The book is all down in one glorious first draft and I’m really excited/passionate about it. Now it’s time to take this draft and turn my good story into a great story that’ll satisfy readers.
Here is an outline of the steps I’ll be taking to improve my book:
May 5th, 2016 – First draft complete.
It took me one year, eight months, and 106,342 words to get it all done. I think I’m still in shock that I’ve actually completed it. Writing this story has been quite the journey and there were times I wondered if I’d ever finish it.
But I did . I fucking finished it!
I always enjoyed fishing right before the sun came up, a tradition started years ago with my father. He’s been gone for two decades, but I still carry his old spear with me, despite having moved on to fishing rods. Something about the presence of that steel harpoon comforts me.
When I first saw her, I thought she was a fragment of my sleep deprived imagination. The sun had just started its ascent when the waters stilled. It was then she broke the surface, slow and silent. Large blue eyes stared at me with curious assessment and I blinked, unsure if what I was seeing was real. Before I could get a closer look she’d dipped back beneath the surface, vanishing from sight.
I’m a visual person.
Looking at and collecting images which help illustrate the style of my project’s genre is one of my favorite pastimes. For me, pictures provide the best inspiration and prompts. They’re able to draw out my imagination and I weave particular elements from them into my own fantasy work.
These are some of the images I’m using while writing my current manuscript. They’ve aided in fleshing out not just characters and aspects of my worldbuildig, adding depth to the fictional sandbox known as my first draft.
If you’re interested in seeing more pictures dedicated to my book, then feel free to stop by my ‘bookspiraton’ Pintrest board and have a look.
I struggle with this. The second guessing of parts of my book, wondering if they’ll connect with the reader the way I intend them to. Learning to not over analyze a particular scene or moment is a process, and a road I’m still travelling.
The foundation basis for my current work in progress is an old idea, a very old idea. Something which had been sitting on the back burner of my mind for years. While it simmered I wrote other stories and explored different genres.
Finally, I decided to bring my concept to the forefront and began working on my fantasy story. I blended it with two other ideas I had brewing and ta-da! A book was born.
I’m not the type who’s able to whip though a first draft and get my thoughts out on paper. No matter how loud the idea is buzzing in my head or how badly I’m itching to get it out, I simply have to take my time.
My writing style is a slow burn, and I analyzed/edit as I write. Gasp and shake your heads fellow writers, but it is what it is.
In writing culture editing as you go is considered extremely taboo. Some even say it’s a practice only done by “amateur writers.” We are warned to silence our inner editor, and to an extent I agree. Does every chapter have to be perfect before I move to the next? Fuck no. But I do need to be conformable that the previous chapter has been completed to the best of my ability before I’m ready to flow into the next part of the story.
As much as I adore ‘The Muses’ form Hercules, I’m completely boggled by writers who say things like “I can’t choose where my muse takes me.”
W H A T ?
November is here which means it’s time to say goodbye to pumpkin flavor season and hello to the far superior, peppermint flavor season.
It’s also National Novel Writing Month!
While NaNo isn’t for me, I do love what this month does for the writing community.
There’s a woman in the mirror who haunts me. She’s not my reflection, but an entity all to herself. Something like me, but not quite me.
It’s been over two years since my wedding day, that’s when this all began. From then on I’ve feared for my life because I know what she wants and what it is she’s trying to do. In the company of others she pretends and hides her true self, seamlessly mimicking my expressions and gestures like she’s supposed to. But when we’re alone and it’s just the two of us she refuses to play the part. Instead her face contorts into something misshapen and her mouth opens in silent screams as she claws at the surface.
She’s trying to get out, trying to exchange places, trying to put me inside the mirror.
s a m • k a s s é 