Pre-NaNoWriMo Update

Do you know who has one of the most inspiring writing journey/story? V.E Schwab (also known as Victoria Schwab). Her article from this past July has helped me personally - a lot. I haven't been quiet about my discouragement this past year and a half, so you'll probably understand why her story has helped inspire me.

I've also been perusing some other author websites and, you know, Patrick Rothfuss took 7 years to write The Name of the Wind. I find that oddly comforting for my own writing...

So I've been in revisions with Traitors & Tyrants for about two years now. It's difficult to let myself draft a new project when I know that my writing isn't as great as it could be, simply because I've seen it better in those revisions. The only way to keep writing though, is to be okay with producing a crappy first draft sometimes, or a lot of the time.

Now, you guys know that I wanted to finish my scifi novel before NaNoWriMo. I had a word goal of about 65K for it. But the more I wrote it, I just wanted to get to it. I wanted to rush everything and just get the bones of it out on paper and out of my mind. I haven't wanted to rush it because I don't like it, but because I just want to complete something after not completing anything for a while.

So I'm projecting that my first draft will probably be around 20K... maybe 22K. I'm around 19K right now. I'm planning on finishing it in the next day or two. That thought actually relieves quite a bit of stress. When I have a bunch of things that are unfinished, I get stressed out very easily, so finishing this novel even in its very crappy state is a relief. I've wanted to write it for quite some time. I want to go back and fix it, but right now I need to just write it the crappy way I want to.

This novel has been such a release for me. I've been able to just write it and finally let go of everything else that has been holding me back from my writing. But, not to be ignored, is my NaNoWriMo project for this year and its roll in my ability to just get this scifi novel done.

I've been wanting to write a couple of projects for years now. I haven't started them because I wanted to "get them right" when I did and I just wasn't in the right mindset for them. So I knew that choosing my NaNoWriMo project this year was important. But it's important for a reason I didn't anticipate before.

Going into planning for NaNoWriMo, I decided that I wanted an idea that I was going to be able to just lose myself in. So I wrote a list of the books/concepts that I wanted to write. At the bottom of that list was an idea I'd barely found and one that I wasn't familiar with. It was new and refreshing for me and I thought about it over lunch while I was at work. I did some research. I wrote a little bit of what came to mind for it, kind of like a test. And I loved it. I was lost in it as I wrote and I knew I'd found this year's novel.

My test writing had manifested itself in the form of a journal entry for my main character so I've decided that this novel will be written as journal entries. It's an adult novel and it takes place somewhere in Africa. The main character is in her thirties. So as you can tell, it's not fantasy and it's not scifi. I'm actually not 100% certain what genre it falls into.

The most important part about it though is that I am in love with this idea and that's what I needed for 2016's NaNoWriMo project.

What's this? A Screenplay?

It's been a couple of weeks or so since last I updated this place, so here I am again. What's new? A lot actually!

Last week I received my track assignment for college. The school I'm attending breaks the school year up by each season so they can admit more students. I've been assigned to the fall/winter track, which means I'll be heading off in January for my first semester. I'll be able to register for classes mid-November and I have a very long to-do list to get ready for school.

I'm up to 15,000 words in my sci-fi novel. I haven't written much the past couple of weeks but it's definitely on my list of projects to complete. I'm still hoping to have it done by the end of October though.

As for NaNoWriMo, I'm going to do it. I thought about not doing it but... I'll be in school during the fall for the next four years. So I'm going to do it again this year and I'm going to succeed. Again. I'm thinking about just writing this novel as I go. At this moment, I don't think I'm going to outline it.

Something else has happened though - something exciting. A friend and I have decided that we are going to write a screenplay together. I say "we" but our current agreement is that I write the screenplay and he storyboards it. We've just started working on the project. We've named the main character and have a concept down but we still have a lot of ground to cover. I've never written an entire screenplay before, but I'm excited to do this.