This book

My writing habits for the past week have been all kinds of ridiculous.

I don't remember writing this much, or writing this productively, since I started to write. In the past six days, I have written over 14,000 words in my new manuscript. That's an average of about 2,300 words a day. That's on pace to finish NaNoWriMo in 21 days.

It doesn't sound like much, but for me, that's a lot.

I'm a student. I have two majors and a minor. I work two jobs. For the past two summers, I've been taking classes and working. I'm in a long term relationship. That all to say, I do not have a lot of time or energy to devote to writing for my future.

In the past six months before I started this project, I had probably collectively written about... oh, I don't know. 500 words. (Not counting school stuff because, well, come on. Being a journalism major puts a lot of black and white wordage under your belt.)

And yet, this past month and a half, things have been different. I've been emailing back and forth (and pretty much every day) with my CP. I've amassed over 5000 words in notes for this story. And now I'm on pace and I've set writing goals to have the first draft of this story finished by the middle of July (taking into account the reduced time I'll have to write once school starts up again).

And, because of all of the work that my CP and I have put in to plotting both of our stories before we got too deep into writing it, I know I can do it.

Deep down, I always knew I'd be an outliner. My computer files are organized with countless folders, I have a system set up in my email to filter emails for different classes and from different professors. Spreadsheets and lists are among my best friends. I am a complete sucker for organization.

But in the past, for some reason, outlining was never a priority for me when I was writing. I'd go in with a premise--just a spark of an idea--and figured that I could figure it out as I was trying to pound out my words and get the story down. If I spent too much time planning it and plotting it, I reasoned, I would lose steam. I wanted to get that story out NOW.

I realize now that the pantsing method is so not my method.

I follow Rachel Aaron's method in 2K to 10K and plot out what I'm going to write beforehand. I just take a few minutes every day and figure out what comes next in the book; I'm always a few steps ahead of what's actually happening. I use my big outline to get the context of the story, and use these smaller plotting sessions to fill in the blanks: who's talking to who? What are they talking about? Where are they?

It's helped so much.

This most is mostly me reveling in my success from the last week. There are only a few more days left of spring break, but I'm confident this upward trend will continue. I'm looking forward to it.

This book is something else.

Finals

It's been a while since I've posted, but it's also finals week here in the quarter system of my school. Joy!

(That was sarcastic.)

I've been doing a ton of plotting lately, and I'll get started with actually writing my story on Thursday. I'm really excited! This project is one that I've plotted more than any of my other work, so I'm really looking forward to all these things I have planned.

It is going to be an exciting ride, guys.

See you Thursday!

Music

I'm just going to put this out there: I've never been HUGE on music. I love music, but I've never been the type of person to actively search out new music or be blown away by it or anything like that. (And that's including the time I was in orchestra in high school. STOP GLARING AT ME.)

Anyway. 

That being said, I just need to get this out (even though I already said it on Twitter): The Joe Hisaishi Pandora Radio station I'm currently listening to is the best thing that has happened to me this week. It is amazing and wonderful, and you KNOW when a station brings up music from The Legend of Zelda games as played by the London Philharmonic, it's GOOD.

*is swept away by great, great music*

OH MY GOSH COLORS OF THE WIND JUST STARTED PLAYING.

edit: AND LORD OF THE RINGS MUSIC WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE

Training for the marathon

I am currently in the process of holding myself back from writing. It is really hard. I was in class today listening to my professor lecture about humanitarian intervention (human rights class, woo!), but all I wanted to do was write. I popped onto Twitter during class--I'm a really attentive student, can you tell? Well. I mean. I actually am. I multitask. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT--and saw that Susan Dennard was running those wonderful #BAMFWordBattles.

Oh, man, did I want to join.

But I'm still outlining. I've been so tempted to just start writing this story; I know my characters, I know the underlying plot, I know what happens in the first third... but I can't. I can't start writing because I know I'll burn through what I know and the rest that I don't know well will not be what I want them to be.

I want to write what I want to write. I want to feel it in my bones.

At this point, like I said earlier, I have the underlying plot: the river, if you will. I have all the characters of the story. The one thing I need is the raft to keep them all afloat, and my MC directing the raft where it needs to go.

So, first order of business: Figure out what the heck happens in the latter part of my story from the MC's point of view. Figure out what situations the MC puts herself in, why she does it, how she gets out, and how it lines up with the underlying plot. That is, figure out the raft according to what my MC wants.

Second: Write like the wind, bulls eye.

Marchy times

(We're going to try this again, aren't we?)

I should be reading for class. (Sidenote: I should always be reading for class.)

I'll just throw this out there: I'm kind of scared of starting my next story. The thing is, I'm outlining like crazy - I'm trying to figure out all the plot lines and characters and their motivations before I start to write anything substantial. Why? Because every time I've started a project before, I hit a wall around the middle because I don't have a good enough idea of where things are going and, more importantly, how they're going to get there.

That's why I'm outlining. I'm not using any particular method to do it, but I'm writing out relationship dynamics, character traits, reveals that will happen throughout the story, plot points... pretty much everything. I want to be able to hammer this baby out when it comes down to it.

So why am I scared?

Because I don't think I know what I'm doing.

I mean, I'm sure that's true of almost every writer out there. The difference is they actually... do stuff.

I'm doing stuff. I even have a critique partner who is awesome and great and wonderful and great and great.

So maybe I'll be less scared when I figure out everything that I need to figure out. (Like, you know, what my main character does in the second half of the novel.) I have subplots. I have big picture. I need detail.

It's scary to not know things, but I'll work to figure it out. Because that's the only thing to do, really. It's not going to run over and hit you in the face.

Besides, that would hurt.

I should be reading for class.