This month’s update comes from the bowls of late night writing, having just remembered it is, in fact, 31st January (somehow). And that another month has come and gone in the blink of an eye (I swear it was NYE yesterday…).
This month has been a productive one. I’ve managed to post some more teacup and 100 word stories (although a bit later than I intended to, but they did get done). I’m almost at 100k+ words on my “Assassins Book 1”, with almost 28k words written on it in this month alone. It’s half the reason that this monthly blog is written in a bleary eyed stupor late at night. My sole focus for my writing has been this book, to get it to a point where it is a draft from beginning to end. A draft that will take a good overhaul to work through a lot of the kinks, the fact the main character changes hair colour, and someone else gets some magic powers for no other reason that sounds cool. But I’m trying to believe in a future where my writing can be sold, where I can write as my job. Even though reality states otherwise, even though fantasy writing is not the most profitable genre (just try and find a fantasy agent, many of them represent crime, thrillers & romance holiday novels because that’s what sells.) I’m going to believe it’s possible until reality proves me otherwise. There are a few agents who represent fantasy out there. And there is a market out there. Even if one person brought my book, read it, and wanted the next on in the trilogy, I’ve succeeded. Maybe that sale has to come via indie publishing or self publishing, but it still counts.
Before I get to that stage, however, I have to write a book. Which, surprisingly, given how much I’ve written over the years, is both more difficult than any other story I’ve written before (which would max out at the 40k mark for one story), and easier at the same time.
More difficult, because even with the magic of Scrinever, it’s still hard to keep track of the loose threads. And at the moment, there are a lot of loose threads. Backstory that hasn’t been made. Comments in bold to go back and cross refer to that earlier scene I can’t remember where it is. I’m now getting to a point where my scenes and sub-scenes in Scrinever are getting muddled, even with individual titles and colour coordinated plot POVs. It just has so much stuff in it that it feels a bit unwieldy, almost terrifying to go back and edit.
Easier, however, because the proof is in the numbers. Yes, most of the words will need to be re-written at some point. Yes, the plot needs working on. Yes, this scene might be a drag now but it has the core concepts that I need to capture. It has the ideas that I want down on the page to work with, and the ideas just keep coming. I manage to use my commutes to and from work to iron out plot holes. I have a note pad to try and jot down ideas. I’m excited about telling this ridiculous and fun story. For once, the words flow, sometimes good words sometimes bad words. But they are down on that page and for once the word count has hit 100k+ words.
February, oh February is going to be harder. Life is taking over my few hours of writing time, work is getting more demanding, and yet I’m going to try for another 30k the next month. Because I think my little “Assassins Book 1” story needs another 30k words to make it a full draft that gets form A to B to C.
In the meantime, I’m trying to keep my Instagram more updated, and write some more teacup and 100 word stories. We’ll see how February goes. For now, I’ll take my January wordcount and say that it’s a good month down. Another 11 to go to get to a working manuscript.
Let’s do this.
Image Credit – http://informedmag.com/
Alex.J.Cobalt 