Some More Answers to Nanowrimo and Writing Questions

Sometime in the near future the writing and creativity blog, q&a and other information will be on The Dramatic Mind . Until that gets going I'll post that information here. Many of you sent in questions about Nanowrimo. I'll try and answer them in general here. If I haven't answered your question here feel free to email me at kiki at dailylifeconsulting dot com. To current clients - we'll be able to discuss which option is best for you at greater length but you can use these suggestions as a starting point.

Scriptwriting For those of you who wanted some sources for scriptwriting this month's MovieMaker magazine is the annual issue chock full of information. They have a list of different software and describe them pretty well. FinalDraft is a great program and saves you a lot of the formatting work. There are also great storyboard programs available now that make the storyboarding process easier. For Nano and first draft purposes don't focus on editing programs. The goal now is to get the story out of you and on to the page.

Fiction One of the best books I've come across on writing fiction is The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction (Modern Library Paperbacks)by Stephen Koch . It's dense and full of great information as well as writing exercises and resources.

Children's Stories - An amazing and inspiring book on writing for children is
ORIGINS OF STORY: On Writing for Children by Barbara Harrison, Gregory Maguire, and Erik Blegvad

Another good one is William Zinsser's Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children

Playwriting I did most of that reading back in the day when I was doing my MFA but there's a great book on the three act structure directed at screenwriters which I think is amazing for playwrights as well Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets From the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization . (Yes - I spelled "one who writes plays" differently both times - long, old discussion...)

William Zinsser also wrote some more great books on writing. One of them on writing political fiction and essays whose title escapes me now. I'll find it on my bookshelf later and post it. It's very very hard to get - took me forever to track it down but really great reading.

Memoir I gave my 90 year old professor/mentor the book Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer which I had seen and thought was a great way to explore organizing a life's story in different ways. She likes the book but still isn't sure she wants to write her autobiography even though everyone is begging, begging her to. But the truth is one should only write what one needs/wants to and the story that doesn't let you go.

Ok - as for inspiration and why bother and how to books - that's for another time. And for those of you who asked about the "Authorship and Authority" system/program that I developed, that's based on journal writing and self-exploration more than story, fiction, children's stories etc.

Whew! That should be enough to get you going. Let me know how it goes!


Enjoy the day and live a great story!
RKW