Here, There, Where?

Interesting posts over at the NaNo site. Have to say too many make me shake my head. I didn't list Vor'Talthat: The Beginning under Young Adult and I guess that's a good thing, even though my group of characters range from around 14 to 19 year olds. Only teens/young adults read YA? Not from all that I've heard. Lots and lots of adults read it and say it's because it's written better than many adult books. I guess mine will stay under SF since it takes place on another planet, and the characters all come from different planets. So that's as close as I can get to a genre right now.

Fantasy. If you write fantasy it must be High Fantasy? Um, no. Just no. There are different kinds of fantasy and not all fall into that slot. Sorry.

And, don't worry about where your novel fits? Wait until you've written it, then decide? Okay, while not bad advise in and of itself, at the NaNo site there are different categories/genres to choose from, so if it doesn't matter then why have any of them listed to check? Certainly nothing wrong with changing it later, but it does feel nice to be able to label it in some way. Yes?

Why are people always asking, "What genre am I?" So they can hook up with whichever forum they can talk about what they're doing. Ask questions of others who are writing pretty much/sort of in the same genre. That's why. To me, anyway. They post in one forum, then it's suggested they might get better answers in "this" one or "that" one. Just seems like a lot of contradictory answers flying around. Or, maybe it's just me. ::shrug:: And, maybe that's why I don't seem to post much there. ::another shrug::

Morning rambling here and haven't had breakfast yet. ::must go do that!::

Outlining for NaNo

I do love Open Office. Set my background to all black, seems easier on my eyes. Font, whatever color is easy for me to look at, too, and some days it changes. White feels a bit too stark to me, a more cream color is nice, although it claims to be a light yellow. And I've been playing with tables, which I think is helping more to set things up and not get lost. Yeah, I do get lost going around the block. ::grin::

So, I have one set up with two (2) columns and maybe something like one hundred (100) rows. Sounds like a lot but I may end up adding more. Right now I've only used 25, but with expansion. Which means I have 25 one sentence for a scene, the below that I expand that scene. Only 8 scenes expanded so far, so I really, really need to get cracking!

I also have some tables, on another page, set one at a time, and I can do a bit of rambling on what I want.

The visual is what I'm liking too with the tables. I can make them pretty. LOL Use colors for the borders and it's more pleasing to the eye. Mine anyway.

On another one I'd like to do for NaNo, I have my tables set up a bit different. Three columns, but not sure how many rows, will need to pull that one up again and check it. Since I might switch POV there I have the character's name in the first column, a sentence or two next to that and then an expansion of those sentence(s) next.

One problem I've come across is sending them from the laptop to the desktop loses the formatting. Might be a way to save and keep it, just haven't looked into that yet.

Yikes, the days are counting down and I have so much to get set up in my outlines! Especially, if I'm going to get from "The Beginning" to "The End" this year, which is the goal for this time around. I won't beat myself up if I don't make that, but it would be nice.

NaNo

It's that time once again. Had to borrow the neighbor's leaf blower to get all the cobwebs out of this blog.

This year I planned on writing a fantasy for NaNo, but changed my mind and am now in the midst of working out something in the YA category. Okay, so I've not gotten very far yet and I'm a sluggard. But, I do have 8 characters lined up. Well, 8 that range from 13 to 19, plus 2 adults at the moment. All but one of the 8 have a psi power, and am stumped to find one for the last player in this group.

Genre is sorta SF-ish, in that it takes place on another world, had nothing to do with Earth or anyone from here. Of course I have no plot, or anything written out yet, and I so need to do that or I'll most likely get stuck early on and not go anywhere with it. At this point I'm desperate enough to try some free writing and see where it takes me. But! I do know the begining and the end! Whooo! Ending could possibly be a set up for another in this world, something I've always wanted to do. That, and write a YA.

Anywho, I do have a title, and a banner with all 8 characters on it.

Vor'Talthat: The Beginning

Now to figure out what's in store for these characters. All I do know is there will be 2 deaths, 1 betrayal, learning to trust and learning to love.

Oh, yeah, and there's all that world building I should do, too. Bad enough that "plot" escapes me most of the time, now I have to build a world. Me thinks someone really, really needs to get their butt in gear, and it isn't the cat either. And why, oh why, did I decide to do these many characters? I started out thinking 7 or maybe 5, yeah, 5 definitely would have been easier and now I'm up to 8 of them. This better be it for the group, as I'll still need some other characters in this story.

::bangs head::