It took me much longer than I intended for it to and it went in very different directions than I had previously imagined, not to mention significantly longer, but I finished and I’m happy and quite proud of myself. I wrote the first chapter on October 21st of last year and finished on October 8th of this year. Took me just under a year to write 183,719 words. Granted, I realize that’s far beyond what your typical book runs at (most official publishers – last time I checked – tend to look for books at 100k words or less) but brevity has never been my forte so I tend to embrace my lengthy pieces, even if it’s a futuristic slice of life that was supposed to be more comedic in nature and ended up being overcoming trauma, found family, and massive character development instead. haha
That being said, with the word count I managed, I averaged approximately 503 words a day. That’s much lower than I’d prefer but slow and steady wins the race, or so they say. Now that I have finished this WIP (Work In Progress), I’m all set to gear up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). If you’re not familiar with it, that’s an event that takes place in November and the goal to ‘win’ is to write 50,000 words in a month. It can be a story you want to work on and it most often is for those that participate, but it can also just be the goal of writing 50,000 words of anything in that month. In order to do that, you need to average 1,700 words a day, give or take. Obviously I need to be more on my game for such a challenge but it is something I like to participate in from year to year. I’ve ‘won’ a couple times and I haven’t a couple times as well. XD Such is the way life goes.
But if you’re interested in learning more about NaNoWriMo, feel free to check out the website: https://nanowrimo.org/
Though the name implies it’s only national, it has since become an international organization so you may well be able to find a writing group or whatnot in your general area. I’m a little SOL in my corner of Poland for in person gatherings (if that’s your thing) but the internet and communication apps are a beautiful bridge nowadays.
Since I’m finished with this, I’m officially off to figure out just what I want to work on for my NaNo project. As is always the case, I’ve got multiple plot bunnies running in the back of my head and a bevy of unfinished projects I can move front and center should I so choose. Though I’ve technically been writing fan fiction a lot of late, or at least finishing projects that started off as fan fiction, I hope to be moving towards completely original fiction one of these days, like I did in the beginning when I first started writing my first official novel some twenty something years. lol I want to do something with that baby but it needs a lot of work… I’m proud of it but it is rough. XD
So, if you were to go by titles alone, knowing my proclivity for writing fantasy primarily, is there any particular title that would pique your interest below? I’m curious. ^_^ But if not, I’ll definitely settle on something to focus my attention on. I’ve got twenty two days to pick my project in the meantime. heh
A Duelist’s Duty
The Misfit Misadventures
Phoenix in Stone
There are quite a few others but I can say that these in particular have been calling to me at the edges of my imagination more recently than the others. Runners-up also include:
The Banishing Festival
By Magic and Blood
And those aside, if you’re interested in taking a quick gander at the finished work I was talking about at the beginning, by all means, feel free to check out Onboard the Shinee Ship: Origins.
The Fantasy Corner 