Hello again!

I'm not entirely sure whether to say things are starting to get back to normal, but I think it might be getting close? I don't know, I keep thinking that and then something else goes wrong. 2020 is a heck of a year so far. :/ We're getting through it, though! Everyone is staying safe here, knock on wood, and I'm still working at my essential job. I'm working three days a week now and getting unemployment for the other two, so that's about normal, but I miss my friends. I just realized the other day that we're almost halfway through the year and I haven't been to a single author event where we used to go to an event at least once a month, sometimes three or four, and we had big plans to go to Independent Bookstore Day and visit twenty bookstores in one day that got cancelled. And my bank account is doing good now that I can't go to Barnes and Noble every Friday, but at what cost?

But I made some good writing progress because my hours are still cut down! I focused this month on editing and learning how to write new things. My mom got a Masterclass membership for Mother's Day that I am shamelessly taking advantage of, and I signed up for a couple more Hugo House classes while they're online and I have a bunch of free time. I'm also having a lot of fun trying new poetry forms and learning how to write short stories. I had forgotten how much fun learning is when you're not doing it for a grade lol.

Numbers:

Words Written: 26,250

Days Worked: 29/31

Progress:

The House on the Rocks- I finished my fifth draft! I feel like I might have said this before, but this feels like the very best I can do, which is exciting, because that means I've actually finished a final draft!! My next step is to submit to agents, which is brand new, so I wrote a query letter- which has so far been the most difficult part of the book, ARGH- and I sent it in to get feedback and teach me how to improve it. It's going to be a while before I get the response, so in the meantime I'm taking a break to see if I can think of any more changes. But I'm getting close!

Runeless- I took a short break from my draft last month instead of meeting the lofty goal I set- I got a little burned out from how much I worked on it in April, and I'm at the point where I'd like it to be done so I can start editing it already. I reworked my outline- I was a straight-up pantser for the longest time and now I'm plotting a five-book series based on prophecy and destiny and foreshadowing so I need to know every detail, why- and did some worldbuilding to prepare, and now I'm going to write the next five chapters in June. That way I can write the last five chapters and finish the book (!!!) for Camp Nanowrimo in July!

Resources:

For anyone who's close to publishing, you should look at Jane Friedman's website. She's worked in publishing for years- I found her through Writer's Digest, which is a great endorsement by itself- and her website is full of resources for writers. It's where I learned how to write my query letter and synopsis, and she also offers consultation and editing. I sent in my query letter and the first five pages to get feedback from an agent's perspective, and I'm going to be looking around at her website to see what else it has. If you're interested in publishing, you should definitely check it out!

Stay safe out there, and talk to you at the end of the month! :)

Hello, hello!

I hope everyone is staying safe out there when everything has gone crazy. I'm in Washington, so things have been crazy here for a while but I feel like it might actually be starting to level off. Everything has been shut for so long that they think we've flattened the curve, so we're really hoping that the stay at home order will be lifted soon. I'm personally doing okay because I'm an essential worker, even though my hours were cut, but I'm worried about the tiny businesses I like, especially the bookstores. Ready for all this to be over and stuff to kind of go back to normal. Whatever that means anymore. 

The good news is that since my hours were cut, this was the best Camp Nanowrimo I've ever done! I wrote over 70k this month instead of 50k. It's incredible to realize how productive I can be when I actually get sick of Netflix lol.

My draft last month was Runeless- the first book of a fantasy series set in a tundra world with magic where all the people have runes that tell them their destiny, until a group of kids descended from the gods and a boy with no runes are sent to find a way to save their lands from a coming darkness. It's my passion project and has been for over a year now, and I LOVE IT. It's getting away from me in length, though. I have written 35/45 chapters (that was a trip to write, HOLY SMOKES) and my word count is at 235k. I bought the biggest size of binder I could find and I'm not sure it's going to be big enough. But it's so much fun I don't even care. The only thing is that there is going to be so much editing, and I need to finish the first draft before I can edit it, so I need to finish it.

Numbers:

Words Written: 83,200

Days Worked: 30/30

Progress:

The House on the Rocks- I'm on my fifth draft, now, and am going to finish this edit and then give it to beta readers to give me final feedback and work on submitting! It's growing near as good as I can make it, and it's my book that's most suited for traditional publishing, so I'm almost finished with it. Hopefully soon I'll have some exciting news on it!

Runeless- I finished Act II last month, and finished up through Chapter Five of Act III. I have fifteen chapters planned for each act, so I'm ten chapters from finishing the first draft at last. My goal for May is to write the next five chapters, so that I can finish it this summer. I'm guessing it'll be around 70k more words, but as long as I work every day that's doable. And then EDITING.

Resources:

For people in the Seattle area like me, I definitely recommend that you check out Hugo House. It's a writing group in downtown Seattle that offers tons of classes, support groups, coaching, readings, and more. Right now, since everything is closed due to Covid, they've moved all of their classes online and are offering them through Zoom, which means they're accessible even to people who can't get to Seattle right now. I definitely recommend you check it out, they're not that expensive and the topics are super interesting.

Stay safe, and talk to you soon, hopefully with a finished draft or two!! :)

Hello everyone!

I've had a nice busy summer and now I'm back to updating regularly, I promise! I went on a cruise to Alaska, I've been learning lots of new stuff at my job, and I have lots of writing things to share.  ha

First of all, I successfully completed another Camp Nanowrimo in July! My friends kept me nice and competitive so that I had no choice. I've added another 50k words to my draft of Runeless, which has reached the whopping size of 110k words. 220 pages. I'm not even at the halfway point. Someone stop me. It's turning out so good though and I'm super excited to finish it. Even if it is reaching Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings length and might kill me.

I also have a lot of great Youtube channels that I want to put out there for people who want to listen to writing advice. They're basically podcasts, analyzing story and film, and here are some of my favorites:

Hello Future Me- A really interesting Youtube channel that focuses mainly on story and worldbuilding and how they interact. He uses examples from film, like Avatar: The Last Airbender (lots of Avatar, which makes sense, it's a perfect show-) and Game of Thrones, and from books like Lord of the Rings. Most of them are about ten or twenty minutes, which make them good quick watches. I especially like the ones on religion and dragons, which should surprise no one.

Lessons from the Screenplay- This one, like you can guess from the name, focuses on film, but the emphasis is on the work behind the scenes. If you are a screenwriter, or if you want to write novels that feel like movies, it's so helpful to see the analysis and really see the genius behind it. I love looking at how the movies treat plot, character, symbolism, and scenes- all useful for a writer and have been so helpful. Most of these, again, are less than twenty minutes long, but he packs so much analysis into it that they go by in no time at all. My favorites are the ones about book adaptations, like Gone Girl.

Pop Culture Detective- This channel focuses mainly on tropes, which can be interesting to dissect mostly in what you're reading and watching. These are a little longer, with tons and tons of examples for each trope, but he really digs into the movies and shows and makes it very interesting to watch. A lot of them are about masculinity and toxic masculinity in particular, including ones that people don't really think about, and it's fascinating to learn about them and think about the tropes in my own stories.

I hope you check these out and let me know what you think, and I'll update soon and let you know what's in the works for my writing!

It's officially author event season and I LOVE IT. If you've ever wanted to try going to hear an author speak and get your books signed, Allison and I have discovered that this is when it starts to pick up again after a lull for winter. We went last weekend to see Jay Kristoff, co-author with Amy Kaufman (who was unfortunately too pregnant to travel from Australia, next time she comes to America again we're definitely going because she's so nice and funny), for their new book Aurora Rising. I haven't read it and I already know I'm going to love it, that's how good they are together. Illuminae is one of my all-time favorite series, it's unique and impossible to put down and so much fun to read, and I just trust they're going to do great work. If you want to read great sci-fi definitely check it out!

We had another event on Tuesday, too, for Claire Legrand, author of Sawkill Girls, and Marissa Meyer, author of The Lunar Chronicles! If you haven't read Sawkill Girls and you want something creepy and epic and impossible to put down, you should definitely go find it. And Marissa Meyer is probably one of my top authors ever, and I don't need to tell you to go find her books because odds are pretty good you've already read them. But if you haven't, see the sentence I wrote about Illuminae. Plus romance.

I also have an exciting trip I'm going to take in September: I'm going to the PNWA Writer's Conference! I've been wanting to go for years and this time I decided to just go for it, so that's super exciting and scary at the same time. That also means, with the possible exception of July for Camp Nanowrimo, I'm going to be focusing on editing The House on the Rocks for sure. I'm still learning how to edit, so if you have any useful books or articles, please let me know! I'm always looking for new tools and resources.

That's all for now! Talk to you soon!

*jazz hands*

I did it! It wasn't a sure thing a couple of times, but I buckled down and did it! Final word count: 50,161, so pretty close, but I'm even happier than I have been with some previous years where I wrote more. I made myself stick to a plot and follow it instead of my usual MO of skipping around wherever my muse takes me, so it took a lot more work than usual. But I have a solid part of a story instead of something I need to start over!

Also, my Saturday of book-related adventures was fantastic. Allison and I went to two bookstores that were participating in Seattle Independent Bookstore Day and tried to get to a third but were foiled by parking. (Turns out there was no parking because that was the bookstore with jello shots. Which explains a lot.) Turns out that it's not just a race to get all the stamps, it's a party everywhere! There was cake and balloons and book signings and authors reading their work and coupons and champagne and crowds of people. If you're in the Seattle area definitely put it on your calendar and get a group together, it's the last Saturday in April and we had a blast. Next year we're strategizing and spending all day doing it, which will be awesome.

And then we went directly from bookstores to a play based on a book, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: The Musical! We didn't know if it would be good like the books or bad like the movies (moment of silence for the movies and those of us who suffered through them...), but it turned out that it was fantastic. I definitely recommend it, if it comes to your area. The cast was very talented, it was incredibly clever, the songs were surprisingly well-written, and it managed to actually capture the quirky atmosphere of the book. I definitely recommend it. If it comes here again, I'll probably see it a second time.

Now to figure out what project I want to work on now that Nanowrimo is done. I'll let you know next week what I decide on! See you then!

Hello again!

I can't believe it's the end of another month. Where the hell do these days go. What am I doing with them. It's why I need to set concrete goals for myself and refuse to let myself not meet them. This blog is helping immensely, so I'm definitely going to keep going!

There are only four more days to write for Camp Nanowrimo, basically two if I don't count days I work and don't have much time when I get home, and it's a little shaky on whether or not I'll be able to finish, not going to lie. I have about 33.5K words, which means I have basically tomorrow- I'm done writing for the day today, more on that shortly- to write 17K words. Relevant words, even, because that's part of why I'm going slower than I have in the past, I decided I was going to stick to a plotline and not write for different projects. I've written more than that before in one day- my record is 22K in one day!- but  we'll see if I have the focus and motivation and inspiration. I'm optimistic and very stubborn, so I hope to update you at the end of the week that I got there!

I'm done for the day today because I'm about to leave for an important event- Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: The Musical! My best friend Allison got tickets for us, and I'm so excited to see it. I don't know whether to expect it to be good like the books or bad like the movie, but regardless it's going to be amazing. And since we're going to be in Seattle, we're also swinging by a bunch of bookstores to celebrate Seattle Independent Bookstore Day! I'm going to get in so much trouble. It's going to be great. :)

I'll update on Wednesday, this week, to let you know how the show and shopping went and whether I was able to complete my story! Wish me luck!

We have reached the halfway point of the month! Kudos to everyone who has done Nanowrimo with a full-time job in the past and I apologize for not understanding how very different it is from doing Nanowrimo with a part-time job. I had no idea. I am exhausted like you could not believe.

However, I am doing really well for being really busy! I hit 20k yesterday after a long weekend of staring aimlessly at my computer screen, so I'm within striking distance of being on target. Even better, though, I feel like I'm really getting into the groove of my story. I have my characters sorted out, I have my voice, I have my world-building coming together, and I have some really good plans for the plot. So I'm really happy so far with my progress.

Also, I just wanted to share that some good writing music is the "Gloria Regalia" album by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie. Excellent medieval fantasy soundtrack. I've been listening to it nonstop since it came out, highly recommend it!

I'll check in next week after Easter and my weekend in Seattle for Sakuracon! Until then!

Hello hello!

I can't believe the month is a third of the way over, it's gone by in a blur. I've been busy with Camp Nanowrimo, but not doing the story I thought I was going to do: after a full day of staring at a blank screen and not writing a single word, I realized I didn't want to work on Rush for Nanowrimo. It needs editing, not really new content, so I wouldn't have gotten very far if I had stuck with that one. Instead, I'm working on a rewrite of an idea I started and mostly scrapped for November Nanowrimo last year: a high fantasy called Runeless.

It's an interesting exercise because it's teaching me how to worldbuild, which I don't have a lot of practice with. It's a lot like character-building, I'm finding- you pick traits, and dig for why that trait exists, and how the different parts of the personality interact, and what impact that has on the story. My world is temperamental and very old, and it's a lot of fun- and a lot of work- to find out what exactly that means.

Currently, it's slow but steady wins the race. I'm hoping so, anyways. I'm at 10k words when I should be at around 16k, but I'm really happy with the words I do have so I'm optimistic the plot will come faster the further I get in.

I'll update at the halfway point on the 15th whether I'm at 25k words like I should be (fingers crossed!) and in the meantime, if you're doing Nanowrimo too, swing by our cabin! My username is Kayuka-Skye, hit me up! Word wars do me good. ;)

Until the 15th! Back to writing!

Hello all! I've had a productive week this time around!

First of all, I submitted to the PNWA contest like I said I would! (Half an hour before the deadline at almost eleven-thirty at night on the last day, but still. Before the deadline.) I had been working on the first four chapters of The House on the Rocks, but decided on only the first three because they were strongest. Now I suppose I just wait.

I also got to meet Ally Condie, Margaret Stohl, and Brendan Riechs for a book event at my favorite place in the world, Third Place Books! It was for the release of Ally Condie's new book The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe, which is a revenge story that sounds right up my alley. Margaret Stohl is the writer of the Red Widow and Red Vengeance novels, which I really love, but I didn't know she was going to be there until the last second so I didn't get those signed, which was a bummer. I'll just have to go to another event with her soon. Oh darn. ;) And Brendan was super nice and let me in on some great pacing, action, and plot twist tips that I can't wait to use! The most helpful one was this: If you're stuck on what should happen next and it doesn't feel exciting enough, ask yourself what the worst thing is that could happen right now in your story. Then do it.

Next time I update, it will be on my next big project: Camp NaNoWriMo! One of my three favorite months on the year! I'm doing a complete rework of Rush book one, tentatively called The Pawns now, and piecing in the parts I've originally written that I still like to make a whole new draft. It'll be my first time doing NaNoWriMo with a full-time job, so it promises to be interesting.

Until next time!

Let's get this experiment started!

I'm just going to say right off the bat that this is going to be a work in progress blog- a place to put my thoughts as I have them, the steps toward getting published as I take them, and the pieces I'm proud of and want to share. I'm going to try to post once a week, because that (hopefully) means I'm making some form of measurable progress once a week. I can live with that pace.

A little about me- I'm twenty-five, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I've been writing seriously for over ten years and for fun even longer than that. I mostly write science fiction and fantasy (the real world is boring, why write real stuff when you can put aliens and dragons in it?), but I dabble in a little of everything. My kryptonite is always starting new projects because I get inspiration at the drop of a hat, so one of my main goals this year is to practice focusing on one piece. I also have pretty much only written fiction in the past, so this year I'm practicing branching out to nonfiction and personal. My favorite place to write is with my cat Fuzzy, who has nearly deleted several documents and woke me at four this morning to sit on the pillow next to my face. I love him.

Currently, I'm working on The House on the Rocks- which you'll definitely learn all about soon, so stay tuned- to submit it to the PNWA contest for unpublished works, and also getting this website put together. (If you're here in the early stages, I commend you. It's still mostly lorem ipsum at this point.) I've had a blog before but nothing that I really liked, so wish me luck figuring this out.

I'll see you next week to let you know the status of submitting to the PNWA contest and what I'm working on next!

-Alexa