It’s hard to believe this is the first blog post I’ve written since April. I’ve been knee-deep in living several dreams at the same time, besides being bitten hard by spring fever. Throughout half of April and most of May, I spent most of my free time outside. Every week-end I worked outside made my weight drop by two pounds — an added bonus. Plus, my mornings are now spent exercising, not drinking coffee while feverishly working on my computer until the last possible minute before I have to get ready for work — which was how I created most of my Web Site design. It’s hard to have balanced, healthy habits while working full-time and fleshing out a fictional Web Site part-time.

Now that it’s July, I finally feel like being on my computer again. I’ve got so many assignments to catch up with in my online novel writing class. Thankfully, they’re all grouped into one theme: world-building. That’ll make it easier to focus on all of them at the same time. I’ve got no less than twelve world-building assignments to do. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Write a paragraph or two about how you are going to organize your research. Afterwards list at least five things you think you need to study. You can use this as a handy reference to help remember some of the material you need.
2. Place your characters in some location where you imagine they will spend a lot of time in the story. Even without doing extensive work on the worldbuilding and culture, you will likely have some solid feel for certain locations which resonate for your story — and this, in turn, might help you later develop the type of world and culture you want to make this place real.Your characters know this room, or spot in the garden or whatever other location you want. In a few paragraphs give us a feel for it as well.

Once I get caught up on these assigmnents, I plan to write ahead for The Myth of Merula and then to begin releasing content on a weekly schedule. That way, I can stick to a schedule without writing through writer’s block just to keep the content coming.

Other Posts Categorized as Myth of Merula:

• The Philosophy Wiki is Back - December 31st, 2007
• The Myth of Merula Expands from Fictional Story to Fictional Website - April 8th, 2007
• Online Novel Writing Class Is Helpful for Writing The Myth of Merula - February 18th, 2007
• I Rewrote the Beginning of the Myth of Merula - February 10th, 2007
• Why I Named Her Blackbird - December 28th, 2006
• The Myth of Merula Story Begins - December 17th, 2006

Other Posts Categorized as Personal:

• The Name of the Game for the Pre-Crawler: Keep 'Em from Getting Bored - August 8th, 2008
• Not As Attached to Attachment Parenting Anymore - July 19th, 2008
• So It's Not Always This Difficult - I Have a High Need Baby - April 5th, 2008
• Wyatt's Birth Story - February 29th, 2008
• What I Did on My Summer Vacation - September 14th, 2007
• Getting Used to Feeling Productive - January 7th, 2007
• My First Home-made Smoked Turkey - December 23rd, 2006
• Can the Simple Potato Candy Recipe Be Improved? - December 5th, 2006
• I've Been Martened, Tarted and Torqued - November 18th, 2006
• Summer - August 15th, 2006

Other Posts Categorized as Writing:

• The Myth of Merula Expands from Fictional Story to Fictional Website - April 8th, 2007
• Writers as Myth-Makers, Artists as Shamans - March 31st, 2007
• Heroes and Heroines in Romance and Other Genres - March 24th, 2007
• Online Novel Writing Class Is Helpful for Writing The Myth of Merula - February 18th, 2007
• Anais Nin, Science Fiction Prose Style - October 28th, 2006
• GAM3R 7H30RY - May 28th, 2006
• Without Gods - A Blog to Book Experiment - May 28th, 2006
• Literatronic Software for Online Writing - May 27th, 2006
• simply7 by Deena Larsen - April 5th, 2006
• Quantum Writing - March 16th, 2006