Welcome along, Barbara! It's great to have youI would love to join this also.
I have two WIPs, but the main one I'm focused on right now is the "Man's Inner Beast" murder mystery novel (see sig).
I spent the last 5 or so months not writing for one reason or another. Then I got the writing bug back out of the blue a few days ago. Now, this is all I want to do ... forget work, forget housework, I just wanna write! LOL
So, I am tentatively doing a timeline of:
a) Have the first draft written by January 31, 2012
b) Find a beta/editor/whoever to help me edit the draft for that final polish to be ready for submission by April 30, 2012.
c) May 2012 - write query and synopsis so they are ready at a moment's notice to send out to agents.
d) May - June 2012 - query agents!
Yay, KitCat! Welcome to the Challenge!Okay, I had really, really meant to only write shorts for awhile
But apparently the story I was writing had other ideas. I should have known better than to try to write a short with chars that I already had a longer idea for.
Sooo ~signs up~
Mission 1: Get the first draft done! (hopefully by Feb/Mar)
Here's the post where we unveiled the badge (thanks to Lillie, our official badge wrangler ): http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6703112&postcount=110.Sooooo..... just outta curiosity (and perhaps as a goal) ... how does one get one of those spiffy Novel Challenge signature logos/badgy thingies?
You might check out Sid Field's books about screenwriting. Or Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. The key ingredient with a novel (for me, at least) is the structure and I most of what I learned about structure came from screenplays. (This may be because of their shorter length and the fact you can watch the final result in two hours. It's easier to see the practical application of the method.)
James MacDonald's advice/how-to on outlining with index cards is pretty spiffy as well.
Just a thought.
You might check out Sid Field's books about screenwriting. Or Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. The key ingredient with a novel (for me, at least) is the structure and I most of what I learned about structure came from screenplays. (This may be because of their shorter length and the fact you can watch the final result in two hours. It's easier to see the practical application of the method.)
James MacDonald's advice/how-to on outlining with index cards is pretty spiffy as well.
Just a thought.
Awesome stuff, peeps!
Alex, my advice is: Read lots, write lots.
I've never been one for how-to-novel books, myself. Though, if i were to recommend anything, i'd recommend the Learn Writing with Uncle Jim threads in the Novels subforum. The first one is stickied, plus there's an index stickied as well. The second one is here. Uncle Jim does recommend some books to read, also.