It’s the end of the month, so here’s the July writing update. I don’t know about you, but July has flown by for me. While the weather seems undecided about whether it’s summer or autumn, I’ve been enjoying my relaxed mornings, working from the couch or kitchen table.
I will say I need a holiday. We’ve decided not to travel, partly because of Corona, and partly because I’m not in the mood to organize it. So instead, we’ll just explore our own country. Only 1.5 weeks to go!
Anyway, that’s not why you’re reading this post. You want to know what’s going on with my writing projects. So, here goes!
What I worked on this month
I will let you know that I made quite some progress with Ice Cold. I’ve now crossed the 10k mark! Woohoo! Looking at June, that means I’ve written about 7k words more, which I think is pretty decent, and added 5 more scenes.
I know this first draft is not going the fastest it could go, but at the same time, it’s also very probably the best first draft I’ve ever written (so far, at least). Listening to Abigail’s guidance seems to pay off.
On the other hand, I’ve still not written another word for Half-bloods. I suppose I’ve been too pre-occupied with Ice Cold. But that’s a stupid excuse. I should be able to work on two projects, right?
So that got me thinking: perhaps I just need to have more explicit goals. I mean, for Ice Cold, I have Abigail who pretty much gives me homework to do each week, so then I just do it. But I don’t have that for Half-bloods, so I think I need to set some clearer goals for myself.
My Goals for August
So, for Ice Cold, I’ll have Abigail’s homework to guide me. But there will be a holiday for two weeks where we don’t meet. Considering I’ve written around 7k this month, my aim is to add another 7k in August and write at least 4 new scenes. One other goal is to find at least 3 masterworks for this story.
Masterworks are books that you think are absolutely amazing, and have some aspects in common with the story you write. So they don’t have to be an exact copy (actually, preferably not). They can have a protagonist that is similar to yours, a common theme, and a common genre. You can pull ideas and inspiration out of these masterworks and incorporate them into your own story. Neat, right?
For Half-Bloods, most of what I need to do is editing. But I’d also like to get a better grasp of the world I created and the different cultures and be clearer on who the characters are. Because this is a first draft that is pretty much pantsed, I didn’t think about these things much beforehand.
So, I’d like to brainstorm again the first 5 signposts scenes (read my article about that here) and edit these 5 scenes or add them if they’re not there. Next to that, I will write out my character sheet (get my character sheet for free here) for Ethan, Eli, Isac, Owen, Selena, Fergus, and the King, as these are the 7 most important character at the beginning of the book (Ethan is the main character).
Summing it up
Because I like lists, here’s an overview of what my August goals will be:
- Write at least 4 new scenes and 7k words for Ice Cold
- Find at least 3 masterworks for Ice Cold
- Fill out my character sheets for 7 of the characters in Half-Bloods
- Brainstorm the 5 first signposts scenes for Half-Bloods
- Edit or write these 5 scenes for Half-Bloods
Seems doable right? I’ll let you know by the end of August if I’ve succeeded! That’s all for my July writing update.
