Jellybean, Licorice, Vonnegut, Line

Time for the next installment of the Visual Storyboarding series! 

(Previous entries have been bookmarked for you at the end of this post.)

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KINDS OF TIMELINES: 

JELLYBEAN, LICORICE, VONNEGUT, LINE

Now that we’ve discussed (a) why we storyboard and not merely “plot”, (b) how to visualize our hooks, and (c) how to pull together the factual AND visual details for our respective novels --- the next step, then, is to craft a timeline of events that your characters must endure for the sake of the story.

The good news? 

Timelines don’t need to be ultra-specific - only enough to keep you on track with where your tale needs to go.

The challenge? 

Since this is visual storyboarding, you'll likely need at least two different kinds of timelines, and possibly all four.

Which four kinds of timelines do I mean? The ones mentioned in the blog title, of course: Jellybean, Licorice, Vonnegut, Line.

But in true Angela fashion, I’ve given you the list of timeline forms in reverse order. Let’s start with the last one, shall we?

LINE TIMELINE:

This is the form of timeline that every schoolchild knows. A basic, straightforward timeline that gives the general idea of which event happened first – you know, to show that Napoleon lived before Ronald Reagan, or that the sinking of the Titanic did NOT happen during the Third Crusade.

A basic line timeline looks something like this:

photo source

Simple enough, yes?

So when you first sit down to work the timelines for your novel, this is usually your first step. Go ahead and get the obvious out on paper – not in paragraph form, but in this simple line form, so that you can have a quick reference to make sure your novel doesn’t jump the tracks and diverge into the opium fields somewhere.

You may have already done this part, of course. If you have, you’re ready for the next kind of timeline:

VONNEGUT TIMELINE:

This is the timeline idea that revolutionized the way I plot my stories – and, as you might have guessed from the name, the idea was given to me by the old wisecracking surrealist writer, Kurt Vonnegut himself.

More specifically, I learned about this style of time-line-ing when I first sat down to read Vonnegut’s best-known novel, Slaughterhouse Five.

I refer, of course, to the first chapter of that book, which explains how he came up with his hypnotically fractured story about time-sliding Billy Pilgrim. More specifically, he explains what aliens and a disillusioned middle-aged man have to do with Vonnegut’s own experiences during the bombing of Dresden (WWII), which he and his comrades narrowly survived by hiding out in a concrete slaughterhouse (from which the book derives its name). 

The part that changed the way I saw story-plotting was Vonnegut’s own confession on how he started to draw out the idea for Slaughterhouse Five:

I had outlined the Dresden story many times. The best outline I ever made, or anyway, the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper. I used my daughter’s crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.

Now – I don’t know if that description makes any sense to you, but it sent off massive amounts of light bulbs in my head. Holy crow, I thought. That makes so much sense! I could see at one whack where all the major characters are, where they fall in and out of the story, who crosses into the climactic conflicts, and so on. I could totally do this.

And when I did the serious storyboarding for Castle 8, that’s just what I did. I taped together several sheets of typing paper end to end – fourteen feet of it – and spent five solid days during a January ice storm laying out my Dresdens and colored lines and battlefields.

The result looked like this:

"The beginning of the story." First half of the behemoth 14 foot timeline, spread across 

my desperately-needs-vacuuming floor. This is how I spent the five days I was stuck 

at home during the ice storm of early 2011.

"All that middle part, which was the middle." What you see here has 

changed somewhat now; I’ve dropped some characters and shifted the timeline. 

That happens when you write, at least to a point. 

"And the other end was the end." The other end of the 14 foot timeline. The broad yellow stripe 

indicates the huge climactic scene of the series. I gave myself another foot 

or so of space afterward, to allow for adequately handling the denouement of the tale.

Some of the timeline has changed, but most of it is still structurally sound. I refer to it frequently, because this shows me at one glance where each character is in relation to the major events happening in my tale. Moreover, because my series will become increasingly complex in the overlap of characters’ lives, I will refer to it still more as the tale progresses. My fourteen foot timeline may look like overkill, but for me – it’s a lifesaver.

LICORICE TIMELINE

So you’ve got your Vonnegut Timeline ready (or we’re pretending that you have). Now you realize that even within the overall harp of colored lifelines, there are some finer points that need their own timeline. Maybe there is a very busy three month period in your tale where a lot is going on – OR maybe your story doesn’t cross years (like mine), but a series of weeks, and a narrower range of time-line-ing is in order.

That’s where laying out a licorice timeline will help.

An incomplete licorice timeline. With very short, squat licorice strips. 

(But not quite a jellybean timeline, even so.)

I call it a “licorice” timeline because it looks like someone’s laid out those long, thin rectangular strands of Twizzlers and given them funny labels, and took away the color. I did a licorice timeline for a nine month stretch of Castle 8, and while it’s not completely finished (or accurate), the current format still helps me understand the necessary structure of those nine important months in my characters' lives.

JELLYBEAN TIMELINE

But what if you need to break events down even further? What if there are a few days in your narrative where everything is happening at once, and in several different places?

That’s where a jellybean timeline will help. It works essentially like the licorice timeline, but with shorter, fatter dollops of information on a Vonnegut trajectory. I recently had to create a jellybean timeline to get a better grasp of the opening five days of my story, and the result was this:

 See the cute little jellybean shapes? Or maybe they're more like gumdrops. 

But "gumdrop" doesn't quite catch the rhythm of the "jellybean, licorice, Vonnegut, line" jingle. 

OTHER THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT STORY TIMELINES:

·      I am severely OCD when it comes to timelines. Yours doesn’t need to be so neat, or so anal-retentive.

·      Not all of these timeline types will apply to your story. Most of you will need only one or two, and which ones you need may vary, depending on the project.

·      It’s always advisable to do the standard line timeline at least, just so you know where your major events fall, and what those major events are.

·      EXPERIMENT. I’m sure there’s another way of handing the timing aspect of things that I haven’t covered here. Use what works right for you.

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If you missed the earlier Visual Storyboarding episodes, you can follow the following links to catch up:

     PART ONE: Storyboarding vs Mere Plotting

     PART TWO: Building on Your Hook

     PART THREE: Chasing Down the Details

Questions? Comments? Let me know in the comment section below!

Storyboarding vs Mere Plotting

With JuNoWriMo almost upon us, I have tweeted more and more lately about the “storyboarding” stage of my writing process. Several people have asked me what I mean by that, and still others have asked for a closer look at how I go about the prewriting process entirely.

Most writers refer to this as simply “plotting” – but I confess, it’s a word that rarely enters my writing vocabulary.

In the world of Angela, prewriting means storyboarding.

What is storyboarding?

A nice dictionary definition of storyboarding is simply this: “A panel or series of panels of rough sketches outlining the scene sequence and major changes of action or plot in a production to be shot on film or video.”

In other words, it is a term generally applied to the film industry. Generally, it’s a visual pictorial outline that looks something like this >>> See johnstanicek.com for excellent storyboard examples. <<<

This sort of “plotting” is essential to those in film, since so many details hinge on the presentation of the visual aspects, and not dialogue only.

The Megatokyo Connection

I first ran across the term storyboarding several years ago, when I discovered the mother of all quality, convoluted, complex webcomics known as Megatokyo. The mastermind behind the comic, Fred Gallagher, was still putting out Largo & Piro goodness in his original gag-a-day comic strip format then. But not long after I joined this deliriously inverted world of geeks, mystery, social awkwardness, gaming, and the undead - Fred did something VERY interesting: he decided to morph the comic strip from a daily yucks-and-giggles routine to an overarching story with multiple characters, intricately interwoven plotlines, and ongoing themes that actually went beyond humor and meant something.

In short, he wanted to move out of sitcom territory and tell a substantive story.

As he went through the transformation, Fred documented his efforts in his blog posts, which always show up at the bottom of the page after the comic. This is where I first heard him rant about storyboarding, and how much time was consumed in plotting things out correctly.

Then he started posting snippets of his storyboards. He still does this sometimes, by posting “in progress” comics when the finished result is taking a while to really polish off.

Once I saw what he meant by “storyboarding”, my whole vision of what it meant to put a story together changed. Drastically.

Why storyboard a novel?

The idea of “storyboarding” changed my view at a bedrock level, and on a point so simple as to be considered obvious: Stories need to be visual.

That’s almost a “duh” kind of statement, isn’t it? After all, we live in a visually charged society. If it’s not the internet or television or movies, it’s coming over our iPhones and iPads, Kindles and Nooks, not to mention the old standbys – billboards and posters and magazine covers in the grocery store check-out lines. We are bombarded by visual stimuli constantly. Yet we still need the reminder – or at least I do – that today’s audiences are so visually conditioned that any would-be-author who ignores this reality of the modern audience does so at his own peril.

Again – a “duh” moment, right?

But here’s where the lightbulb went on for me: If I am going to write for such a visually charged audience, then I need to write visually – even before I put words to paper.

Please do not misunderstand me.

Storyboarding a novel does NOT mean:

·      Drawing tons of sketches beforehand (though some authors – including J K Rowling, are known to do this. But it’s not for everyone.)

·      Belaboring my writing with loads of long, heavy description. (This is generally considered monumentally BAD writing.)

But my audience is visual. VERY visual.

So how do I do this?

My personal answer is what I would like to take you through for the next few weeks. I’m not saying that I have all the answers – only that I’ve found what works for me; and I have helped enough writers along the way that it seems to help other people as well – not everyone, perhaps, but many. And it’s adaptable; so if you’re NOT an artist, then you can tweak the process in a way that fits you.

Over the month of June I will break down the steps of how to storyboard a novel the “Angela Goff way”, and let you be the judge of which part of these sub-components works for you.

Generally speaking, the trajectory of this series will cover: context, hooks, idea gathering, timelines, maps and sketches, and then of course how to merge all of that into a full storyboard.

I hope this little foray into my brain will help some of you, or at least encourage you in knowing that you’re already doing some of these things that will save your novel from the slush pile.

Follow me on Twitter (@Angela_Goff) or subscribe to email notifications for this blog to catch the next installment, hopefully coming your way by the end of the week.

Questions? Comments? Does any of this sound helpful?

Let me know in the comments!

Editing, Lunacy, and the Baby Walrus

If you've known me for any reasonable amount of time, you know I'm a weensy bit crazy. (Or, if you're one of my students, then I'm certifiably insane with an extended day pass. Take your pick.) But sometimes with my creative projects I get an idea so crazy I just can't rest till I try it out. Sometimes the ideas flop.

This past weekend, however, was (I hope) one of the exceptions.

My Insane Idea: I created a 240,100 word monster.

OK. So I didn't write a book in one weekend, let alone a tome the size of a baby walrus. But I did something almost as crazy: I took two overlapping manuscripts which dealt with the same overarching story and merged them into one massive manuscript. 

This would be migraine-inducing to consider at the best of times, but is complicated by the fact that I haven't done a cold read, let alone any sort of edit, on EITHER manuscript in sixteen months. That amounts to a lot of editing.

Let me repeat that: A LOT of editing. Serious #stabbylove editing of the highest order.

My brains after a full Saturday of editing.

(Actually, this is a curried coconut trail mix thingy I made tonight. 

But I'm pretty sure my brain looks like this after editing, all the same.)

The Result:  During the month of April, I plan to pare down the 240K walrus into one, nicely watertight, 80,000 word novel. All my crazy sprawling ideas for these characters, plots and themes need to be shaved, pinched, winnowed, threshed, and otherwise boiled down to one solid book with a coherent beginning, middle and end. With maybe a plot twist (or two or ten) in the between chapters.

"Good luck!" I hear you say. Yes, I hear the sarcasm. Loud and clear.

But you know what? I think I can make this work. Here's my...

Plan of Attack*: 

     1. April starts now. Yes, I know it's still March. Doesn't matter. If I put this off till April 1st, I'll drag my feet even more. I would like to see this thing published before I'm eighty, after all. Won't happen if I continue to procrastinate. So for me, April has 38 days this year (I started editing last Saturday). 

     2. Editing happens every day. Notice I said editing, not writing - though I know I will need to rewrite several scenes, even whole chapters. The opening chapter, I know, needs to be entirely scrapped. Already I am deleting entire sections, while moving other sections around, in small chunks and large. The only way my poor ADHD brain can keep track of all this elaborate "shell game" is to work on it every day.

     3. Tell on myself. Hence this blog post. If I don't tell people about this stupendously idiotic idea of mine, then it will never happen. Heck, it will never even be half-attempted. Because at rock bottom we're all whiners when the going gets tough, right? So don't let me whine. I expect comments, emails and tweets heckling me toward April 38th, 2012. Yep.

     4. View editing as a reward, not a chore. One of the reasons I'm so distractible, and can be such a whiner when it comes to writing, is that I have three jobs whose variables and schedules change constantly. It suits my ADHD just fine, but it means that it's easy for me to drop things, especially when work obligations get really tough, as they always do this time of year. 

     When that happens, I'll reward myself with a 30 minute spurt of editing after I've reached some milestone with the work obligations. That way necessary things get done, and so does the editing. I might even manage to get more done of both than I originally anticipated.

This is how I beta-read other people's work.

I owe my own manuscript the same courtesy.

 So there you have it. I've put my nutzo writing ambition out there for all to see, and I'm asking you to hold me accountable. Any encouragement is always appreciated, though I should point out that heckling is often more effective when time constraints are an issue. 

Either way - what do you think? Any other crazies out there who have tried this before? Especially under a self-imposed deadline? Or should I have my day pass revoked?

Oh look - a donkey with a mustache!

Wait...that belongs with a different post altogether...

* Not quite a 22 Things list, a'la Write Me Happy, but it's a start. Ain'tcha proud of me? (You know, I really should join that challenge as well...)

Plot Problems & Quick (Temporary) Fixes

Hello there! I am enjoying an extended Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family, and am not near my computer today. So please enjoy this reprint of a guest blog I did for the wonderful WriMosFTW! website earlier this week. 

Welcome to the third week of NaNoWriMo! We've indulged in wild, literary abandonment! Hedonistic word abuse! Tangents that turn into plot development!!

It's great, isn't it? Only right now maybe it ISN'T so great. Maybe you are stuck. The how-the-heck-did-I-get-HERE??? kind of stuck.

Yep. Know that feeling well.

The problem with getting stuck in the middle of NaNo is that you're crunched for time. The whole point of NaNo is, after all, to give starry-eyed dreamers a kick in the pants so we will push on, even when we want to spin our wheels and edit, re-edit, polish and tweak Every. Single. Line.  So you barrel on, reminding yourself of that glorious finish line of 50,000 words, and that you can edit to your heart’s content come December. But sometimes you turn a corner and find yourself in a plot tangle that only gets worse the more you write.

Frustrated? Sure you are. Want to fix it? Absolutely. But since this is NaNo, the big, glossy edits come later. But take heart - there is a way to move on ---- even if you have to leave a mental "bookmark" or two for the editing process.

Below I've listed three common plot problems that make ME stop in my tracks, especially now, when I’m so focused on my word count. I've also given my "quick fixes" that allow me to press to the end of NaNo and THEN do the hard edit.

Problem #1: Too Many Characters, or Too Few: These are opposite problems, and neither of them can be fixed mid-NaNo. But you can still pause long enough to see if this is the root of your problem. Don’t be afraid to do it either – determining if you’ve got a problem in this arena will save you a world of hurt later.

Quick Fix: Too few? Add in the new people as you press on, but make some kind of notation to indicate you've introduced a character that wasn't there before, but ought to have been. (I manage this by putting that character's first appearance in bright red font.)

     Too many characters? Figure out which are your weaker characters, and mentally cut them loose. This will leave your stronger characters to pick up the slack, and they will be even more dynamic and engaging because of it. But don't try to fix your earlier pages now. Wherever you are in the manuscript, hit the enter key a few times to indicate a break from previous plot details, and keep going - but with the revised set of characters. You may even need to leave yourself a clear note about who got axed. Everything up to that point will need adjusting post-NaNo.

Problem #2: Murky Plot Points: For me, a "murky plot point" is something that I haven't thought through very well, that is now turning out to be a bigger deal than I thought. In my current project, I knew I needed an underground train. I had no idea it would become so central to the story. Now I realize I need to study up on trains come December. I can’t become a Train Expert just now; but I will.

Quick Fix: When I realize I need technical jargon I just don't have yet, I'll insert some notes in parenthesis and in red (or bold, or all caps) that reminds me of what I need: For example: "Then Finn looked under the train (((and detected some serious problem that stalls the train out for the next two chapters))). Then he turned to..." etc. Since I already have a basic understanding of trains, I'll know that Finn at least needs to go for some parts, which would be conveniently located in a troublesome part of town. Plot moves on. 

Problem #3: Not Thinking Wide Enough? This is a different sort of problem. It doesn't create so much of a writer's block as a moment of realization amounting to: "Oh, CRAP I should have done this four chapters ago! Now what?" If you've hit that sort of snag, you've realized there is some key character, scene, or whole chapter that is missing from your earlier writing, and without it you don't have enough internal scaffolding to bear the weight of your story. But this is NaNo, and you want to press on to where you NOW know the story ought to go.

Quick Fix: Print out the pages you have so far, and quickly scan what you’ve written. In the margins, make plain but simple notes: “Put Anne in this scene.” Or “Needs more cowbell.” Or “’Add chapter about Marv’s POV from the Inner Sanctum”, etc. If you do this while it's fresh on your mind, you’ll not only thank yourself later, but sometimes you’ll pick up on other things that need to be added to the margin notes. (I usually sacrifice a whole evening of NaNo-ing to do this step anyway, even if I feel I’m doing well.) The trick is to not bog down here, and forget to type. Make your notes and move on.

It’s been said that “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” As writers, that is what we ought to remember as we pursue our craft. Your first pass at a rough draft – whether hastily written or no - is going to be just that: ROUGH. But if your tale is worth telling, then it’s worth telling badly - at least during the first pass.

But you’ll get to the ultimate finish line. Of course you will! Because we’re writers, and we know that rough beginnings are always the first step – but never the last.

NaNoDebate

14 days!! That's all! Only two weeks until National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, begins on November 1st. The NaNoWriMo website will give you all the details, but the short answer is that NaNo is a month of pure reckless literary enthusiasm, during which aspiring authors (and maybe even a few published ones) attempt to churn out 50,000 words, or the length of a short to midsize paperback, during 30 breathless days at the keyboard. The general idea is that you have a completed rough draft of a manuscript by the end of the month. Those who cross the magical finish line get a certificate, a nifty banner to put on their wall/website/avatar, and - at least in the case of last year - a limited time offer to get a free printed edition of your work from CreateSpace.

All of this sounds great. Spectacular. Marvelous. Just the thing to give a would-be-author the perfect sort of literary head rush. BUT...there is a flip side. (Isn't there always?)

Realistic Expectations?

Over the past few years, many literary professionals have turned up their noses at the whole idea of NaNoWriMo. They bemoan the concept on the grounds that it gives legions of starry-eyed JKRowling-wannabes this notion they can write a novel in 30 days, give it a quick brush-up, submit it and then - voila! - dream come true. Instant epic greatness. Start booking the talk shows now!

((I should pause and say here that there are more than a few published books, including some well-known ones, that were birthed during NaNoWriMo. Go ahead and check out the list!))

The Gold Rush Syndrome

But do the naysayers have a valid point? Unfortunately, yes. Every year there are competitors who go into NaNo thinking they'll have a rough manuscript at the end that'll only want a tweak here and there (something they can surely manage during Christmas break). Then they'll send it out and their work will be snatched up by eager agents and editors because it is the brilliant, fantastic "ZOMG!!!" work that it is.

How does a person get there? Possibly because the story has been in their head for so long that they've gotten to the point of "whattheheck" - that point where you shove back all the naysayers and just DO something. It's a good place to be, of course - but it is not a good place to stay. That whattheheck, cannonball-into-the-deep-end plunge is a transition moment - not a place to camp out. If you stop there, that is when the unrealistic expectations begin to multiply.

But you know what? I don't think most NaNos are like that. Not at all.

The Narnia Principle

Most of the NaNos I know - both personally and through eavesdropping on the NaNo forums - are serious about what they're doing and, as a result, they're willing to take their time. They understand what C. S. Lewis told his goddaughter Lucy in the preface to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - chiefly, that "girls grow quicker than books." Of course, he was talking about how he had started writing a fairy tale for her, only to see her outgrow fairy tales before the book itself was ready. But that's the nature of life, isn't it? Stories grow at a slower rate than girls or boys. They don't mushroom nearly as quickly as the daily demands of work and family. They don't scream quite as loudly as the bills that need to be paid and the household chores that must be conquered.

No matter how you slice it, getting a story out of your head and onto paper takes time -a LOT more time than any newbie (myself included) would like to admit.

Bottom Line?

The upshot? NaNoWriMo is an excellent kick in the pants for anyone who wants that kind of fun, persistent franticness that comes with blitzing your way to a finish line alongside oodles of other crazy writer types. And whether you reach the magic 50,000 word mark or not, whether you end with a completed rough draft or not, it's never a lost cause or a waste of time. Why? Because chances are you'll have written a good deal more than you would have anyway - certainly in November, of all months, with its holidays and   Black Friday and work pressures and goodness knows what else. Real NaNos know that it's not about having a golden trophy at the end. NaNoWriMo is a kick in the pants - the hurt-to-help-you kind.

If you're serious about writing, then steady, disciplined time is what you really need (and you already know it). Time does a lot of magic on its own, if we have the self-control to neither drag our feet nor outrun our opportunities.

Am I making sense? Where do YOU weigh in on the NaNoWriMo debate?

A Word on Beta Readers

Hard questions are sometimes the best punches anyone can throw at you. Being punched isn't fun, but once you learn to spar, you can dodge and deflect those jabs in real life that could hurt you or throw you off track. The trick is to recognize those punches as the blessings-in-disguise that they are.

It Takes Two Kinds

I was reminded of this last night, when I met a friend to talk about our respective manuscripts. She has a strong English/Lit background and could really ask specific questions about my plot, and assimilate my answers in a way that allowed her to pinpoint a couple of my plot holes without ever reading my manuscript. It was a wonderful contrast against my previous writer's meetings, because all of my Beta readers* so far have responded to my manuscript largely on an intuitive level. They love the set-up, the dynamic between characters, specific personalities, subplots, humor, mysteries....in short, they've thrilled to those points of the overall story that thrill me. They've caught my enthusiasm for what I love about my tale, which is what any aspiring author wants to hear....and needs to hear, at least in the beginning stages. Our egos are so frail when we first start out that we need the confirmation that our ideas are, in fact, valid and worth pursuing.

Last night, however, my friend took a more editorial approach. She wanted to know: What have I done to make readers buy into the story? Have I made it believable? Is my tale consistent with my proposed genre and audience? Who are my protagonists? Why do I have four main protagonists, and not just one? What action draws the reader in? How am I keeping their attention? Have I left any oddments in the narrative that might jar the overall consistency of my plot? 

Stand and Deliver

The best part of this rapid-fire questioning was that, since my friend had not yet read my manuscript, I had to defend my plot. It made me articulate why I had done certain things, or not done others. I could not have had a better practice round at defending my work, even if I had received a cold call from a potential agent. Based on my explanations alone, she was able to both encourage me in what I was doing right (structurally speaking), but also point out a couple shortcomings in my plot. They are fairly easy fixes, but both are the sort of errors that I would have wholly overlooked, and which in turn would have made a dent in my proposal, come query-time.

That is, I suppose, what the professionals mean when they talk about the "ideal Beta reader." You want several Beta readers, of course; and you want them from varying ages and viewpoints so you can get a well-rounded collective response. But in your ideal Beta reader, you want someone who who catches the vision, and pinpoint specifics of how to make that vision as real to the readers as it is to you.

Anyone else run into this? How many Beta readers have looked over your prized project? What is your ideal Beta reader?

______________

(*) Beta readers = editorial jargon for "test readers"

Countdown: 4, 11, 21

October has always been a pressure month for me, filled to choking with exams, papers, art shows, projects, and other deadlines that try to squeeze the stuffing out of the days leading up to Halloween. This year is no different. Though I eschewed all art shows this fall, and scaled back from five jobs to three, I am still a very busy bee. However, this October brings three additional deadlines amid the usual chaos - all for which I am eagerly counting down the days:

4 Days:  I have four days until I finish my Vision Impaired training for the home therapy group that employs me. I already work with deaf and deafblind babies and toddlers; this current class is enabling me to work with visually impaired tots who are otherwise cognitively normal and need additional challenges, including pre-Braille training. Did you know that you could teach "pre-Braille" to someone still in diapers? I didn't either, till I joined this class.

11 Days: I have eleven days till I hand off my current manuscript, Castle 8, to a journalist friend who has agreed to give it a cold read. I cannot tell you how excited I am - first, that I get to see my friend, whom I haven't seen since visiting her in Jakarta several years ago; but also that I will get a thoughtful, honest response from someone who can tell me where my (literary) hangups are and what to do about them.

21 Days: Only three weeks remain until NaNoWriMo! I will do a specific post on this annual event later, especially as I know there is some strong debate in literary circles as to whether NaNo is everything it's cracked up to be; but I for one am very excited. I have already storyboarded the sequel to Castle 8 and am ironing out the details as we speak. I don't anticipate having a complete rough draft by the end of November, but if I cross that magic 50,000 word mark, that's roughly 200 pages closer to the end than I would be otherwise.

What about YOU? Are you considering doing NaNoWriMo this year? Let me know!