Channeling The All-American Rejects

Wanna hear my dirty little secret?

I haven't been writing anything but blog posts and book reviews lately. Not only that, but I drift from self-loathing to just short of happiness because of it.

One reason behind these polar opposite feelings I've been having is the amount of stuff I've now had time to read: fiction, non-fiction, YA, MG, memoirs, best-sellers, the list goes on and on. I love it and my to-be-read pile is finally shrinking (a little).

Also, I'm a pantser but that doesn't mean I don't churn stuff over and over and over again in my head before I start writing it. I do that a lot. So I'm thinking that this small break is my brain chewing the cud of my current story so I won't get stuck in the middle (oh, who am I kidding?) as has happened before. Yeah, let's go with that.

In other news, I found the perfect birthday present for my daughter.

You can click for a better view, but it says "...Then Buffy staked Edward. The End."

I've transformed her into a rabid Buffy fan and I couldn't be happier. I've tried to shield her from how the actors look now. If she knew they were all my age, she may never watch it again.

So tell me blog buddies, have you ever taken an extended break from your WIP? How did it work out for you?

Have you ever found the perfect birthday/anniversary present for someone special?

PLOT is a four letter word

When I think about plot, I cringe. Devising a plot in my current manuscript has given me fits.

I've always been a pantser which I find easy for short stories, but is proving extremely difficult for me at a novel length.

By definition, plot is a literary term referring to all the events in a story that take us from the beginning to the end. The most basic plot structure consists of three acts: the inciting incident, the main conflict and the climax. Seems simple, right? But it's so much more complicated than that. There are story arcs and critical choices and reversal and resolution-lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Author and literary agent Weronika Janczuk gave an excellent mini-clinic on plot this week at writeoncon.com. I highly recommend you click on over there and absorb it.

I particularly loved her description about challenging your character,

...throw rocks at her, I guarantee you - I guarantee you - that, even if you have a beautifully rewritten and polished manuscript in front of you, ready to query, which an agent may sign and even sell, you could have challenged your character more.

She also gave a wonderful explanation of a plot template which turns out doesn't have to be a step-by-step list of scenes or chapters, but can help you explore your story arc before you take the plunge into your novel.
This really clicked with me and gave me a renewed sense of excitement about my current project.

So now I'm off to write as a pantser with a plot template. Lions and tigers and bears beware.