Rachel's Book

So I decided that what I'm going to do is post my book on GoogleDocs, and allow everyone in our writing group view it. Then if you have any questions or comments, you can email me. But first, I need everyone's emails in order to share my folder with you. I guess Jaron has those.

I guess I'm just a bit paranoid about idea thieves. I know it's unlikely that anyone would steal my book, per se, but that other writers would take my ideas and turn them into something I don't want. I'm okay with FanFics after it's published (if it ever became popular enough) but I'm not ready for the world to see my story yet, especially in rough form. When it's ready, I'll work to publish it so that I'm getting paid for my time instead of having ideas/names/plots/other ripped off for free.

Happy camping.

Zidaiku Pictures

For those of you who might be interested, here are a few recent pieces I've made of Zidaiku. These are for the game version of my story. (If anyone has any interest in trying that out, by the way, let me know and I'll see if I can make a demo. I have maybe an hour and fifteen minutes of play time so far.)



(Don't worry, he's not dead! This is how Angel finds him at the beginning of the game. When he heals and wakes up, he doesn't remember anything about himself and they decide to travel to Vaskel to figure it out.)

Meeting #14 - 10/21/09

Tonight's meeting went pretty late. Everyone was a little distracted and/or sleepy. But we got a lot accomplished, I think. I'm happy with the levels of feedback we've been giving each other on our pieces. I think we're getting more comfortable and developing a better feel for each other's styles and ideas, which helps us know what we need to work on or what we're good at.

We didn't decide on a meeting place for next week, but Rachel said she would talk to her parents about having it at her house. Plan on that for now. If all else fails, my house would probably work as a backup... I just hope my mom won't remember that we had it over here today. :D

If you set a writing goal for yourself and accomplish it--no matter how large or how small, whether it's based on word count or pages or some other more abstract idea--you will receive a prize. I'll go to the dollar store or something and find some fun stuff. Never fear, a lot of it will probably be candy. Maybe some bubble wrap, too. ;)

Happy writing, Somnambulists. Bring more of your stories! Everyone is getting to some really good parts.

Meeting #13 - 10/14/09

At last week's meeting, we met at Jo's house and watched a bunch of YouTube. But fear not, for we also read each other's stories and gave them probably more attention than they have received the past few weeks, at least from me. I really liked what everyone brought. I'm really glad to see everyone being productive, and our stories are really taking off in exciting directions.

This week, Rachel and I have set a goal to write 1,000 words per day for 35 days. They don't necessarily have to be consecutive days, but... well, that would be nice. So far, I don't think we've done very well. But fear not again! I think this week will see me finishing Chapter 2 of my new draft. Think I can do it?!

So anyway, Rachel made up this cute little chart for putting stickers on, and I think I'd like to have something like that too. Anyone else interested in taking this challenge with us? It can extend into NaNoWriMo if you want, since the daily goal for that is even higher. If you'd like to do this 1,000/35 challenge with us, let us know and we can print you up a little chart or something. Be sure to set a reward for yourself if you complete it. The reward for Rachel and me is a date to Red Robin. Love that place...

Jo has set up an account for us on fictionpress. You can find it here. This will be a great place for us to post our stories (or at least parts of them, if you're concerned about copyrights and whatnot) so members of our group can read through the backlog if they've missed something. If you need the password or other account information, email me at fridgecrisis@gmail.com.

Next meeting is this coming Wednesday at my house at 7 pm. At 6, I'll be doing some free writing, if you'd like to join in. See you there!

Meeting #12 - 10/07/09

For our writing exercise this week, I took a few passages of description from some books and dumbed them down into very simple sentences with general imagery. We rewrote them, adding our own style and specific images to create more colorful descriptions. It was cool to see how everyone's was different.

Then we talked a little about the pieces we brought. Jo suggested that we get a Fictionpress page where we could all post chapters of our stories and keep them all straight. I think that sounds like a great idea. Jo, if you want to be in charge of that, you can go ahead and create it. I'd also be willing to create it if you need me to.

I'd like to start focusing more on writing goals--I think that's a very helpful part of being a productive writer. If you have a specific, measurable weekly or monthly goal on the goals post and you can report back to everyone that you've achieved your goal, I'll buy you a candy bar or ice cream or something. A reward of your choice (but nothing too expensive, obviously). Feel free to reward yourselves as well for a job well done. Try telling yourself that if you write five thousand words by Friday night, you'll buy yourself a pizza or that new shirt you've been wanting. I know that's helped me a lot.

NaNoWriMo is coming up. I'll be participating, and I'll let you know when I sign up on the site. Anyone else going to do it with me?

Next week, we're meeting at Jo's house at the usual time on the usual day. Hope to see you there!