100 Followers Contest!

In celebration of reaching the threshold of 100 fabulous followers, a contest is in order!

I've got lots of great books to give away and a $10 Barnes and Noble online gift certificate. Follow the rules below and the entrant with the highest point score by the end of the contest wins the gift certificate and their choice of book! Second and third place will each win their choice of book as well.

Here is the eclectic list of books to choose from:

An author-signed copy of The Orphan Game, by Ann Darby

The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink
Emperor of the Air, by Ethan Canin
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares
Emma, by Jane Austen
Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

The Rules!

1. You must have a mailing address in the US or Canada.
2. You must enter before midnight April 15, 2010.

How to Enter!

In comments, let me know if:

1. You are an existing follower (+1 entry)
2. You are a new follower (+1 entry)
3. You write a post about this contest on your blog/website (+5 entries)
4. You follow me on twitter (@mkdb) (+1 entry)
5. You friend me on facebook (Margaret Bail) (+1 entry)
6. You send a new follower my way (+1 entry)
7. You follow Critique_This_WIP blog (+2 entries)
8. You tweet a link to the contest (+2 entries).
9. You follow critiquethiswip on twitter (+1 entry)

You must let me know in comments that you've done any of these things so I know how many entries to credit you with! And remember, the contest ends April 15, 2010!

Script Frenzy Kickoff

Today is the first day of Script Frenzy in which participants attempt to write a 100 page script (screenplay, stage play, TV script, comic book script, or radio script) in just 30 days. If you're interested in learning more about it, go to: Script Frenzy.

I am now totally freaked out. I participated in NaNoWriMo in November and managed to complete 50,000 words in 30 days, no problem. But this Script Frenzy has me in a tizzy.

Fresh off of the triumph of having completed the first draft of my MFA thesis screenplay, I have been planning on writing another screenplay for Script Frenzy, but I have no idea what to write. Okay, that's not entirely true. I have an idea, but I'm just not sure if it's any good. Its genesis was several years ago as a stage play, of which I only ever completed the first act. I submitted it to the Northern Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, NE, and was invited to both the group readings and the writing lab, so I guess there must be at least a tiny bit of merit in the idea.

However, for some reason I'm terrified by it. It's a family drama with lots of examination of relationships and death. Very cheery. And deep down somewhere I do have confidence in the story. I'm just having difficulty getting past the hand-wringing and self-doubt so I can just focus on writing it.

The other issue is, even though I'm moderately committed the idea, I've spent a large part of the morning staring at a blank page without a clue how to start this thing. I've done a very little bit of character development but absolutely no story outline. I have a feeling I'm screwed, as they say.

But...I've never let that stop me before, so I doubt I'll let it get in my way now. I'll just forge ahead and see what happens. After all, I'll never know if it has any potential until I get it on the page, right? It doesn't have to be perfect the first time through. It can be revised.

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath. I'm letting it out. I'm now going to focus and go start this story.

Everybody wish me luck?!

p.s. Since I recently passed the 100 followers mark, I'm going to have a contest to celebrate. Stay tuned for details!!!

New Blog Launch - Check it Out!!

Just a quick note to announce the official launch of the Critique_This_WIP blog. Go check it out!

Friday Hodgepodge

First, I want to woohoo with joy that I finally wrote "the end" on the first draft of my screenplay. Yay! Of course now the hard work begins...editing (gulp). I want to get it in shipshape so I can submit it to the Academy Foundation by May 1 for consideration of the Nicholls Fellowship. Wish me luck!

Second, I'll be participating in ScriptFrenzy next month because I'm a sucker for punishment. Call me a writing masochist. This project requires that participants write a 100 page script in 30 days. Sure, no problem!

Third, I'm slowly editing my novel. It's sort of taken a back seat recently since I've been pushing to finish the screenplay. But my goal is to have an edited, revised, agent-ready version by the first of August because that's when my next MFA residency is and they usually invite agents to meet with students during the summer residency. So I want to be ready!

Lastly, my critique group, Critique This, is launching a group blog on Monday, March 29, and we're very excited about it! We're four writers strong and we'll be blogging about writing stuff as well as interviewing other writers, reviewing novels, hosting blogfests and probably contests. Additionally, we're going to have a weekly serialized story feature where each week one of us adds more scenes to an ongoing story. I'll be starting that feature up next Friday, April 2.

So be sure to stop by on Monday, March 29 and check out the Critique_This_WIP blog!

Character Profiling

I read a pretty cool blog post this morning by Suzette over at QueryTracker.net Blog where she gave a list of questions you can use to interview your characters and get to know them better.

I've done this sort of thing when writing stage plays, but I haven't done it for my screenplay or novels. I'm pretty confident in my screenplay characters, so I don't really feel the need to interview them.

My novel, characters, however, are a different story. Because I'm writing a trilogy, and there are multiple characters involved, it can get tricky keeping them all straight and making them behave in a way that's consistent with their personalities. Hence, a good reason to do a character profile.

Now that I'm starting the editing process, I'm making all kinds of notes to myself to follow my characters' threads all the way through and be sure they react appropriately to situations and each other. Then, of course, I have to make sure they change and grow in some way throughout the story, but in a way that's still consistent with their character.

It can be a challenge! But definitely a fun challenge.

How do you keep track of your characters and make sure they don't become caricatures? Or that they don't all just collapse into the same character and become indistinguishable from one another?

Style and Substance

I'm beginning to believe that writing the first draft of a novel is the easiest part of the whole process. That love/hate relationship with your characters as you meet them and move through the story, discovering all the shiny newness of it; struggling through plot problems but figuring you can "fix that in editing."

Well, now I'm in editing and it is decidedly less exciting than writing the fresh new story. I've never done this before so I have no idea if there's one way that's better than another to attack the task.

What I've started with is a basic read through, making notes in the body of the text with red font in places where I need to make fixes. Those notes also include comments from my critique group about things they noticed may be problems.

Next I'm going to do another read through for bigger issues in plot and character development.

After that I'll get down to brass tacks and attack each chapter individually adding and cutting, modifying language and structure, and fixing any plot or character issues.

I also need to add at least 10,000 words to the manuscript since it's only at about 60,000 right now.

Clearly I've got my work cut out for me, but I'm confident that if I keep my nose to the grindstone I can accomplish my goal. I just hope I don't fall out of love with my characters after so much nitpicking practicality, because I still have two more books to get through with them!

So what's your process? Do you have any suggestions to steamline this editing business?

Beginning the Editing Journey

Just a quick note today. I'm excited to report that I completed the first draft of book two of my trilogy, which makes me totally happy for a couple of reasons: one, I finished it; two, now I can start revisions and edits on book one, which gets me one step closer to the querying process!

So today I'll start the first read-through and begin making notes to myself. And because of the awesome critique group I'm in I've already got comments and notes from them on the first 9 chapters. I'm very glad to have their insight!

Wish me luck as I start the edit journey!