My awesome co-hosts today are Bob Milne, River Fairchild, Julie Dao, and Sarah Foster! Please be sure to thank them for their time and effort to make all IWSG members feel welcome.
I’m about seven thousand words into the new manuscript and it’s starting to come together. There will be rewrites of the first several pages, but I’ve hit a good spot now.
The most difficult thing is creating everything new from scratch. My last two books were easier because I knew the universe and I knew the main character. But for this story, it’s a brand new part of the galaxy, a more complex world and political scene, and a new character.
The last one is probably the most difficult. I’m still not a hundred percent sure of Aden’s voice. I found some character exercises online and the one that was the most helpful was writing what the characters thought of one another. At first it was odd, as I don’t write in first person, but it helped to see what the characters were like based on how they viewed everyone else.
Still hope I can pull it off. The whole story came from one song, and expanding it to fill a whole novel has proved to be a challenge!
Anyone else work on a story that wasn’t part of your previous work? What helped you get into that world?
Be sure to visit the Insecure Writer’s Support Group site and other members on the list!
Ninja News
Movie Reviews
A fictional retelling of the real life Abscam, which took place in the late 70s. A con man and his partner are forced to work for an FBI agent who wants to take down politicians and the mob.
It had a slow beginning, but once it got going, it was a game of who is hustling who. Similar in tone to Silver Linings Playbook, all of the characters are very odd but likeable. (Typical for a David O Russell film.) The leads were all amazing – Bale, Adams, Renner, Lawrence, and Cooper. Lawrence’s character in particular was just plain crazy but brilliant.
The theme was reinventing yourself if you don’t like who you are and doing whatever it takes to survive.
Definitely an Oscar contender – highly recommended!
Had no idea what to expect from this small 2013 release, but it was actually entertaining.
Scorch is the daring hero brother and Gary the nerdy, smart brother who always gets him out of trouble. When Scorch is held captive at Area 51, Gary comes to free him. The animation was good and the characters funny. It’s a simple story that’s just a step below the top animated films out today.
If you liked films like Megamind, you’ll enjoy this one.
January Movie Preview
Here are the upcoming movies for January! Such a sad offering that I included some DVD releases as well. As always, descriptions courtesy of the IMDB. Snarky comments by me.
14 – DVD – Riddick
17 –
Jack Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack.
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh
Excellent cast and director – this one has potential.
21 – DVD - Captain Phillips
24 –
Frankenstein's creature finds himself caught in an all-out, centuries old war between two immortal clans.
Director: Stuart Beattie
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto, Virginie Le Brun
It’s either going to be really cool or really bad, not sure which…
28 – DVD – Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs II
Some awesome things coming next week!
Monday, I have a special guest with a wit that can’t be beat!
Wednesday is huge – another awesome guest, I have a guest post about space opera, and the IWSG is hosting its very first guest!
And coming soon – one epic contest!
Signed up for the Online Marketing Symposium? Taken the Writer’s Creed? Seen American Hustle? Any movies look good to you this month? And what are your writer insecurities…?
207 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 207 of 207I'm super late to this party and I apologize for that... But I'm glad to hear the new book's in full swing. I can't imagine writing outside Silexare and I've only written 1.5 books...
Don't take this as me offering you advice or assuming I know something you don't but adding voice was the very last thing I did to my first book. Once I knew the character's true story (not the one I'd outlined) and the true themes of the book, only then could voice come out in any authenticity for me.
Good luck to you! Keep us posted
I create story bibles for my world building and plots. I refer to them all the time while writing. I think you may be better off just finishing that first draft to immerse yourself in the story world, then you can really flesh out the worldbuilding after it's written.
Good luck!!
Milo - funny!
Alexia, the more I write of this story, the more I find his voice. And Lawrence is just an amazing actress.
David, his voice is beginning to emerge.
PK, and I already know some of the cool stuff I will add for that!
Did I comment on this? I know I read it earlier this week, but I don't want to scroll through the HUGE list of comments to see if I commented or not, LOL. Anyway, your type of world-building seems incredibly difficult, Alex. Props to your style/genre of writing.
I'm hoping to go see American Hustle while my kids are in school this week, but we'll see. I'm looking forward to I, Frankenstein, and hope it isn't disappointing. Good luck with your new book! The two novels I've written are completely different, different leads (different personalities, different genders, different circumstances, different ages), so I guess they're as different as they could come. Luckily, both were ones that lived in my head quite a bit first, so I've had a good feel so far.
I know what you mean about starting off with a fresh world and new characters. You aren't in their heads yet so knowing their perspective takes some time.
Now that my reply to your post is out of the way I want to tell you how I admire you for starting the IWSG.
My first blog for the group was in October. Since then I have always found an encouraging group of people every place I turn. My goal for this month's post was to visit ever single blog on the linky list (was 317 when I started) and leave my comments if the blogger posted.
I started at the back of the list and have worked my way forward. You are the last name on the list (I saved the best for last).
Getting to know, just a small bit, this group of people has been very rewarding. Thank you for the inspiration and I will always wonder how you managed to hit some many of the blogs long before I even clicked the link.
Leanne ( http://readfaced.wordpress.com )
Love the idea of a story growing out of a song!
I saw American Hustle a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Would you believe, I hadn't known Christian Bale was in the film and didn't recognise him at all! I got a shock when the credits started rolling!
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