Plotting A Thing (Ficuary Day 13)

I'm trying to get outside my comfort zone a bit. This is graphical (on a scale of like...not at all graphical to very slightly graphical). And it's also a plot I stepped into with absolutely no pre-planning. I tend to do stuff for Ficuary that I have some clue about (mostly because it seems like inviting you to suffer through a lot of me having no earthly idea what I'm doing seems lousy), but this is my project, so I'm trying to push myself. Had no ideas coming into this, just wanted to do something with action and shooting and

February 13th, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |

Character Brainstorm–now with voiceover! (Ficuary: Day 12)

I'm really intrigued by this character, now that I've unearthed him from the vault where ideas go to die. I kinda wanna...write his book now. What do you think about the voiceover? Good? Bad? Ugly? Do it again sometime? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1iyIfuNe8

February 12th, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • Plotting A Book

Plotting A Book (Ficuary: Day 10)

So I've had this idea in my head for a while and played around a little with the protagonist's voice, but I haven't actually sat down and brainstormed the plot. This is a combination of list and mind map, I think. Sorry about the focus shifting in the beginning. No idea what was up with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_GZb4uCf1w

February 10th, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |

One Line Brainstorm (Ficuary: Day 9)

Yay, we're back on video! This was a total experiment and it was a BLAST. A random line occurred to me early in the morning so I scribbled it in a Gmail draft, then saw it later and immediately thought of a bunch of directions I could go with it. Here's what was an honest to god twenty minute sprint of me just riffing in different ways off that one line. (It's only five minutes now! I wouldn't make you sit through twenty.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW6Sw6efVSc

February 9th, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • NO NAME Character Mind Map

Character Mind Map…for No Name (Ficuary: Day 4)

I need to sit down and come up with names, y'all. I hate naming characters! I really like the idea of playing with the gray area between what are considered extreme separate points--god and demon, city and country--and finding ways to poke at the way those positions are similar. For more information about my totally invented month-long challenge FICUARY, please see the intro video: https://youtu.be/C3AgL-bfGIQ Music: Waves by Makaih Beats (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Makaih_Beats/Fake_Love_makaihbeatsnet/Waves_makaihbeatsnet) under CC 3.0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQW1LM5oDmo

February 4th, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • Ficuary Murder Brainstorm

MURDERRRRR (Ficuary: Day #3)

Okay, y'all, brainstorming murder? SUPER FUCKING FUN. TRY IT AT HOME! For more information about my totally invented month-long challenge FICUARY, please see the intro video: https://youtu.be/C3AgL-bfGIQ Music: Waves by Makaih Beats (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Makaih_Beats/Fake_Love_makaihbeatsnet/Waves_makaihbeatsnet) under CC 3.0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csueOQlky14

February 3rd, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • Setting Mind Map

Setting Mindmap (Ficuary Day 2)

Welcome to beautiful St *Something* Point. I started out only knowing there was a lighthouse, set a timer for ten minutes (and by "timer" I mean I cued up the last ten minutes of a West Wing episode I've seen a million times), and wrote down everything I could think of about the place. Alas, I still don't know its proper name. These things happen. I've written tens of thousands of words with placeholders where I'll need the names of towns. This is a total experiment. So if you're minded to answer a few questions, I have 'em. - CAN

February 2nd, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • WTF is Ficuary?

WTF IS FICUARY? (Ficuary: Day 1)

Hello, and welcome to Ficuary! The totally invented challenge month that I may well be the only nerd big enough into writerly process to get excited about! I will film and post one fiction writing activity a day. They won't be highly professional rehearsed videos full of cleverness. They'll be messy brainstorms where I doodle unintelligible scribbles and character mind maps for characters who don't even have names. WELCOME TO MY PROCESS. This is an experiment. And I do love an experiment! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3AgL-bfGIQ

February 1st, 2019|Categories: blog|Tags: |
  • Do no harm

First Do No Harm

Producing art for consumption is an interesting business. I didn't know much about publishing when I started putting out books in 2014. I was largely motivated by desperation (having a "We're cutting your hours...again" meeting with one's boss will have that effect sometimes, perhaps especially when one has a dependent human at home). I made my own covers. (They were quite possibly the literal worst.) I edited as well as I could, which I am told was adequate (variations on the theme "Doesn't have typos on every page, five stars" were among my first reviews). In short: I could manage

August 1st, 2018|Categories: blog|