Another month has passed, with new writing adventures & the basic figuring out of life. It’s never too late for that, right? 🤷♀️
So, as I mentioned in October’s update, I got a part-time job writing/editing for a company that creates educational material for healthcare. It’s really nice since it pays my bills and I get to do some form of writing, but it also gets in the way of my fiction-writing and working on the blog.
I’m just never satisfied. 😂
Nah, kidding, I’m very grateful for the job and the opportunity to figure out what I want to do and build toward that.
So: how is the writing going?
Thankfully, my wonderful editor Abigail is back from maternity leave! Gods, I’ve missed her. Sure, I’ve made progress, but I knew some of the stuff I wrote wasn’t going to cut it, and I’d have to rewrite it anyway.
Which, coincidentally, is what I did this month.
So, here we go: my writing update for November!
You can jump straight to:
What I worked on this month
I can very confidently say that I did not meat my goals. Like, any of them. 😂
Why do I even bother with putting them up?
Anyway, I wanted to write a short story each weak as a sort of self-made Nanowrimo spirited challenge. It started out pretty good, as things usually do, but then I wrote 1.5.
Jup. That first one I really liked, so I might edit and expand it a bit more in the future. Then the next one I didn’t like, so that’s the half. It did give me some inspiration for writing some short story spin-offs of my Ice Cold project. So… silver linings, I suppose? 🙈
Speaking of Ice Cold: did I add 7k words?
No! Of course not!
Why? Well, I ended up rewriting three of my scenes after some feedback from Abigail. Which was honestly great feedback, and I just know it makes the continuation of the story 100 times better (perhaps even more). So I don’t mind the ‘set-back’ in terms of word-count.
I did add almost 3k words, even with just these edits, so… not too bad, eh? It almost puts me at the 30k mark for the whole story; so I’m actually almost halfway there!
I hope.
Oh, and I gave up analyzing Nevernight. It might happen someday, but it ain’t gonna be soon. 😂
For Half-bloods, I brainstormed all my final signpost scenes, and I wrote 1.5 of them, which means I still have 5 to go to rewrite and edit.
It feels like I haven’t written as much, which is probably true. My excuse? I just had to get used to working again, and seeing how it all fits into my schedule. I think I’ve got a nice rhythm again, though. So I should be able to write more in December.
My Goals for December
Pretty much praying I can afford to take some time off, without any obligations, to sit and write for a while. And then I hope I actually do just that, and not just shrug it off and play video games all day.
Chances are, I will end up playing those video-games, and I will shamefully tell you so next month.
Either way, for Ice Cold, I’m going to rewrite two more scenes and then edit them again. That’s usually how Abigail and I work on it: edit the previous scene based on the feedback, one new scene, edit that scene based on feedback, one new scene, and so on. It may seem a bit tedious, and while it does take longer, I learn a lot from it. And I’m like a 100% sure the 1st draft will be sooooo much better because of it.
For Half-Bloods, I’m just gonna focus my energy on rewriting/editing those final five scenes. So that I can go back and edit the next slew of important scenes. (it just never ends 😂)
Hopefully, I can also find some time to start working out one or two of those spin-off short stories. It would be pretty cool, I think.
Summing it up
For my own convenience, this is what the list then looks like
- Edit two scenes & rewrite two scenes for Ice Cold
- Rewrite the last 5 signpost scenes for Half-Bloods
- Work out a spin-off short story
Helpful writing articles
🍁 On my own blog, I added to the Hero’s Journey Archetype framework with part 3: The Threshold Guardian. You can find part 1 about the Hero here, and part 2 on the Mentor here.
🍁 Over at Story Grid, is this article talking about Narrative Device. Choosing the proper narrative device is super important for your story! What more, they also have a really informative post about how to build a writing habit by writing just 500 words each day, and studying your craft for 30 minutes.
🍁 On the write practice, check out this article with some tips and tricks on how to liven up those often-dull descriptions. Also, if you’ve ever wondered about the difference between backstory and memory, and when to use it, this article will be a huge help.
🍁 If you want to write about witches, you need to know some of the basics. This short and informative guide to witches & witchcraft for writers will help!
🍁 The middle of a book is often the hardest thing to write. Check out this article for some advice on how to handle it.
🍁 We can all use a bit of positivity in our lives every once and a while. So read these positive affirmations if you’re feeling down: you can write that book!
Tell me about your writing progress
That was it for my November writing update. Do you have some writing projects going? Where in the process are you? And do you have more than one project?
