I got tagged by my awesome crit partner Ari Suso-Mago for the Lucky Seven Meme Award! She wants me to do this:

The Lucky 7 Meme Award Rules are as such:

• 1. Go to the 7th or 77th page of your work in progress.

• 2. Go to the 7th line of the page.

• 3. Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs. Remember, they must be as they are typed.

• 4. Tag 7 authors.

• 5. Let them know they’re it!

And you know what?

No seriously, I love these things. Thanks Ari!

So that people aren’t just confused, I’m going to include the first paragraph of my current query draft. I think it explains the situation in the first chapter fairly well. But it’s a super-raw draft of a draft!

For years, a monster has stalked eighteen-year old pothead Casey – a titan of a monster with dark fur and red eyes that no one can see or touch, including him. Nonetheless, Casey is convinced that the monster is there, a belief that is validated when he starts receiving strange letters that invite him to the Mock Universe – a place where, the letters warn, his monster has the potential to become devastatingly real.

Excerpt of KILL THE LAST ONE

(Lucky Seven Meme Award, 7 sentences starting with the 7th line on the 7th page)

The border grows even steeper when I smoke pot, because under the fog of cannabis I can barely feel the monster’s presence.

But there’s no border when I sleep.

I’m plagued with restless dreams of myself as the monster: crossing an endless ocean, waves lurching around me, the water so heavy it feels like a hundred cables attached to my legs and arms. There’s an aching hunger that festers in my stomach, wears down my bones. You could cross all the stars in all the universes and find nothing to satisfy it: this eternal, bottomless hunger.

—

The next Monster Movie Friday features a drowned woman in a lake who decided fuck this, might as well kill some of the campers over there. I’m not drowned so I’m not about to judge other people’s life – or death – decisions.

—

Time to pass the award on! As usual, there’s no pressure to continue the chain.

Just consider it appreciation of your blog and interest in your work.

I think you’re all pretty BAMF.

BAMF

• Gene Lempp

• Amanda Rudd

• Gretchen Schreiber

• Jaime Callahan

• Amber West

• Lena Corazon

• Ghenet Myrthil

SUNDAY LINK LOVE

• Kait Nolan makes an argument for deeper explorations of more interesting villains. I agree a lot with what she says here, maybe ’cause I’m studying psychology.

• Nicole Basaraba gives us an an excellent post about longhand, and the writers (some famous) who use it.

• Ari Susu-Mago gives me another gem on Twitter:

Can you find Wall-E?

• I’ve seen the Ira Glass on Storytelling meme circulating on Tumblr ad nauseam, but that’s usually via poster. I love the video version, which you can find here.

• I thought Kiersten White’s post about a night in the life was hilarious.

• Need some inspiration and encouragement, fellow writers? Saundra Mitchell’s post You Can Always Walk Away is one of the best of its ilk.

• Remember how Chuck Wendig wrote about 25 things writers should stop doing? Well, here are 25 things writers should start doing. Also by Chuck Wendig.

• I loved (emphasis *loved*) Claire Legrand’s post on first drafts and the wordiness they inspire, and how that’s okay. Definitely what I need right now, as I draft the heck out of my WIP.

STYLISH BLOG AWARD

ROW 80 UPDATE

• Goal recap: write 750 words a day on 750words.com.

This week was great! So far, I’ve plowed through 4739 words. Not bad, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) There’s no reason I won’t make my 750 quota today.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m weird, though. Because I’m so not writing in order. Not even a little. I’m not just talking about jumping between chapters, but jumping between scenes. And I’m… not sure that this is the best way to write a novel? Probably not. It’s working, sort of, I’m drafting at least, but it’s also kind of terrifying because scenes keep going in completely different directions than I originally intended (they’re telling the outline to talk to the hand, basically), and when you’re spending half your time writing future scenes that are dependent on earlier scenes working out a certain way…it’s um, well…unnerving.

Which has made me think a lot about Claire Legrand’s post that I included in the Sunday Link Love. Because while I might not be sure that I’m keeping all of these scenes – or that they’re even going to make sense once I organize them into chapters – they’re not completely meaningless either. No! I’m glad I wrote them. These scenes are helping me flesh out important story qualities such as character, emotion, theme, stakes, ect. They’re useful.

And for the most part, they’re viable places for the story to go. Writers often compare writing stories to childbirth, and in that vein, I feel like I’m telling my future novel (aka prospective child): “You can grow up to be this, or this, or this.”

Anyway. Those are my thoughts for today. How did your week go, fellow ROWers?

Blog award woot! The fantabulous Ari of A Fuzzy Mango With Wings gave me the 7×7 Blog Award – I’ve seen this floating around in my blogroll, and I’m excited to take a crack at it! Basically, I need to pick a post for each of the seven categories. And explain myself and so on.

• 1. Most Beautiful

My post When Your First Impression is Always the Wrong Impression had a lot of beautiful people wearing pretty clothes.

• 2. Most Helpful

I don’t think I write helpful posts. Not really. Because most of the time, I feel like what works for me will not necessarily work for you. And that’s my problem with 99% of writing advice out there, which can be specific to the point of uselessness. No, I don’t really think doing yoga for a half an hour and then writing stream of consciousness with an apple balanced on my head is going to help me, even if it works so well for you.

But people seemed to find That Outlining Thing – or, No Pants! to be helpful, probably because I focused on a general attitude/approach rather an arbitrary and specific set of rules.

• 3. Most Popular

It’s not surprising that In Which I Win Awards, Give Awards, and Post Flash Fiction was popular – there were a ton of external links driving traffic to the post. But it was also just a fun post to write – people winning! The Internet Gods seem to agree, as I still get so many just so many spam comments on this post.

• 4. Most Controversial

The Problem with Hooks and First Paragraphs is one post where I got very specific with my writing advice, and I have mixed feelings about that.

Do I still believe that good first paragraphs, universally, possess some sort of a question? Yes. But is it really necessary that people conceptualize it this way in order to write good first paragraphs? Probably not.

I will say that I don’t think a question needs to be a polar bear in a tropical jungle a la Lost. It’s not about shock value – it’s about understanding what makes your story interesting, and capitalizing on that.

• 5. Most Surprisingly Successful

Coffee is a post about…coffee.

Okay, it was part of a blogfest. Still, totally underestimated how much people actually like coffee. Or rather, posts about coffee.

• 6. Most Underrated

I’ve been very lucky with the responses to my content posts, and the same is true for Our Motifs – or Reason #87 Why Every Writer is a Special Snowflake. But I would have liked to see more of a conversation about the motifs present in people’s writing, because this is such a universal phenomenon IMO.

Also, now that I’ve written the outline, I can tell you that KtLO makes so much use of creepy televisions that it’s not even funny. Just creepy.

• 7. Most Prideworthy

What Earthbound Can Teach Us About Zombies, Aliens, and Confidence in Writing is the closest I’ve ever come to generating a personal manifesto on writing. This is also one of my first posts, which means two things: 1) it was heavily edited, because I was still willing to spend hours editing my posts (now I’m like hahaha Annalise you so funny), and 2) I didn’t cite all of the gorgeous fanart because I was still ignorant of copyright stuff. I would take it down, except that I’ve incorporated the fanart into the text of the post – so it stands as a big fat “Oops,” on my part.

Still, I seriously love this post. It has zombies. And aliens. And Earthbound. (Which I beat mothafu -) And it’s a giant take-that to the idea that writing can’t be ridiculous, fun, and smart all at the same time. (Stop the presses on that one.) And because it’s probably my most solid writing advice so far, in a blog where I try to avoid writing advice like the plague because I still don’t know what I’m doing other than it involves words and keyboards and that smashing your head repeatedly against the keyboard, while therapeutic, does not usually generate words. ao;i usetr;sldrtuov

Award Ceremony Time!

Since this is the 7×7 Award, it only seems appropriate to pick seven people to pass the torch. As with all my other awards, it’s up to you whether you decide to take on the challenge – or just take it as a completely rad compliment.

• L. Blankenship

• Jaime Callahan

• Natalie Hartford

• Lesann Berry

• Gretchen Schreiber

• Leigh Ann Kopans

• Katy Bennett

I have a message for you guys…

Photo from ohmann