HELP!

A lot of things to get caught up on now that it is Dec. First NaNo results. I completed the first draft of my NaNo novel on Nov. 24th. Six days early, total of 50,131 words.  In the end I produced an average of 2088 words a day, that includes several not productive days and one that I completely took off. I think the book has some merit, but will need significant editing and a lot of punching up of the humorous parts. Also in Nov I had the honor of a piece that I wrote being included in the 30 days/30 adoptions series over at Portrait of an Adoption. For any of you who do not know the blog it is famous for Katie the Star Wars girl from several years back and the author has just released a book on Bullying. The post was featured on Nov. 19th and in Jan of 2013 the entire series will be featured in the Huffington Post, which I am really excited about.

So with NaNo over for the year I am putting aside that story for a while so as to give myself a fresh perspective on it later. I took the last week of Nov off from writing as I just started a new day job and wanted to focus on that. So I need to now decide what it is that I want to focus my energy upon. I have several projects that are in different stages of completion and I could use some feedback on what to spend my time on.

Sceal Casia – I am halfway done with the second draft of book one, and about one-quarter of the way through the first draft of book two. Both will require a lot of research as book one needs more historical detail and book two needs more technical details.

Fey Fyre – serial story regarding a Fairy/Vampire war. I have written five parts and had just started on part six before November started. Not sure about how long it is going to end up. I have a bunch of stuff that I want to get into it before I wrap things up.

Hugo North – I short story series about a cosplaying four-year-old who goes on adventures with his trusty dog. My wife gave me the idea to try to get me to write something lighter than the novel. I have done about half of the first story.

Nowhere Man – Originally a series of short stories about a amnesic who is recruited by the NSA, it has since become a short film that I have interested a local independent film company into doing, I just have to get the script for it done.

Battle of Khasire – Independent Film that I plan on doing on my own. I have the script almost completely finished, but I want to polish it up a little. I came to the realization while working on NaNo that this story takes place in the same world several hundred years later.

Untitled Non-fiction book – I have always wanted to write something on paganism, but never had a subject jump out at me as good for a book. Recently an idea struck me about mythology and harnessing it to change your life. It is going to be a combination of self-help book, spellbook, original versions of classic myths and literary analysis.

Please leave a comment and let me know which exactly you think I should be working on. I look forward to receiving some feedback.

NaNo Update Week Three

So here we are just past the half way point of NaNo and I am 80% done with my Novel. I once again had a slow start of the week getting less than one thousand words written combined between Monday and Tuesday last week, but I put in a little extra effort later in the week and pulled out a good amount of words. I am now just past the 40k mark for words and I expect that I might very well be done the book before thanksgiving.

NaNo Update Week Two

So it has been a week since I last updated in regards to my progress on NaNo and the novel tentatively entitled the Adventure of Eunice. So how has it been going? I was off to a big start the first few days of the month and was well ahead of my daily word goals, which was helpful because from the 5th through the 9th this week I had so many things going on that I was having trouble getting even the normal rate of 1667 words a day done. Today however I was able to get back to some solid writing. I was able to put away over 4k words today and get the story back on track. below I have shared a snapshot of the status page from NaNo.

NaNo Update weeks one (well part of week one)

 

So here I am taking a break from writing to do some writing. I am on the second day of NaNo and things seem to be off to a good start. As you can see by looking at the little tracker off to the right side of the screen as of Friday Nov 2nd I am well ahead of the goal for the day. I am off to a great start and the words seem to be following out of my finger tips. There are a couple of big reasons for this. One I still do not have a day job at this point, so other than the time I spent sleeping, applying for jobs and interviewing for jobs I am able to devote myself to as much writing as possible. Second the first thing would not be helping but I have been having so much fun with this still that it is hard for me to put it down. Even as I am writing I find myself plotting the story ahead and planning out funny little moments and the next goofy character that I will introduce. Even better is that I feel like I am actually getting some good material out of this. I read my wife one of the paragraphs earlier today that I had just written, and not only did she laugh at all of the correct moments, but when I made a correct about editing the work later she told me that the part I read to her did not need any editing. And for those of you who do not know my wife is an exceptionally harsh critic and does not pull punches when it comes to things she does not like. I also feel like the pace of the story is going well. I did not plan out an outline to the story. I only knew that I had originally four, now five phases of the story that I wanted to work through. I am currently just short of the ten thousand word mark which would be one fifth of the way and I am just starting to reach the turning point from part one to part two of the story, if it continues this well I will have the entire arc of the story fit perfectly in the 50k word goal.  All things considered this at least as for the first two days, has been one of the best things I could have done to get the stress off of me when it came to me writing.

What’s Going On?

So here we are less than one week remains before the start of NaNoWriMo. So I am going to do a quick wrap up on all of the other things that I have been working on that I will be putting aside for the month of November. Some projects I have been working on for quite a while and others I have just started out on.

Trilith Magazine – Still trying to figure out all of the technical issues so that I can make it as amazing as possible. I have posted several of the fiction pieces that I have been working on for it to the blog for the magazine. I also have several things posted to the Facebook page. If you are interested in seeing where this is going then feel free to follow either of those.

Fey Fyre – This is a series of short stories that I am writing for Trilith Magazine. I had written the first five and I have a lot of great ideas that will be following in December of this year. The first two parts are up already up on the Trilith Blog and the third will be up in the next couple of days.

The Hunt for Fiddlestix – A short story inspired by a friend of mine. It was originally written for submission to Fairy Magazine, but the photos were not large enough for publication in print. I plan to use it in the first issue of Trilith. If you are interested in reading it, I have it posted over at Trilith.

The Strange Adventures of Hugo North – Earlier this month my wife challenged me to write a story about a young boy dragged off by a kite. I am working on page three and I still have not gotten to the meat of the story. I have some ideas that I am really happy about. Not sure what I am going to be doing with this story, but it has been fun to write.

Scéal Casia – I have finished most of the second draft of the first book. I am also working on the second chapter of the second book. I am still planning on having the first book released sometime in 2013, but I don’t have a set date at the moment.

NoWhere Man – This has morphed from a series of short stories into a series of short films. I have a local film maker who I am working on figuring things out with now in regards to how to get this done.

Non-Fiction – I will be bloging both here and at the Trilith Blog, and I will be doing a guest post on a another blog sometime in the month of November, I will post more about that when I have the exact date it will be running.

But as I said before I am putting all of that aside for the month of November. What am I going to be working on is my Novel for NaNoWriMo.

Adventures of Eunice – I have not done a lot of planning for this, I don’t want to hamper the flow of the writing. I want to be able to toss in any silly idea that comes to mind. I picture this as a cross between Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. Eunice is the son of a goat herder that stumbles onto a huge adventure which he is neither prepared for or able to deal with.

So here I am prepared to take the plunge over the edge into the abyss that is NaNoWriMo. Once you are over the edge the only option is to fly. For the next several weeks I will be posting about my progress and my feeling about how the process is going. It could be a frustrated post, a happy one, or just loose rambling but I suspect that it will be interesting.

Your moment of truth is the day that you say “I’m not scared”

So this is going to be connected to my last post, my neurotic rant, a little bit. I have been a little stressed about the solitary aspect of writing and how it does not feed my need for connections with others.  That being said I also have another influence that has been rolling around in my head for the last couple of day. Another blog that I read, Xenogirl, talked about judging your own work not based on how old you are, but how long you have been writing fiction. Now if anyone has been reading my blog from the beginning they will be aware of the fact that while I have been writing fiction since my early twenties, I had a large section of time in my late twenties and early thirties that I was not writing on a regular basis.

I realize that I am too hard on myself a lot of the time and I expect more from myself than I am able to deliver at this point in my life. Does that mean I should stop trying or reaching for the stars. No, but it does mean that I should cut myself a little slack and remember why I love to write and the fun of it. I know that as long as I keep pushing forward and refining my skills as a writer them I will reach my goals in time. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after but I will reach my goal because I will accept no other outcome.

This brings me to my latest decision and the subject of this post. After telling myself that I am already overloading myself and that I don’t have the time to do it, I decided that I am going to give NaNoWriMo a try.

Those of you who are not aware are probably sitting there saying “He is doing what?” NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is every year during the month of November. Participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This requires averaging 1,667 words a day everyday for the entire month. No editing, no changing just writing a novel in 30 days. So now I am going to be editing ‘Lost Prophet’ (second draft is half done), starting up a web-magazine, starting a new full-time job in the next couple of weeks and I am writing a third novel.

I am hoping that by putting no constraints on this new novel I will be able to recapture the love of writing. I am going to try and channel my goofy and silly side, and hopefully find something that reflects the qualities of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams.  I have decided on the Title of Adventures of Eunice, the main character is going to be Eunice a hapless looser who falls in and out of trouble. I am not doing any outline or character developement before Nov, but I know a lot of planning will be rolling around in my head.

So feel free to follow along, I will probably be doing updates on here, but I can be found on the site here. And as for the status of Trilith I have posted the second part of the Fey Fyre series. Please any comments are greatly appreciated and if anyone wants to follow-up and ask how I am doing on the word count please let me know.