Yes, my birthday was yesterday and I thought I was going to get away with not hearing the question "So how does it feel to be insert age here?" But, twas too good to last *cough* Wes *cough* so just so everyone else doesn't feel the need to ask, it feels the same as 16. Which feels about the same as 15 but you get to drive which is always a plus. And a forewarning, I got a camera so be prepared because now I don't have to always borrow Vanna's which means I will actually get to use it!
So, writer's block averted! I went with Mom's default answer before asking her for help again: If your having problems with your story, your character is not well developed enough or you need to add one. I thought about this and as I was looking though my my notebook, I noticed a character sketch for a character named Malaya. Just so you know, I've been dying to use this character but hadn't found the right story to put the eccentric character into yet. But, now she is going to appear as a strange, unexpected help in the sequel to my first book. Well, that's the plan anyway, we all know that it will probably change at least thirty times before the book is actually finished. Anyway, she will have a pet monkey named Mango, and no people, there really aren't that many monkey attacks and there's a difference with this one anyway so shhhhhhhh. Don't burst my bubble, it doesn't like to be burst!
Last year we tried a course called Learn to Write the Novel Way. The author said that you are supposed to plan out the story: beginning, conflict, crisis, climax...etc. She said that we are supposed to know everything that is going to happen in the book before it does to keep it on track and write a better book. But, after trying this I realized that it didn't work for me. I read what other authors had to say and learned a few things about it. Yes, you should have the ending and climax figured out, and probably some other key road blocks your character will come across. But the beginning tends to change so don't worry about that as much until later. And once you have at least a temporary beginning, write. Just write. Let the characters lead you, it's their story, you're just telling it. Once I learned this, my writing increased in quantity and quality. I let the characters tell me where they were going, what they would do, what they would say. I told them who they were and who they would become and where they were starting, but they got themselves from point A to point B. This method doesn't work for everyone obviously, some people truly would rather have every tiny detail mapped out before even starting. But everyone who reads this knows exactly how very unorganized I am, so I'm sure you can understand how very horribly planning works for me. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject
Other updates: babysitting on my birthday added some money to my Peru savings, always a great thing. Our pool is up and a whopping 76 degrees! Ha ha, yeah that's warmer than it was on Thursday, but still not great. And it's supposed to be warm all week, but the rain will probably prevent it from warming up so cold pool for a while yet. Other than that, nothing is really happening in my life right now. Looking forward to camping next week and Bible Study and Kokomos, but other than a grad party, nothing's happening. So, sorry for the short, fairly boring post, but it's a post and it keeps you updated. Even though most of you see me like every day, but again, don't burst my bubble.
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