End of NaNoWriMo Report

So last post I said I’d be taking part in NaNoWriMo this year and so I did.

I didn’t hit the 50,000 words total which I’m disappointed with.

What I do have is:

  • An 11,000 word outline for a 150,000+ word novel
  • 22,000 words of the first draft for said novel
  • 33,000 words total for November so over 1,000 words a day

There are positives and negatives to take from NaNoWriMo for me. I’m still not up to my fastest writing pace (1400-1800 words a day) but I’m getting there and I’m very happy with the overall direction of the novel I’m working on.

Next post will have more info on that.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo

Been a bit quiet here again but should liven up significantly over the next month and a half.

Several bits of news:

  • I’m working on a new project. Not Choices and not the other project I’ve mentioned before
  • It’s in the outlining stage and should be far enough along for me to have a crack at it for NaNoWriMo so i’m taking part in that

I’ve not done NaNoWriMo before. In 2012 my writing pace wasn’t up there to make use of it and last year I was busy editing Oranje. This time however the timing seems perfect. I’m also curious to see how many words I can do in a month.

Whatever I write, i’m going to share here and also on Wattpad. For next book I’ve decided to be a lot more open about how I’m progressing and the state of the draft, so expect to see a lot of early work shared that you’ll be able to comment on.

So that’s the state of my writing right now. I’ll be posting NaNoWriMo progress reports on here throughout November and at the end what I’ve been writing. That should generate a few good blogs talking about what i’m aiming for and why i’m writing what I am. Here’s to hoping it all turns out well!

Why I Write

Quite the question isn’t it, but fundamental to the books I create. It’s an important question for every writer, and I feel it reveals a lot about their aims, and you can see it filter through to their work.

This goes back to a lot of what I’ve covered in the “Me and Science Fiction” series of articles I did. Fundamentally, going from the TV series I loved (Firefly, Battlestar Galactica), to written sci-fi, I was disappointed. Books like Revelation Space, hallowed greats of the genre, just didn’t click with me.

They felt too much like a story about a world, instead of about people. Every story to me has to be about people. We’re human, we love experiencing stories about life. You know the key ingredients of it. Love, despair, friendship, conflict, hope.

There is definitely not enough hope in the sci-fi I’ve read. The Culture series by the late-great Iain M. Banks stands out as an exception to me of the recent sci-fi I’ve delved into. It shouldn’t be an exception. Dystopian futures, books about post-apocalyptic worlds, all of them seem very common nowadays. But not many that give hope about the future.

Others, such as Jonathan McCalmont on his blog Ruthless Culture, have discussed this in great articles that frame it as the future now being too complex to understand compared to the Golden Age. I don’t buy that. The future is always complex, no matter when you live. That doesn’t excuse a retreat from hope.

Books should inspire people, delve into their souls and lodge themselves deep inside. They should make them feel, make them think. They should make people look to the stars and dream.

I’m on the first steps in my writing career, and I know my work still has plenty of areas to improve. But my aim is to write books that inspire people, books about people and being human and all that entails, books that make people dream.

An ambitious goal perhaps, but I don’t know how to be anything else.

The Creative Fight in my Mind

So, despite saying I’d start posting more recently here not too long ago, I’ve systematically failed to do so. However talking about why that is presents a great opportunity to talk about the creative fight in my head.

I don’t talk about my job on here often but it does have an impact on my writing. I work as a Project Lead – a design lead – at the Creative Assembly. Most recently that’s involved leading work on the Emperor Edition of Rome II. It’s a job I love, I’ve been at the company for seven years now. But it is a very creative job, and sometimes it takes over all of my creativity. Writing is also takes a lot of creative effort, so when I’m putting in a bit more at work I often don’t have the headspace free to focus any time on my writing.

It’s a fight I have to accept I’ll always have, and when push comes to shove work will win because it has to. So at times my writing output will drop to nothing. I don’t like that, it’s hard for me to accept, but it’s true and I have to deal with it as best I can.

But now the Emperor Edition is out I’ve got a bit more space in my brain free to think about writing, and getting back on to my new project which is still stuck on Act One of Book One. More on that soon hopefully as I intend to be a lot more open with the progress of my work this time around. Once Act One is in an alright place, I’ll share it up for people to read and see what they think.

I’ve a blip, and blip that will happen because of the job I have, but now it’s past I have to make the most of the time I’ve got available. Onwards I go.

Busy, busy…but still going

Things have been quiet on here, too quiet. No real excuses for, work just got really busy and I chose to focus on that instead.

However my writing has also suffered over the past month and I need to change that.

There is some good news in amongst the nothing, I have had some early feedback on my next book from a fellow author which has been really useful. The new plan to write in Acts – and get people to read them as I go along – seems to be working well so far. Have a plan of action on how to improve and then do the next Act, I just need to get writing again.

Also want to get more posts up here. Going to do one soon on why I write, don’t know what else yet.

So been a bit of a hiatus but it’ll be ending soon.

NPCs and Setting – Doing Them Better

After a break for a holiday to Malta and settling back into work I’m back at it after getting a lot of writing done whilst I was away. Almost the complete Act One of the first book of the new series I’m working on, as I said in my last post. It’s a total of 17,000 words spread over 6 chapters and that was mostly done over 4 days of the 7 day holiday as we did a few day trips around the beautiful Maltese islands.

If you ever get the opportunity you should go there, I’d recommend staying in the North like we did as it’s quieter but you are a short distance from the ferries to Gozo and can get buses/excursions to Valletta and other places.

One of the reasons I think I was able to get so much writing done is because of how I’ve changed my approach to outlining and sketching. I’m a firm believer in plotting v pantsing – it’s what works for me – but I realise that for Oranje I didn’t do enough for my characters or locations.

What I did before was a brief description of each character. Appearance, personality, key character traits and so on. But this time I’ve added in tag words. I came up with a list of 3 or 4 words that summed up each character and that could also be used to describe them in the book. I’ve also extended this approach to a lot of the key non-main cast characters so that each of those are well fleshed out when they appear in the book.

The sames been done for each location for the book. A brief description and then tag words that sum up and help visualise them.

I know I need to do more with the characters, and I now plan on doing an editing pass on this act. The aim being that as each one is done I polish and improve before moving on so each one is solid.

But I’m in a much better place to begin with this time, the characters are there and they feel more interesting. There’s more to shape their personalities from, and I can’t wait to finish the whole thing.