Ten Weeks of Writer's Prep and Challenges: Week One

Welcome Ramblers, to Week One of this years Ten Week Challenge! What's the Ten Week Challenge? Well, last year I created a small series of challenges designed to help people prep for their first attempt writing a book for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month: a challenge issued to writers around the world to spend their month of November writing 50, 000 words in 30 days.) That being said, I couldn't very well write ten challenges for them and exclude anyone who had no interest in writing, could I? So every week, I would throw in an additional challenge for those non-writers.

So let's dive in, shall we? Never fancied yourself a writer? Scroll down below for your alternative challenge! Good luck!

Looking to teleport yourself to the wonderful world of writing? I hope you enjoy this Ten Week Challenge and highly recommend you check out last years equivalent challenge each week, you'll be providing a link with each weeks post. Good luck!

Ten Weeks of Writer's Prep

Week One: See Your Setting!

Last year's challenge for Week One was discovering the details of your setting (See Here). This year, we're going to expand on that a little bit.

Writing isn't just about knowing the details of what you will be writing. It's about seeing them, feeling them. The better you can visualize your setting, the better your readers will be able to and that's what's really important. Writing a book is a way to allow yourself to teleport reader's into the fabric of your very imagination. To allow them to live through what your mind has created. To allow them to walk down the halls, hike through the forests, and drive through the cities with your characters.

So how can you take your setting ideas and further explore them?

• Know your main location. Really explore it in your mind, even go so far as to design maps of the areas and blue prints of the buildings if you can. This will not only allow you to better visualize the smaller details you might not have considered, but it will also allow you to better commit them to memory. To truly create the location within your mind, and to see it clearly with your mind's eye.
• Meditate as you move. As you plot out your book over the next ten weeks, I want you to consider each and every location you take your characters through. Meditate a bit on each one. Take a deep breath and close your eyes, focus on what your character is experiencing. Think about all of the little things you only notice in your surroundings when you stop to really pay attention. Is that cave your character exploring above ground? Slightly cooler than the scorching heat outside, with a breeze coming through from multiple access points? Or is the cave below ground and progressively colder and more damp as they travel deeper below the earths surface?
• Ask yourself questions. Where are the windows and doors? How is the lighting? What are the smells? What is the temperature like? What obstacles are possibly in the way? How is the place decorated? What are the sounds? You don't have to have every question answered in every scene, but choosing a few can really create the scene and draw your readers in. Remember the Weasley's clock in Harry Potter and how the dishes were washing themselves? Those all set the scene and lured us in.

So there you have it. Use the next week to contemplate your setting in depth and to explore it's more subtle details.  Good luck!

Ten Weeks of Challenges

Week One: How Are You!

Last year's challenge for Week One asked readers to reach out to their friends and make plans to get together and do something (See Here) This year, we're going to flip it around a little. While I still invite you to complete last years challenge, I would also like you to reach inward. What do I mean by that? This week, I want you to take the time to ask yourself how you are doing.

Sounds silly?

The way I see it, life gets busy and complicated. We spend so much time running errands, doing chores, going to work, and taking care of others, that we don't necessarily take the time to check in with ourselves. We are too busy to worry, to be sad, to feel hurt, to enjoy that accomplishment, to appreciate what we have in our lives or how far we've come.

So, how are you? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you happy? Is there something you could do to be happier? Are you stressed and barely holding on? Is it time to maybe reach out and let a friend know you're having a hard time? To seek help? So often, we're focused on the needs of others? What do the kids need? What does work need? What do the bills need? What does the whole world need from me... except myself?

You're important. The demands of our world want us to be a productive and valuable member of society? Well then it's time you take the time to treat yourself as valuable. To give yourself the time of day, to make yourself a priority. To hit pause on asking how everything else is doing, and to see how you are doing. You have accomplished things in life, did you take the time to feel good about that? You have gone through stresses in life. Have you taken the time to deal with the mental and emotional implications of those stresses?

Food for thought, dear Rambler's. Food for thought. You can't save the world any more than you can save the rest of an air plane if you don't put on your own oxygen mask first.

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Hey Ramblers! Whether you are a writer or not, I hope you enjoy week one of your challenge. As always, feel free to comment below or email me at thebrastreetrambler@gmail.com to share your experiences or feedback.

Cheers!

The Bra Street Rambler