Just keep writing, just keep writing...

It needs to be done, so just do it.

So... as I told you all last time I had rewritten the prologue and chapter 1 of my novel into 3rd person. Now I have written chapter 2 and am in the middle of chapter 3. I have to say; words are really coming onto the page. So far I have around 11k words done already. And I'm only three chapters in!

The only thing I fear is that I will make a "NaNoWriMo"... Oh, you want me to explain? Well, okay then!

A "NaNoWriMo" is an act of writing, where you put in too much unnecessary information in order to get as many words done as possible. Later, once you have started editing, all those wonderful words will shrink into maybe only a third of that original number. This is what happened to my story, when it was stil in 1st person. And I have to say that it was devastating. To see all those words disappear... it broke my heart a little. 

But of course I know that it is a necessary process. No first draft of anything will be perfect. What I am currently writing is technically the 3rd draft, but since I am writing it in a different POV I might as well treat it as just another 1st draft.

I thought I would start doing something new here on the blog... share with you, my favorite writing music at the moment. Just so you can see what gets me in the mood to write.

This week I have been listening none-stop to one artist: 

Jason Mraz

The funny thing is that the story I am writing is on the darker side, and his music is really happy... maybe the contrast makes it easier to write to? I don't know. His voice and songs are just so... perfect. Not for my novel, but it fits so well with my personality. That might be the reason...

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.

Dilemma as an apsiring author...

As many of you know I wrote a novel in November 2013 during the NaNoWriMo. After which I edited it and wrote the 2nd draft. Now I am currently reading it through before handing it out to beta-readers. Everything seems to be going well, right? ... not exactly...

It all happened a couple of days ago. I was writing a story for a writing competition I'm participating in. That story is written in 3rd person limited. Actually... most of what I write is in 3rd person limited. Except for my current novel. This one is in 1st person. And I thought it worked really well when I first wrote it. But then, as I was reading it through, I realised something: My world is so empty.

Because it is in 1st person, there is no reason for the characters to talk about what happened to the world and therefore it is hard as a reader to understand why things are as they are. Beside that I found that writing description is so much easier in 3rd person limited than 1st person, because in 1st person you can only describe what the character sees. That is not a problem in 3rd person limited; here I could describe the world as much as I liked without breaking the viewpoint. That option I currently do not have.

On top of the fact that I write better in 3rd person limited, I have also found that I enjoy reading in that perspective more as well. It's kinda stupid, but I feel like, when reading 1st person, that the author is telling me what to do. I know... I'm a freak. 

So this is kind of a dilemma. I have already finished the 2nd draft in 1st person, so wouldn't it be kind of a waste throwing that away just to write it all over in 3rd person... well no. I know it will be much better in 3rd person, or at least I hope so. I'll write the 1st chapter in 3rd person later tonight just to get a feel of where the story could go in that perspective. 

So yes. I will probably have to rewrite the entire novel once again, but it is okay. It just means that I am dedicated to my work and want it to be the best possible thing I can craft at the current moment in time.

Now I understand how it can take years for authors to write their books. 

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.

Update on stuff...and things...

Because a lot has been going on.

Since my last post I have finished reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin. And I have got to say... it was AH-mazing! At first it was a bit hard to get through because it has been a while since I last read a book in english. Therefore, I had to get used to the structure of the book. Once I had it down everything started going so fast. I was reading over 100 pages a day and before I new of it, I was done. I personally loved all the characters - who's perspective we got to read from - with the exception of Sansa. Omg... she was so annoying throughout the entire book... and Joffrey was such a brat! Everytime he opened his mouth I wanted to punch him. In the face. With a chair... no... with a chainsaw. A plugged-in chainsaw. And it would need to be turned on of course. Can't have him surviving. Anyway! I came to looooove Dany! She is probably my favorite character so far. Especially loved her ending for the 1st book! SO GOOD!

Now that I am done with the first book in "A song of ice and fire" I am watching season 1 of the HBO tv show before reading the 2nd book. This way I will be 100% prepared for "A Clash of Kings" when the time comes to it. So far I... like the tv-show. I am addicted to the opening theme. Again: SO GOOD. But... I think the show is too fast paced compared to the book. I know that is to captivate viewers, but it just goes TOO fast in my opinion. Also certain events happens at completely different times than they do in the book. I was looking forward to the Jon and Tyrion scene, because it was SO GOOD in the book... but in the tv show... I don't know... it fell kinda flat for me. I still like the show and will continue watching it, though.

On Monday I received a package. With two books. "Eleanor and Park" and "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell. I started reading and finished "Eleanor and Park" that same day. Park has become my favorite male-book-character. Like ever. He is adorable. Now I am currently 100 pages into "Fangirl" and I'm loving it, can totally relate to Cath. And I love Levi. He's good fun.

Okay so that was my "reading update". Now onto the writing!

I finally finished the 2nd draft of my novel! Yeeees! It's done! 103k went down to 68.707 words. But I am way more happy with this result than the previous. It took way longer than I had originally expected, but now that it is done, I feel so relieved. Now what I need to do is read it aloud to myself to see which sentences needs extra work, and then I have to find beta-readers. The only problem is that I do not trust people. I am so scared giving it to people online... what if they steal the book and publish it under their name?! I know I would win in court, but still... and I cannot trust my friends or family to give feedback, because they are supposed to say good things about it. Then who do I have left? My writing teacher, who is a published author herself. But is she enough? For now... she's all I got... and a few friends who I will force to give me their honest opinion. Or else...

Anyway... so that is what I have been up to. This Friday I am coloring my hair for the first time ever! That is gonna be great...

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna. 

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.

This is a weird one...

Because I don't really have anything in particular to talk about. This post is actually kind of improvised. My best friend was spending the weekend alone, but she got uncomfortable so in about an hour I'm going to her house. I know; I'm an awesome friend.

On the writing front things are going well. I have finally printed out the last chapters of my novel, and all left to do is editing, and then I can start the 2nd draft. I can't wait! January is going to be a great month for writing. And on top of starting my 2nd draft, I may also get a new computer, which is going to be awesome, because what I have now is... not good...

This is my final post before christmas, so I wanted it to be special! Damn... some times things doesn't go according to plan. I guess I could tell you my christmas wishlist...yeah I'll do that.

Books...books, books and more books! I can't remember every book I wished for, but A song of ice and fire, The Fault in Our Stars, Lord of the flies and a lot of Stephen King books were on there. I want to read all of them at some point, but I really hope I get the "A song of ice and fire"-boxset. Then I'm going to marathon them. 

Polaroid camera. Because I want to take a lot of pictures of my friends and hang them on my wall immidiently. I got this idea from the movie "new year's eve", when Anna Hatherway is taking a picture of her boyfriend, or whatever he is.... it just looked kind of cool, and I want to replicate that.

Other than that, I wish for the usual... giftcards for book stores, clothing stores....Oh! And I wish for cups. Let me show you a picture! They are so pretty!

I am soon moving out (with soon mening August/September 2015) so I need to stuck up on everything I need for my own apartment, starting with these gorgeous cups from Menu!

I guess that was everything... I'm sorry if I seem kind of all over the place, but I hope you have a merry, merry christmas! I will try to get done with editing before the 24th, so I have the rest of December to just relax before January 1st.

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.