Here’s What You Said

When asked what you want to know/learn:

• how to make real, complicated characters readers can get attached to
• how to make the story capture/maintain an audience’s interest
• how to keep the story on track
• how to make the characters relatable
• how to stay on top of the novel, not get distracted, procrastinate
• how to create original characters
• how to come up with an original plot
• how to be a better writer
• how to write without feeling like everything I write is trash

List the activities involved in writing a book. You said:

• planning
• struggling
• visualizing
• crying
• being patient
• taking breaks
• being inspired
• editing/chopping off limbs
• proof reading
• reading
• coming up with great ideas
• taking time to sit and think
• being alone
• listening to other people’s opinions
• brainstorming
• reading other books
• not waiting until you feel like it
• being in touch with your inner self

How does a writer become inspired to write? You said:

• lots of caffine
• meditation
• get away from distractions
• when the weather is good, ie. rain
• when people inspire you
• playing music
• addressing your hopes and fears
• focussing
• writing at your best time of day (night for some, early morning for others
• treating yourself for writing
• when real life experience and people inspire you
• when you write in a certain space/creating your “writing room”

Clever Chloe!

Here’s a site Chloe found with an even better bio chart for creating your characters: http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html

And her students were strangely silent.

So.

This is what I did. I went to your blogs — all beautifully executed, I must say — and I found … some things done and some things strangely blank. Well, let’s be honest. It wasn’t strange. It was predictable. I’ve met people. In fact, I’ve been one for at least a couple of years now.

So.

This is what I did. I wrote out all the assignments and I gave them titles, titles that you could actually copy out and put on your blogs, titles that would conveniently allow me to know what it is you’re writing when you actually write it, titles that will let me know what I’m looking at and marking.

Which leads me to my next statement — and my first sentence fragment. 

How can I tell you this without sucking the youthful creativity out of your little souls? 

I can’t.

You need to get to work now.

Here’s how to start that process: Look up. See the pages at the top of this blog? Go to the one that says “Assignments Term 1.” Now click. Now do. There we go. Easy, wasn’t it? 

And on a further note, remember the yellow cardboard rectangle I sent around? You wrote what you particularly wanted me to focus on or teach you. One of your repeated messages was “how not to procrastinate.” This is me doing that. 

Stop reading. Look up. See me smiling? I still really, really, really like you.

Now get to work. 

I can’t read your book if you don’t write it. 

9/14/15

What’s on the agenda today? 

• Go to Day One in Write a Novel in 90 Days and read the assignment. Then read the responses I wrote and write your own. Or don’t read mine and write your own. The only thing required is that you write your own! You should have six separate responses in the categories of people, places, and things.
• Write your writer’s bio. Here’s a basic writer’s bio template. Who are you? Tell us what you read, why you write, the most interesting thing you’ve done, the most difficult thing you’ve done, why you want to write a novel, something unbelievably fascinating about yourself. Be creative. Write in the third person. Be enthusiastic but cleverly human, more confident than a snivelling worm but less obnoxious than Donald Trump. Write it in the third person. Here’s what students wrote in 2013/14.
• Start thinking about what kind of a novel you want to write and what you want it to say. Other than writing for the sake of writing, where are you going with this novel? Is there a particular writer or novel or series of novels you’ve read that just knocked your socks off? What was it that resonated? What do you want to bring out in your novel? What is it that appeals to you? The plot? The characters? The theme? Think about what you want to say and why.
• If you want to know what we’re doing the rest of the week, go here and find out. 

Your Writing Schedule

Who stays inside on a sunny day when the streets of Langley are filled with 100,000 people looking at old cars? Me!

I would much rather plot out your life than look at some shiny roadster or the car my dad drove when I was seven. 

So, remember the book I told you about, “90 Days to Your Novel”? I’ve been counting the days, every time we have a Writing class all year. You don’t have 90 days, you have a total of 84 classes and 18 Flex Times — in ten months. That’s a lot more time than 90 days! 

All notes and mini assignments will be here. I did some of these assignments in the summer and think the book is just excellent. There is nothing that is just an assignment with no purpose. Every single thing you do will go into your novel!

You can also look at the Year at a Glance above. It will show you all of the classes we have and all of the days you don’t go to school (holidays, Pro D, Report Card prep, Collaboration days.) When you look at how much actual time we have, it’s encouraging. Writing a novel is doable.