Added more to Dusk – 2388 words. Started on the next section, 408 words. Other extra material brings me up to 3189. Excellent!

Writing log for November

Not a very brave start, but it’s something. 310 words so far.

I’m using an alternate journal gconnor_writing to store my writing for the next month, to keep it separate from personal entries.

I expect the writing may be bad, and will definitely be unedited. You may decide to wait for the finished product rather than reading it in real time. If you want to tune in anyway, you may click to the new journal’s info page and use the plus icon to add it to your friends.

Here’s some info for writers who are not quite sure where the “beginning, middle and end” of their story should be. How To Write Science Fiction And Fantasy is a great book by Orson Scott Card.

We had the fortunate opportunity to see Orson Scott Card speak at a convention last year. He is a great guy, and cares a lot about helping amateur writers with advice. He led a workshop session where audience members collaborated to create a new science-fiction world, by asking “Why,” and “To what result/effect”. This was a great way to establish a cause-and-effect chain, and if the cause-and-effect chain is worked out in some detail, it can be an excellent story setting and a springboard for a number of stories. This was quite interesting as well… I will elaborate more on this if there is interest.

Anyway, there is a section in the book called “The MICE Quotient” which I will summarize a bit (though you should really get the book if this material looks interesting.)

The MICE Quotient, summarized

I am seriously thinking about using Veldan as the subject for my writing. Veldan is a character from Merlin’s game, Altaia, which I play in every other week.

Veldan’s History

Ideas for generating characters…

I wish I had something that would come up with random character backgrounds, like Central Casting. (Friends- If you have borrowed my copy of Central Casting, please let me know. I think I loaned it to someone in my Altaia game group, but I’m not sure.) Central Casting has a lot of detail, and creates a pretty complete background, but it has drawbacks. 1. it takes a lot of time to generate one character, 2. it is appropriate for medieval/fantasy only, and 3. I have currently mislaid my copy so I can’t use it anyway.

There are a couple online sites that generate NPC’s, at least one is here.

Here is a worksheet, which was part of an article found here. This is not a source of ideas, but guides you through constructing a character from your own ideas. Character Profile Worksheet

Today’s writing brought to you by the King of Cups, Eight of Wands, Four of Cups, and Seven of Swords.
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Not much writing practice tonight. I am instead going walking to 7-11. However, I have some cards I should study: Prince of Pentacles, Queen of Swords, Four of Swords, and Prince of Wands.
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Today’s random writing is brought to you by: the Five of Swords, the Four of Cups, and the Ace of Wands.
Writing practice