Dark Fantasy Author
I created this blog post draft in October and made a graphic, but got over my hump and was able to continue, so it just sat in drafts with nary a word in the actual post.
It’s now November, National Novel Writing Month, and I’m stuck on chapter 15 of book 2, so I figured it was time to bring this shit back. No real context needed here. The pic kinda speaks for itself.
Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.
It’s Halloween. I’m tired, but I haven’t posted anything in a while, so I thought I’d mention my NaNo 2019 project, book 2:
I’ve already got a pretty good start on this thing. I took a week off in October and drove to my mom’s house to be alone (or at least sans children) and write. I spent two days plotting (that’s a first!) and tearing my hair out, but I managed to start.
I’m currently at 36,591 words. To give you an idea, book 1 is 127k. My goal is to get a completed rough draft of around 100k by the end of December.
My first drafts tend to be lean. I start with straight dialogue and work out from there. It’s good to have critique partners who can point out when I’ve got white room syndrome or need to dig down on those emotions, but I’m getting better at that through practice–it just doesn’t always show up in the first draft. I’ll do another post soon about my drafting process.
For NaNo, I just want to get as much done as possible. I’ve already got a pretty solid writing schedule, so it probably won’t increase my output by much, but it’s an excellent excuse to get out of the house and meet other local writers. If you haven’t checked out the NaNo activities in your area, I highly recommend it. Last year in Sacramento they had a lot of free workshops.
I will probably switch my blog schedule to biweekly. I was trying to get something posted every Monday, but when blogging cuts into novel-writing time, that’s not good. I want to get books 1-3 finished as quickly as possible.
Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.
A recently became aware of a new word. While it seems to have a few different variations, this is my favorite:
Ever find yourself doing a ton of stuff completely unrelated to the thing you need to do? Maybe there’s a big assignment or project you need to work on. Procrastinating on said project makes you feel bad, so instead, you kick into overdrive on something else. You clean the house, fold the laundry, reorganize your desk! You do everything except the thing you need to be doing.
That’s me today. I’m supposed to be writing chapter two of book two. Last week I wrote a bunch, but halfway through realized I was using the wrong point of view, so now I have to go back and rewrite as a different character. So what am I doing instead?
Catching up on email. Brainstorming about writing a reader magnet (freebie that’s used as incentive to get people on your mailing list). I came up with a great one–backstory that can be made into a short story. It’s briefly referenced in Dark Apprentice, as “The Bread Incident.” Harper found Nikolai doing something embarrassing with bread, though what is never specified (it’s probably not what you think). I just need to write it. I sat down at my desk, all pumped to write…
…and immediately went to Canva to make covers.
Granted, this didn’t take long and it was fun, but it still isn’t writing. But covers are done now, time to write, right? Well, no, because it got me thinking about my own procrastination, which led to this blog post idea, which lead to me making another Canva graphic, which led to me talking to you here. It’s not all bad, I did need to queue a blog post for next week, so this will be it.
Hooray for quiddling. As they say on Writing Excuses, I’m out of excuses, now I need to go write.
Let me know which bread cover you like best.
Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.
I finally finished the latest draft. I’m a pantser and a newbie, so when I sat down to do a developmental edit on manuscript it need a LOT of work. This last draft has taken forever. I waffled endlessly on adding Medea’s POV and when I did, it made some significant changes to the storyline.
New advice for writer’s block: If you get stuck, write the same scene from another characters POV. You may think you had them down, but their insight will drastically change the tone, possibly even the dialogue.
With the addition of Medea, I’d added a new character loop and made her rules a lot more clear…which was messing up my original ending. I tried to pick up where I left off and it wasn’t working. So I followed my own rule (back up and try something else). I started writing a whole new ending.
It was epic and fun and very Hollywood with a Home Alone vibe. And while the scene was fun, it absolutely did not complete my main character’s arc (cue Sacha Black‘s voice telling me to close those loops), which made it hollow. It worked for Medea, but not for Nikolai. To learn his lesson (finally), he needed the original ending. I found a way to sidestep Medea’s rules and make the original ending work. I will probably save the alternate ending and use it as a reader magnet for my mailing list (it IS a fun scene).
So what now? Well I still have micro editing to do. I kept changing the year, from 1956 to 1953 to 1955 so I have to check the timeline continuity. Gotta check my crutch words (if you’re an author and don’t have a crutch word list, make one!). Gotta find a new round of beta readers wiling to read 128k.
My brain is already springing forward to NaNo. I need to prep for book 2 so I can get it written, hopefully by the end of the year. I’m taking a week vacation in October just so I can write. Not sure how much I can get done in November this year, but I’m going to try.
Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.
