Hello Again!!!

Hey all. Sorry it’s such a long time since I made a post (yeah, like there are 2,354,453 people who are like “Goddammit, when’s he gonna post again). A lot has been going on in my life, and I lost my way for a bit as a writer. Feel like I’m back on track now, so it’s all good.

Last year I did NaNoWrimo completely differently from the way I’m doing it this year. Last year, I didn’t decide to do NaNoWrimo ‘till November 5th. I had a draft of part of my book already written (probably 5500 words or so, I forget exactly how much), so I started with that and rewrote it completely, changing a lot of it. Once I had gone through that, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. There’s not plotting, note taking, or anything else during NaNo; there just isn't time. I had a beginning, the start of a middle (though that wasn’t very good, most of it), and I knew what I wanted the ending to be. I had a list of scenes on index cards that I rearranged until it looked good to me (I did this on Nov. 5th), but the plot quickly drew away from that. Part of that was that I had never tried to write anything longer than an 11 page paper for a class (in high school) or a short story (in college), and that I really had no clue about the writing process. Not that I'm an expert now, but I have learned a few things.

After NaNo was over, I left the story completely alone for 6 or 7 weeks. When I started trying to edit it, I was hit with a terrible case of Writer’s Block. There was also this weird self-loathing that would come up when I tried to work on it, so I stopped. I played around with a short story that I had written back in high school. That actually went fairly well, though I stopped working on that after 2 or 3 revisions. It still needs a little more, but it’s a lot bette than it was. But every time I went back to my NaNo book (the title of which is “The Rope of Death”. Those of you who partied with me in 1995 may remember that), I hit a brick fucking wall. I got a job in March so I had much less time to write. I soon stopped trying to do much but piddle with it every once in awhile and got more heavily into video games than I intended to. I began to despair that I would every amount to anything as a writer, or as a person for that matter. I took a vacation with my girlfriend in June to the Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, VA (the place where Dirty Dancing was filmed), and started writing a lot there. Though I wasn't writing anything for The Rope of Death, I was writing. About a month and a half or two months ago, I picked it back up.

My favorite living author, Brandon Sanderson, came out with The Way of Kings, and I picked up The Rope of Death again. I was less discouraged now. I had some new ideas, and I was pretty excited about them. I went to a book signing with Brandon Sanderson and got some suggestions on how to come up with a new beginning if I was stuck, but my girlfriend gave me the idea that I eventually used. Now that it’s almost time for NaNo to start, I’ve put The Rope of Death away. Probably I will pick it up again in December, after NaNo is over. I will probably be working on that book for years before it’s ready to be published in any way, shape, or form. I’m at peace with that.

I also started to get really excited about NaNoWrimo this year. I had been piddling around with an idea for an epic fantasy for awhile, so I decided to go with that. I brainstormed and freewrote and came up with a barebones plot idea and some characters. I updated my copy of Liquid Story Binder and started using it. I now have some of the major characters and a detailed outline that stops part of the way into Act II (using the 3 act concept to write it). I’m a bit bogged down in act II, so we’ll see what I’m able to do in the next 5 days. As I said earlie, there’s no time to do more plotting or outlining during NaNo, so whatever I get done, I will start with that. I can always fix it later!

So that’s where I’m at now with everything. It’s not a bad place to be. I’m looking at NaNoWrimo completely differently this year. I do NOT expect to have a finished manuscript that will be ready for publication with a few minor tweaks here and there. What I hope to have is a finished first draft of a Novel that will provide a good starting point to be rewritten later. My expectations are pretty low this year. If I can complete it and have a decent story (even if the execution is kinda shitty) when I'm done, I will feel like I did well. I’m going to try and update regularly during NaNo, but we’ll see how that goes. Thanks for reading this. When I get some finances straight, I plan to get a website of my own to put all my writing stuff on. I hope all of you will go there. Ciao for now!!