Starting on a new idea

It's been over 6 months since I have even peeked at my last project. It had nowhere to go as far as my thought process was concerned. So it took a few months to finally say, "Ok, it's not the time to write this novel". Then it took a couple of months on top of that to have a lovely little brainstorm about a new project. That brainstorm hit about 2 nights ago when I was trying to sleep.

The idea came to me while I was reflecting on my life, and my death really. No I'm not dying, that I know of... but my mortality has come into view lately, as well as the mortality of those I love and the idea just built on itself.

So here I go on a new project, no fancy notebooks and binders, cutesy sticky-notes or colour co-ordinated pens. Just a plain old composition book, a pen, my laptop and some ideas... well maybe a few cutesy sticky notes for good measure ;)

Picking the Title

Who woulda thunk picking a title for a novel would be so brain bruising? Pain I tell you, actual pain! I mulled, sorted, read, studied, mulled some more only to come up with a basically plain title for my novel. I wanted something extraordinary, I settled for "it will do".

I was going to save the title picking for when either A: it just came to me or B: the book sort of came up with it's own title or C: someone who I had read and edit the book suggested a title. BUT, I obtained yet another How-To book and I'm ATTEMPTING to follow the steps. One of the first steps is to pick a title. My guess is I'll wind up changing it eventually, but in the meantime it will do. Has anyone else had a problem picking a title? Do the tells PLEASE! I'd like to know I'm not the only one with this issue.

Breaking the Block - Changing the Point of View

I finally broke the writer's block. I switched my sub-character for my main character and the story took on a whole new feel. I'm pretty excited about it. So I'm revamping my character sketches and plot sketches a little bit to accommodate. Having the story unfold in this character's eyes has really opened things up. I might switch it around again, who knows? For now though, I have some definite structure coming about. I have even started on my plot sketches, though I am certain they will change around quite a bit before I get to the fun stuff of actually writing.

Writer's block already?

It's true, I haven't even started the actually writing yet and I'm having writer's block. I'm stuck. I know how the main conflict is going to work itself out, but I'm not overly impressed with it. To explain what I mean I have to tell you a little bit about myself. Last year I started a novel and it was awesome. Every time I came up with a new twist or turn I got a rush like no other. I would get high and giddy, what an awesome feeling. I haven't gotten that once with this project. I never finished the other project because while I was working on it, my sister was murdered. My life was turned upside down and inside out, so trying to go back to anything before that is very difficult, in the case of the novel, it's impossible. Maybe someday...
So I'm disappointed that feeling doesn't come about with this novel and I'm stuck on the romance storyline of it all. So I did what any warmblooded woman would do, I went shopping! I got new pens, colorful sticky notes, highlighters, paper, a few notebooks, dividers and other paraphernalia. It hasn't helped the situation but I feel better and I got to spend time color-coding and organizing everything - which really just means I spent time making myself feel like I was being productive on the progress of my novel when I was just killing time. Hey if you can't fool yourself, who can ya fool?

Character Sketching

Let's look at Character Sketches to start. Now I'm at the point in writing my novel where I need to do my Character Sketches in order to keep my brainstorming going. I've read a LOT about Character Sketching on different websites. Most author's websites that have suggestions for new novelists focus loads of attention on the characters. Apparently, according to most, the character development is the most important process of writing a good novel. If the reader isn't interested in who the person is, they won't care what the person does and that pretty much leaves your novel discarded.

What everyone seems to agree on is the more effort and background you put into your character sketches, the better. It's all about the detail. Even if the reader never finds out that when the hero of the story was a little boy, he threw worms at his sister and because of that she never truly trusted him, or worms for that matter, as long as YOU know it, you'll be able to build up the character accordingly. Here are a few websites with Character Sketch Sheets or ideas, if you can fill in all the blanks, you may have yourself a full bodied, 3-dimensional character that your readers will love to follow. ( http://www.angelfire.com/freak2/writersblock/sketch.html http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/kswiesner/FDmap.html http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/char_sk.html)

The Epiphany!

Don't you just love a good epiphany? I'd been mulling over in my head a story series where everyone is co-mingled and brought together. There are actually a few storylines running through my head, and some that have actually been put somewhat to paper, with this idea of major cohesion. But finally, FINALLY, I've come up with the basis for my novel that will introduce the following series. YAY ME! I have a good idea for a story, and I've started to develop my characters in my head. Now just to get it on paper...

Researching

The next section in my How-To book is all about the researching. I'm guessing researching is a lot like brainstorming in the sense that it's really a "to each their own" kind of thing, but the ideas in the book were interesting. Once you've figured out what kind of story you're going to write (after the brainstorming), there will inevitably be some things you need to research. If you are writing a story based on a certain time period, you will need to know the clothing styles, customs and the basic day-to-day life in that period. Depending on where your story takes place, you would need to know such things as climate, diet and regional information about said place. What about your character's occupation? You may need to research a little more than a few ER episodes if your character is a doctor or a nurse. This is all pretty basic information that most writers would have thought of.
According to the How-To book you should have most of your research done before attempting to write your novel because within the research your story will develop. That's not to say that researching isn't going to go on a long ways into the book.
My issue at this is point is; by reading this book I technically am researching. But I don't already have an idea in my head for a specific novel to correspond this information with. Then I think I should start to plan my novel, but I don't want to do so and bypass important information I'll acquire from the book. It's kind of a catch 22.
Regardless of the setbacks and confusion, I plug on...