasy, but this research really went more into my earlier series Ann and Anna…) is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 
 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Wednesdays Review of T. Gordon’s Fancy Maids Research For This Novel  

       Last week I mentioned stories that have gone untold, like those of the “Fancy Maids”, the Quadroons and other light skinned Black women, which have been ignored.  This week I want to mention a 2015 Master’s Thesis (The Fancy Trade and the Commodification of Rape in the Sexual Economy of 19th Century U.S. Slavery) I reviewed by T. A. Gordon, that helped shed much light on that odious trade and the consequences of that trade that stretch into the present day.

  Gordon’s short (relatively speaking) master’s thesis presents an excellent argument for a new analytical approach to studying the exploitation of enslaved women which makes it more possible to take into account their legal inability to give or withhold consent. Redefining the way we look at sexual exploitation is crucial to stop the on-going blame toward sexual trafficking victims, particularly women of color, which began with the scapegoating of mixed-race women legally treated as sexual objects and sold as such, as part of upholding white supremacy by humiliating both women and men of color, while blaming those very same women of color for their own victimization.  Gordon holds up the Plaçage system as integral with the auction block for enslaved quadroons and octaroons, showing how both Free women of color and their enslaved counterparts were exploited by a system of white male privilege and fantasization.  A system which continues today. She points out that the “conspiracy of silence” surrounding this system needs to be ended, and hopes to give voice to those voiceless women of color exploited then and now. This work is a good start, which I hope Gordon will continue on into PhD work.

Some reading notes include the fact that: “Specifically, the Catholic … stressed the humanity of slaves … In contrast.. British… placed the…property rights above all other consideration.” (ftnote 37) Thus, race relations operated in a more rigid…hierarchy … opposition to manumission and denial of opportunities for [slaves] become hallmarks of … of slavery in the… United States.    (my comment –That explains alot…)

and

“Louisiana’s free people of color population grew
exponentially during Spanish rule, especially in New Orleans. In her study on the
position of free African Americans within larger slave societies, historian Kimberly
Hanger examines the growth of the free people of color community … whom she calls
libres…  in Spanish Louisiana, their lasting effect on New Orleans culture, “
 
and,
on page 33, 70.21% “”…these factors are just as important in understanding how
Louisiana’s uniqueness contributed to the allure… of the fancy …in the Anglo-American mind. …these women became the scapegoats … Some of the women were quadroons. In the years following the Haitian Revolution, the quadroon as a racial category was gendered… fantasy of sexual triumph supplied an antidote to the terror inspired by…black man”
 
and, most pertinently for Lucy:  “…beautiful young mulatto girls for sale…these … command higher prices than the ablest male laborers…the conspiracy of silence surrounding African American women’s sexual histories …contributes to the continuation of the oppression of women of color in present day society…intersectional lens permits a discourse on the rape of enslaved women of color and … in the present context.”
 

   Her thesis can be found freely online, and is only 55 pages, for those who wish to read the original, which I highly recommend.  

 

     I still shudder with horror at the thought of what may have to happen to our story’s Fancy, Lucy, before the end: FancyQuadroonNYMet  Horrifyingly enough, even I., our hero, himself, could also be treated as a Fancy,  under the worst of circumstances.

     This novel in progress, Who By Fire, continues to torture me, but  whobyfireiwilltmpcover

  like the research on The Fancy Trade for this novel project, it needs to be brought out into the light of day, to allow us to help heal our civilization, to paraphrase Toni Morrison.

   I had a dream about this topic, one that was just a bit too personal, frankly, as some ancestor seemed to find it necessary to put me directly into the skin of a Fancy Maid, in this dream, and I felt compelled to write a short short about it, which accidentally turned into the series Ann & Anna (referenced in the .sig at the end of this post…).  I will admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic: BchrFancySaleBigger      Ann and Anna was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain.

Thank you again, to Tiye A. Gordon for her courageous work!!

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 
 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Bad Poetry As Mental Health Care, Instead of Old Novel Ideas?

     There are two poems, written by hand, in the featured image, above.  Maybe more mental health scare than care??

  These two really bad poems, that simply cannot be edited into anything readable, have been so difficult for me to let go of that I intended to work them into an earlier practice novel. Now I see that these two darlings really need to be killed.   Along with that practice novel that I also decided to get rid of.  This comes from my old poetry notebook, probably written in 2012, but obviously spinning worries and ideas from as far back as the early 90’s, about power, and how one is expected to dress.  Also about friends who told me that they wished they could be bombarded with ideas and verses, but who clearly never understood the implications of my being bombarded with these verses and ideas.  All far darker than any friend or family member I have ever had could deal with, unfortunately.  I had labelled these poems with the names of characters, like that of Tom, from my old practice novel-in-development Quipu, which started life with the title A Place for All, then became some other working title, after some sad starts, like Nest World!  Then I decided that  Quipu would make a better working title, before giving up on the novel altogether for a far more interesting one… 🙂
     The poems above, both dated 27 August 2012, Monday, were apparently destined for page 4 of a file that I can not find for the life of me, so it all sadly goes to waste, now, it seems.  But the experience helps for later work, I hope.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on poetry as mental health care, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

     Fellow Wonderers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  Then, please share the idea, or maybe even the free book about the idea in case other community organizers wish to request editable copies for their communities (free, obviously).

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and How Ancestry Spurred a Novel  

      So I kept feeling bothered by my family history, as if I were annoying some ancestors that wanted to be remembered, in some way.  I think about what Toni Morrison said about the work of a Black woman who writes as being to “bear witness” to what has been suppressed, and of all the stories that have gone untold, those of the “Fancy Maids”, the Quadroons and other light skinned women, have been ignored the most, as with the reaction to Louisa and her mother H. Jacobs narration of Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl (review coming next week…), which was long said to have been fiction before finally being accepted as truth.

     In the first few weeks of starting to plan Who By Fire, I tried to write up some plot points in the two or three days after thinking of the idea.  I kept trying to force a female protagonist into the role, but kept coming back to a male protag.   I decided that I had the entire story plotted and still couldn’t stop thinking about it, so it was time to name my protag.  I spent a day or two mulling it over until suddenly the idea of a runaway slave from MD fit, and the G’town slaves sold off in 1838 immediately made it all fit together.

  He had to be the one who got away.

     I still shudder with horror at the thought of what may have to happen to our story’s Fancy, Lucy, before the end: FancyQuadroonNYMet  Horrifyingly enough, even I., our hero, himself, could also be treated as Fancies under the worst of circumstances.

But, at last, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, finally seems to be coming together, but  whobyfireiwilltmpcover

  While my research on The Fancy Trade for this novel project, which I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted, centered on that of women, boys were also obviously available as part of this trade.

I had a dream about this topic, one that was just a bit too personal, frankly, as some ancestor seemed to find it necessary to put me directly into the skin of a Fancy Maid, in this dream, and I felt compelled to write a short short about it, which accidentally turned into the series Ann & Anna (referenced in the .sig at the end of this post…).  I will admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic: BchrFancySaleBigger      Ann and Anna was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain.

Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and A SubPlot via Unreliable Narrator  

      So it turns out that using a small child to narrate, almost by definition an unreliable one,  in a subplot that tells the story of a false protagonist, is a bit more complicated than I had realized it would be.

     I still have very little idea of what this boy looks like, aside from his being very light skinned, and having short curly (what they call “corkicelli” in the Curly Girl book I read some years ago…) hair, could be sold as what they used to call a Fancy (based on the fancy trade…).

Not good.

But he is too young to know that, yet.  He is the son of Lucy:  FancyQuadroonNYMet  and I., both of whom could be treated as Fancies under the worst of circumstances.

But, at last, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, finally seems to be coming together, but  

it is still a huge chore.  Also, having used far too many pieces of tiny bits of paper, I am referring back to my initial story Spine (yes, borrowed from the Pixar story spine, before I realized that that spine works better for a short story than for a novel, at least for me…) idea sketched out in the large:  PlotOutlineTensionLvls  , and to my online research notes, and even to old blog posts about my research  for this novel project, which I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted!

I  wish that I had done less planning for this one, as I did absolutely no planning for the series (which I’d only intended to be one short short, written after a dream I had during the research phase for this book, in face!) Ann & Anna (referenced in the .sig at the end of this post…).  I will admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic: BchrFancySaleBigger (Ann and Anna) was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain.

Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and The SubPlot Journal  

     So, I can confirm, then, that keeping a character journal can be helpful, but  my character journals would have been far more helpful if not on small bits of scrap paper.  Lucy’s character FancyQuadroonNYMet    arc interacted with the character arc of her husband, our hero Isaias, from a distance, so it was tricky to show why and how both of them were evolving in their thinking and ways of doing things, and why, when they were reacting to words spoken three years prior to this story timeline.

But, at last, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, finally seems to be coming together, but  whobyfireiwilltmpcover

it is still a huge chore.  Also, having used far too many pieces of tiny bits of paper, I am referring back to my initial story Spine (yes, borrowed from the Pixar story spine, before I realized that that spine works better for a short story than for a novel, at least for me…) idea sketched out in the large:    , and to my online research notes, and even to old blog posts about my research  for this novel project, which I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted

I  wish that I had done less planning for this one, as I did absolutely no planning for the series (which I’d only intended to be one short short, written after a dream I had during the research phase for this book, in face!) Ann & Anna (referenced in the .sig at the end of this post…).  I will admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic: BchrFancySaleBigger (Ann and Anna) was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain. 

Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 
 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and Finishing SubPlot(s)  

  So my novel journal has continued to be useful to me, although in a disconcerting way.   I am still finding bits of ideas that I had neglected to put into my outlines, and keep worrying that I’ve missed a scribbled note somewhere that could change the direction of an entire subplot.

So, I can confirm, then, that keeping a novel journal can be helpful.   I also can now confirm that outlining, in very high lvl detail, all of the scenes, including subplots, first, can give a set of logical places to ‘hang’ ideas for dialogue, excerpts, and character bible or backstory dribbles.  Drafting, for me at least, really needs to wait until I know the weather, location, and purpose of each and every scene, and the hows and whys of every character in that scene.  Otherwise I get stuck working on the outline and then go back to research, which is what I am most comfortable with, but I never get any work done on learning how my characters think and speak and act, without knowing what they are trying to get to in each set of scenes, first.  So, this journey has shown me that much.

At last.       This novel in progress, Who By Fire, finally seems to be coming together, but  whobyfireiwilltmpcover

it is still a huge chore.  Also, having used far too many pieces of tiny bits of paper, I am referring back to my initial story Spine (yes, borrowed from the Pixar story spine, before I realized that that spine works better for a short story than for a novel, at least for me…) idea sketched out in the large:  IMG_20221123_202029284  , and to my online research notes, and even to old blog posts about my research  for this novel project, which I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted

I  wish that I had done less planning for this one, as I did absolutely no planning for the series (which I’d only intended to be one short short, written after a dream I had during the research phase for this book, in face!) Ann & Anna (but I admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic…): BchrFancySaleBigger (Ann and Anna) was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain. 

Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 
 

ShiraDest


Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and Midpoint Plot(s) Convergence 

  So my novel journal has finally become useful to me!   I finally found bits of ideas in this bitty note of paper that I had neglected to put into my outlines.

So, I did find out, late in the process of writing this novel, that keeping a novel journal can be helpful.  At last.       whobyfireiwilltmpcover

Also, having used far too many pieces of tiny bits of paper, I am still drowning in paper and in online notes, and even in bookmarks stuck in my research books for this novel project that I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted!  I  wish that I had done less planning for this one, as I did absolutely no planning for the series (which I’d only intended to be one short short, written after a dream I had during the research phase for this book, in fact!) Ann & Anna (but I admit that I knew the history and the locations behind this short short that turned into a serial series well in advance, which is probably why I was having a nightmare related to the topic…): BchrFancySaleBigger (Ann and Anna) was so easy to write that I still keep asking  myself  what is  so blooming difficult about this project,  Who By Fire, and then I keep remembering  that I already knew everything about the Ann and Anna series, because I was using a historical personage with a recorded itinerary, and adding another main character whose voice I knew extraordinarily well, partly based on all of the Victorian era novels I read or listen to because they are available for free, now being in the Public Domain.  Thank you again, Project Gutenberg and Librivox.org!!

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 
 

ShiraDest

Creative Commons License
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.