Howdy folks!
I have decided to do something different this year!
I feel like a fish out of water with this. I’ve been fine with being just a blogger; working on interviews for Disability Horizons has sort of changed me in the last year. I’ve also missed participating in the different writing challenges I was doing two years ago, but majority of them have stopped so I’ve had to fight between the ideas that would only last a couple of scenes and a few that would last a few months and slowly fade away!
I’ve started a new project. It’ll go on for at least a year. I’ve decided to give myself room to explore and write what I please, it’s nothing for my blog or Disability Horizons. It’s just something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and I’m just now figuring out how to make it happen.
I started researching at the end of October and mainly it was just my curiosity. I wrote up a small plot of what was floating in my head that at first took up eight pages in my notebook. They were just random ideas I had in the beginning of what I thought I wanted for my project, lots of things didn’t exactly pan out but I thought they could be interesting if I had went into a sci-fi direction.
Since my characters are very complex, I have sort of used my newly interviewer skills to find out more things about these characters. I don’t want to talk about them a lot on this post, but I’ve had to interview quite a few people in the last three months. Thankfully, everybody has been very helpful and welcomed the pretty personal questions I had for them. I’ve used their information to create what I think are some realistic characters!
For my birthday, we went to Barnes & Noble as a family celebration and I spent a good chunk of my money on books I thought would help guide me through this process. I purchased this book because I figured it would be a good investment and it honestly was, because it gives you a lot more information that you may not even think you would need to know, like your target audience.
Another thing is that it’ll give you tips on how to research. The most important thing I got out of this section was that your research is never going to be complete! I have over 20+ pages of research and I know I could include more but I can’t add everything into the story. It’s impossible to have that much included into it without overwhelming your reader!
I think one of my main issues was figuring out the plot, which is different from the one I mentioned earlier. As I was in the middle of writing out information that I thought I would need for the characters and story in general, I didn’t have an exact lineup of how everything was going to go, it was just like scraps of images of different parts scattered in my mind. So in November, I stopped working on my research and began writing my plot. In this book, it shows you how to write it in a three act structure. Here are my rough explanations of the three acts:
- ACT I – is generally your beginning for your main character. What life is like at that moment and then what suddenly changes for them.
- ACT II – is what your character is working for, but is basically failing at; by the end of this section they must figure out what they really want and work towards to reach it.
- ACT III – is where you are leading your character(s) to the end, a climax is added to give him/her one last disaster to figure out how to decipher. This is when your character finds out who they are.
In the mist of not only figuring out your plot, you have align the whole thing into this type of structure plus include three different disasters that are worse from the last that affect the main character and/or characters in your story! By the second day of writing this, I had a nervous breakdown and cried like a baby! 😦
I had made myself a little rule at the start of December that once the new year came along, I would start writing out my first draft. I was actually pretty content with that decision until I caved because just working on research alone can get a little boring. A normal person would probably figure out the very beginning of their story and then write it out – I still haven’t found a way to write it so I decided to work from ACT II to hopefully think of ways on how to create a great beginning for my main character Heath. I think I will continue on with the story from starting in this direction and if I finish it, I’ll go back and figure out a good introduction.
My nana gave me a medium size binder that belonged to one of the aunts in the late 1980’s and at first I stored my plot inside because it was skinny enough. I thought it would be a nice fit, but it’s not. She also gave me a lot of loose leaf paper to get me started with the first draft. I’ve had a lot of people freak out on me about the fact I’m not using my laptop for this. I like writing things out and it’s more dependable for me right now! I’ve  had to use 3 notebooks and 1 binder.. I feel like I’m back in school!
I gave myself a deal and it isn’t a New Year’s resolution or anything. I decided that I would write a little bit everyday, whether if it is research or my first draft in general. I would get something done in that time period. Unfortunately, I can only write 2-3 pages at a time because my lower back gives me a lot of problems. It’s always been like this, I had this issue whenever I doing art both at home and in school. I also decided that if I was still committed to it in February, then I would do the same thing and just continue like that until I finish it. God willing!Â
If I am still writing next month, I might put up another write-up review. I don’t want to force myself to write, I like everything to flow organically. That is what works for my blog, then I’m going to do it here with this too!
So what do you think of my first monthly write-up review?Â
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