Attack of the plot bunnies!

fosteronfilm is volunteering for the Atlanta Film Festival this weekend, so I’m hoping this will be a big writing time for me. At least it means I will not have to be subjected to any more short film festival entries for a couple days. The Dragon*Con office sent a HUGE box of them. Watching them is like reading slush that you have to listen to and watch. Glah. My eyes.

A couple more Poll answers:

Anne Fitten Q: “If you could have lunch with one living writer, who would it be?”
A: Ooo, that’s a hard one. My first knee jerk reflex is to exclaim “Tanith Lee!” because she’s had such a huge influence on my writing. But then when I think about it some more, I think I’d rather pick Joss Whedon’s brain. Or perhaps just worship at his feet.
dean13 Q: “Which seminars, lectures, books or websites about writing, if any, taught you the most about writing stories?”
A: Ann Crispin’s 2000 Dragon*Con writers workshop was a turning point. It’s when I started getting serious about writing, instead of just wanting to be a writer and not doing anything about it. Although I think I learned more about the business and promotion side than the actual technical skills. I picked up some good tips on writing as well of course, but it gave me some really important career advice, which is what I needed. I learned some plotting and storyline basics from kijjohnson when she ran several panels on writing at . . . I think it was GenCon. It was a convention. I don’t think it was Chicon, but my memory’s somewhat fuzzy on that specific.

In the end, though, the thing which has taught me the most about writing, aside from simply sitting down and doing it, is getting feedback from readers, as well as giving it in the form of critiques. Analyzing what works in other people’s writing, and hearing what doesn’t in my own, has really helped my writing take off. I think it’s given me confidence in my own writerly instincts, and it’s honed my ability to pick apart the works of writers I enjoy so I can grok their technique.

More questions? Get ’em while they’re hot!

Writing Stuff
New Words: 500
Working on the WIP and I realized that I had been overrun by plot bunnies.

They bred and bred, and I ended up with too many ideas for a story of this size. So I gathered up the stray bunnies, sorted the boy bunnies from the girl bunnies, and corralled them off into a comfy MS Word file, because they were running roughshod over my story.

Then I weeded out a few more plot bunnies that had snuck back in when I wasn’t looking, cleaned up the mess they’d made.

Lo and behold, when the last tuft of plot bunny fur had been swept up, and the final bunny pellet dispensed with, I was done! Zero draft, baby! Woohoo! The story ended up being a little longer than I expected, but it’s still within “not a novelette” range. Did a couple more passes and then handed it over to fosteronfilm to first reader. He gave me his comments before going comatose last night. Going to incorporate them, do a couple more passes to bring it to first draft status, them load it up to Critters.org.

Club 100 For Writers
8

500/day
49