Indie author of urban fantasy
So it’s taking a while. I’m up to 32,000 words in the novel now. Time to pick up the pace. Any bets as to how long it’ll take me to get a complete draft? Based on past posts, I’d say years. But now I’m looking at a couple of months to get a full draft before the editing process begins and I start on one of the other storylines I’ve scoped out.
Time to write!
Am now nearly 25,000 words into the first novel of the trilogy I’m working on. Once again work intervened, but am now back on track and writing.
I took some time in the last month to go through all of the story lines I’ve developed over the last ten or so years, and clear them up to see how my ideas I had for novels – credible ideas. Turns out, there are 13 in total. Though the novel I am working on now is more horror – a genre I’m not used to reading or writing – the rest are all crime/spy thriller genres.
I’ll try to keep track of progress here going forward, and intend to publish some of the short fiction and poetry I’ve written over the years. Don’t panic – though the short fiction and poetry have more of a literary focus, it seems my novel-length work is purely focused around horror, crime and spy thrillers.
Read my first contribution, a poem entitled Herring Cove, 1997.
In April we stood here together when you asked me to
perform this ritual. The dark waters of the Spring
Atlantic chilled, gulls screeched overhead, and in the
dunes, early morning – or was it late night – lovers
So, I’ve written about 5 chapters now – including, funnily enough, the last chapter (which is subject to change).
Having spent time getting the story arcs sorted for each of the three novels has been a tremendous help. Also, writing character descriptions for the main characters has been very helpful.
The actual writing is going well enough, though I’d like to be a bit further along by now. How in the world do you just keep your head down and not get distracted? I’m finding anything can be a distraction, from a phone call to a piece of lint. It’s irritating.
I guess I need to just keep pushing myself and take on some of the discipline I have in my (other) professional life. This is, after all, a job like any other. Just one that requires intense periods of focus.
Let’s see how far I get by the next post.
So I’ve now developed the high-level story arcs for the 3 novels – which gives me a great deal more context for the writing I’ve already done on the first novel.
I know the beginning and endings of all three novels as well. Friends have asked me about having that too defined up front. They are defined enough for me to understand the shapes of the novels, and also to be able to get the pacing and rhythm right. The majority of the detail will come in the writing.
This weekend I’m spending time catching up on what I’ve already written in order to get back into writing the first novel. In fact… hopefully be writing again in the next hour or so.
Fun times ahead!
I’m on holiday from work this week. So ideally I’d like to get some real traction. Instead I was out and about most of the day enjoying the English sun. As it’s supposed to rain for most of the rest of the week, I thought I’d enjoy it while it’s about.
I have done a bit of work on characters tonight. Tomorrow though should be a real test of how ‘stuck-in’ I can get on this project. Fingers crossed.
So I’m not entirely at the beginning of this fiction writing journey – though I may as well be. For some time now I’ve been toying with the idea of a 3 book series. I’ve gone so far as identifying the primary characters, and had even begun writing the first few chapters. At which point I realised I didn’t know enough of the backstory to know why my main character was doing what he was doing – and in fact if I was even at the right starting point.
I’m currently in the process of developing the backstory, adding definition to my characters, and looking at the three book story arc. Hopefully this will give me just enough of what I need to know to dive back into writing again.
I’m hoping, by the end of this week, to have the high-level story arcs written and synopses of each of the main characters. I’m also hoping to return to the first few chapters I’ve written and see if I can pick up where I left off about a year ago.