McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Author In Progress
pinkdoom:
Name's Amanda, I'm a college student, part-time librarian, and fledgling novelist. The title (cause I finally have one) of my modern-day fantasy novel is Chaos Unbound. I'm writing it, most importantly, for me, to show myself that I can indeed write a novel. It actually started out as a drabble...just bits and pieces of things, and then one day I sat down and saw that I had a...gasp!...novel forming. It went from there, to become this fully-fledged world...I'm sure most, if not all, of you know what's that's like. I'd say I'm doing all right so far...190 pages, 17 chapters, typed, and counting.... :-)
I wanted to encompass elements that I love about modern fantasy novels, like Jim's and Kim Harrison's, but I also had something I really, really wanted to focus on...a team. With the story being first person, obviously one member sticks out from the rest, but I wanted the reader to feel as if they'd been thrown in with these four people, and they were seeing it from Lauren's (my narrator) point of view. Maybe this is pretentious, but I wanted to throw the reader into the situations and have them, perhaps, feel as Lauren feels...like they don't have all the pieces sometimes, but they will eventually.
It's my first attempt at a longer first-person narrated story, and I must admit, after writing in third-person for so long, I'm really enjoying doing it from one perspective. Lauren's an interesting gal, and her relationships with her team members are very different, given that some of the members haven't been a part of her life as long as...well, Morgan has. And no, that's not a reference at all to Jim's Morgan...I started writing this novel before I read any of Jim's books, so it's just one of those funny coincidences. ;-)
I don't know about the rest of you, but I enjoy a story with a puzzle to it...I know when I read Storm Front I had a great time trying to piece out Harry's puzzle right along with him. So I tried to encompass that kind of element into my novel. We'll see what happens...if I think that, eventually, I've edited it to a point where I'll send it into a few publishers, great...if I get rejected (which will happen, I know), no big deal. My life's pursuit isn't staked into this novel. I wrote it for me, like I said earlier...I've got a few friends that want to read it when I'm through, and that's all fine and good. I will be writing at least one more book, if not three or four to go along with Chaos Unbound, but I plan those to be later...far later in the future, unless by some ungodly chance my novel gets picked up by a publisher. That's a different matter. :-) Good luck to you all...happy writing!
Drew:
Hi, I'm Drew Henriksen. My third novel comes out this summer. I was very LUCKY to final get published. If anyone gets a chance to come to I-Con, come say hello. A group of stuntmen asked me to write a low budget slasher flick. They liked it and it looks like it will get made.
Mack:
Hi, I'm Alyssa.
I like to write short stories, and I'm told that I'm good at it. Though I try long stories, since I have so many ideas, my brain needs a secratary to file them all, but I can't come up with the "little things". The "quirks" so to speak. The beginning, the middle, and the end come to me like moths to a flame, but how to get from points A to B to C all the way to Z are freakin' hard!
Let me share with you a little story of my own life about my writing...
In 10th grade, I was taking world history with a teacher that I paid more attention to than any of my other teachers (mostly because a had a bit of a crush on him, but that beside the point). We were doing a section on the Romans and then we had to do the classic 3 paragraph essay on it (Intro, Info, Conclussion). I was really into it and my paper was 2 pages long, handwriten, and I have small handwriting. The paper came back to me with the teacher's comments in the margin stating, "You didn't have to write that much. But good job." I got a nice A out of that paper.
It's one of those memories I like to remind myself so that I never loose interest in writing.
Drew:
Sounds like you have the knack to let it flow. Write a story that takes place back in the days of Rome.
etoiline:
Hello all...
I'm Jennifer, but everyone online calls me Cal.
I've participated in NaNoWriMo for the last three years, and while only one of those resulted in a story that I actually got to write "The End" on the last page, I think all three have promise. This last year's story is the most polished and I'm seriously thinking of trying to get it ready to run the gamut of rejection slips that is publishing. I write fantasy and there's quite a lot of Jim's influence in my books.
The three stories are, respectively, a modern-day King Arthur story (Artorius Rex Novare), a story about the missing archangel Gabriel (Artist of Heaven), and The Sixth Ring, set in a land where bells toll to bring the news, and the sixth ring foretells destruction...
I've also got a big piece I've been writing since I was in middle school, and a vampire-werewolf horror romance bit.
I'm really looking on advice on how to plan fight scenes. I'm not very good at it, possibly because I never had a chance to play any role-playing games ;) T6R has a moderately complex battle in it, and I'm not quite sure how to write it.
Thanks for any help, and if you want to check out some excerpts, I have a livejournal.
Good luck to all! I hope to see you in print someday...
~Cal
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