it's been a minute since i came to write on here (more like three and a half weeks), but anyways:
project.wanderlust (my first novel) is 4.5 chapters out from completion, and a 100k= words in. it's a messy and chaotic coming of age book, and i don't even know what exactly the story is anymore in this second half. but, it's an existing piece of work.
will i shelf her in the coming months? probably yes.
will i likely restructure and rewrite it from scratch? probably also yes.
but this book is finally coming to the close it was meant to see after five grueling months of dedicating my soul to typing the words out onto 250+ (500+ if you landscape and column the format) pages. it's surreal and i honestly have no idea what to feel save for seeing the light at the end of this tunnel. maybe i will lend her to some beta reading eyes, and maybe i will let other people see it in its rawest form, but for now, she's 98% of the way there.
i've cried, laughed, screamed, smiled, rolled my eyes, and laughed out loud at myself for writing this thing, but here i am still keeping at it. i predict she will be done in the coming days, likely in the next three or seven.
the thing is, as much as i thought coming of age contemporary was calling to me, i'm not exactly sure if it is. i feel alot of my most genuine heartfelt writing comes when it flows and not when i am grinding it out and forcing myself to put BS down on the page that makes zero sense. that's the realization i made during this first draft, but who knows? maybe that will change when i look at it again in a few months after its done, and the thoughts will flow smoothly again.
on other notes, another project has also been brewing in my head:
project.noir - a YA Dystopian Espionage Duology (or Trilogy).
i feel that this one is going to show my acceleration as a writer because in comparison to project.wanderlust which has taken me nearly five years to plan and cultivate the first draft, i plotted this one in a single night. my fiance thinks its awesome, i think it's awesome, and the world i've been building is unlike anything i've ever seen in books. it has been alot of fun playing around with lore, dystopian-esque rules, regulations, and characters and i feel like i'm not actually dreading the dullness i was encountering in my previous one.
this time around, i want to focus on the characters journey vs the overall plot itself. i say this because one of my favorite authors, cassandra clare, stated that stories are a means of change and transformation. you watch a character's journey throughout whatever problems they encounter evolve, as they solve them. i hope to take this note with me as i continue on with this next project.
the only thing i wish i could do is share more details with you all, but i feel i have something very special on my hands which i believe publishers will too.
that's all for now, and i might come around again sometime when project.wanderlust is finished!
take care,
- j
I sympathize with this. But, at least for myself, I have learned that sometimes the only way to get to genuine heartfelt writing that flows is by going through a lot of grinding and forcing of BS. So much of writing is in the rewriting and the cutting.
I think it is true that if you are writing something that feels dull to you, it will feel dull to your readers too. It should make you tingle fairly often while you're writing it.
There is something very special about the moment when your story finally has enough critical mass that it becomes a thing of its own, when you've put enough of your ideas and plans and thinking into it that the story gets a gravity all its own and starts to pull the ideas out of you.
Looking forward to more updates.