Heroes

You've probably all heard this one before.  Make different heroes.

Seriously though, make different types of heroes.

Make a hero who failed once and spends the rest of the story trying to make up for that failure.  Make a hero who doesn't realize that she's a hero until she does something heroic.  Make a hero who thinks she's a hero and realizes that she needs help.  Make a hero who wants to be a hero, but doesn't know how to become one.

Explore the idea of a bad guy who's the hero of they're story.  Or just a poor kid who wants something, but it seems like the whole universe is out to stop him from getting it.  Make book-smart heroes, make street-smart heroes. Make noble heroes who overcome their flaws.  Make silly heroes and sarcastic heroes.  Make headstrong heroes, or heroes that seem really quiet but have got it where it counts.  What about a hero who starts out as a villain and realizes the error of their ways?

Sure, you've probably seen most of these heroes before, I just flattened basic tropes and wrote them all out.  But it boils down to making interesting people, not just heroes.  Make the hero of your story someone that your readers can relate to, or perhaps strive to be.  Or someone you strive to be.

Also, don't just make your protagonist interesting, make his friends interesting too.  What's his sister like? What's his dad like? What's his friend like? Say your protagonist doesn't make some smart choices at the beginning of the story... who tells her off? Her boyfriend? Her best friend? Her enemy? Think about making more than just your protagonist well-rounded.  I'm not saying to make every single character well-rounded, that could be hard if you have a lot of characters that you're dealing with (say, in a high school or something--you're not actually going to figure out what all 400 people of the graduating class are like...) but make the memorable characters...memorable! Make your villains more well-rounded too.  It makes them interesting.  They may think they're heroes, too.

Living Your Characters

Sometimes, I'm glad that all my roommates are a little odd.  Because I do weird stuff to get into the moment for a scene.  Like, if you think I did some weird stuff to plot out a sequence, I do even weirder stuff to get into character.

Because, for me, I don't just control the characters I am writing.  I am not some giant puppetmaster or whatever telling the characters where to go and how to get there.  I mean, sure, I have SOME level of stuff plotted out.  "You two are going to go here and have a confrontation with this character, no ifs ands or buts!"  But then I become the character(s) and live the scene myself.

Sure, I do the usual stuff like changing the music to fit the mood, or reading or watching everything I possibly can to get the knowledge and the background for whatever it is I'm going to do.  But then I do it.

I'm sure I look like a psycho.

But the results are very believable characters.  I have cried with my characters, sat in shock with my characters, been angry with my characters, been in love just like my characters, been resentful with my characters... the works.  Yes, it works a lot better when I've had the emotions that they've been going through so I can draw from that and re-channel it.  But even if I haven't had the exact same experience (it's hard with fantasy, sometimes) I find the next best thing.

I don't forget things like emotions.  I file them away so I can use them later.

And I can only be glad that none of my roommates think I'm crazy...er than most.

Plotting

I'm sure I don't speak for everyone on this... but I find weird places to plot.

Plotting is important.  Sure, there's something to be said about being able to write by the seat of your pants.  And I do that as well.  I alternate between doing that, and severely plotting everything out beforehand.

I have a couple different levels of plotting.  One is "let me outline the basic plot points for the entire story."  This changes as I write and things get shifted around more often than not.  Things get cut, things get added.  I move things around to orders that make more sense now that I'm into the story.  Because, honestly, what makes sense when I'm thinking general timeline-wise, doesn't always make sense once I'm in the story.  And, it makes a better story to just change my outline to fit what I've got, then try to keep my story to the outline.

Then I have the level of plotting that is basically just scene-plotting.  Sometimes, I can sit down and start a scene with simply just the ideas as they pop into my head.  I love it when that happens.  It's certainly less stressful.  Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen, or I have a scene that needs a little bit more forethought.

This brings me back to my first sentence about me finding weird places to plot.  You want to know a great place to plot? The shower.  You're standing in there anyway.  And, face it, shampooing your hair probably doesn't require that much concentration, just enough to keep you from getting soap in your eyes.  So, while you're doing your shower routine, plot out your next scene! You can probably even talk and make funny faces and act out expressions and, at the very least, no one can see you to make fun of you.  (They might be able to hear you though, can't fix that.)  Once you're done with that, of course, it's best to write down what you've thought of, lest you forget it two hours later.

I am also known for sitting in front of my computer and filing my nails until I have a scene figured out.  Or at least a little bit of dialogue.  I like it when I do this, because then I'm less likely to bite my nails.  Heheh.

I also plot on the bus, right before bed (not that that's very effective, 'cause I usually forget), during boring classes (shh, don't tell my teachers), and... yeah.  Plotting.

Plotting can be fun.

Querying

Queries.

Are stressful things.

Not even just querying agents... which in and of itself is super nerve-wracking because you have to A) talk to people, B) talk about your baby, C) try and make your baby sound good, D) try and make yourself look good without coming across as a pompous asshole.

Despite all that, I'm actually talking about the process of writing a query.

Which, to my understanding is a ONE PAGE description of you and your book, nothing longer.  You start out with a grasping sentence about your book, then proceed to explain a little more in detail (think the backs of paperback books or the inside flap of hardcovers, except more detail than that if you have the space).  You're not trying to grab any old reader's attention here, you're trying to grab THE reader's attention here.  The AGENT's attention here.  Then, after that, you get a little blurb to make yourself sound good and professional and like you know what you're doing and what you're talking about.

If you're lucky, you're allowed an additional 1-2 page synopsis on top of the initial query letter.  This 1-2 pages must cover your ENTIRE book.  Imagine, taking a 300 page book and summarizing the whole thing in 2 pages? It's a right pain!

Sometimes though, you're not lucky.  Online query forms usually allow you a paragraph or two summary of your book and that's it.  Less than the query letter (from what I've seen.)

Writing my query letter and synopsis took me two weeks.

Thankfully, now that I'm done, I can send that out to a few people and see if I get responses.  Not at a point to write a new query letter just yet.  There's not many ways to change it, anyway.  Not without changing the whole book.

Did that once.

Publishing Update

I meant to do this last night while I was thinking about it.  But then I got tired and went to sleep.

I just wanted to make a formal statement about THREE RIVERS and its publishing status.

I'm not officially published.  Not even self-published.  Everything is all set up in CreateSpace for me to start selling on various channels, but I'm not doing that right now.  I used CreateSpace to get my five free copies of the book, as a result of winning NaNoWriMo, and that was it.  The five free copies are for me and my family and friends--end of story.

Sure, I could start self-publishing now.  But, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do once I finished THREE RIVERS and its editing stages and I decided I wanted to query different agents and see if I can take a more "traditional" route of publishing before I went the way of self-publishing.  But right now, my book is not out there.  I'm only querying.

Setting

In direct contrast to the post below, I have trouble with writing setting.

From the moment I first started writing, I've been told that "the characters are great, but what does everything look like?"

My response is usually somewhere between "I know what everything looks like, but I don't want to spend chapter upon chapter explaining what a building looks like" and "I don't actually know, it's just a clearing in some trees..."

Generally, I have a general idea of what's all going on.  "There's a courtyard here, and it's next to some gardens."  "There's a clearing here in the middle of woods."  "There's a treehouse in that tree."  Sometimes, I'm completely crazy specific and I draw out pictures of where everyone is sitting.  I've played entire chess games with myself to make sure specific moves are possible.

The problem comes somewhere in between me knowing what's going on and what actually shows up on the page.  Sometimes, I get worried that I'm explaining too much.  Or I get bored in my descriptions, and if I'm bored, my readers are bored.  I've read books where the entire first chapter is world-building and I have to force myself to get to chapter two where the story is.

Is setting important? Absolutely, my characters aren't interacting in a vacuum.  I usually try to say that someone's walking down a hall, or they're all sitting at a table, but I don't go in depth on just about anything.  It's something that I'm working on.  Being more descriptive in my setting.  I don't do everything well.

Characters

I have been told that I write characters very well.  (At the cost of other things, no doubt.)

Hmm, that is incredibly depressing, I cannot find the original post for this.  Someone asked me a question about writing good characters and I feel that I answered it really well on my tumblr, but now I cannot find the post.  That is incredibly depressing.  Alas, oh well.  I'll try and recreate it as best as I can.

Heh, if I hadn't told you any of that, you wouldn't have even known.  Regardless.  Moving on.

Anyway, one of the reasons I feel that I write characters so well, is that I pay attention to real people (including myself.)  And then I put what I've learned into my characters.  And I bet I'm not the only author who will tell you that.

I watch people, everyone from my sister, to my best friend, to my ex boyfriend, to my roommate, my coworker, my boss, that person I just can't stand, etc, etc, etc.  It helps me see how real people react to things.  I can then translate that onto the page when I'm writing characters.

By using just myself as an example, I know how to write everything from sprains and migraines, to heartache and anger at someone close to you.  I put myself into every major character I write (and some minor ones as well.)  It puts life into them and they are believable.

Believable characters can drive a story.  I've heard that even a story with a compelling plot and well-described setting will fall flat if the characters are not believable.  Similarly, a setting can be less-thought-out and the plot can be a retelling of an old trope, but the story will do better if it has realistic and compelling characters.

So, long story short: watch and listen to your surroundings.  You will learn something.

Reasons for Actions

So, writing tip! This came up a lot in my rounds of edits.  

I think we've all pretty much got a good idea of what our characters do.  But a more important question is: WHY do they do it? 

What are the reasons for their actions? You don't necessarily have to explicitly state what the reasons are, but you, as the writer, should know.  Sometimes, though, you need to say in the story why someone is doing something.

Why does one character constantly glare at another? 

The answer is usually obvious, "Oh, he doesn't like him."  Human beings are very good at inferring that "glaring" is a sign of dislike.  

Why does a character constantly avoid the cafeteria? 

The answer is less obvious, but it might be because she dislikes crowds.  

Even that second example has a fairly simple explanation.  But it might need a little bit more explanation.  It's not possible to infer that she dislikes crowds.  An audience could take a guess, but not be sure.  

However, there are times when you don't want to explicitly give the explanation in the text.  Take, for example, when you've got a villain you're writing.  You probably don't want to give him or her a monologue describing exactly why (s)he is doing what (s)he is doing.  (Unless your villain has that particular character trait).  

But why did your villain steal the purse? Is it because they're not actually a villain at all, but they really just need money to pay rent and (s)he's stealing a purse in the hopes that there will be some cash in it.  Or, maybe that purse has valuable information in it that the good guys need and the villain is finally foiling their plans at last.  

As the writer, you need to know motivations for your characters.  It makes your characters more believable and can prevent you from writing yourself into a corner because you don't really know what a certain character is up to.

I'm not above this issue.  I spent the first half of my reread of my draft back in January wondering why the heck two characters were behaving the way they were.  It was unclear all around.  

For one of the characters, that lack of clarity seriously prevented my audience from understanding the character I knew him to be.  He seemed to flip-flop and be inconsistent.  It wasn't what I wanted to be portrayed.  I knew his motivations for the most part, but I was unclear on the finer details.  And I needed to know those finer details so I could write him properly.  

For that second character, the lack of clarity was okay as far as my audience was concerned.  He's the villain, so they don't need to know why he's doing what he's doing.  They expect to find out by the end of his story arc.  And while that story arc will span more than one book, it's still fine that his intentions are mucked at the end of the book.  What is a problem, however, is that I have a general idea of why he's doing what he's doing--but I'm missing a crucial detail, which is going to be a problem later.  And I need to come up with that crucial detail NOW, so that I can have his plans come to the correct fruition later.  

So, moral of the story is, sometimes, sitting down and plotting out not just WHAT a particular character is doing, but WHY they are doing it.  It helps with character building, it helps with plot, it simply just helps.  

Well, I'm back from the land of the disappeared

Technically.

I basically dropped off the face of the planet and lived/ate/breathed/slept/smelled my book.

The good news is, I finished it! I submitted for my five free copies and those shipped just a couple days ago! Now to start querying.  Like... tomorrow.  That should be fun.

So, with all of that said and done, it's time to pick up my new summer project: a prequel for my KH fanfics.  Which means I won't be posting on this blog very often during that time.  Maybe a bit here and there of some writing/editing tip I thought of.  Or a querying tip.  Not that I think I have any of those, really.

You are welcome to look at my KH blog, if that's your cup of tea.

http://magiksatpverse.blogspot.com/

Um, yeah.  That's all for now.

Ciao!

Be Specific!

It's been a while since I've posted, granted, I've been super busy.

Let's see, first there was con, which was overall fun, I would say.  I am very impressed with how my Tifa cosplay turned out.  I tried out a new River Song cosplay, which was also a big hit.  Then I did Kim Possible, which I almost wished I'd done for a longer day, but oh well.  Then there was my Navi cosplay (which I've taken out before) and I got the usual reaction of everyone telling me "Bad Navi! Stop!"  Twas fun.  I wasn't too impressed with the panels, there were a few that were good, but overall meh.  However, a couple of them got me thinking that I want to put up a panel of my own come Tucson Comic Con in November.  That, and I want to be more involved with AZ TARDIS.

But enough about con.  More for my writing!

I've noticed something over the past couple of drafts of my book, things work better when I'm more descriptive!

For example, say one of my characters is straightening her dress.  Well, that's all fine and dandy, but why is this significant? Is she nervous for her upcoming date? Is the dress bewitched to be wrinkly? That little bit of info makes the story so much more real and relatable (and more fun to read).  Another example would be "music playing in the background".  What type of music? Is it good dancing music? Is it loud, screeching music? Is it boring classical? (Not all classical music is boring, but maybe the character thinks it's boring?)  Even adding in little words like "she smoothed her dress nervously" or "upbeat music played in the background" adds another level to the story.

Sure, as an author, I could go more in depth.  "She straightened her dress, knowing it was futile because the dress was bewitched to be wrinkly, but she thought that maybe, just maybe she could get it to be wrinkle-free just this one time."  Or, "Loud music played in the background and the couple felt that it wasn't appropriate for a school dance at all, there wasn't a consistent beat to dance to.  What was the DJ thinking?"

I suppose I should be careful to make sure that I'm not being OVERLY descriptive, for that can lose readers faster than a lack of description.  Too many adjectives in a sentence makes the noun seem really small.  Every word should count.  Every. Single. One. Of. Them.  I was just talking about this with a fellow author, actually.  So, yeah.

Anyway, that's my two-cents for now.

Ciao!

Updates

A couple of things...

Most of them involve me not writing.

I know! Bad author! You should be writing!

Except it's really hard to write when you've got a migraine.  I had a migraine both yesterday and the day before yesterday, which, combined with the amount of things I need to be doing around the house at the moment, seem to be equalling no writing.  Sadness.

I got some writing down yesterday, which, if you follow my tumblr, you know that I was super brain dead.  As brain dead as I would have been if I'd just taken the 6 exams I'd previously written about.  Yep.  Fun times.  Stupid migraine.

Today, got the rest of that chapter finished with semi-new material.  New material to this part of the book.

We have gotten to the point where I'm moving large plot-points to a more logical order.  I think I will talk about that in-depth in another blog post.  But, so far, it's been one part copy-paste, two parts filling in the holes that I leave behind and create anew.  Woo.

This also means it's slower going, which is discouraging for me, who needs to have this done by June 30th, so I have something not-embarrassing to get five free copies out of from CreateSpace.

I also won't be writing for the next several days because of Phoenix Comic Con.  While that will be excellently fun and one of my friends has promised to introduce me to some really nice YA authors, I won't be writing, which is sad.

Sad writer not writing.  Sad.

Le sigh.

However, I am confident with my new timeline, now I just need to write it all out.

Appropriate Chapter Breaks

So, the first several drafts of this book didn't actually include chapters.  I had it organized into sections, and then I would give little line breaks in the text.  I'm fairly certain they were random in the first couple of drafts. Then, on the third, I tried to ensure that the breaks were at least logical.

For the fourth draft (the one I was working on back in November), I added chapters.  Given where I added the chapters, they were fairly logical, but my chapters ranged from being three pages long, to ten pages long. Which, is too much of a discrepancy, in my opinion.

Up until now with draft five, the chapter breaks have been fairly easy fixes (mostly just splitting longer chapters into two shorter ones).  Today, however, I ran into two chapters that needed to be three chapters between the original two, so I ended up spending quite a bit of time figuring out where the best (most natural) split was.

Also, now my primary editor is telling me to change up where some chapter breaks are.  I haven't looked too far into her suggestions, but she's probably got a point.  She may be finding more natural breaks where I was looking a lot at word-count and then second at naturalness.

Other big things that I was dealing with today was character motivation.  I have a bit of backstory for one character that I'm thinking of adding, but I'm not sure when to start incorporating it (if I add it at all).  I thought about incorporating it today, in those few chapters I was working on, but decided if I do choose to add it in, I can always do it at a later point because it makes the most sense.  So, things I filed under "I don't have to deal with it now, so I can move on."

Then, I had a moment where one of my characters surprised me.  I can't really say much about this particular instance in which she surprised me.  It would take too much explaining for one line and the significance is lost out of context, anyway.  Granted, Alice is surprising sometimes.  And amusing.  And I love her.

On a completely different note, I'm fairly certain there was more I wanted to say, but I've forgotten by now.  Sometimes, I think about liveblogging my writing, but blogger's not really set up for liveblogging, and besides, if I take the time to blog, I lose the groove of writing.  Le sigh.

That's all for now!

Character Development

Well, the past few days have been rather busy, given graduations and traveling and whatnot.  Back in the writing groove, however,  I want to be a few chapters ahead of where I am now, but, at the same time, I'm putting in quality time.  And quality time is better than quantity time.

Currently, the biggest things I'm working on is appropriate character development.  I have a character who needs to be more annoying who isn't at the moment, and a character who is coming across as flat who shouldn't.  She needs to be more annoying given the amount of talk about her that she's annoying.  He needs to just have some sort of depth.

Part of this is coming from the fact that I know she's annoying and I know he's got depth, but that's mostly because I've written two more books after this one and I know where they end up.  But they need to show some of that development now--not all, they have to have some growing to do--but some.

Fun times, really.

Loads of progress!

Today has been a day evening out chapter length.  This is a process with a multitude of variables. First, there's adding more to the shorter chapters in the way of description, as well as taking away from the longer chapters that simply have unnecessary information.  Then there's a matter of just splitting the super long chapters into two shorter, more even-length chapters.  At some point, there will probably be some combining of chapters, and simply reassigning chapter breaks, but that will come later.

Today, I have also been expanding upon one of Kat's (protagonist, if you've forgotten or I haven't mentioned) character traits.  I'm actually amplifying it to be a flaw at this point.  It's a power she doesn't entirely know how to control, and so while beneficial sometimes, it can backfire others.  Woo! It's an attempt to make her more interesting.

Plus, last night I was working on a thing to make William less angsty.  He needs to get over that.  Seriously.  It's better now for the moment.  There are other scenes I will have to work with him on with this as well.

I think that's all for the moment.

Ciao!

Seemingly Not Much Progress

Today's work has been a lot of taking out unnecessary information and trying to make sure I'm not giving too much away at the beginning.  Thus, I spent a lot of time deliberating on how to handle certain scenes and my page count doesn't seem to be showing much of an improvement.  HOWEVER, this is part of the writing process.  Woo.

I also need new names for Vamprism, the moon off of Evalchi Springs, and potentially Kat's dad...

Le sigh.

EDIT

So... still no new names.  Mostly just fixing stylistic stuff and then moving little things around to a better order.  Nothing terribly exiting today... but I have 3 chapters done!

Haha!!

I'm alive again!  School 'bout nearly killed me though!

Anyway, started editing (rewriting) again today.  Doubled what I'd started months ago and then had to set down because school happened.  But now school's over and while yes, I have summer reading and a job, there will be time in the day to get these rewrites done.

My goal is to do this in a month (hopefully not too much more.)  I absolutely HAVE to have it done by June 30th so I can get nice and shiny 5 free copies off of create space because I won nano all those months ago.

Currently, things I'm working on is being more descriptive as well as makings sure the main characters' motivations are clear.

Expect more updates soon!

Depressing Update

I would be writing... so much more...

If it wasn't for the 3 essays, 2 short story revisions, and 1 project presentation all due between now and May 1st.

Whoop-de-do.  I will be so much happier when school isn't getting in the way of things.

Character Development and Redevelopment

Trying to make Mrs. R less formal and more... motherly.
Trying to make Mr. R have more of a personality.
Tis fun.

Yay Revising

Which... looks a lot like rewording things at the moment.  There isn't much I can do on the first three pages except be a little more descriptive and fix typos.

My friend wants the next book.  I can't hand it to her because I split this one in half.  So, it's not like she'd make edits and I would go cry in a corner... it's more like she'd make edits that I'd just look at and say "Yeah, I know.  I just haven't gotten there yet."

Currently, I have until June 30th to get this polished.  That's when my five free copies expire.  I've got basically two-and-a-half months.

Here goes!

Picking up the rewrites again...

Dropped them 'cause school was crazy.
But the plan is to pick them up again.
1 hour a day.  At least.
Let's see how this goes.
*must be persistent*

Smells like revision...

I'm about halfway through my own readthrough and I've got full feedback from two readers and nearly full feedback from two more readers.  And all I can say is... another rewrite is in order.  Which... I knew.  And I'm pretty sure you all knew this too.

Version 5 is going to happen.

Who's reading?

A few weeks ago, I started sending out my story to my first-readers.  

I've gotten complete responses back from two out of the original 11 queries.

Rar (my sister) and Mitch (my roommate) have completely finished this draft and given me feedback. 

Bex (my good friend) is about 10 chapters  away from the ending and I wish she'd just finish it already! :P

Out of my fanfic-based readers, KKBeckett has gotten back to me through chapter 18 via emails every few chapters.  Flightfoot has gotten back to me through chapter 5 via emails ever chapter.  Cookie has gotten back to me through chapter 3.  I hope you all enjoy the rest of your read-through if you are reading this right now!

I believe my mother has not touched it as of yet due to no spare time... sadness.

My other good friend, Grim, didn't get the original PDF I sent him in a snafu with the emails.  I resent it to him...

My boyfriend hasn't made the time to read it and he feels bad.

The other two queries have not replied back to me after I initially sent it to them.  

Regardless, I, myself, am up through roughly chapter 20 of rereading it.  I am noticing the things other people have said to me and thinking of ways to make it better.  I had hoped that this would be the last major rewrite I would do for this book before I submitted it for publishing, but this is not the case.  I have at least one more ahead of me. 

I plan to start the next round of rewrites in mid-February.  I wish that everyone I initially queried would completely get back to me by that time, however, I understand that life gets crazy and school demands more of your time than you want it to.  (Coming from the girl who has been doing nonstop homework for the past two weeks, trust me... I know.)  

If nothing else, I have two complete feedbacks and I can pester Bex enough to get me a third before I start rewriting.

I don't entirely know why I'm posting this...

Maybe just for my own personal record.

Ciao for now!

Finished! But... not...

Why yes, the writing is all finished.  

But the editing has only just begun.  I have given a number of people this draft and they, alongside myself, are painstakingly going through it to find things that don't quite line up.  

Some things are easy edits "you have the word 'her' here when you really should have 'here'".  Those edits, honestly make me facepalm, because they're so easily missed until someone points them out and everyone's just like... 'oh duh...'

Then there are edits like "are you sure that's the word you're looking for there?" "maybe you need to make this two sentences..." or "just take that phrase out, it's completely unnecessary."  These are also relatively simple to work with.  A quick-enough fix. 

Then there are things like "you should rename that" or "you made this word up, so how is it pronounced."  Those are.... well, hard for the first one and easy for the second.  *I* know how everything is pronounced, so it's an easy answer (at least, out loud... one of my first-readers told me that maybe I should put in a phonetics pronunciation guide for the words I made up... and I'm considering it.) As for renaming things... ugh... I have a list of things that probably should be renamed because they're the names for things that I made up YEARS ago and they sound fine to me... but not to other people.  Murrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  

Of course, then there are the questions... "Why is this special? You better make sure it stays special!" "Why does this species have this?" "You have *this* (magikal function) so why does *this* happen?"  These don't necessarily even have to be discussed IN the text.  *I* however, should know the answers to each and every one of these questions so I can write based on those answers.

And then... there's things like "this person's characterization is off, I need to fix that" and "this character's relationship to this character just plain needs help because it's affecting the story in ways that it shouldn't be" and "i need to change that because it's affecting how the story is read and it shouldn't" --all that stuff.  Which is highly important... and a pain to fix.  

I have my work cut out for me.

Climax of a Story

In regards to why it took me so long to finish this darn draft...

Another reason I think may be a possibility is that this draft didn't had a similar climax to the other drafts (or the sequels, which I haven't touched yet...) 

See, because of the split, I had to create enough drama/rising action to justify a climax to justify an ending to this novel.  My roommate warned me that I needed to make sure it wasn't half-baked because she'd seen stories that had done that.  So I may have given myself a small complex trying to make sure it was "just-right."

I'm still not sure if it is or not.  It's functional, but... I have half a dozen first-readers who may tell me otherwise.  If they do, it's back to the drawing board for me... *doesn't want to think about this*

It's probably just nothing.  It's probably just because this draft is radically different.  

In previous drafts, before the split, I had chapters and chapters... (okay, that's a generalization, because this newly completed draft is the first one I've done that's actually HAD chapters as opposed to just little visual breaks (* * *).) Regardless, it felt like I had several chapters leading up to the climax, a chapter for the climax, and then a chapter or two of falling action before the epilogue.

The way this draft is written, with the climax at what it is, it's like I have several chapters of slowly rising action, then one or two chapters of quickly rising action, then one chapter for climax and falling action all in one before the epilogue.  It's... just... different...

*shrug* 

I don't know.  It's not like I'm not happy with it... it's just different...

Not wanting it to end...

Sometimes I have to wonder why it took me a whole month to write 20K words when in the previous month I wrote 80K in the same amount of time (technically, a whole day less, too).   

I mean sure, December meant finals and Christmas and The Hobbit and finals and paperwork and crazy stuff at school and seeing family and all that stuff.

But November had Thanksgiving and seeing family and final papers and stuff too!

Though, November was NaNo, which means more of a drive, I suppose.

Regardless, I honestly think the main reason why it took me so long to write the last 20K is because I didn't want it to end.  Would it be the same way had I not split it and just kept writing for another month or two? Maybe, I can't say for sure.  But I came to the end of this draft a few days ago.  And I think I was stalling to spend that much more time with the characters this time around.

I'm serious about this, guys. 

Impressive Word Count

You can tell I'm not doing much besides sitting at my computer.  This is the third blog all night! But, I'm sworn-off Tumblr until tomorrow to increase productivity, and this is more productive than that.

I haven't said it officially, but I've implied it.  

I finished this draft!

I've got quite the word count: 100,153.

Granted, it's 30K less than the draft before it because I've split it.  I split it slightly more than halfway through, but with all the things I was adding for development, my word count jumped a ton.  I'm expecting to do a lot more expanding in the second half to make it a comparable length to this half.

The word count is not set in stone, it will mesh and meld around 100K as my first-readers get back to me with their feedback.  I've sent it out to 7 people.  (Well, 5 in addition to the 2 that were already reading it.)  Anyway... yeah...

I remember talking to one of my first-readers last week or so and he asked me how long it was.  I gave him the word count and he looked at me, very impressed that I could write so much.  Particularly in so little time.  Basically 100K words in 2 months.  Though, 80K of that was in November and 20K of that was in December.  

TECHNICALLY, the last 300 words were written in January, but it was on the 1st, so I can still kinda lump it into the two-month timeframe.

To me, it was hardly anything... this is what I do... this is what I'm getting my degree for... even though you don't need a Creative Writing degree to be a writer.  You don't need one to get published.  I just... don't know what I'd do with my life if I wasn't writing.

And... aside from that, I've forgotten the original reason why I started posting.  So, bye for now!

Writing New Material

What!? Two posts in one day!? Unheard of!

Well, I have time, so I'm posting stuff.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I did decide to split it. (Oh, I mentioned it... well, shows how good of a memory I have about these things...) Well, whatever.  Because of the split, the last several thousand words were entirely new material.  Well, mostly anyway.

A good portion of it was literally just me recreating the story as I went along.  Parts of it were rather fun, actually.  It was like "this is what the story would have done if I had written it like this the first time."  Sure, if I had gone with the plan of not splitting it, not every one of these additions would have made it in.  

But my protagonist had business she really needed to take care of, and it really was quite logical that she take care of them now, as opposed to when she halfheartedly got around to them in the previous drafts.  

Granted, some of the new writing was scary.  I believe I mentioned a few posts ago that I was writing slow in an effort to make every word count.  Boy, was I doing that! However, I am generally pleased with this outcome.  Is it quite the ending I had planned? I'm not sure.  Is it a functional ending.  Yes.  

So... yeah...

Wordness

It's been a while since I've posted.  But... see... I've been busy.  Finals really takes it from you.  And then, after finals, there was going and seeing the Hobbit with my friends (which, was amazing, by the way, though I do need to re-read that book--when I have time!)

Then it was the last-minute holiday shabangs in my college town before heading back up to see my family for Christmas.

Oh, and then there was Disney! I went to Disneyland with my boyfriend and some of our mutual friends.  We had a blast.  (Though, this can kinda be filed under 'last-minute holiday shabangs'.)  Whatever.  I went to Disney.

Then Christmas happened.

Then I was writing.  Boy did I write!

And then there was New Years.

And some more writing!

And now I'm here blogging.  I hope to be blogging a tad more regularly, but... the semester starts next week, so I really can't make any promises based on my track record.

I'm here really just to make a note about how different it is for me to reach a word count with my books as opposed to my papers.  

A professor assigns me a paper, usually with a word count anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 words.  (Depending on the type of paper.  1,000 words double-spaced is about 3 pages.  5,000 words is about 15 pages.  Ish.)  I always get the first few hundred out pretty fine... but then I'm struggling to continue.  It's ridiculous! I think to myself, 'man, this is rather hard'.  

But then... 1,000 words is less than a chapter for me in my book (or fanfics--I feel the need to mention those.)  Usually my chapters are between 2,000 and 4,000 words.  And I can write a chapter in a day if I'm in the mood.  I strive to write at least 1,000 words a day with my book.  Though, NaNo had me doing at least 2,000, really.  It comes easily to me most days.  (I do have my days where I'm like 'nope, this is not happening'.  But, I still write SOMETHING.)  

For me, writing my books just comes easier than writing papers.  It's who I am.  I'm more invested in my books than I am in papers.  And I think it's just funny the way 1,000 words seems really hard for a paper, but virtually nothing for my book.