Physical Brainstorming

So I don't know if I ever mentioned, but Corset likes to write and is in college to learn to write better. So we were talking in class and I turned out to be an anomaly because my brainstorming for a character wasn't a spider web with words it was a doodle. I refuse to believe I am the only person who doodles their characters to find out more about them. Want an example? Well I was trying to determine what was on my characters mind so this is what popped out:

It's poorly done, but then again it's not meant to have artistic merit it's meant to let me organize my thoughts on my characters. I have maybe a dozen of these featuring a character at different ages and some even scenes from the piece I am writing. I find it makes my life easier. Same thing, if I write a letter to a character. It makes me get in their head and ask, what have they been through lately? What type of person are they? How would they respond? Would they tell me about the crisis I'm writing or are they more secretive than that? I like fleshing out my characters so if I sound like I belong in a loony bin, you'll have to excuse me. I find once a character catches hold they irritate me until there story has been told, or the realization that there is no story to tell happens. 

;-) Going back to the padded walls,

Corset signing off.

NaNoWriMo

Oh my shame in having forgotten NaNoWriMo.
Otherwise known as the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write approx 50,000 words (about 175 page novel) in one month, both starting and ending at midnight and it runs the duration of November. You can track your goal via the official site and I believe there is even prizes available to be won. At nanowrimo.org you can also sign on to forums for support and meet fellow writers which I think is a nice concept. Especially when you have a bad case of the block and couldn't form a coherent sentence to save your life, that's a good day to have a support forum. Now a few things to note, when you submit your work to the word count it just about automatically gets deleted. They also have a system set up to scramble your work so there is no fear of thievery. Also to be eligible for the prizes, you have to meet the 50,000 word mark. 

The rules state that, to be an official NaNoWriMo winner, you must…

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

 See? Doesn't that sound easy? So why don't you head on over and see what kind of adventure NaNoWriMo can take you on.