Amy Fellner Dominy, Award-Winning Author of Tween/Teen Novels
Amy Fellner Dominy, Award-Winning Author of Tween/Teen Novels
Join me each Friday as I continue to journal about the process of writing a new book. Share the ups and downs, witness the progress, learn from the mistakes I make…share your tips and maybe write along with me. My goal is to develop an idea in October, write the first draft during NaNoWriMo in November, and sleep again in December.
Goal: Write 40,000 words +
Progress: Yes! (With 14 words to spare.)
Word Count: 40,014
(I posted this on the Class of 2k11 blog today, but also wanted to post it here in case anyone doesn’t follow over there. Some things are worth repeating) 
As a writer and an author, I’ve often wondered how teens pick the books they read. And why. And where. I figured the best way to get answers was to go to the source. So I did. I enlisted the help of Sarah Andersen, a high school English teacher and huge supporter of YA literature. Mrs. Andersen also runs a blog called YA LOVE at www.addicted2reading.wordpress.com. Follow her there. I do!!
I’m not usually big on writing exercises. For some reason, it never feels “productive” to me because it’s not tied to an actual story I want to tell. I know that’s not the point of doing exercises. But I’m also the girl who goes to yoga class and hates the end part where we just lay there relaxing. Which, of course, is the key to the whole practice: relaxing.
We can’t live without our bad guys. Without them, our stories would be as bland as an Oreo without the cream filling. So what makes a good bad guy? Yes, he or she needs a certain amount of lowdown-nasty-awful-evil creepiness. But I believe the worst bad guys are the ones who believe they’re doing it for the greater good.
A good bad guy doesn’t know he’s bad.
Perfection and I go way back. It’s not a healthy relationship. Perfection holds out her hand as if to give me a step up, and then when I can’t quite reach, she laughs and watches me stumble and fall. I get mad, I get sad, and then I try again. Like I said, it’s not a good relationship. Which is why I’m sharing this tip for the day– in words more beautiful than I could come up with on my own. I’m not usually a poetry girl, but thanks to my friend, Mary, for forwarding this one to me from The Writer’s Almanac. It’s perfect…
This is what it looks like when I’m stuck on a scene.
These are all bits of conversation or ideas for the scene I’ve been struggling with. I always try to work it out long-hand, because I never seem to work anything out on the computer. So this is what I end up: weird bits of paper and different colors of pen — whatever is handy at the moment when I’m certain I’ve just had a brilliant breakthrough. Usually, I’m halfway through the set up that leads to the brilliantness when I realize I’ve forgotten where I was headed.
Over the year, I’ve collected plenty of tips of my own, especially about character development. I’ve got a folder full of worksheets with questions to ask my protagonist: What kind of ice cream does she like? What is she afraid of? Describe her closet and how she arranges it.
I hate manicures. I can’t stand the wasted time and money — and it feels like a waste because three days after, my nail polish is chipped and my hands look like crap. Again. But now they have this stuff called “shellac” or “gel”. And a manicure actually lasts two to three weeks. Okay, so that’s worth the effort now and again.
When you open your work-in-progress…
close your eyes.
Yep. That’s my tip. Am I crazy? No. But I do lack willpower and when I open up my WIP I’m often tempted to look over what I’ve already written.
And once I look, I want to tweak. And then I revise and rewrite (for the 1,000 time) the opening of my book. This is a bad thing. Because when my writing time is over, I have no new pages. So, if you’re at all like me…
