Robyn’s Writing

And may it be the best yet for all who read this.

Christmas and New Year have been keeping me from writing, so much happening.  I’m hoping that things will settle down again and life will become more…well…predictable.  Having said that, I’m not sure it will.

Writing Goals for 2009

• Finish ‘Whispers’ and run the entire novel by my on line critique group
• Finish a completed first draft edit on ‘The Fine Art of Compulsion’ (working title for my NaNoWriMo novel.)
• Get some articles and/or short stories I’ve been working on published.
• Write and publish some on line e-books.

And then I have my 2009 Wish List

• Re-Edit the Denith Books and submit them for publishing. They’re good stories, I want everyone to read them.
• Complete a submission package for Whispers, and Fine Art novels, including Query Letter, Synopsis, and fully edited and formatted manuscripts.

I have a plan.

1. Finish the rough draft, tidy it up a bit, fill in any story lines that aren’t complete.

2. Put it away for a month or so.  This is highly recommended. Why? So you can distance yourself from the novel and come back to it with a fresh new perspective.  Reading it as you would someone else’s writing, helps you to more clearly see what needs work.   During this time, I will write new stories, rework the last few chapters of Whispers etc.

3. Research: I’m also going to research some of the things I wrote about. For example, why are alien crafts often sighted near power stations?  How easy would it be to take over a Tasmanian Hydroelectric power plant?  Investigate current conservation issues in Tasmania, and familiarize myself with the remote South West areas of Tasmania (no, not by traveling there, although…I wouldn’t mind.)

My plot has to be waterproof, and make sense. As it’s science-fiction this time, I can world-make but it has to have solid reason to it.

Someone recently explained the following to me:

“When you write SF, you have to think everything out, plan things out, and whatever it is you put together MUST make sense; it must have an internal logic and an external logic; i.e., a sensible — and scientific, thus the “S” in “SF” — explanation for the way things work in your story’s universe.”

That’s what I’ll be figuring out too in this interim period, while my novel is ’sitting’ nicely on my hard-drive, waiting to invited up to the screen again.

• Right now, I’m doing a first edit on Chapter 36 and 37 of “Whispers”. Chapter 36 is about Grainor, Jonthor and Darina. An action chapter. Chapter 37, I believe, will be Jala’s chapter, and will start to wrap up the novel. (Note: It is up for major revisions.)

• I’m gearing up for NaNoWriMo by making an outline of my proposed Novel. Here’s a synopsis as it stands now. Chance are high that the plot may change, and the novel end up totally different than expected at the end of November.

“Claire was a typical fifteen year old, living in rural Tasmania.  Her father worked at a petrol station,  her mother took on part time house-cleaning.  Her older sisters lived away from home.  Aside from some small blackouts she experienced from time to time, her life couldn’t have been more normal. Then Aaron turned up.

From day one Aaron captivated her.  As soon as her young heart belonged only to him he swept her into a world of intrigue, mystery and the paranormal. She discovered things about herself that horrified her.  Was she really going to destroy her world and the lives of all her loved ones, in order to advance Aaron and his friends’ plans?  Did she have any alternative?”