WIP 2: It's done!

Well, as of June 28th the first draft of Dyllan and Abigail is done!

To steal an idea from Sarah at Squidink, here is a word cloud representing a big chunk of my draft (it was too long to copy/paste the whole thing):

Apparently my characters look at stuff a lot?

Anyway, here are some statistics:

Genre: Young adult fantasy novel
Start date: November 1st, 2011
Time worked on: 7 months, 28 days
Word count: 120,556
Pages (printed): 899

I am so in love with this story right now. Yes, the draft is a bit all over the place, but it's also much cleaner and much more focused than the first draft of Water Magic was.  I'm putting it away for at least six weeks now, but I'm already excited for the drafting phase.

Now the question is: should I go back to drafting Water Magic, or write something new? I feel a dragon-centric novel begging to be channeled, and two or three children's stories that I put aside a while ago that want to be written.

Blog readers: what writing or reading milestones have you conquered lately, or what goals are you working toward? Let me know in the comments!

WIP Wednesday

As is becoming usual these days, I didn't actually get much done in my WIP over the past week, word count wise. What I did manage to add felt pretty solid though, and I'm still pretty happy with the story and where it's going, considering it's the first draft. And though I haven't been writing much quantity-wise, I have managed to write every day, even if it was just a paragraph or two. I'm still struggling a bit with feeling tired and drained after a full day at my library job, when I come home and don't want to look at a screen anymore for any length of time. I suppose I'll have to keep working to find a way around that lack of energy.

Total word count: 91,185

Abernwyth has two moons. Unlike in this photograph, one is significantly larger than the other, and appears to lead it across the night sky. They are commonly called "the big sister and the little sister." The superstitious sometimes foretell the future based on changes in the colors of the moons. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dark_side_of_the_moon.jpg

 Random quote:

Abby’s eyes flicked toward the window, where a white-feathered face watched her with giant yellow eyes. She almost laughed with surprise, but her head hurt too much. “A cloudwing!”

Collin nodded. “Faster than almost any other dragon.”

The cloudwing blinked first its left eye, and then its right.

“He does that so he never takes an eye off you,” Collin said. “He’s taken quite a shine to you, Abby.”

 Hope everyone else is having happy writing and reading this week!

WIP Wednesday

I tried a new strategy today: writing to trance music. It really seemed to work! My concentration was very good, and the story was flowing well all day. Of course some of that might have been due to the run that I went on this morning. Exercise always has a calming effect on me, and I can concentrate noticeably better after I've gone for a run or had a gym workout.

Mostly due to traveling and the general fatigue that lingered even after the traveling was over, I'm not as far along in the novel as I would have initially hoped (my goal in January was to finish this draft by the beginning of April *laugh*), but I'm still feeling pretty good about the story.

Total word count: 89,843

Random quote:

"Go on, we’re almost there. What are you doing? Go!”

But Abby was there next to them, grabbing one of Collin’s arms. His face was turning magenta as he struggled to breathe.

“Dad—” There was a blinding crack, and Abby felt the witch standing over them before she saw her. Lady Charmain, in a towering rage, seemed to grow out of the hillside like a deformed, spindly tree.

 Yup. She's a pretty scary witch and she's not happy.

Hope everyone else's writing is going well!

WIP Wednesday (er, on Thursday)

I was going to do another WIP Wednesday yesterday, but then I got distracted by things like spoken word poetry on YouTube and walking my in-laws' puppy in the snow and sipping hot chocolate by the fire.

So, my work-in-progress! It's good; still a lot of fun, and I love seeing how everything falls together as I get closer to the end (I'm at just over 70,000 words out of about 100,000). Characters I didn't know were important at first become key to the plot, witches and magic cats abound, not to mention there's a plot involving the hybridization of magical trees and the disastrous repercussions thereof.

I thought it would be fun this week to post a few photo representations of the novel (see below).

How is everyone else's WIP going this week?

Magic groves of Miros, Northernmost Abernwyth. Photo source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/friday-field-photo-138-foggy-spanish-orchard/

The Dragonspine Mountain range that bisects Abernwyth. Photosource: http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/lectures/clocksmobile.html

Prague castle by night is close to how I picture the golden city of Averell in Abernwyth. Photo source: http://www.prague-czech-republic.com/photos/s/5/hradcany-prague-castle-at-night-prague/

And lastly, the wildlands, wherein lies the Wildlands Witch Colony at Covendale. Photo source: http://www.citypictures.org/r-north-america-151-united-states-156-california-6-death-valley-california-80.htm

Novel revisions galore

While I've been letting Water Magic sit for a month, I've been working on a new novel, a young adult science fiction set in a Martian colony. It's been fun and exciting writing new characters and a completely different story, and I'm enjoying the change in genre. But nevertheless when the thirty day quarantine on Water Magic was up last week, I was filled with curiosity, joy, and terror to return to the world and characters of my first novel.

My impressions so far? When I started reading, there was relief. Thank goodness! This isn't as bad as I thought it might be. In fact, a lot of this is really good. I'm a genius! Then I moved on a little bit to a series of chapters I'd written in the very beginning. Ouch. This sucks. I'm a hack! Delete, delete, delete. And it's pretty much gone back and forth between those two voices ever since. The good thing, I think, is that I can recognize when the writing is terrible. Knowing what to delete, rewrite, revise--that's half the battle. The other half is actually replacing it with something good.

My plans are to finish reading the draft, then draw up a revised outline, making notes on all the changes I need to make. Then I'm going to open a new Scrivener document, transfer over whatever text I'm going to keep from the rough draft, and fill in the gaps from there.

I'm curious to know--what are your methods for revising? Do you outline and make notes, or do you keep everything in your head? Do you struggle with what to keep and what to throw? And at what point do you bring in beta readers?

WIP update!

It's November 14, which means that NaNoWriMo is just about halfway over. Is anyone at 25,000 words yet?

As for me, I've written less than usual for the past couple of weeks while I've been making the adjustment to working five days a week (something I've never done before, ever). But despite being pretty tired, I'm happy with the progress I've made on my WIP, and I'm confident that I will have my zero draft finished before the end of the month. I only have two chapters to finish, and I'm about halfway through each one.

Someone (I can't remember who it was) posted a quote on Twitter recently that said something to the effect of, "Your first draft is for finding out what your book is about." I think that's very true. When I started writing this novel, I only had a vague sense of who my characters were and how they were going to reach their goal (finding their missing brother/friend and rescuing him from an evil magician). Now that I am at the end, I feel I know my characters—their personalities, their quirks, their fears, and their journey—so much better. Which means a lot of revising and rewriting is in store for the first half of the book. But very soon, for the first time, I will have something resembling a novel to edit, rather than just another unfinished manuscript. And I'm excited about that.