Right. So. Been having a tiny bit of trouble with the writing lately, as I have mentioned. Flash fiction challenges are going some way to getting me back into the swing of things, however, flash fiction is not my novels, and I probably should be working on those.
In the continuing interests of picking back up writing in a proper fashion, I am going to list (read: ramble on a bit) about my current writing projects, which are all my novel projects. I do this in the hope that actually listing out what I could be working on will help my brain to transition back onto working on them. That, and given that I have quite a few projects on the go, this isn’t a terrible thing to do from an organising point of view either.
Archmage
1st Draft – Completed.
Story has been split into 3 parts (It might turn out to be a trilogy, it is getting to that length)
2nd Draft – Part 1 Completed. Part 2 Started. Part 3 As yet untouched.
So, Archmage. It’s a beast of a thing at the moment, and I did a lot of work on it during the first couple of months of the year, but then I finished re-writing the first part, and sort of never got into the swing of re-writing the second. Well, there’s like 5,000 words in there. What I think I need is to find a suitable beta reader (or poke my beta reader into actually reading the first part) and then so some blocking out of what happens in scenes and then tweak them so rather than just editing each chapter as I come to it, I edit the higher level structures of the book. I’m pretty sure Part 1 is going to need another re-write, so that seems like the sensible idea. It’s just hard since I’m a pantser, not a planner, but the story will be better for it.
Black Dawn
1st Draft – So terrible it was abandoned
1st Draft (Take 2) – Started
So Black Dawn was the novel I wrote for my first ever NaNoWriMo. I’ve learnt a lot since then, and I can safely say that what I wrote back in, 2011 (man, old feeling) is a pile of crap. But, the characters were there, and the setting had something, so it went into the drawer for a while, and now I’ve got a shiny new plot and setting tweaks and I think it can work now, I just need to write it. I’m, let’s see, a couple of chapters into starting this. It’s been a very on off sort of project.
Eidetic
1st Draft – In Progress
This was last years (2015) NaNoWriMo project. And it was going well, I got to 75K words, it wasn’t too hard to write. Except, then November finished, and I haven’t even really looked at it since. Not entirely sure why, but, I think I started to see holes. I know what I want to happen in the second half/ending, but, there’s a few holes between where I got up to and that point, and I’m not sure if it’s a satisfying story, and I just seemed to lose the point of it a little. I’m certain that actually it’s not as bad as I think it is, and there is life in the novel, I probably just need to re-read it, and then think about the plot in a little more depth before I continue writing it.
Mechanica Awakening
1st Draft – Completed
1st Edit – In Progress
Another NaNoWriMo book. To be fair, I do a lot of writing in NaNo, it’s only this year that I have seriously started to concentrate on stuff outside of that month, from editing to new material. This one, I wrote the first draft and it’s the first one where I feel like the 1st draft isn’t going to be a million miles from the last draft. It felt complete, rounded, and sure it needs some editing, but the story is there. (Personally, I have a distinction: Re-writing is when there are still plot holes and major writing left to do; Editing is for when the story is there and only minor tweaks need to happen. Mostly at the moment I am re-writing rather than editing, but, that’s because I know most of my stories aren’t finished yet) I did start, was working on it last summer, but again, fallen on a back burner a little bit. I was also doing this editing by hand, which was probably a mistake. I think it’d be easy enough to pick up again.
Quiet Poison
1st Draft – In Progress
One of the few novels I have not written in NaNo. Actually, I only had the idea for this one at the start of the year, so it’s the newest idea that’s actually been written down. It’s going in scenes at the moment. So I find a bit of the book I want to write, write that particular scene, and then when I’ve got enough of them I’ll work out how to string them all together. It’s a very fun project, with intrigue, assassins, relationships, death, and an awesome setting I’ve been crafting with my sounding board. He’s great. This is the one I should be writing, or at least the one I feel I should be writing, because there’s a kickstarter I backed where you can have your words printed on a scarf and this is the project that might actually come in under the limit of 40K (I’m a fantasy writer, novels run long for me typically) but I do actually have to write it up to that much. It’s on about 25K at the moment.
Supernatural
Draft – ???
Bit of an odd project this one. It’s the first novel I ever wrote, when I was 14. It was, complete trash, as might be expected of a first ever novel attempt, let alone one written at a young age. But, the main character never went away. There’s, well, there’s ideas and scenes, but nothing that I would call a solid plot, so it’s hard to count this as anything resembling an active project, but she’s always there, in the back of my brain.
And that’s it for active projects. Or, you know, projects on the backburner. I have a lot of other ideas for novels (Court of Ice, Firebird, Shapechangers) and other projects that keep me writing but aren’t novels (mainly fanfiction type things, or me fluff writing about my characters in various games. Werewolf, princess, D&D). It’s been good to remind myself of them. Maybe now I can actually go and write something on one of them.
Good morning, Princess. I read your post (obviously) and I just have a little bit of advice for you in terms of choosing which project to work on — find the one you are passionate about. Which one of those flash fictions has the most elements you care about most? Take that one and delve in.
Good luck!
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Good advice! I think I’ve narrowed it down to three, but my brain isn’t playing ball with getting down to a single project. Might just have to pick one, sit down, and start writing it. But thanks for the advice 🙂
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Or, this is just my imagination taking me places, you could interweave them all somehow and make it like the Marvel Cinematic Universe! I like making things bigger and more 3D, so maybe you could work on a storyline that combined all three of your stories. Just another thought. 🙂
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You like games, right? So make a game out of it. Write your titles on cards, put them in a hat (or similar), and pick one. You’ll either say, “Great!” and get to work on it, or you’ll have a gut reaction, “No, I want to work on XYZ instead.” So then grab XYZ and get to work on that.
I love that you have inspiration art even for the projects you’ve barely started on.
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I think Sam’s advice to work on what you feel passionate about is good, though I try to go with “work on what’s closest to be finished” and keep the passion as something to motivate me and move on. Of course, when I get really stuck/disheartened, I do move to the more appealing project.
Aside that, nice post. I’m glad I’m not the only one with multiple projects on my place (I was actually thinking about a similar post, at least a list for myself to get some perspective on what I’m working on and where I stand with everything).
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Listing out the potentials seems to have helped me, at least a little bit, so it’s something I definitely recommend if you’re having a similar problem to me with so many project on the go!
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Well, I know exactly which project I should be working on and why… I just feel tempted to work on something else every once a while ;/.
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Btw, as a side note: as much as I love your blog’s graphic design, the tiny pure white letters on a dark background are a pain for me to read – any chance of at least making them off-white? (Like the hue in the comment box – it’s a shade darker and a point bigger, but it makes a huge difference.)
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Hmmm, I think it’s one of the stock themes so I’m not sure how much I can play around with it without paying money, but worth investigating I think.
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Maybe this will help:
http://chrislema.com/what-is-the-right-font-size-for-your-blog/
There’s a simple instruction how to change your CSS. 🙂
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