Try New Things

     Has anyone heard of Cheryl Corbin's mini-course, 8 Steps to Goal Setting (and Achieving!) for Writers? It's pretty cool so far. I've only done lesson one, but so far so good.
     I was looking for writing advice online one day and her site came up. I liked her blog, subscribed to the newsletter, and have loved everything from her ever since. She, like Holly Lisle and Lazette Gifford, seems to have a good grasp on the writing stuff that works. I myself like to try every technique under the sun, but I personally don't think that's a bad thing. It gives me a lot more room to find things that work for me, unlike if I was stuck on one thing and one thing only.
     I like to experiment. Try new things. It gives me a challenge. I feel that there's not one person in the world that I can't learn something from. It's all about being open minded and looking very hard at what other people do and say, and trying something new.
     Like the Book-In-A-Week community. On Cheryl Corbin's Need For Speed mini-course, the first assignment was to look at the FAQS page on the community's website. I scoffed. Yeah right! I thought. Like I could actually write anywhere near an entire book in a week. But I did go and look at the FAQS page like she said, and whadda ya know, it wasn't anything like I thought it would be. It actually looks pretty cool. I think I might even join. There's a $3 non-refundable members' fee, but I'm pretty sure it's just a one time thing to make sure you're serious. There's even prizes and stuff.

     So here's the lesson of the week: Be open minded and TRY NEW THINGS! Things that you would normally look at and think, Yeah right! about. I cannot stress enough how important it is to try new things. It has gotten me from wishing to be a writer to actually having a completed first draft and a crud load of ideas, more ideas than I would know what to do with in a lifetime.

     Write with an open mind,
                                        ~ Ashlie

Revision: The Unhappy Word

I think revision is my unhappy word of the month. I am floundering to get things going with it, and am mostly just piddling around with my manuscript instead of getting any real work done. It's kind of sad actually.

I have about sixty thousand words on the screen and am about twenty to forty thousand short of what I need for the finished product.

I have this one scene where my heroine and her fake boyfriend are fighting werewolves. They defeat the werewolves... but then the werewolves just disappear. I didn't give any explanation as to where they went and I have no idea what to do with it.

My dialogue is pretty generic too. I need to do some serious revision on that, add a bunch of scenes (which I have not yet written), add about thirty thousand words, fix scenes that are about as dead as can be, and still do outlining on one of my other novels and worldbuilding on another one after that.

Remind me again why I wanted to be a writer? No, seriously. Please do.

The book I'm working on right now, Plain Jane, is the first of a trilogy but the only one that I've done any real work on. I have most of everything figured out but I stil have character sketches, worldbuilding, plotting and a bunch of other crap to do. And on top of all that, we're going though a bankruptcy, losing our house, have lost two vehicles, and are trying to get out of the last house before we're locked out. Oh, and someone got into our house and stole two hand guns, a PS 2 system, and our X Box 360. Talk about kicking someone when they're down...

Anywho, I've been pretty lax with this blog but I'm hoping that once things slow down I'll have a chance to do more writing and blogging. Right now, I'm struggling with just the writing.

To all you other writers out there:

PRAY.

It's the only advice I can give.

Write with hope,

                    ~ Ashlie (I've changed the way I spell it)