Quantum Storytelling

Thanks to Rob Miller’s Now Reading WordPress plugin I now have a Quantum Reading section for the site.

I’m not sure whether or not this makes the ‘Books On Writing‘ section redundant, as quite a few entries from that will be found in the Quantum Reading section. I suppose it’s worth having a separate section for those books so that people don’t have to wade through my dirty laundry list of regular reading!

One further note — it’s interesting what you learn when you actually track your habits like this. I didn’t realize I had read quite so many books last year. I knew it was a lot, but, well, um… the actual number shocks me in just how much I am a dirty little book slut.

Read anything good lately? If anyone else nabs the Now Reading plugin, let me know. I’ll be happy to come take a look at your list.

A final NaNo update…

Only got to about 20K words this year, at which point I ran off into some character development and sketching of story locations which I felt were more important than trying to fudge those things.

Writing is never the hard part for me — I finished my first time last year pretty easily. The hard part is getting what I want out of that writing, and fulfilling my intentions.

To me, in any creative act I pursue, intention is the most important thing. “What is it I am trying to do?” I always ask myself. Along with other questions like, “What am I getting out of this?”

The 2006 NaNo is hardly a loss for what it allowed me to discover; I needed more characters, and not just placeholders. I needed real, well thought out characters that can achieve their potential in the story. I also need maps of my locations, because I’m working in a sci-fi universe, and without those details established, at least for me as the writer, then I don’t really know what I’m doing.

For example, if a battle takes place on the outskirts of one of my sci-fi towns, how far are the people from their homes or ‘living quarters’ as they fight? What are the distances? What is in between them and their homes? Are there any community or business sites nearby? What are the logistics? For me this brings a whole new meaning to the adage “Write what you know.” It turned out I knew a lot less than I thought I did, enough to cripple the drafting process for me.

How has NaNo played out for you? Whether you finished or not, what have you learned?