Brenda
Last week Carol gave us 5 prompts to help us get writing. I always “promise” myself I’ll do them. Then, good as they are, I let it go all too often. So I have a new plan: I wrote down her 5 prompts for the week. I knew she’d done this before, so I combed through some of the most recent blogs for more. I took many from Carol. Some from AnnDee, some from Cheryl; I even re-wrote some of them that I’d sent in. And took a few more from my old blog (www.benschwensch.wordpress.com) for the ABC Writers Guild. I think many of us have favorite places to go for prompts when we need/want them. I made a list for April 1 thru 30. I even threw in extras for March 29-31. I signed up to do the 750words dot com in April (made myself say I’d pay the site $5 if I missed even one day). Then last night I added to my “pain for failure” by signing up for April’s NaNoWriMo Camp. I WILL do each of those prompts, aimed toward writing the book I planned for NaNo. I’m going to try to make 2K per day. That would give me a 60K book by May 1. I’ll also post daily whether I made it or not on ABC Writers Guild . . . and all y’all who want to help push me can follow my progress (even if nobody does, it will make me accountable!)
Anybody else need a little PRESSURE to be sure you get it done? Make yourself a month-long list of prompts!
Cheryl
For those of you that follow Shannon Hale, you know she’s been discussing the ratio of men versus women in the top grossing animated movies.
The numbers are pretty shocking. Most hover around 17% female. Apparently, if more than 30% of the characters are female, the audience feels that the “women are taking over.”
The psychology behind this fascinates me. The world is made of half men and half women, but our fiction isn’t.
I’d love to hear some theories about the reason behind this. Why don’t we have equal numbers of male and female characters? What do you think?
Carol
Today I want to thank those people who help Ann Dee and me with this blog. It’s hard to come up with something every day of the week. But Cheryl and Brenda, two people I admire and love, always are here helping. Always prompt. Always thinking, adding new ideas and thoughtful work to TUW.
Want to be a successful writer? Have good friends in your corner.
You can be accountable to them, be in a critique group with them, commiserate with them etc. Just knowing you aren’t alone in this mostly solitary writing world we live in, can give you hope and help you succeed.
Thank you Brenda and Cheryl.
You have no idea how much I depend on you.
Love, love, love.
Throwing Up Words 