I took an unexpected break in March, but I’m back at it. I went a bit too hard at the beginning of the year and needed a break. I also thought my book was trash because I was having trouble writing. So, I sent it to my writing group and they told me how wrong I was. They said it was the best thing I’d ever written and I still had the audacity to argue with them. So, I reread the 140 pages I’d already written and it turns out they were right. I was so burnt out and my mentality of “just write it and let it be bad” had me thinking it actually was, when in reality I had loosened up enough and done my best at not overthinking it, which turns out is a great way to write a novel.
PROGRESS BAR
I wrote upwards of 35k words this month and that is including the 7 days I didn’t write as a part of the month I took off. Once I got back into writing I was maintaining a rolling average of between 9-12k words a week, which means I’m outpacing my writing group’s submission limit of 10k a week. I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks after I finish drafting for them to finish up the book. The rolling average denotes both speed and consistency. I am hopeful that I can keep this pace up.
I hit a very important milestone in my novel that I’ve been rushing toward and I’m so glad I got there. I’ve been thinking about the mid-point turn of this novel since the beginning and now it isn’t just in my head. Within the main story, I’ve passed 50k and the midpoint turn.
I also ended up adding two more storylines, which is a little tricky to do since the pacing of the main story is quite good at this point, but I love the new characters and the depth they’ve brought to the novel. It’s really shifting into the adult epic science fantasy realm, which is a far cry from the middle grade I’d started with.
I am well on my way to completing this novel in the time I want, even though it will be a bit longer than I intended. This story is so huge (which I love) that it is impossible to hold it all in my head at once. So, I will make quite a few errors. In the first draft, I just hope that none of them are too massive because major rewrites would greatly mess up my timeline.
THE UGLY
My brain is still my biggest hurdle. I find myself second-guessing at every turn, especially when it comes to writing group. After I get critique, I start to spiral, even if that critique is ridiculously small. I fear that my story makes no sense, even though I’ve gone over the plot again and again. On one level I worry and on the other, I laugh at myself for the stupidity of doing so.
I also feel like I never do enough. When I get to the weekend and I only write 500 words one of the days it doesn’t feel like enough, even if I’m hitting all my goals. This is part of what makes me so productive but it also is a big reason for why I burn out. In my mind, I could always do more and that pushes me to try to enforce impossible standards upon myself.
READING, RESEARCH, AND RELAXATION
I research like I breathe, constantly. Often it’s just following my whims and fancies but because I had a month off of writing (truth be told I did write a little but I didn’t track it) I spent a lot of time doing other things like painting, learning 3D sculpting, reading, and research.
I finished reading Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and just picked up a book called Mycotopia, which I’ve only read one page of so far. As per usual I started many different books and finished only one. One consistent thing in my life is that I am consistently inconsistent, which in and of itself is a sort of consistency.
I finished watching The Big Bang Theory and started watching House. I also finally watched Emma, the 2020 version with Anna Taylor Joy, and Sense and Sensibility with Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslett, and Hugh Grant. I preferred Emma to Sense and Sensibility as the latter had a lack of tension and the overlapping storylines weren’t as well designed as Pride and Prejudice (which I love and also watched but I do that at least every month). In Pride and Prejudice, there is an inverse relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship and Bingley and Jane’s. In Sense and Sensibility, it is much too muddled with four different love interests and moments when things seem forlorn for both sisters. Also, the gap in time between the first relationship’s start and continuance is much too large. It was still good but not nearly as good as the others.
GOALS FOR NEXT MONTH
Next month will be a “plug and chug” month. If I keep up my current pace I will be perfectly on target though I do believe as I continue along in the story I may speed up. There is also the possibility that I will slow down. Let’s hope for the former.
The goal is to reach and/or surpass 100k words for the book next month and therefore be able to finish it in June. There are many pieces to pull together as I write this second half of the main story and the bulk of my side stories and keeping myself in the right mental space will most likely be the toughest bit of that.
I am starting to look for beta readers, the second group of people after my writing group that will give me feedback. If you are interested in beta reading, feel free to reach out to me either on my contact page or via Instagram messages and I can give you more information on that score.
BEYOND
As soon as I finish this draft, which my goal is to finish sometime in June which is dependent on its length, I will do a revision of it immediately based on my writing group’s feedback. Then I will send it to my beta readers for a couple of weeks. When I get it back from them I will do another revision and then a final read-aloud revision to catch any errors. After I finish that revision, I will send it off with a query letter and synopsis to the various agents I would like to represent me, and from there, it is quite literally out of my hands. That is when I will turn my eyes to my next project, which I am already excited about even though I don’t know which project I will choose. My thought is that I’ll go back and do another draft of Alexandria, however, I may be seduced by another story before that one can take me back. It remains to be seen but I’ll see you at the end of May for my next update.
