Presents! (To myself)
The last couple days have been surprisingly productive. I’ve gotten the bones for my novel project number one, which from here on out will be titled Chwedl. I’m part way through scripting a comic. And I think I really am going to rewrite my other novel in the first person. (Working title of that novel is Dangerous, btw).
The comic I should be working on is Past Dark, but this other one leapt into my head and wants to get written. I must obey. My writing is like that. Things sort of get worked on in their own time. And if I don’t obey the impulse to work on something, I often get stuck in a limbo state where nothing seems to come together clearly. So I’ve learned to not force the process (although occasionally kicking it does seem to have some effect). This comic is tentatively titled Bad Day. And yes, it’s about a girl having a very very bad day. I think when finished it will only be about 75-80 pages. Perfect length for a graphic novel, right? Hopefully my artist will want to draw it.
Beginnings are hard. They make or break a story for me. The twins in the novel are fairly clear personality-wise. I can picture them easily. The main girl, Aine, I can’t picture as clearly. I know I want her to be resourceful, funny, and fearless (all the good things a heroine needs, right?). I can see what she looks like, that part is easy. She’s a foundling child of the fair folk, so her appearance is dictated by that. But I can’t really hear her voice yet. She still is just an instrument of the plot. Makes it hard to begin the novel. But I’m outlining, and hopefully once the actual process has started, she’ll be more talkative. So the first words have yet to be written. My goal is to have the handwritten draft done by May. Then the first revision and typed version done by August. At that point I’ll be making friends read it so I can get a polished version done by December. At which point, well, hopefully it will be ready for queries and suchlike.
And then I’ll rinse, repeat the process. Oh, and of course write up two comics, another novel revision/rewrite on Dangerous, and hopefully have gotten in to Grad School.
So much to do, might as well go to sleep. Or back to outlining book. Maybe my next post I’ll go through the whole starting process for me writing a novel. Not that I have the process totally nailed down, having only gone through it one whole time now. But I know I’m always interested in different people’s approaches to writing, so it is only fair I share mine.