It’s that time of year again! Literally, the very beginning when goals are made and determination to achieve is high. However, it’s no secret that goals made at the new year are more often than not quickly abandoned. To help my writing goals stick, I’m going to share them. *Full disclosure, I am working in uncharted territory. While I’ve submitted and had two short stories published, this is the first time I’ve completed a first draft of a novel. And it was a long one. So yes, I plan on keeping my goals to the best of my ability, there’s going to be a lot of reevaluating as I discover my process. Here are my goals as they stand now: Cut 75k-95k words Finish the second draft by the end of March Final draft for book 1 done by the end of the year Start book 2 in September FinishRead More
Dramatic drumroll I did it! I did it with more than a day to spare! Ahead of my December 19th self-imposed deadline, I finished my first draft at 195K words (WAY over my 150k goal), hitting a new record of 4,202 words in a few hours. It is a huge relief to have this finally done (even at two in the morning), especially right before the holidays. The last thing I wanted was to have this hanging over my head the last week of December. Not only that, but I went back and looked at some original documents I started this story in. I’d forgotten how long I’ve been working on this idea. Back in October of 2015, I discovered the steampunk aesthetic and found a character nestled in the idea that quickly followed. I distinctly remember sitting in our tiny apartment living room, cluttered with costume making paraphernalia, andRead More
The first book in The Baronessa Chronicles is just a bit closer to completion thanks to my novel writing class this semester and NaNoWriMo. As much as I hated that daily word count sometimes, I am grateful that I had motivation pushing me to keep working. Especially working through the throes of prepping for finals and graduation next month. And yes, I did win NaNoWriMo this year! I was only able to reach the goal of 50,000 words because I dug deep down and used every spare moment I could to write. For a while I’d not considered the train a place that I could write it, but with some strategic seat choosing, I found ways to make it work. Having time to write has been one of the few good things to come out of my four hour round trip commute. Reaching my goal also came about because ofRead More
Formulaic. This is a word I’ve found to be taboo in the minds of many writers. The fear of one’s writing being predicable or unoriginal even had me steering clear of plots or character types that smacked of being overly used or cliché. To that end, I hadn’t even considered using structures such as the three act or the hero’s journey. Earlier this year, I’d heard about something called Save the Cat!, a type of plotting often used in successful screenplays and movies. I didn’t give it too much thought, thinking that I would never take the time to look into it. I was completely disinterested. Meanwhile, I continued to try and plot my story. There were a lot of good things that came from trying the seven point plot structure, but I was still struggling to get a hold on this unwieldy story that couldn’t decide what kind ofRead More
It feels like forever since I last posted. A month in blog time seems to be quite a bit longer than normal time, in my opinion. First, I’ll share some updates about the projects I’ve been working on. I’m sure it’s been obvious that I’ve not had the time to write as much. I know it’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated the progress bars. However, this has not been an entirely accurate representation of what has happened. My short story “Night Watch” went through another critique with my advanced fiction class last Wednesday. The feedback was good, but there were a few issues that everyone felt needed some work. I know that with the 5,000 word count limit I won’t be able to please everyone. The first step in my plan is to finish two separate rewrites since there were a lot of conflicting comments. I would likeRead More
Putting things on the internet can sometimes be frightening. Once it’s out there for other people to see, it becomes permanent. For the most part I don’t mind, but what gives me pause is knowing that putting my thoughts and my decisions into the world makes me accountable. That said, I’m still going to share a goal that I have set for my current project, (working title) Chasing Freedom. I’ve never considered myself a math enthusiast (okay, I’ll be honest, I’ve avoided math like the flu my entire school career). I think math is beautiful and necessary, I have just never felt confident in that subject. However, for some reason I have this inane drive to calculate schedules, percentages to completion, things like that. Using that weirdness, I have made a goal to finish the rough draft of Chasing Freedom in 150 work week days. That means I plan toRead More
Instead of rewriting the entire post, I’m going to break it up into two parts. The first part will be what I wrote earlier in the week, the second half came a few days later. Plotting On The past couple of weeks have been busy in some odd ways. Summer is busy because of vacations, family get togethers, holidays, and so on, but that hasn’t been the only thing that’s kept me from my weekly updates. When July started, I decided that I was going to take a week and plot out the book I wanted to work on. The plotting itself wasn’t bad, I actually finished ninety-nine percent of it before the week was out. Now character plotting–that’s been the hold up. While I was at Fyrecon, I was introduced to character interviews. I’d already heard of them, but a presenter showed us templates to use. I thought itRead More
Well, I’m still working on posting consistently on a specific day every week. One day I’ll get there, but I keep letting it slip my mind. However, practice makes perfect, and perseverance leads to success. The next couple of weeks will be full of fun stuff as I report on my experiences at the Summer Writer’s Symposium and Fyrcon this month! My goal is to post as soon as each conference is over so that my thoughts and feelings are fresh. Hopefully I remember to take some pictures. I’ll also be working more on my steampunk novel once July arrives. By the time I enter my last semester at Weber State, I want to have a few chapters ready for my novel writing class. A quick update about the short story I’ve been working on: the first draft is finished! Right now, the working title is Strictly Nightlife. Since IRead More
Currently, I am working on a steampunk novel, the first in a trilogy. The working title for the series is The Baronessa Chronicles, although that is subject to change should the need arise. I still haven’t hammered down titles for the books (which is unusual for me), but the working title for this first book since NaNoWriMo last year is “Outside of Freedom.” For anyone unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it’s the shorthand for National Novel Writing Month; a great way to motivate yourself and get those words pumped out! In any event, I will try to update my progress as much as possible. As a treat to those who drop by, I do plan on posting some of my short stories and poems on this website. Some of it will be straight from me, while others will be published and linked to corresponding pages. Since Metaphor doesn’t have a website whereRead More