Learning to Write. Always.

Wednesday, November 12

I am over 30,000 words written on my Nanowrimo novel.

I'm incredibly proud of myself for how much I've done. My first novel took about three years (but an actual year of dedicated writing). This is going better. It's flowing better, and I'm getting to know a little more about my characters. They still surprise me though.

With my last novel (still unpublished if anybody is keeping track), the time period in the novel was about two weeks. I wrote about each day in Lucy's (my main character) life of the two weeks.

I started doing that with this one, and 30,000 words in, I don't want to do that anymore. I have been skipping a little more, and I can't imagine skipping an entire day (because at least one thing is going to happen each day), but I'm trying to change and improve my writing this time around, and I think that includes skipping over unimportant details. 

That's probably the one thing I don't love about my first novel. It sometimes feels like moments are repeated, and insignificant things get too much focus because I didn't try to sum it up with one sentence. "The day passed by quickly." I think I should do more of that (not exactly like that though), and take more time on the moments that are important. Jenna (this novel's main character), has been through a lot, and I'd rather focus on her breakthrough moments, or on the moments she can laugh, instead of making sure she gets every single meal mentioned in the book.

It's all a learning process, and I guess it is a little because I am used to writing short stories. They were always a snippet of somebody's life. This is a snippet of Jenna's life, but I could get more of the 'snippet' in if I don't focus on the boring details of her life. People can assume that stuff if they want.

I also have to work on descriptions of people. I'm really good at overusing: "She smiled." or "He smiled." But I'm still learning how to talk about what the smile looked like. That goes with not being repetitive. 

So while I loved my first novel, I think I can do this one in a different way. Learn to write my scenes more efficiently. 

Hopefully, anyway.

I've got less than 20,000 words until I reach 50,000, but I don't really think the novel will be done at 50,000. Jenna's story is longer than 50,000 words, I can guarantee that. 

That's it for today. I just thought I'd share what I need to work on as a writer. It's one thing to tell everybody that I write, and love writing, but it's important to admit that I have a lot to learn. Always.

Happy Wednesday. 

And as always:

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