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I am gladly open to any feedback and tips I can get constructively aiding my amateur skills.

Yesterday, in the mail, a book I ordered came in: Generation X:Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland. I began reading it this morning when I awoke and I just finished it and LOVED every minute of it. I only wish it had been longer. It was written in the third person point of view which I enjoy a lot (Selena, she, he, it, Tobias, Dag)

Here is a bit of something I've started that so far is called Melted Glass Inferno. I'm sure the title may change before I finish as all that I am writing may have a complete overhaul. This is a very first draft; I'm basically still outlining and brainstorming/mindmapping... Check it out and please feel free to provide constructive criticism though I would say it is in a sucky phase at the moment. Just happens to be available to share.

I have read in several writer's advice to other writer's books and posts that is important to make notes on what you plan to write about in a bit of detail and/or ask some questions for yourself for the next time you sit down to write. It gets you started at least. Outlines also would help keep you on track. I'd tick off what has been covered but in a different color of ink or text I'd include on the outline any unfinished business or remaining questions.

TO listen to music with lyrics while writing would be kind of like multitasking to me. I really put my heart into what I'm listening to when it comes to music. I think it would distract me too much. But I like the ideas that people wrote about in the posts on how music can help with variations in form, character development, style variation in speech, etc.

Congratulations!!!!!

Hi. I a new to this group and a new creative writer aiming at writing my first novel at the present time so any and all advice is greatly welcomed. I am trying to learn as much about writing as about the research topics I have on my first work. I am completely agoraphobic so I don't necessarily get the opportunity to join book clubs or go to groups to learn about writing. Everything is through books I read that I order off of the Internet or in groups like these. Thank you for having this.

Assignment #1: (In my opinion, the first sentence seems to have another thing occurring before it that is not stated here. I found coherence between the first few sentences to be difficult to understand and read. I don't know if this was just poorly written or it's just me.)

Harrison wasn't quite sure what else to do, so he followed her last instruction.

Mitchell was still asleep, curled up on the couch with a blanket draped over him. Harrison wondered if he had done that himself, or if Glimmer had somehow covered him as he slept. While he waited for her to do whatever she needed to do just then, he paced and tried to reorganize his thoughts. In a little over an hour, he and Mitchell would be raspberry jam, and Glimmer would be inconsolably pissed.

Five minutes later, she came flitting back into the car.

"Well," she said, "I was wrong about one thing. If we hit that door, I'm dead as a dishrag."
Harrison was not sure what the appropriate response to that might be. "Where were you?" he tried.

"Milwaukee," she said. "We have a problem."
Harrison was stunned.

"What? How fast can you fly?"

"Pretty fast," she said. "Listen, if we can't get this worm thingy stopped, we are seriously screwed."

Harrison felt a moment of head-rush vertigo. He raised his hands slightly to balance himself.
"Wait," he said. "Are you telling me that you could have flown to Chicago any time—"

She snapped her fingers in his face. It sounded like a rifle shot. "FOCUS! The tunnel is magicked up! This is a major problem!" 

Harrison felt sweat building on his forehead. He imagined he was probably getting pale.
"Magicked up? What the hell does that mean?"

"I mean there's a spell in the tunnel, right in front of the door. You can see it shimmering. I'm pretty sure it's some variation on a shield curse, which pretty much means that if we make contact with it, we're toast. The worst part is, we won't even have to hit it all that hard."
She was talking quickly, though with relative calm.

"So the bottom line is we either need to find a way off this beast or find a way to stop it."

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NOTE: (i have no idea whether i should start a new paragraph for the description of a person's actions, then start another new paragraph for what that same character says????) Please let me know if I did this right.

I would like to see something about how to best incorporate backstories, twists(transitions into twists), how to end a book, how to build up to the climax, and outlining details that a writer should focus on if he/she intends to take that route. Could you also explain in some detail the Snowflake Method and is it a good method for beginning writers'--successful, I mean.