Nanowrimo Spotlight: Emily Shore

Greetings, friends and followers! November is almost over, I just got back from this year’s Wafflepalooza celebration, but I’ve got at least one more spotlight interview! Tonight, I spotlight Emily, who you can also find at her website, on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Here’s Emily talking about finding Nano:

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I was technically a ‘newbie’ this year though not a true newbie as I’ve average 3-5 books a year since I graduated in ’09 and have written a 90K book in a month before. However, I wasn’t aware there was an official Nano website. I joined so I could connect with other writers, and I also appreciated the ‘stats’ page where I can see my goal and chart my progress (major motivator for me). Love the forums, definitely a fun place to find other like-minded writers.

What are you writing about this year?
This year, I’ve been working on the third book in my YA anti-trafficking trilogy. My first book was picked up by ZSH Literary Agency and will be shipping out to publishers soon. I’m 91K into the third book but have a goal of 125K.

What is your favorite movie – you have to pick just one!
Princess Bride – hands down. Appeals to everyone.

What advice would you give to all your fellow Wrimos?
Read, don’t attend writer’s conferences (research online and take university or writing community courses instead), never underestimate a good editor, look up Twitter pitch fests and contests like crazy and enter, enter, enter!

Sneaky Ninja question! What social class, if any, are you a part of?
Lower middle class stay-at-home mom

200 word rant:

My overarching goal through my books is always to have strong female role models when it comes to their relationships, both familial and romantic. These are so often neglected in YA literature. My tailored goal for The Menagerie and its follow-ups is to shine a light on the brutal sex trafficking industry where over 400,000 girls are trafficked each year in the U.S. alone, girls average age 12-14. Few people know of the abuse and degradation that these girls have to endure under the hands of predators. Even fewer can understand the circumstances that contribute to entry into that world like abuse or neglect in the home. I want to use my books as a speaking platform and address young teens and their parents on this issue in the interest of raising awareness, education, and prevention so we can protect the little girls all around us.

Links to learn more:

• https://www.polarisproject.org/
• http://nefariousdocumentary.com/
• https://warinternational.org/

Nanowrimo Spotlight: Misty Anna

Only a few days left in November! Tonight’s interview is with Misty Anna, who can be found on Nanowrimo as re.paige! Here’s Misty talking about her Nanowrimo history:

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I discovered Nanowrimo a few years ago — I believe I was searching online for writing contests to enter. This is my third or fourth year participating, but will be the first time I’ve finished/won (I’m presently 2k words away from 50k). The most I ever completed before this was under 9k words last year.

What are you writing about this year?
A young woman who dreams of a fantasy world that she eventually discovers truly exists. She must travel there to stop her own world from being destroyed.

What is your favorite movie – you have to pick just one!
The Princess Bride

What advice would you give to all your fellow Wrimos?
Don’t give up; no matter whether or not you reach 50k, you still achieved more words than you began with!

Sneaky Ninja question! Who is the most important person in your life?
My life partner, Travis. He is the most supportive and encouraging person I could ever ask to share my life with.

I decided to become an author when I was only seven years old — fantasy books were my passion and escape from life.

My present Nanowrimo project, entitled ‘Frostbite’, is aimed to be self-published in PDF format by March 2016.  If you would like to donate in order to support my startup, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/mistyanna

Donators will receive copies of my upcoming book(s) in PDF and/or hard-copy format, based upon the amount of the donation. I appreciate any and all help offered in order to achieve my dream!

Nanowrimo Spotlight: And Into the Fire Swamp

Good morning! It’s November, Nanowrimo has started around the world, and my word count is 1292 from an early morning Twitter word sprint. I probably won’t try to write and run @Nanowordsprints at the same time, but it was fun today.

My spotlight volunteer today is Hannah, who goes as writurgurl on the Nano site. Hannah, what’s your Nanowrimo experience been like up to now?

This is my second year participating in NaNoWriMo. Last year I was away at a university that I later switched out of to come back home so that I could dedicate more time toward writing, and part of that experience came from the success of getting to know both myself and my writing through NaNoWriMo. Last year I really enjoyed hanging out with the gang and having writing sprints together at Hasselton’s cafe… the apple cider and nanimo bars there still hold that ol’ nano nostalgia!

So far this year I have begun two pen-pal relationships with two lovely young women, and have also signed up for the CD swap, the postcard swap, and the care package swap. I have written my first pen-pal letters and have also prepared my care package for that swap partner, which will be mailed to them during the first week of NaNoWriMo. So far I have met with one wrimo from my area. We met at a bakery and cafe called Fardella’s and had a planning session. I’ve also been re-reading my favourite books about writing, which are “Writing Down the Bones” and “Chapter after Chapter.”

My preferred writing tool so far this year has been the program Writer’s Cafe, which allows the user to outline their novel, write in a daily journal, create a bulletin board of inspiring post-it notes and images, access writing prompts and tips, and so much more! I also frequently use my sketchbook and journal. I have been building my survival kit this past week, which includes: index cards, hot chocolate packs, a box of chocolates, sketchbook, journal, envelopes and paper for pen-pal correspondences, bookmarks, black gel pens, encouragement cards for when things get harder, finger-less gloves, warm socks, my NaNo binder, my Staples “easy” button to press whenever I’ve reached my day’s word count goal, a kitchen timer for timed writing sessions, my snow globe from NYC, my statue of the Baron (my little guardian) and stickers for putting on my NaNo calendar each day when I reach my word count goal.

What are you writing about this year?

Novel Films blogfest, Part Two

Okay, I already talked a bit about why I like or dislike certain movie adaptations of books yesterday, but for part 2 of the blogfest, I’m going to go into a bit more detail.

A good movie adaptation must be true to the core magic of the book, while taking advantage of the visual medium to add to it, and be willing to cut away the stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit within a movie’s limits.

In ‘The Princess Bride,’ when comparing the book to the movie, I always think of the segue between the Man in Black climbing the Cliffs of Insanity until he duels Inigo Montoya. In the book, Inigo has a long flashback while he watches the stranger climbing, thinking about his father, how the six-fingered man came to his father’s shop with a commission, and then killed his father with the sword rather than paying. How as a young boy Inigo challenged the six-fingered man to a duel, but lost, trained and studied fencing as he grew up, and signed on with Vizzini to support himself as he searched for his revenge.

It’s covered in some considerable detail, and really takes the reader out of the main storyline, even though it’s great material.

In the movie, Goldman makes a choice which would probably have been better in the book, and is amazing in the movie with Mandy Patinkin and Cary Elwes – after he agrees to lift the Man in Black to the top of the cliff, Inigo offers him a chance to rest before fighting for his life, and awkwardly asks if he has six fingers. This breaks the ice between them, and Inigo tells the important details much more briefly, with the Man in Black reacting to his history.

It serves as a bonding moment between the two characters, foreshadowing how they will be comerades in arms on the same side by the climax, and at the same time it doesn’t detract in the same way, because Inigo and the Man in Black are sitting right there, on the cliff-top, swords at their sides, and so we’re reminded that the swordfight is going to be starting any minute.

Adaptation Blogfest – Novels into Movies/TV shows

Okay, so I’ve signed up for the Novel Films blogfest and I cheated slightly by doing the rounds before making my own post. I got some great ideas, and I’ve also decided that I’m not going to include play to film or comic book to film adaptations in my list, but I will include novel series into TV series, just for the heck of it.

So, here are the cases where I’ve read the book and scene it:

The Princess Bride – a true classic by any standard. Of course, it helps that the author of the book, William Goldman, wrote the screenplay as well and had a lot of experience adapting other people’s books into screenplays. On his DVD commentary, he said that if people could only remember him for one thing, he wanted that to be Princess Bride-related.

A Wrinkle in Time – a surprisingly good movie version of a favorite book. I got a chance to see this at the Toronto children’s film festival, Sprockets.

Earthsea. Ugh – not the worst fantasy film I’ve ever seen, but they messed up so much of the greatness of the two source books.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – took a long time to get made into a movie, and I think it was pretty much worth the wait. Just a shame that there won’t be movie sequels.

Starship troopers – joke of a movie, for such a great novel. Sigh.

The vampire diaries – I started watching the TV series first, and then went back to read the first book in the series, which was interesting, but overall I think I like the TV version better.

Also:

Blog the cat, Chapter Five – the Board.

Blog the cat screenwriting index.

Okay, in chapter 5 of Save the Cat, “Building the perfect Beast,” Blake Snyder waxes eloquent on The Board. I’m going to skip all of the superlatives, glowing praise, and industry anecdotes for now, and get down to describing the core idea.

You set up a big, flat, vertical working space – Blake prefers a corkboard that he can pin index cards to, and use this to arrange your story ideas on. It’s a way of working with the screenplay structure that’s visual, tactile, and ‘a great time-waster’, except that the point is that the time isn’t actually wasted, in the end. It’s just being put to a use that isn’t immediately obvious, because as you play with the board and keep rearranging things, the ideas are being arranged and correlated by your subconscious mind in a way that you could never achieve with conscious disciplined hard work staring at a blank Celtx screen.

Like a lot of Blake’s notions, the Board is fairly structured. He sets it up in four rows of approximately ten scenes each, (plus or minus one spot per row, but still to come up to a total of forty scenes per screenplay.) The timeline of the movie gets arranged on this board a little like a really huge Fan expo autograph line, going left to right across the top row for Act One, then turning the corner, going back the second row and across the third for Act Two, then back the bottom row for Act Four.