Blog Chain: Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Amparo asks:

It's a new year, and some writers have taken it upon themselves to switch things up. *points at self* It might be the genres you write in or your revision process. It might be your main character's voice. What's one thing you've chosen to change in your writing this new year? Why do you wish to change it? If there's nothing you're going to change, why do you think it should remain as is?

This year I'm changing my one-WIP-at-a-time rule. Inspired by the productivity of some of my critique partners (you know who you are), I realized the only thing holding me back is me. Not this one project. Not anybody I'm waiting to have read my stuff. Just. me. 

I'm excited to be working on two projects seriously, a third project first-draft-ly -- and I'll also be starting a new adventure as an editorial assistant for Month9Books. 

The editorial staff have been excellent, and in case you haven't noticed, they have a beautiful variety of books coming out in MG/YA speculative fiction (which happens to be my very favorite kind). 

Enter their contest for A Shimmer of Angels swag going on now.

Because of the very basic work I'll be doing with Month9, I'm going to be learning a lot about the pieces and parts of a novel -- and that can only be good for my personal growth as a writer. Not to mention all the amazing books I get to read pre-publication. #jobperks

My study of style has been ongoing for several years now, but my study of structure has only just begun in earnest this year. I've talked a good game about outlining, but I'd always believed in a sort of blind outlining where you just feel things out. I rejected formulaic outlining as being somehow... well, 'formulaic.' That word has all kinds of negative connotations for writers. As it turns out, having a formula only gives you walls to push against, rules to break. And that's good. 

That's the biggest change I have made so far this year, and I'm going to keep moving in that direction because the results already have been delightful good fun. 

Voice-wise, I'm still trying to get rid of my rhetorical questions disease. (It's particularly bad in first person POV.) And I've got to stop beginning every other sentence with a conjunction. Seriously, Katrina, it's epidemic. 

And now I'm talking to myself. (Shoot, did it again with the conjunction.)

What will you change about your writing this year to improve your craft? Or your marketing? Or your... quit it with the conjunctions again, Katrina. 

Blast! 

And goodnight.

Please check out Christine Fonseca's post yesterday, and tomorrow (today, actually, as it's midnight) check out Lisa Amowitz's blog for her biggest change of the year.

Runaway Plot Slides Toward Home

That's my writing headline for yesterday. You may have noticed I blog about this a lot, and by this I mean plot running away or outlines getting thrown off course. That's because it happens to me just about every time I sit down to write. I figure I have two choices when my characters get ahead of my outline:

1) Go with it and see where it leads

or

2) Scrap it and send my characters back to the fork in the road

As painful as #2 is, there have definitely been times when I've had to do this. The plot twist just happened too soon, or in the wrong way. Or maybe a side character became way more important than he/she was meant to be.

But my favorite is when I've been thinking about the story and characters so hard and for so long that even my plot twists aim me back home. That detour I took? Turned out to be a shortcut. Suddenly that open-ended mystery I dropped into chapter three makes perfect sense, and it's totally by accident.

Or is it?

There's obviously something brainish(TM)* going on here. My subconscious knows, even if I am not aware, how this story is going to unfold. I may think I've plotted six points and am meandering through them on my way to a fully developed story, but my subconscious mind already put A and B together with plot point E, and did it in a way I never expected.

I love this and I hate this, but it's the way I write. Any more structured and the story starts to feel contrived. Still, the only way it works is if I THINK about my story. All the time. This annoys those around me, most especially my poor husband who has to put up with plot and character epiphanies during our favorite TV shows, while we're brushing our teeth, and even during the sacred family dinner time.

Are you working on a novel? Is it embedded deeply in your subconscious?

*When Google Chrome red-underlines a word, I assume I've made it up and add the TM for kicks and giggles.