I wish I could do Camp NaNo, for August. But I feel I should always keep it for November, even if that means giving up my lovely story idea. When I have one for too long, I get sick of it.
My brother read my book the other day - the very first person! And he liked it way more than I expected!

I just did my own personal Nano over the month of June. It was hard, without all of you to write with and compete against! I'm going to keep working at my current project till it's all done, so, sadly, that means no Nano this November for me.

And like Ithilwen and others, I'm looking ahead at publishing someday. I've got a long ways to go before I start submitting queries to agents, though! I've just got a short list of agents drawn up for the day when I can start submitting; Most of them I looked up at Agentquery.com. The site also has tons of info on the publishing process for writers.

Ah, congrats, Elanor! I'm always nervous about showing or even telling people about my writing. I'm glad he liked it.

@Ithilwen: Good Idea! I've been wanting to re-read Till We Have Faces! Thanks!

@FencerforJesus: Yes that helps a lot! Thank you!

I'm debating right now if two of my characters should die?
I really love them them both.
One I think I could kill off in my story and it may give him more of a purpose in my second book.
The other character I already thought up ideas for in my third book, so I think I should keep her in that story as well.

I hate killing characters, and I know the difficulting of trying to figure out if they should die or not. I've already killed five characters in my story, and I very nearly cried when one of them died. I really loved this character and I actually made her life pretty miserable, and I felt bad killing her.... oh well, it was important to the plot that she died

I've already written 22, 255 words for CampNaNo and I'm starting to go a bit insane Now whatever I type or write I automatically begin counting words

...has anyone ever written anything for Wikipedia?

There are times I've given it serious thought, but I actually have never gone so far as to post anything there. Too shy, I guess.

The death of a character, especially when done right, can add a lot of depth to a story. We get to see how other characters respond to trials and grief, and they can grow through the experience.

It's easy to become attached to our characters (especially after we 'get to know them' over several years or stories), and I know how hard it can be to say goodbye.

My current project, in fact, includes the death of a main character in a story series that I've been writing about for some time, and how his family and friends deal with this loss. Even if I'm not terribly eloquent in the telling, it's been an interesting challenge, stretching my meager writing skills.

I haven't really done any writing since NaNo. I do have my idea for this years NaNo and I am constantly writing down ideas for it: plot twists, additional characters, sub-plots, etc. I'm hoping to dig out some of my old stories and go over them when I get home.

About characters, all of my main characters are girls (sometimes I have co-mains who are guys) and all of them have at least a little bit of me in them. I really need to work on developing my characters as separate human beings who are their own person apart from me. Last years NaNo came from my own life. I got the idea from something that happened in my own life and expanded and elaborated on it from there. Now, it's nothing like my own story but still, some of the basic ideas are there and the main charater is basically me with a different name: same attitudes, same issues, same lifestyle, same age, etc.

Shortly before I left this summer, I borrowed a book entitled Writing Mysteries edited by Sue Grafton from my public library. It was very good and has given me lots of tips on how to improve my novel writing. A lot of the information is useful even if you are not writing a mystery.

Does anyone else have trouble finishing their books? I have only ever finished one and I've started at least twenty-five. I haven't even finished my NaNo novel. I can never come up with an ending that satisfies me and keeps pace with the rest of the book. Plus, I don't like "and they lived happily ever after" endings. I like endings that make you feel a little weird at the end; endings that you totally did not expect. I've read a few books that gave me this feeling at the end that was kind of weird/awesome/horrible all at the same time. It left me with the worst and yet the best feeling at the end that I just couldn't shake for several days. It's very hard to describe. Does anyone at least a little bit 'get' what I'm talking about?

Ok, time for me to sign off. My thumbs are tired; I just typed all of this on an iPod Touch.

There's something I've been meaning to ask: Does anyone have any tips on writing action scenes?
I write what I love to read, which means I have to have a lot of action. But a lot of the scenes I write feel rather boring and disjointed. They don't flow very well. Its just like 'he stabbed this guy, and this other guy grabbed him, and then that guy gets killed by this guy'. Does anyone else have any tips?

Some of it depends on what kind of action you are talking about. But one thing that really helps is to develop a basic vocabulary of terms that are pertinent to the genre of action. My specialty is swords. If you are going to write a decent sword fight, you will need appropriate terms. It doesn't have to be very technical, otherwise only those who really know it will understand your terms. I have that challenge. But here is a basic list for sword fights.

Parry: a defensive block of an opponent's attack
Beat: an offensive action that knocks an opponent's blade out of the way
Riposte: an offense attack that follows a parry
Lunge: an offensive thrust with the blade tip first, it maximizes attacking distance while being able to recover back
Slash: an offensive attack using the edge of the blade rather than the tip
Advance/retreat: footwork to get closer/further from an opponent

That is by no means exhaustive but simply using these terms will greatly help.

Here is a small list for martial arts fights.

Jab: Light punch generated by the extension of the elbow, not with the shoulder
Punch: Heavy punch generated by the shoulder
Chop: Open hand strike with the edge of palm along the pinky finger
Block: Block a hit
Hook: Punch that comes from the side

I don't know enough about guns and firearms other than 'shoot' to help here but this should help get you thinking. Now unfortunately, I haven't read many books where there is a sword fight where the author really knows what he's talking about. I've read a few where the author truly has no clue what he's talking about (uses "complex combination of actions" a lot for one author's fights). I've read a few where the author does his research. Brian Jacques (who has passed away and wrote Redwall), Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness) and our beloved CS Lewis were among those. I could tell they haven't experienced sword fighting but on occassion at most, but I could tell they did their research. But other than myself I can't think of any authors I've read (just for the record I don't have a huge reading repetiore) where I could tell they really knew it, like through experience. So I wouldn't worry about making it sound professional like you know what your talking about, but if you do some research it will really help.

If you're doing a sword fight, go to a fencing club and watch what they do. Go find an SCA meeting (the guys that dress up in medieval stuff and do fights out in the parks) and see what kind of actions they do. Don't go to "Amp-guard". They are wanna-be's, use PVC pipe, styrofoam, and duct tape for thier weapons, and most don't have much of a clue about what they are doing but hack and slash. If you're doing a martial arts fight, go to a dojo and observe a competition or training session. If you can take some classes. For writing, you just need some basic stuff so you get a feel for the impact of taking hits or throws, the feel of the vibrations along your body from blade contact, and even a feel for the weight of the weapons. You don't need a black belt to write about some martial arts but it really helps to get an idea of how the body works for said fights.

I hope that helps.

FencerforJesus I was actually coming in here to find words for a sword fight and this was a huge help!

narnian_at_heart I do get what you mean! I've only finished two stories and only one has a happy ending where the other is very disappointing and sad. The sad and disappointing ones are a childrens short stories and the happy ending one is mostly for teens and young adult. I'm working on another one right now and the ending is going to one of those weird/horrible endings like you've just mentioned. I love those stories and stories that make you think, like jigsaw puzzels. The only reason why I never finish some of my work is because I write both novel and sreenplays, sometimes when I get a story in mind I don't know whether or not I want to save it for a novel or a screenplay I want to post on Writers Guild Of America.
Sometimes I'll concentrate on another story that i know where I want to go with it and push the other one aside for awhile until I'm done working on the one I've got or decide what to do with the story.

If you need more than that, I'll be happy to oblige. That was simply a 'starter set' of fencing/sword fighting terms. There are others I would use without getting too technical. For example, in sport fencing or rapier duels, there are 8 parries and for a novel, there is no point in describing each one unless you are deliberately writing from that kind of a technical perspective.

Something else that is really important when planning a fight scene is the setting. Are you in the jungles of the Amazon? Are you on a mountain top cliff? Are you in a hilly plain? Is your airplane dogfight over the ocean or over a city? The terrain can play a huge factor into a battle. One of the reasons I personally like the smaller LWW final battle vs the massive ROTK battle at Minas Tirith is that LWW battle specifically takes use of the terrain for the strategies. The lightsaber duels in Empire Strikes Back and Phantom Menace make excellent use of the terrains and what's around them. When you get to your fight scene, especially for a large battle, it might help to draw out what is where. What could this character use in a given setting to get the upper hand? Would a nobel character cheat and throw whatever he can at an opponent, or would he be resourceful and use what he can to his advantage? Again, this is not to get you to think like me but simply to get you to think.

I just had an awesome idea for the opening scene to the novel I'm writing. Unfortunately I haven't had time to really sit and write it yet :S. I'll have to get a rough draft of it done tonight at least.

When I'm reading, I become sympathetic to the first character I see it trouble. Even if said character becomes evil or something later, I still can't help but feel sorry for them/support them. I don't know if a majority of readers feel that way. Do you?
However, in the scene I am planning to write, I have created it to try and win the audiences' sympathies for the right characters.

@FencerforJesus, those tips for writing fight scenes were very helpful! I do mostly martial arts and sword fighting in my stories so your tips helped alot. I agree that researching or actually going and seeing does help alot when writing action/fighting scenes.

@Valiant, that's awesome that you have an awesome idea for an opening scene. I always like that when that happens for me. I hope you'll be able to write it soon.
I think I do that too when I read. I always find it somewhat amusing when I start liking a character that is actually the bad guy.

Well, I'm not up to much. XD I've just started working on a new fantasy book and have been trying to develop the world a bit. I've decided to change the names of the months and days of the week to give the world a different feel. I've based the names of the months and days from different languages that mean or are similar to the English words for the month or day. I like my idea but I'm not sure if it works. :/

If you need more than that, I'll be happy to oblige. That was simply a 'starter set' of fencing/sword fighting terms. There are others I would use without getting too technical. For example, in sport fencing or rapier duels, there are 8 parries and for a novel, there is no point in describing each one unless you are deliberately writing from that kind of a technical perspective.

Something else that is really important when planning a fight scene is the setting. Are you in the jungles of the Amazon? Are you on a mountain top cliff? Are you in a hilly plain? Is your airplane dogfight over the ocean or over a city? The terrain can play a huge factor into a battle. One of the reasons I personally like the smaller LWW final battle vs the massive ROTK battle at Minas Tirith is that LWW battle specifically takes use of the terrain for the strategies. The lightsaber duels in Empire Strikes Back and Phantom Menace make excellent use of the terrains and what's around them. When you get to your fight scene, especially for a large battle, it might help to draw out what is where. What could this character use in a given setting to get the upper hand? Would a nobel character cheat and throw whatever he can at an opponent, or would he be resourceful and use what he can to his advantage? Again, this is not to get you to think like me but simply to get you to think.

Oh yes! I'd love to learn more about fighting scenes! I'm reading some of my older stories at the moment and I have a dream sequence 15 pages into it where i am telling pov's from two friends having the same dream. One of the friends is being chased by this man with a sword and at one point is threatened by three men with swords. I remeber a few sequences in my story as well where a few action scenes break out, however I don't feel comfortable about explaining my ideas out in the open. Not that I don't trust you guys but I'm suspicious of the internet. I feel more comfortable to explain things by message.

If you want specific feedback on that, send me a PM. I'll happily check it out. When I do give feedback, I do what I can to allow the author to keep his/her voice but will point out were improvements can be made.

But I will add this about actions scenes, do not and I mean DO NOT include them for the sake of including them. Each action scene must do something to reveal character or do something important to the plot. In my old hand-written stories from many years ago, I didn't understand this and my stories simply went from one action scene to another. But I have improved since. In my novel seen in my siggy, I open up with a short battle scene that doesn't have anything to do with the plot per say, but it is important because it sets the tone of the story. I have several battle scenes in the book and each one reveals some characterization development aside from just being there to grab attention and carry on the plot.

Suddenly, I feel apathetic towards my story. I think I'm just tired right now and I can't think of anything good. It frustrates me. I feel like every conflict I come up with is melodramatic. Argg! I feel like there are so many great stories out there; why would anyone care about mine?
Maybe I just need a break. Gosh, sorry to come here and rant. I needed to share that.
Any suggestions on overcoming writer's block?