FINAL CHECK-IN FOR ROUND TWO

This was my first time doing #ROW80 and it was quite a ride.

APRIL:

Camp NaNoWriMo. Wrote the beginnings of a YA Fantasy Series. Book One turned into more of Book Two (more on that later.) Working titles are BOOK ONE: HAMELIN and BOOK TWO: THE CURSE OF BRIAR ROSE. I’m still stormin’ the brain for the Series Title.

Savvy Authors Boot Camp. Wrote contemporary fiction. Title: A LOVE LESS ORDINARY. Like the YA Fantasy Series, it’s the first time I tried writing in this genre.

Blogging A to Z Challenge. A month of firsts, I created this blog for the purpose of chronicling my progress. Then I discovered this challenge. It was interesting to keep this going while writing two stories at the same time.

#ROW80, Round Two. Yeah, so I figured with all that on my plate for April, I couldn’t say no to this awesome method of accountability. It certainly kept me on my toes.

MAY:

Last year I joined a lovely group of writers where we checked in with each other each Monday for pep talks, moral support, celebration and commiseration of our writing efforts. #wipmadness and two years of March Madness has kept my creative juices flowing and definitely served as a catalyst to my foray into the online writing community.

In May, one of my fellow WIPsters, Deb Marshall hosted #middlegrademay. I read ten books, though if you saw my TBR list, you wouldn’t have noticed the dent. Reading all the great MG books out there reminded me how important it is to be on both sides of the book, so to speak.

JUNE:

Reading books was a nice reprieve for my aching digits. So, I originally said I’d skip JuNoWriMo and just plan for July’s Camp NaNo and Savvy Author’s Boot Camp. It didn’t take too much arm pulling from fellow writers to get me all excited to write NOW, so I ended up doing the following (and am still in the midst thereof):

JuNoWriMo and Kiwi Writers SoCNoC. This time I decided to devote my words–and brain–to the Fractured Tales Series. Formerly known as Fractured Fairytales, the universe has since expanded to include other notables (and less notables) from lore, myths, legends, and other fictional worlds (that I can legally include). In April, my attempts to blend the stories of The Pied Piper and Sleeping Beauty turned too epic even by April’s standards.

I moved the Sleeping Beauty element (previously a subplot in Book One) to have it’s own focus for Book Two. The Pied Piper is my protagonist for the series and BOOK ONE: HAMELIN will serve as an origin story. Therefore, a complete overhaul was needed, characters rewritten, expanded, new angles, backstory, the gamut. It’s been a trip and I my brain’s churning out the scenes faster than my digits or dictation software can record them.

25,000 Words in 7 Days was an ambitious challenge. Made it just shy of 18,000 words but that was because there’s so much material to work with when you have a Fractured Tales Series. Once I got going on certain scenes, it took someone to nudge me from my spot for me to realize how long I’d been typing away. Unfortunately, this time around, I was only able to get two to three hours per night for writing. The rest went to The Keysmashing Tots. They kinda trump everything.

WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER starts this Friday-GAH! Two days–June 21st and runs until September 21st. Meh. I shouldn’t really be surprised. Considering I want to get this series out of my brain by the end of the year, I’ll be participating in every variation of WriMo from now until New Year’s. It’s exciting to be this excited about something. You know what I’m talking about here.

Not to be outdone. Reading made a comeback with THE 48 HOUR BOOK CHALLENGE, June 7th to 9th, and continues with 30 Books in 90 Days starting June 23rd. Should keep me busy, yeah? When not with TKT, I should have a book (or ebook) in hand or should be writing one. How’s that for keeping me in the creative mindset? 🙂

Apologies if I’ve left something out. As you might have noticed, it’s been a busy 80 days. 🙂

I smile as Round Two draws to a close, mainly because I’ve been super productive. I’ve written close to 200,000 words and have read almost 3,000 words of other authors so far. Many, many more words to come: written, read, spoken, and otherwise. I’m already chuffed about my Round Three Goals post. The line-up is expected to be full of wordtastic opportunities. I look forward to Round Three and am grateful for a fabulous writing community that keeps me motivated to keep on keepin’ on.

See you in the next round.