Tag: Novel

El Sporadic Update – The 20% Mark

So I am now officially 1/5th of the way to my target of 100,000 words. For only writing one hour a day, I am making fantastic progress! This waking up early thing has been the most rewarding and probably challenging thing I have ever done. I mean yesterday was my day off and I did four loads of laundry, three loads of dishes, cleaned the house, BBQ’d some lunch, still got in some writing and critiquing and then still cooked dinner as well! Perhaps there is some truth to all those crazy people who say wake up with a purpose and you will achieve higher levels of productivity and success! I still hate mornings (I don’t drink coffee or tea… so mornings are hard…)

That being said, I haven’t broken my story into chapters or gone back over any of my writing thus far. I am doing what some may call SOMP Writing (Seat-Of-My-Pants) with little or no planning at all. I have found this style of writing extremely rewarding. I know the direction I want to go in, so I am now ensuring that people feel the way I want them to while dropping subtle hints about who the antagonist is. For the moment, it seems magic is the evident antagonist as young Jefferson is trying to figure out how far he can push himself and good magic has its limits.

The world I have built is roughly based around travelling circuses and a time where Magicians stole the show with their tricks. However, these magicians are part of an order which secretly protects the rest of the world from the dark magics. The way magic works in my world is good magic only can draw upon the life force of the user exhausting their energy levels or depending on the power of the spell, causing harm to the user. This restricts the use of overly powerful spells, as they come at great risk. However the forbidden arts or dark magic are based off of using the life force of others and those around you. As this does not fatigue the user or harm them, extremely powerful spells can be used with little regard for the lives around them. Because of the power at no risk and the harm to others, use of magic in that way is forbidden.

This has made some battles interesting and good characters will fall victim to the evils of the world. More so than the bad guys. In this sense I am writing a story in which of course the good guys win, but at what cost? I have been enjoying the characters I have brought into the story thus far and I feel it is moving along at a decent pace. Will this turn into a trilogy? No. I sincerely doubt it. The plot kind of goes as such: Jefferson gets recruited. Jefferson becomes integral to recruiting new members. Antagonist appears. Jefferson builds order to fight Antagonist. Good triumphs, but who survives?

So at the moment I have just begun my second plot point where for the next 20000 words will be recruiting and adding a few more members to the order, while staging the appearance of the antagonist. I already know that those 20000 words will be roughly the hardest points for our protagonist which strengthen his resolve to build the order stronger in the next 20000. The final 20000 will start off with the end, and then the aftermath. Maybe if I still love writing about this world, I can toss in the possibility for a second story.

In the meantime, as a sidebar to this story I have been involved in critiquing the works of others on a website called Review Fuse. In order to get three reviews, I must give three reviews. This type of reading and editing all for my own benefit has been both fun and challenging. Sometimes people will have fantastic writing skills, but have written the most boring story ever. Character developments fall flat, moments which could be epic run dry and I actually read a story that had none of the following: A plot, Characters, A setting, Dialog. It was eight paragraphs of this writer telling me things, about names with no people attached and I don’t think I could have cared less. He introduced drugs, killed one of them off and apparently no one in his story noticed or cared that the guy had died. I guess I felt as empathetic as they did. Not at all.

Still, everything counted, I am writing at least 2000 words a day between my story, my blog and my reviews. It has felt great to get back into it and with the resolve to finish this story. The earlier I finish, the more time I have to edit. Also I have another million ideas to write about after this, so I guess I will continue to get up at five in the morning to write until I am a millionaire telling stories to the world. If I can get paid to write, there is no greater honor and that is the dream!

For everyone out there, I’d like to thank you for supporting me. Whether you are family, friend or total stranger. If you’re a writer yourself or know one, pass this blog along as I would love feedback on the existing stories I have out there and the past work I have done. I’m hoping to get my final three reviews on Circle of Vengeance so I can slap it up on the iBooks store (it’ll be free!) and perhaps even the kindle store! That’s the near future, hopefully if everything goes well and smoothly it will be up by the end of the month. Maybe it’ll be up in time for my birthday! That would definitely be the best birthday present ever! Until the next sporadic update, adios amigos!

Week 1: Progress, Meet Challenge

At five in the morning for the past week, my alarm has sounded and I have grumbled my way from my bed. The beginning of this week was the biggest challenge, changing from waking up at six-thirty to five. You may ask why, but then again you may not care. Either way the reason is I havent been able to actually get to sleep before eleven. Even if I went to bed at ten, I’d be wide awake until then. However I’d be lying if I said the labours weren’t worth the rewards!

Jefferson & The Magician's Curse
Cover by Fena over at http://pheeena.com/

The total word count for my story is roughly fourteen thousand words which is fourteen percent of my goal. The thing that keeps driving me now is the wonderful cover above, I was able to get when I took part in NaNoWriMo last year. I accomplished a fifth of my target because my routine got shot about halfway through. The only way to survive that is to set aside an uninterruptible time where you can focus solely on your writing.

Snowflake Method, Where?
Which one is the Snowflake Method?!

Although I keep hearing about some wondrous snowflake method that helps with planning out novels, it doesn’t seem there are any extensive articles on its use in practice. If anyone can find one, I’d love to see it. The best thing I’ve seen is Scrivener for organisation, but it almost has too many bells and whistles which distracts from the actual act of writing. Lately I’ve just been using and abusing Google Docs and when I create a new area or character or touch on history, I simply make a new document in a themed folder and place as much information in there as I can. I suppose in retrospect I’ve written considerably more this week then I can recall, especially across blog posts, tweets, emails and planning.

Also I think this week I will get my final three reviews on Circle of Vengeance and if they go well I will publish it as an eBook. What is the worst that happens? It fails and no one notices it? Fair enough. Such is life! I will post when that becomes available on the various eBook stores. I will make it free to get myself out there!

Anyway as for the end of my blog post today, I must get back to it!

It Begins Anew AKA I Hate Mornings.

After my last post, which one of my wonderful friends dubbed my semi annual soul searching, I began to revisit why I continually disappoint myself when it comes to my writing. Thankfully, this friend also gave me some fantastic outside input with regards to my habits and lifestyle and how that could have a definite effect on my writing. In retrospect I should have seen this a lot sooner, but better late than never I suppose!

You see, I find I work better at night. My creativity is flowing freely and the days events have culminated into a relaxing evening ripe for writing. This is somewhat of an issue though, as both my lovely girlfriend and I work days. This means my social life exists pretty much after dinner, which also means any time I try and allocate for writing will eventually be interrupted. Every time I have failed before, the routine breaks. Work gets in the way. Social events take precedence. I go to bed early. I have needed a consistant block of writing time for a long time.

The worst part of everything is, I’ve ignored this advice because I hate mornings. Hate, HATE mornings. I love to sleep in, the thought of getting up early simply nauseated me, especially coming off night shift less than six months ago. But every writer out there has said: Set aside some proper writing time, an hour a day, uninterrupted, early in the morning is best.

What do they know right?

Here I am now, after revisiting my grand total words for this blog last year. I have written over one hundred and six thousand words. That is thirty thousand more words than the first Harry Potter! That is almost three times The Chronicles of Narnia’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe! What do I have to show for it? Not a lot, many short stories I suppose. But to consider I only did that over less than 100 posts? Madness!

Effectively, I have made the decision to take a single story and try to bring it to completion. Considering I already have a sweet cover for Jefferson and the Magician’s Curse, I’m going with that one. Also, I have begun waking before the sun, at five in the morning. I have set aside this hour each day to write, plan and research for my story. This first week will be the hardest. I can jump straight up out of bed, I can get to my desk, but I’ll be damned if I say I am awake yet. The only good news about this time of day is no other rational person will interrupt my writing!

So, for my 100th post! For the future of my writing! And finally to prove I can finish a novel! I hereby promise to myself and to any out there who read this, I will complete this story. I will type at least a thousand words a day until it is complete!

I may also take up drinking coffee!

I may also develop narcolepsy!

I will give myself until August 21st to complete this story! One hundred and forty mornings, One thousand words a day, One hundred thousand word target, with forty days for revision. Wish me luck!