First Pages of Writing!

It's been quite long enough since I put up an update!  I've been busy and OYAN has not been advancing very fast.  It's second semester and I think I should be writing, but I want to outline the novel more in the workbook before I start.  :p  Call it copping out or whatever...  The case of the matter is that this book is one that I'm working through the workbook with and I'm not really figuring out a lot on my own.  Pathetic, isn't it?  You know, I can write books just fine on my own, but then I get a workbook and I choose to rely completely upon it...

The one plus of this is that I've been asked a lot about the course and I can answer very honestly because I've been working the course ONLY and not adding a lot of my own stuff and flare and all that.

But writing is going to be exciting.  It is also going to be a lot of work.  Now don't get me wrong.  I want to write it and I can't wait to get started.  But writing a book is always such a stack of work and this is going to be no exception.  In fact, this might be more work than a lot of the ones I do because this is a story came up with just for the program...not because the idea has been bugging me or anything...

I don't really feel...prompted to write the story.  There are stories that just scream to be told.  (“Brothers” is driving me absolutely nuts right now because it is telling me that it needs, needs, needs to be told, and I just haven't the time/energy to go back and fix the beginning and then proceed with it.)  “Courage Enough” is not screaming to be told.

And the first person is going to be  a lot of work!  I've written some first person but usually do not prefer to work that way.  Also, for some reason, the workbook has really gotten me thinking of it as third person...  Probably because I'm constantly answering questions ABOUT the character instead of from HIS POINT OF VIEW.  The only first person I have ever done well—and enjoyed—was a book where I was very much in that characters pov.  I've never done it with one where I wasn't.

We'll have to see how this comes out.  It's like...

AN ADVENTURE.

Suitable, at least.  ;)

I was working through “Conflict” today...which was great fun.  I like Mr S's concept that if there's not conflict the scene isn't worth going into the book.  I think that might be something that I don't like about classics is the fact that very often there are entire scenes were there is no conflict, or the conflict is immaterial.  So I'm going to work really hard to keep that in mind when writing the book.

I was reread one of my NaNo novels the other day (“Strike in the Dark”) and that book is really good.  It's got a gritty sort of realism to it.  That said...I'll never be able to do anything with it because it is so culturally wrong.  (Lack of research!  :o )  But every scene in there is conflict.  And more than that...it is conflict that pertains to the plot!  There is never a quiet moment in that book.  There are scenes that aren't all fists and guns, but they're FULL of conflict!  It tingles in the writing!

So...I s'pose the goal for “Courage Enough” is to try and mimic that.  Is to try and get those same dynamics to it.  Because if I can I think I've got something really good going here...

I started writing today—just one scene, but it's a start.  It came out with a pen on paper...  Blah.  The story will NOT write on the computer.  I'm hoping that that cures itself or it's going to be a long and painful job to write it.