Catching Up, Writing Progress, and General Updates

Well, it’s been a busy few months for me, and I’m finally getting back into blogging. Nothing of particular horror happened, and I haven’t stopped writing. Remember how I said you should dabble in multiple forms of writing while you chase your novel-writing inspiration? Well, that inspiration indeed came.

I found that ruthless, unrelenting motivation and inspiration to write enter my body, and I got a lot done.

Novel Updates

As you should know if you’ve read my most recent waffle post, I finished my first ever rough draft of the novel I’m working on. Well, any novel, ever, in March of this year. I gave my manuscript a break for several months after this, just like I planned. It was a huge accomplishment for me, and plopped me unceremoniously onto new ground as far as my writing was concerned.

During this time I also did a ton of worldbuilding, which was the next step in my plan of action. Once I felt ready, I did 3 things.

1.) I handed off my novel to my first alpha reader for general opinions on the story, characters, continuity, etc. Her only job was to read and give her thoughts, but ignore the copious tense issues, flow and pacing issues, etc. I made small notes about glaring issues I planned on fixing later, but ultimately didn’t worry too much about how the novel looked on paper. A rough draft should be rough after all.

2.) I made a dedicated list of things I wanted to focus on in this first rewrite. With the knowledge there will be several more rewrites before my novel is done, I made the list small, and started with the biggest changes I wanted to make. For me these were,

-Give my protagonist in particular more depth and backstory. In my rough draft, she is essentially a pair of special glasses through which I can see into the story. I left plenty of room to flesh her out more later, but she is pretty damn bland in this first version of the story. I did that on purpose, and I knew I wanted to start fixing her in this first rewrite.

-Fix SOME of my copious tense issues. I was an absolute idiot about tense in the rough draft, and I didn’t care. It has some first person present, first person past, third person, and is in general a mess. It doesn’t have to be perfect this time, but I want to fix some of that.

-Write all missing scenes. Any scenes I didn’t feel like writing or didn’t know how I wanted to approach I left out of the rough draft, replacing them with a small highlighted section detailing the events in said scene. For some, this was due to laziness, and others were a lack of worldbuilding or not yet knowing how I wanted to tie a certain scene into the story. This time, all scenes will be written, even if they’re a bit rough.

-Add loose chapter layout. I had absolutely no chapter layout in my rough draft, and I wanted to at least have some idea of how the chapters should look and flow in this first rewrite.

-Match up themes and changes. Anything I changed my mind on or switched up mid-story, I want to work on connecting up and making flow better. Having all scenes will help with this.

-Be more descriptive. The initial draft consisted of slapping the story onto paper. Description and depth will be added in the first rewrite.

And finally,

3.) I dove into my manuscript head first, and committed to writing it on physical paper.

I struggled a lot with a fear of my manuscript for the first couple of weeks I tried jumping back into my book. The computer was scary, and I just couldn’t sit down and write. That’s when I remembered I’m a WRITER, not a TYPER, at heart.

Just saying, if you find yourself having trouble writing at a computer, try an old fashioned pen and paper, or vice versa.

Once I returned to my roots, the words came easily. I’m now almost 1/3 of the way done with my first rewrite of my novel, (chapter 8) and those words still taste strange in my mouth. After this rewrite, it’ll be time to seek out beta readers and get more eyes on my story. At this point, I’ll have to start marketing and take another decent sized break from my manuscript. During this time I plan on yet more worldbuilding, and possibly starting another novel project while I let it all simmer.

It’s the most surreal, terrifying, awesome experience to write a novel. It’s like running down a train track, and you see that train in the distance, but you just keep going. You try and jump over that train, but even if it mows me down, I’m going to write another novel. And another. And keep going until I die, to put it bluntly. It makes you hyperaware of time and so eager to get done as much as you can in as little time as possible. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the experience no matter how much of an insomniac I am.

Worldbuilding

I haven’t talked much about my worldbuilding on here, partly because I don’t really know where to start, and partly because I’m scared. Okay, mostly the second one, because I could probably just start at the beginning. Just know it’s coming, once I can swallow that slab of fear in my throat.

But just to reel you in, I have made huge strides in my worldbuilding in the past few months as well.

I was at a serious crossroads in my novel, where I had to worldbuild some or risk having to backtrack severely in the overall story and detail of this book later on.

I now have a full map of my world complete with continents, maps of two of the 3 towns featured in my novel, (thanks to the help of my husband) a good chunk of my magic system, much more information on my races and their cultures, a book of flora and fauna, and so much more. I still have a long way to go. There is so much to creating an entire world. But I’ve made a damn good start.

The Next Steps

So what’s next? Well, I would like to finish this first rewrite by Christmas. Just typing those words made my blood pressure rise, but some motivational speaker somewhere said to set goals probably, so that’s what I’m doing. Then I can take a break over the Holidays, and jump into the new year with a search for beta readers and turn their feedback into a second rewrite.

I still want to continue my Hunger Games breakdown, and I’d like to do book reviews, but I’m torn on whether to do that here or on a Youtube channel. I will hopefully be writing on here again regularly. Committing to another form of social media is usually a good idea when you want to gain a following.

We’re moving forward, one terrifying step at a time. And I won’t stop until I get there.

Happy writing!