No more exams for me!

With my exams over, I've taken my revision posters down. I'm rather fond of this replacement already:

The Dragon Story

I have been reminded quite a lot about my love of dragons recently; I found a rather addictive game on my

phone the point of which is to raise dragons, I found a video on making origami dragons, and I have been promised to be lent Eragon once exams are over, because it came to light that I still haven't read it.

I fell in love with dragons when I read Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider in year 5 or 6; I got it from the school library, and tried to read it fast so that I'd have finished it by the time I had to give it back (it was a big book), and cried after I did give it back. I believe it is the one book, or one of the very few books, I class as one of my favourites that I have not reread (that's another addition to my post-exams reading list, methinks).

So, I thought I'd talk a little about my one novel idea that actually has a dragon in it, albeit not very much. You'd think that a writer who likes dragons would have a dragon in like every single story, but apparently not. My lack of dragons makes me sad. I need to write about more dragons.

Anyway, this story started out life in a small black and red notebook with squared paper at my grandma's house when I was about twelve or thirteen. I believe it was the first project I ever took seriously (though of course, between the ages of six and ten I took my badly illustrated, badly handwritten, badly stapled together books very seriously - until I got bored of them a couple of hours after starting them).

What will from here on in be referred to as The Dragon Story was a fantasy story (naturally), though it didn't have a name and still doesn't now. I remember reading an extract out at my school's creative writing club (which I had only just joined), thinking it was brilliant - and looking back, I completely understand why the older students struggled to compliment me. It began completely unplanned - even as I wrote the first lines at my grandma's house I'd hardly even thought about it - and when I did start planning it partway through, the plot was over-the-top, carried by weak characters with few motives, who lived in a world that had no history (although it did have a map that I slaved over for hours and hours and have since lost the original of, so I only have bad photocopies).

The map shrank in the wash.

I recall one particularly melodramatic scene inspired by my favourite song (I Was Only Dreamin' by Bryan Adams - no longer my favourite song, but still close to my heart), in which my character fell asleep on the beach and woke up to find his lover gone - and he comes to the conclusion that she was merely part of his dream, and falls into despair until she reappears a few minutes later, much to his delight. Does that portray the levels of bad we're talking about here?

Naturally, my protagonists were going to win against the bad guys (who had a stupid, and stupidly long, name made up of a load of French words stuck together), and the two characters mentioned previously were going to get married and live happily ever after.

Good start.

So where does the dragon come into this? And why am I writing about this story that I abandoned when I was thirteen?

To answer the first question, I shall have to tell you a little about the plot. The first part of the story involved my characters fleeing literally to the other side of the world from the bad guys, until they found help in the form of an elf friend of one of theirs, who advised them to go to Wise Dragon (creative name, I know), who lived in a cave under a mountain which he never left (nice to know that my one dragon is an awesome, fearsome dragon). I'm not even sure my characters ever got as far as Wise Dragon except for in my plan, but Wise Dragon was going to reveal a few secrets about my characters' identities and send them off on their noble quest - he was rather an important plot point.

To answer the second question - I have a bit of a habit of merging numerous story ideas; so, this story has become embroiled in a rather large network of sequels and companion novels to Barnabus' Balloons which incorporates a great number of previously-thought-of, sometimes abandoned ideas, and a few new ones. Therefore, this story now takes place in the same world - and in some parts, the same queendom - as Barnabus' Balloons, but some years after the end of it, and also involves the same enemies as it, which no longer have a ridiculous group name. Basically, this particular link to the companion novel network (which may perhaps one day be something akin to Terry Pratchett's many, many Discworld novels) stemmed from my desire to replace these evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil antagonists, and "hey look, I already have some more realistic villains with more plausible motives, why not just borrow those?" 

As I am mostly focussing on Barnabus' Balloons at the moment (apparently my concentration levels have increased from my days of badly illustrated, badly handwritten "books"), The Dragon Story is currently little more than a couple of initial chapters and a vague plan, but I do know that it will still involve Wise Dragon (who, unlike the antagonists, will keep his name, I imagine) and the plot will still revolve around a journey however the ending will not be as happy as my thirteen-year-old self intended. :)

Writing Gets You Cats

I have just read a blog post by Kristin Cashore in which she recommends a basic online word processor called Written? Kitten! which will reward you for every 100/200/500/1000 words you write (depending on which you pick) with a picture of a kitten. I have a feeling I will be using this more often. :)

LOOK AT THIS LITTLE FELLOW WHO CONGRATULATED ME FOR WRITING 100 WORDS OF NONSENSE!

Revision Procrastination

A little light bedtime reading, methinks...

It's difficult to write a writing blog when you're not writing anything.

Having said that, though, if I'm going to be completely honest, saying that I haven't been writing anything is a lie, it's just that what I've been writing is only really bits and pieces. However, what I have been doing that is actually helping towards a bigger project is making a scrapbook in a notebook my friend bought me for my birthday, comprising random bits of writing (or, at the moment, one random bit) and sketches of characters (which is a great way to spend the few days running up to an exam...). I later plan to include a sort of mood board of places for my setting, as well as sketches of my imagined setting itself, other random notes concerning the plot and the fantasy world Barnabus' Balloons is set in (you know, law, medicine, fashion etc - general world-building). I'm very excited for when I have enough time to put more effort into this. :)

Also, an email I just got reminded me that April's Camp NaNoWriMo finished a few days ago, and apparently the winners can get free proof copies of their book. When I took part in Camp NaNoWriMo, this opportunity was not available, and when I was a winner of November NaNoWriMo in 2010, I didn't finish revising my first draft before the deadline for the offer. Hopefully, though, free proof copies will still be a prize for Camp NaNoWriMo winners in July, when I will finally have time to write. :)

My Inspirations

When I say my inspiration, I am not talking about the ink monsters (not this time), I am talking about the fact that a few minutes ago I was reading a blog post and listening to music at the same time.

Do not fear. All shall become clear.
 
The first of my two inspirations is Kristin Cashore, my favourite writer, whose blog post I was reading just now. Ms Cashore is an American author of three YA fantasy books: Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue, all three of which are amazing. As an aspiring writer, it feels only natural to be greatly inspired by someone whose writing style is sensational, whose characters are very close to my heart, and whose fictional worlds come to life in my mind so easily. I mentioned (or may have mentioned?) in my previous blog post that Bitterblue is one of the things that inspired me to start writing one particular project.


I have been reading Kristin Cashore's blog for almost two years (according to the emails I signed up to receive every time a new post is published, and which I do not seem to delete). There are a good few posts concerning writing and the writing process which I find very helpful and encouraging (her comments about the complexity of writing multiple projects simultaneously in her most recent blog post and also repeated reminders that all first drafts are always terrible are very reassuring). Furthermore, I find her books, and her blog posts, funny. My sense of humour appears to have found a match. :)

My second inspiration is Sharon den Adel, the lead singer of Dutch symphonic metal group Within Temptation, who just happen to be my favourite band, and it was Within Temptation's music which I was listening to as I read Ms Cashore's blog post earlier. Ms den Adel is a fantastic singer and she also writes a good deal of the songs, along with the other band members. I love the songs she sings to pieces, but the music is not the main reason that Ms den Adel specifically (as opposed to the band as a whole) is my second inspiration. We already know she is very talented, but she's also a mother of three, and before her career in Within Temptation she worked in the fashion industry, and now designs both the dresses she wears and the band merchandise (when I found this out, I suddenly felt honoured to own a Within Temptation t-shirt).

I'm going to have to be careful not to start going off on one about the music industry here, but I have a lot of respect for female lead singers in metal* because they all just seem so genuine. They're all fantastically talented and very hard-working, and they all make music simply because they love music. They're all lovely people and none of them have lost their dignity to fame. And before I say anything else about singers/bands generally, I shall make a hasty return to Sharon den Adel. As I mentioned before, she comes across in interviews etc as a very genuine person, with a sense of humour and also humility (which again, is a common trait in metal bands, I have just realised). She just seems to me to be a wonderful human being who sings beautiful and inspiring songs.

On top of the reasons for both of these women being inspirations to me, I'd like to add that me being a humongous fangirl is probably also a factor. :)

*I'm only talking about the women in metal here because with regards to metal bands, the bands I listen to are generally female-fronted, so I can't really comment on the male-fronted bands as I don't know very much about them.

Barnabus' Balloons

There are two people who have contributed to the code-name I have given my novel-in-progress, and one of them will know exactly who he is, while the other may have forgotten her contribution. But still.

I started this project in summer 2012, for Camp NaNoWriMo, having thought of my first ideas possibly a few months or possibly a few weeks before starting writing on the first of August. There were two novels that inspired me, and they were Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore - my idea of how the city this book is set in would look was different to the way it was actually portrayed in the book - and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I fell so in love with the setting Morgenstern created that I felt compelled to at least attempt to create a setting so wonderful myself. I was also slightly inspired by the song Must Get Out by Maroon 5 (ah, how music tastes can change in as little as two years).

The idea behind (Camp) NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. In August 2012, I managed 41,000 words, and I was not even halfway through my plot - I plan for the book to span an entire fictional year, and I believe I managed to get to June. I think.

Since then, I have not really left Barnabus' Balloons; I have temporarily left it in for other projects, but I have never fully abandoned it. And yet I have never reached an end either. I am currently writing what I am calling a third draft, despite having never finished either the first or second drafts. So technically, if I finish this third draft - which I am planning on doing, eventually - it will then become the first complete draft.

I have much hope for this draft.

Barnabus' Balloons is to be a fantasy novel, set in a world of my own imagining (hence the maps). I don't want to give too much away but it concerns family mysteries, searching for a new life and for what is lost, and secret organisations plotting revolutions - and, naturally, a bit of magic. The story focuses on Saffie, who is seventeen and lives with her older cousin in a remote mountain village, and who moves to The City (which I finally named today while messing with Storybook - how exciting!) for various reasons, and there discovers a great many things.

My reasoning behind discussing this is that I have a number of ongoing writing projects, and I'd quite like to mention them from time to time, seeing that this is a blog I am to dedicate to my attempts at writing, therefore I thought a little overview of each of my projects would be in order.

So, readers, I introduce you to code-name: Barnabus' Balloons.

I'd also like to point out that I sort of stole the idea of code-names from Kristin Cashore's blog and the wonderful code-name she has given to her sister, Apocalyptica The Flimflammer. I have no idea if there is any sanity to that name at all, but it is brilliant.

The Technicalities of Writing

When I write, I usually use Microsoft Word but quite often I think that it is merely functional; very good at being functional, yes, but not very inspiring or geared towards things like novels. So today I downloaded two free pieces of writing software which I thought I'd try out, after a little bit of research.

I chose Storybook, a novel planning tool, and FocusWriter, a word processor designed with authors in mind.

Obviously I haven't had much chance to use either that much yet, but so far I'm ranking FocusWriter higher than Storybook. FocusWriter does what it says on the tin - lets you focus on writing. It's got a very simple layout, with the toolbar only appearing when you hover your mouse over it, so that literally all you can see when you have the programme full screen is the writing you're doing. You can set themes to make the screen a little more interesting - have a background picture that may inspire you to write, for example. I have not yet made use of the timer facilities it offers, but from what I've read, it sounds as if they will come in very handy. This programme makes writing feel new and exciting - probably something akin to the feeling I got when I discovered that I could type up the stories I wrote by hand on Microsoft Word 2003 when I was about eight. Having something written on the computer made it feel special, but these days - especially since I've had my own laptop - I write most of what I write on the computer, so Microsoft Word - even with a far more recent version - doesn't feel special anymore. FocusWriter, however, does.

As for Storybook, I'm a little disappointed. It doesn't inspire me; it hasn't come to life and shown its many uses yet. Mostly, it confused me, but then again, confusion does come with unfamiliarity. The idea behind Storybook seems to be that you enter in your characters and the locations, and you link them together in scenes which you can sort into chapters and parts, and also into strands of your plot, in the end giving you an outline to follow, which you can change as your story changes. This, as I both read online and discovered myself in entering in information for my prologue and first three chapters, is pretty time consuming. But according to my online source, it gets more useful after you've sorted all this out. So I hope I shall warm to it. We shall have to see.

I was hoping today to talk about at least one of the projects I'm working on, but alas that has not occurred; I got distracted by working out new writing software. Hopefully, though, my next post shall be on novel-in-progress code-name: Barnabus' Balloons.