A.K.A. You Must be This Tall to Ride
Where the frilly heck have I been!?
There is a ark load of stuff that’s been happening in my life that isn’t even writing related. It’s as though I took a backseat while life grabbed hold of the wheel and went for a joyride.
However, without going into details, not all was well in Whoville.
WEEK FIVE: WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER
I’m thrilled at the breakthrough in my outline revision. Took some MAJOR brainstorming but I’ve breathed new life into my Fractured Tales Series. It’s a departure from my original concept, but that’s all part of the process and I’m stoked! I played around with half a dozen scenarios and put new twists to a story that already had twists built in. Fun times.
Hopping around the interwebs, I’m happy for fellow writers who’ve completed their drafts, revisions, and even got book deals. There’s a buzz of excitement in the writing community and it fuels every writing session I have.
Yesterday, I registered for Candace Havens’ The Book in a Month Club workshop that includes a Fast Draft process where I dismiss my internal editor and churn out twenty pages or 5,000 words a day. Hopefully, I can use the weekend to my advantage. I’ll use this method not only for my current WIP but for potential anthology submissions. Smaller word counts mean an even speedier way to a completed draft. I will need to outline, of course, to ensure I have the proper foundation before I let loose.
Now that I’ve got my compass sorted out with this WIP, I can’t wait to immerse myself in some major writing sessions. Tomorrow, I’ll be writing in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. Anywhere and everywhere, the words are gonna fly.
It’s interesting how much can happen in a fortnight to change the direction of a project, as well as my renewed energy to tackle this head on. No one said it would be easy, but highs and lows, the ride’s been fun because I learn new things everyday about the craft of writing, my WIP, and myself as a writer.
I’m in the Pit no longer.
Things are definitely looking up.
WEEK ONE: WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER
Last Friday began another writing challenge for me this year. Oodles of words have been read and written thus far, but I’m enjoying the process.
My project this summer, in tandem with all the WriMos I can count, is to continue my Fractured Tales Series.
It all began with an idea.
I saw an anthology submission call for a retelling of any fairy tale. I stormed the brained and ended up coming up with more than one idea–sound familiar? I ended up with so much story that couldn’t be contained in 7500 words or less. Of course, when April came along with challenges such as Camp NaNoWriMo and Savvy Authors Boot Camp, I decided to make it a full-on novel. I already had one story being written for Boot Camp and when I couldn’t decide on the Pied Piper themed story or Sleeping Beauty, I decided to do a mash-up.
Cut to May. 75K for this mash-up but the subplot started to creep to the forefront. It demanded its own story, so I figured, why not?
Along came JuNoWriMo. I was planning on using the month to prep for July’s Camp NaNo and JulNoWriMo, but I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge. I’m a masochist, that way. I extracted the subplot from Book One and it’s now the main plot of Book Two. This month has been me reconstructing Book One and I hope to continue the Series. At present, the flow is as follows (titles pending):
Book One: Hamelin
Book Two: The Curse of Briar Rose
Book Three: And Then There Were Seven
More to follow.
I’d like to wrap up 2013 with a series I can be proud of, spend the holidays polishing and start the New Year with a publishing twinkle in my eye.
So, here’s the deets for Week One on this summer writing adventure:
Wrote just under 20K this week, but after a lengthy assessment, I found about 7K of it Series worthy. I can always put the other words to good use later.
My beautiful Keysmashing Tots had fevers this week. It’s hard to write on a daily basis when your nephew and niece compete for your attention–with each other or as a distraction so they can climb onto your lap and have a go at the computer. The duo was aptly named. But the amount of sleep I haven’t had this week put a dent in my creative plans. As I’ve said before, TKT trump everything, so my writing time, though diminished, still happened, but my three hour window was cut in half. Sometimes I just had an hour to get the words out.
I’m home for the long weekend to recharge my own batteries and it’s odd (though hardly surprising) that I now find their absence to be a greater distraction from writing. I have two days to keep adding to my June word count–hoping to break 70K–and prep for Camp that starts on Monday.
It’s a long road ahead but the journey is the best part, don’t you think?
Textploits of the Writerly Persuasion 