Another Draft Bites the Dust

Well, I've finished another draft. Huzzah! This time I've written an adult Urban Fantasy. While YA was my thing for a long while, I think it's time to accept the fact I can't get into a teenager's mind like I used to. Besides, I like writing about cocktails and fun things happening during work and all that stuff my life is made up of now.

Some stats for this draft:

Date started: 21st February 2013

Projected end date: 22nd April 2013

Actual end date: 26th March 2013 (Almost a month in advance!) (Um, I had more days off work than expected.)

Number of words: 98,343 (!)

Things that were neglected during the writing of this draft: Household chores, dog, housemate, work, boyfriend

Things that will no longer be neglected: See above

Things I can do now: Read, rewatch Sherlock, read, talk to my boyfriend, sleep, read

Next step: A quick read-through for obvious errors, then off to beta readers!

Okay, in case you haven't figure it out, I'm off to read for a bit, then get some actual sleep. Zzzz...

What I'm Up To

Happy 2013! I'm personally looking forward to this year. No reason. Just am.

I haven't been online much recently because I'm getting a new manuscript together in a rather unusual way.

Many of you might be having this problem - you're trying to write something and all you can think is agentagentagent or readerreaderreader or publishedpublishedpublished and you can't seem to get those chants out of your head. That's what happened to me. My work wasn't nearly as "me" as my initial writing, and it lost its fun, no matter what I tried. So I took the agent-reader-published craziness out of the equation and began writing in a notebook. I know. Old school, right?

But wait! There's more!

Years ago I bought a gorgeous bronze notebook with symbols and carvings on the cover. It looks like something out of a magic realm. I was waiting to use it for something special. I figured now was as good a time as any.

So what I'm doing - wait for it - is scribbling down the first draft of a scene in some cheap notebooks, then writing it out again in my bronze book. The rewrite includes perfecting my sentence structure and using stronger vocabulary. Focusing on the craft as well as getting the words down. Yes, it's madness. Yes, it takes twice as long. And this novel isn't going to be short, either. But querying is in the distant future using this method, so that's mostly gone from my mind. Now I only worry about the story.

The other reason I'm doing this is because I'm prone to rushing to finish manuscripts. And with wonderful contests and agent crits constantly up for grabs, it becomes sorely tempting to submit too early. (Hands up, come on, who else is guilty of this?)

By writing in notebooks, there's no possible chance for me to put my work into contests. I can concentrate on my story first and foremost, which, at this point in my writing life, is what I need to do.

Will this method get me back on track? I'll keep you posted.

So. Anyone else struggling with writing things more so than usual?

Superhuman? I think so.

Ahaha, are you ready for this?

School holidays have just finished.

Two weeks.

80 thousand words.

My latest WiP is DONE.

I can't even begin to describe how good it feels. 80k. Eighty. Thousand. Words. I've never written a finished manuscript this long, let alone a first draft. (The last first draft I wrote was 36k. Seriously.) While I don't know if I can technically call this a first draft, it was written from scratch, with only the setting and maybe three characters the same. The plot had changed from fighting a Beast to... nothing even remotely related. In fact, the fantasy elements were taken out altogether.

But how did I go from writing teeny tiny first drafts to this mammoth of a manuscript?

Plotting.

It's possible that those who know me have just fainted on the spot. I know, right? Me? Plot? NEVER!

That's what I used to think, and I'm not sure how well I'll do if I tried it again, but goodness, it worked this time, guys. I was lucky enough to have recently attended an advanced writing class hosted by Juliet Marillier, and she mentioned her plotting methods and how she didn't understand the whole "pantser" thing because she couldn't imagine doing a million drafts. And I thought, wait, you don't have to do a million drafts? So I had a go at plotting, writing the whole story out scene by scene then adding scenes when necessary, and viola! I now have a real, much-more-advanced-than-usual first draft that has a decent word count.

I'm so excited. I'm off to do my victory dance. How's everyone else's writing going?

First Draft Status: Complete

Huzzah! It's very short and barely brushes the surface of what I have planned for the final draft of this story, but OH I'm excited for this one. It's controversial, it spans continents, and it pushes the limits of what I as an author can do.

More importantly, I'm not afraid to query big-shot agents with this one. I know the querying stage is just a speck in the future, but I've always been timid when querying big-shot agents with my other projects. Sometimes I just queried the assistant instead, or someone else at the agency.

I already know I won't be timid with this manuscript. Guess that says something, doesn't it?