New review and fun news

[alanajoli]

Just had a new review posted over at the Tangled Muse forums (which are related to Empty Room Studios, Baeg Tobar, and new forum partner Bean Leaf Studios). There's a lot of fun stuff going on over there, including this review of Into the Reach by Daniel Taylor Gooden.

(Daniel is the writer of the Baeg Tobar online novel The Unmade Man. At the bottom of the review is a link to his homepage, where he has a lot of great short fiction posted.)

A big thanks needs to go to everyone who advised me to expand the villains in Into the Reach (which includes my publisher, editor, and first reader: Arielle Kesweder), because at least two of the reviews I've gotten have mentioned Mordyss and been very complimentary about his development. This is where I say it: You guys were right. Thanks!

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Quick question for the other writers out there: Do you sometimes find that one of the characters you weren't as interested in either really needs to be expanded during the editing process, or is one of the favorite characters of your readers?

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In other fun news, Julie Kenner added me as a MySpace friend, which is exceedingly nifty. I may have added her first, but I honestly don't remember. Either way, it was exciting to find her on my pending list! (Julie Kenner is the author of Carpe Demon, a novel about a demon-hunting soccer mom, and its sequel, California Demon. Must reads for Buffy fans!)

Speaking of Buffy, I got my copy of Season 8 #1 at one of the local comic shops yesterday. They still had a stack of them, so if you haven't found your copy yet and you're in New England, try New Haven's Alternate Universe.

I'm still catching up on livejournal, but actually met a couple of deadlines, so I'm feeling a lot more in control of my whole schedule. I don't expect this feeling to last... but I can hope!

Comments

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to write with an outline in order to keep track of where my current novel is going, but it's a new technique for me. James Wyatt (in his January 18th entry, (http://aquela.com/blog/index.html) which it doesn't seem to want to let me link to directly) wrote about using an outline for WotC on his first (I believe) novel for them. It sounds like a pretty revolutionary way to organize thoughts, and I'm wondering if I can organize myself that far in advance...

Which is somewhat irrelevant, but seemed worth linking to. :)

[dmoonfire.livejournal.com]

For Muddy Reflections, I used MindMap to keep track of the characters, but I had to keep that much detail since it was a forensics murder mystery and I had to make sure every single detail was perfect. In the end, I had a 300+ node map to describe the novel, hair and eye color (big things with me), scents of people, locations of items. I also kept an outline, but at the start and stop of every writing session (typically 2-3 hour blocks for me), I reviewed and updated the outline (the working outline he talks about). It got me in the mood to write and also let me keep notes. The next couple of chapters would have lots of data, while I purposely kept the further ones back sparse until I got closer, mainly because I get a lot of "um... where did my story just go?"

In the end, I found the mixed approach is good. I used the mind map program to keep track of little details and tibits and a outline for the general flow (which didn't look good in mind map). Outlines aren't good for facts, so that is why the map seems to work out.

It takes a while to get used to it though. It helps that I have two screens, one for details/notes/flow and the other for actual writing.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Is MindMap a software? Or is it just a style of creative writing webbing that I'm not aware of? :) It sounds like a good thing to have--I usually end up with several documents open (in the case of Regaining Home, I usually have the final draft of Into the Reach and Departure open, my "calendar" cheat sheet that gives the months and seasons of the campaign setting, character sheets of various characters that I've created (with their backgrounds, eye colors, likes and dislikes, spells, and such), and the names of family members or recurring characters who are too minor to have their own character sheet entries. It gets a little overwhelming on occasion.

Actually, I may try to blog about that tomorrow. I'll have to pay attention to just how many documents I have open in order to keep myself set in the game world.

[dmoonfire.livejournal.com]

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

Sorry, I meant to put in a link. Mind map is the style of organization, FreeMind is a free application I use. It's a Open Sourced, Java application. Basically, it is also a method for keeping notes. They have some nice screenshots if you want an idea of what it can do.

It is only slightly more effective for memorization, but I found it is useful since I can keep everything in a single document, then do a find. The bit I really like about freemind (the actual application) is that you can fold up a node. So, I have a note called "Characters" then underneath it, every character I introduce. To add a new node, I just click on the node I want, hit insert, and start typing. Double-click to fold if you don't want to see something. It lets me focus on the areas I need at that point in the story.

I've done the calendar thing too. Though, for Muddy Reflections and Wind, Bear, and Moon, it's a decimal calendar so pretty easy to figure out the day of season. Though, converting between my bells (tenth of a day) and approx times in our world I usually use a cheat sheet.