Freewriting Prompt: Prompt Writing, Sans Prompt

I haven't done a writing prompt on my blog in a really long time, and I thought I would try one out again. I wanted to make use of Freeblogging, which keeps track of time for you, but I couldn't think of a good fiction prompt that I could honestly keep up for any length of time without stopping for a good while. The result was me doing a promptless stream-of-conciseness writing exercise, just like the first one I ever did.  This is by no means a work of fiction, essay, or anything serious at all. Just me rambling and trying to find whatever stories and blog posts might be lying beneath the mess of seemingly meaningless text.


It's a great thing to do, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else making an ass out of themselves by sticking it up somewhere for everyone to see like I did. 

I decided that, for my first writing prompt in a long while, I would do a completely promptless stream of conciousness exercise. That's right. I don't have a single thing that I'm supposed to be writing about. I'm just letting it all come right out of my head as I type, which is something that you should probably be a little bit worried about. No going abck and erasing the embarassing or horrifying stuff. Nope. Not at all. Here it goes.

I'm watching Family Guy right now. They're making fun of the moon landing or something like that. I don't know becuase I'm only half-way paying attention. I think I heared something about surly blondes. Don't really know how that fits in there, but it's there. Kinda silly if you ask me. Guess it would have made sense in context, but I don't have the context because I wasn't paying attention. Just gonna have to let that one slide, I guess.

HA! Stewie just stole Brian's Peanut Butter Jelly Time thing. HA. That was something that Brian did, not Stewie.

I have no idea what to say now. Oh my God. It's like my mind just went totally blank. Usually when this happens while I'm writing my book, I just put on a song that reminds me of the stuff that's happening in my story and think about it until I finally have stuff to put on the page again. I can't really do that now, seeing as I'm just doing freewriting.

My cousin just came to the door. I bet he thinks I'm pretty weird, sitting here writing on the computer and yet talking to him at the same time like I'm not really thinking about what it is that I'm typing. Oh boy. My family thinks I'm pretty damn weird anyway, though, so I guess it's not a big difference.

Geez, let's talk about how awkwardly that was worded for a moment. Gaw. I can't believe I let that sentence at the end of that paragraph right up there leak out of my head. I'm entirely sorry. Good God.

You know, the first stream of onciousness prompt I ever did required me to not puncuate or capitliaze a single thing. I could n'efve evend end the sentence. And now this thing is freezing up, and I can't see where I'm typing. I bet the typos are absolutely endless. I am sorry. So, so, so sorry.

I want a banana.

Well, looky there. I didn't type for quite some time because my computer froze, and it's still letting me continue writing. I wish I would have known that, otherwise I qwould have actually planned somethign to write here. Instead I think I'm just going to sing a song in my head, but not write the lyrics down. That's difficult. Oh wow, is it ever and called it macaroni....DAMNIT!

Well. There you go.

Think of it as going on your own personal MapQuest.

It doesn't have to look like this ^^^

Today's post is about one of my favorite parts of the novel writing process: story world mapping.

If there's one thing that most writers of genres outside of fantasy tend to ignore, it's the importance of drawing up a map of your story world. Sure, it's important to form an image of the layout of your world if you literally have an entirely different world, but it's just as useful to draw a little map of all of the normal, everyday settings that show up in your novel.

You know, like a character's bedroom, or the diner where most of the scenes take place...you get the picture. Mapping can actually be a valuable part of your brainstorming process, even if you're a non-otherworldly writer. Just try it out and see whether or not it influences how you picture the scenes in your head and how vividly you write them.

Now, I'm not saying that you have to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My mountains are, to this day, nothing but triangles, and my trees look like chicken feet. I'm a writer, definitely not an artist. It doesn't matter if your people are stick figures, or if your dragons look like squiggly lines with crudely drawn feet. It's still a perfectly respectable story world outline either way, and you should be pretty damn proud of it if you ask me.

When I was little I did nothing but draw maps of the places I wanted to write about sometime in the future, sometimes having them set up so that to see the whole thing you had to piece several notebook pages together. My mother thought I was insane, especially because I wrote in mostly first person back then. I actually believe that her reaction to finding my writing notebooks is just the reason I have such an aversion to first person writing: she accused me of being schizophrenic and threatened to commit me.

I would suggest carrying your writing notebooks around like they're a treasure box full of gems that everyone would rip away from  you and steal forever if you were to let a single person catch a glimpse of what's inside. Nobody likes to know you're writing something unless you've been published. Once you have, everyone wants to know, and I hear it gets pretty freaking annoying.

Try drawing a map your main character's bedroom. If nothing else, it'll at least be fun. Then, feel free to go map-crazy, even if they're all just simple aerial views.

At Least 42 is an Even Number

Image by phatcontroller via FlickrHow many scenes does the average novel have? Mine, after I made a little timeline, appears to have forty two with about three scenes per chapter. I wanted to make my usual tediously detailed outline for it by the end of today, but I don't think that's going to happen. I worked on it for a few hours yesterday and only outlined eight scenes.

Yes, eight. Out of forty two. Looks like I've got to either give myself an extra day or down a gallon of coffee and work from now until Kingdom Come. I'm starting with the former, but like always will most likely switch my plans to the latter. Either way, it's work getting done, right?

I know I can't be the only one who sits there staring mindlessly at my blinking cursor unless I have a perfectly prepared outline of the scene. Seriously. I even need to divide the scene into a beginning, middle, and end. After that I divide the different parts of the scene into their own beginnings, middles, and ends. Sometimes I even go further than that, but I won't delve too deeply into my insanity. It makes people  nervous.

I'll have to note that the excerpts I posted were done without any sort of scene outline at all (let alone the hyper detailed one that I prefer), which is why they tended to suck. I honestly don't see how some authors can spin a tale out of an outline that's basically just a bulleted list of the scenes. Everyone has a different process, though. Most indie authors, what with their freethinking ways and such, scorn the outline entirely.

Me, I need it to survive. I didn't even realize it until my current novel. All of my previous works were attempted with absolutely no outline at all, and they never made it past a few horribly written chapters with no concept of any sort of narrative arc. One common mistake of novelists is, after all, that they're writing a novel from beginning to end and literally making it up as they go. Makes foreshadowing a bit hard when you're literally writing the thing as a reader.

Looking back over my old writing makes me nervous. I shudder at how terrible it is, and back then I thought it was so good! That in turn makes me worry that what I'm writing now isn't good even though it at least feels decent. Isn't it frightening to work so hard on something that you might scorn later when you've gotten more experience?

Anyone else afraid of this? Or are you perfectly comfortable with laughing at your old work (whether it's in writing, art, performing, or sports) and beaming at how much you've grown? I wish I were. I'm going to try, anyway. I'm definitely going to do the whole, "wait a few weeks and then proofread again" once this baby is through, though.

I would like to close by leaving all you other indie authors out there with a link to one of my favorite blogs, Publetariat. I always get a kick out of the title, and it's an amazing source of valuable information for independent authors.

Related articles

• How Many Scenes Does Your Novel Need? (advancedfictionwriting.com)

Four Websites to Break the Tension of Writer's Block

Oh, good Lord. It's another blog post in the form of a list. Lord Xenu help us all.

Image via WikipediaIn case it hasn't made itself obvious by now, I can't think of a single thing to write lately. Isn't that just the most irritating feeling in the universe? Staring at that blinking cursor...chewing on your pen until you can taste ink...it's just infuriating. So, what's a writer to do?

Why, compose a blog post about writer's block, of course!

Or you could just whine to everyone you see regardless of whether or not they care. That's normally the route I choose, but it never really does much good. I've found that visiting the following websites can be a tremendous help, even if it's just to have a good and slightly inspirational laugh.

1. Language is a Virus - While most people have heard of this one, but I can never keep from mentioning it. The poetry generator always proves to be nothing short of hilarious. If anything, it will stop you from being so uptight about the fact that the stupid poem you've been working on for the past week just refuses to budge past the first quatrain. Sometimes just relaxing a bit can make all of the difference, after all. The site also offers quite a few inspirational articles, not to mention writing prompts that can force you out of your comfort zone. I've used a few in the past to compose some of my favorite of the poems I've written...you know...the ones addressed to the reader that most people find a bit creepy.
2. WeHeartIt.com - I love visual inspiration. If it strikes just the right chords, a picture really can be worth a thousand words, maybe even more. It doesn't work for everybody, however, as no two people write (or get inspired) in the same way. If you're one of those people who could just go to town on a manuscript after seeing a picture of a mountain or a beautiful work of art, this website is most certainly for you. 
3. Seventh Sanctum - Seventh Sanctum, much like Language is a Virus, is another well known website that's great for playing around and having a good laugh. While some of their generators prove to be more amusing that anything, I would definitely be lying if I said that it hasn't helped me to compose some serious works. You'd really be surprised at what a silly sounding randomly generated collection of words can stir up inside of you. In my opinion, such websites do a wonderful job of proving that inspiration will come to you if you could only allow yourself to forget that you were looking for it in the first place.
4. Random Book Title Generator - I'm just going to be completely honest with you here and say that this generator is only on the list because it's one of the funniest things I've come across on the Internet. I can't really say much else about it...you'll just have to see for yourself. As is the case with Seventh Sanctum, you never know when it will actually inspire you. For the most part, however, it's just a wonderful way to make yourself laugh when you've probably done nothing but bang your head against your computer screen for the preceding week.

Related articles

• Random Whimsy - Treating Writers Block (emilyandthelime.wordpress.com)
• The best way to Defeat Writers Block. (leccoworkshop.com)