This month is all about novels.
Okay, that isn’t entirely true. In my quest for 50 rejections, I’ll continue to review, revise (if necessary), and submit my short stories. I’ll also do another round of revisions on “Gone Missing” to try to get it into publishable shape.
But my main creative focus is going to be on two of my novel manuscripts.
The first doesn’t have a title yet so I’ve just been calling it The Ivy Novel since the main character’s name is Ivy. I started working on the first draft last month, taking a different approach. I outlined the first five chapters, wrote the first four, then revised what I wrote. I’m going to do this leap frog method of writing for this draft just to see how it works out for me after doing so many first drafts in the NaNoWriMo style.
Not that I’ll ever stop doing NaNo. I’m addicted to that self-competition. And I like revising a crappy first draft into something better. It’s a winner all-around. But, I also think I should explore as many methods as possible. It’s all in the pursuit of getting better.
I also intend to revisit The World (Saving) Series. I do not deny that I hit a wall when it came to revisions because while I knew significant changes needed to be made and I had a good idea what they were, I also felt like the manuscript was lacking something. Between work on The Ivy Novel (which has a slight connection to Series) and the magic of me getting ideas in the shower, I think I found my gimmick for the book. I want to test it out on the first few chapters of the revised manuscript to see how it works.
I’m looking forward to working on these two projects. I need to stop avoiding the work it takes to produce a good novel manuscript in favor of the more instant gratification of the short story.
It’s time for me to long-haul this with some focus.
Kiki Writes About... 