Ready For The New Year?

First of all, lemme get this out of the way.

Sherry? TAG! YOU'RE IT! Next post is yours. Yes, I think this counts towards daily word count goals.

Daily word count goals? Holy shades of White Board Mania! If I'm ready to set goals, who knows what else is coming down the pike? White boards. Dry erase markers. Planning. ACK. Actually writing something to SUBMIT.

Thunk.

So, in avoidance of meeting any goals this fine New Year's Eve, I googled myself. *Ahem.* What did I find? A whole bunch of webbies I've started up over the years. Now, ask me, do I remember how to get into all these webbies?

Um. No.

But somewhere, I have a little book where I wrote down log in information, and just as soon as I get my hot little claws on that, I'll be able to have many ways to procrastinate meeting my goals.

In looking at one site, I found some writing tips---things I've learned along the way. Naturally, I thought to myself, "Self, you should review what you've learned along the way and see what you can add to that list." (This list is at the very least, 2 years old.)

So, here goes. The Original List:

1. Showing vs Telling. Active voice shows the reader. Passive voice tells the reader. To truly engage your readers, the Show/Active pairing is best.

2. Character growth. I like to show that my characters have learned and grown on their journey to their Happily Ever After. I like to think this brings my characters to life.

3. Identify and define/clarify your characters' Goals, Motivations and Conflicts (GMC), and use this as you're crafting your story to bring realism and believability to your work, and makes the characters come to life. This helps make the characters as real for the reader as they are to the writer.

4. The hero and heroine should be people the reader can fall in love with, identify with, and root for.

5. Word choice is as important as developing the characters. Strong, active, vivid verbs bring the story to life and convey the story better than weak, passive verbs. You're less liable to rely on adverbs to modify your verbs if you chose strong, active and vivid ones. Make sure you're saying what you *think* you're saying.

6. Critique partners are, in my experience, one of the most essential tools an author can have. Find a good cp, form a good, solid, friendly relationship. I can't imagine writing without my cp.

7. "You can never have too much emotion."

8. Your voice is unique to you. It's how you phrase things, it's how your personality leaves it's mark on what you write. Don't get hung up on the notion that the mechanics of writing are your voice. Don't forget... writing is an "art thing" as much as it is also a "technical thing."

So, what would I add to that? A few things.

9. Be teachable. I have no idea why I didn't include this in the first list. Mystery to me. What do I mean by "be teachable"? Just because writers aren't required to take courses to keep up their credentials doesn't mean that we don't need to continue learning and growing in our craft. There are so many ways we can do this. Experience, of course, is a great teacher. Take those rejection letters and learn from them, if you're lucky enough to have received one in which the editor told you what he/she didn't like about your work. There are articles and groups all over the internet devoted to the craft of writing. Listen to what your crit partner(s) have to say---there's little or no point at all of having a crit partner you aren't going to listen to her/him. (Sorry, my crit partner is taken. She's mine. All mine. Not sharing, even if you threaten to tell my Mommy that I'm not playing well with others and sharing.)

10. Have fun. Have fun? Yep. Have fun with what you write. What's the point if you're continually banging your head against a brick wall, which leads me to...

11. If you're blocked on your current WIP (WIPconstipation), there's likely to be a very good reason for it. Speaking for myself, from the perspective of being a panster, I've found that blocks can have several causes. To list a few: you're rabbit trailing (in other words, you've veered off the path, you need to turn your keyboard around and go back); you've lost sight of the story you want to tell (yes, this is very possible for pansters. Just because we don't outline the plot unto oblivion, doesn't mean we lack vision); you've written the wrong words (this means you need to go back to find where you think the problem started, read it through and then remove all the wrong words to a Wrong Word File, then go back and pick up where you left off). Ultimately, blockage is a state of mind that can be overcome. It may take a few days, or, heaven help us, longer, but there's usually a good reason for it and it's fixable.

12. Goals are important. Yes, even to pansters. Which leads me to...

Goals. I'm setting writing goals for 2009, and I'm putting them on a group I just started to keep them out there before me. My virtual white board, if you will.

Goals, not resolutions. Resolutions are too easy to break.

So, here's to a bright, fresh, happy, goal-meeting, joy-filled 2009!