2nd NaNoWriMo within a year?!

... Naaah, not exactly.

So, for those of you unaware, I participated in JanNoWriMo. This was not an official event, but something that me and other people did on Facebook, just for fun. You set a goal for yourself and throughout the month we were going to try to achieve that. 

Though the month is still not over, I would like to share my results, since Saturday is story-time!

My goal for the month of January was to do the 2nd draft of my current novel.

So I had things going great for me at the start of the month. Had the first 10k down within the first week, which is slower than what I managed in November, but still good. And from there things moved on in a steady pace. However... When I hit about 25k I slowed down. I was scared that I had deleted too much in my revising process and that my novel would end up being less than 50k words long. So I did not feel motivated to write at all.

I felt hopeless and actually had a minor depression. Didn't wanna do anything at all. And having trouble in my Social Science class only made things worse. And I didn't have anyone to turn to. I don't know about you all, but I am not a very touchy-feely person, and I hate sharing how I feel with others. When I have a problem, I like that problem to stay with me. Because of this I felt alone.

Writing is not as easy as some people may think. It takes dedication. And a heck of a lot of it. When you have school, writing classes, a social life and free time writing interferring with each other... things get kind of crazy. 

So for a while I couldn't even rewrite a whole chapter in a day, which was really slow progress for me. However, then something amazing happened to me. I went online and found a website where I found out that some of my favorite authors' books weren't even that long in wordcount terms. If we take Cathy Hopkins as an example; Her series "Mates, dates and..." has 12 books. Some of those books aren't even over 30k words. 

This brought back my desire to write. I thought to myself "If she could get published with that wordcount, so can I. And I'm not even done yet!"

That ended up working out for me, and by now I have a little over 52k on my 2nd draft. What does this mean? Well it means that I basically did my 2nd NaNoWriMo within a year. My 2nd draft is still not done, and I think it will be around 60-80k words... maybe 75k. Something like that. 

Now this wasn't as dificult to achieve as the goal in November, since I already had everything written down this time around and all I really had to do was type it into the computer. But that process was way more time consuming than I expected when I set the goal for myself.

I can't wait for this draft to be done. Then all I need to do is read it through, send it off to beta-readers, get their feedback, imply their feedback and then send it off. I don't even care if I get rejected. All I care is to know that I have what it takes to put this much work in one project. And I am proud of myself for that.

Keep Calm and Write on.

- Nanna

JanNoWriMo and outlining a fantasy trilogy...

January is going to be a pretty busy month for me...

JanNoWriMo

So I don't remember if I've told you, but I am currently doing JanNoWriMo, which is pretty much the same as NaNoWriMo with the only difference being that this one takes place in January. I am not going to be starting something new, but instead doing the 2nd draft of my current novel. I am about 15k in, and I'm starting to worry that I might have cut too much out. But I need to remember, that it will be longer in book form than in a word document. 

It's funny. Before I started the 2nd draft I was scared that my chapters would be too long. Now I'm scared they are too short. However, I do know that it isn't the case. Some of my chapters are only 800 words, but an average book page is 250 words. That means the 800 words chapter is about 4 pages, which is not a bad length for a chapter. I personally hate when chapters go on for too long. This was one of my problems with Harry Potter. If I'm not mistaken some of the chapters wereover 30 pages. I could be wrong, but I think I remember hating reading those chapters. 

So what am I worrying about? Nothing really. Short chapters should not be a making or breaking point when it comes to publication. Even if the publisher says that the chapters are too short, it can easily be fixed in the final edits before the release date... which I'm going to get. Of course. That's one of my NYRs.

Outlining a Fantasy Trilogy

So a few posts ago I talked about my worldbuilding. Well, that worldbuilding has turned into outlines for the first 2 books in a Fantasy Trilogy. It's the first trilogy I'm going to write, and I am currently loving my story line! My favorite thing about it is probably that you don't need to read the 2nd book once the 1st book is read. Every book is going to have its own ending and own storyline. Of course you will understand it better if you read all three books, but I have followed Brandon Sanderson's advice and created a fantasy trilogy with three standalone books with sequel potentiel. 

I really can't wait to write it. Though I still haven't decided if I'll be writing all 3 books and then revise them together or if I'll write one book at a time and edit them individually. However, before I even start writing, I need the outline for the 3rd book, which I already have the plot for.

The first book is going to be about the 65-ish chapters

The second book is 54 chapters

And I think the third book is going to be anywhere between 50-60 chapters.

So it is a more hefty fantasy trilogy, but that's the way I want to do it. And I'm going to make it awesome.

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.