I finally reached my goal for draft one of The Tower Project this month, with a little over 70,000 words written. It was an accomplishment that felt both bitter sweet, and immensely satisfying. With draft one in the bag, where does that leave me?
In short, starting from scratch.
November has come to a close, and Nanowrimo has drawn to an end. My goal this year was around 12,000 words — a mere fraction of the 50,000 some of you brave writers committed to. If you succeeded, congratulations! If you fell a little short, don’t be disappointed. I’ll leave a tweet below from the official Nanowrimo account that perfectly captures my feelings:
For me, November had a bumpy start. I didn’t start writing until the month was already half over (oops) but when I got going, I wrote every night for 45 min-2 hours. I used writing sprints, roughly writing 800-1200 words per night. It ended up requiring quite a bit of discipline, there were multiple evenings when I just didn’t feel like showing up. Taking that time to work on my goals gave me a small sense of accomplishment which kept me coming back.
So, did I make it? Just about. I find myself about 200 words shy of my 70,000 goal for this draft of The Tower Project. This is the farthest I’ve come in the 10 years I’ve been writing.
But I’m having a hard time crossing the finish line.
You’ve already met Thomas, the main character from my current WIP (The Tower Project). I thought I would spend a little time introducing some of my other characters over the next couple weeks.
Today, allow me to introduce Margot Powell. Margot’s look was inspired by a picture of St. Vincent (Annie Clark), who I’ve since discovered is a super cool human. Just don’t ask me about her music, I have no idea ;p.
Margot is a character foil for Thomas, she’s dependable, strong as a shot of vodka, inquisitive, and has a strong sense of justice. She is a critical thinker who always does the right thing. To Thomas, she’s everything. He’s completely blind to her flaws, a fact that’s not lost on her. She’ll do anything it takes to protect him.
When I get stuck sometimes I need to get away from the word processor and use other parts of my brain. I’ve found that keeping focused on my WIP, but trying something creative other than writing, can be a great way to get myself unstuck! Lately, I’ve been venturing over to Pinterest where I spend time wading through the many many images and curating the ones that most clearly encapsulate my characters and plot. This has helped me flesh out some of my minor characters, as well as keep up my momentum and boost my creativity!
Writing exercise (kinda): creating character aesthetics.
Thomas Tower is the main character in my WIP (now that placeholder name ‘The Tower Project’ makes sense, huh?). He’s blind, has a rebellious streak, and a mop of curly dark hair. He’s a big coffee drinker, his sister is his prime motivator, and oh ya… he might be haunted by a ghost.
After a brief separation from my WIP, The Tower Project, I recently re-committed myself to finishing this draft. As I do, I’m collecting inspiration and actively plotting draft two. One of the things that’s helping me get ready for this next phase in the writing process is … Pinterest boards. Specifically character aesthetics/moodboards.
Pinterest can be a powerful tool for writers, from collecting character inspiration through portrait photography, to world building and writing craft tips. I’ve started to deepen my understanding of my characters through collecting images that remind me of them and thus, the challenge: What’s in your Characters Pockets? was born.
Above: the things that I have said, over the last 50,000 words, Thomas Tower is carrying in his pockets. I may have even gone so far as photoshopping a fake ID and custom business cards. The depths of my procrastination truly knows no bounds.
Here’s the list:
Your turn, it’s time to turn out your protag’s pockets. Tell me what they’re carrying in the comments!
For as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve been hearing about the importance of having ‘a writing practice’. What the heck does that mean? In short, creating a set of habits that help you put pen to page.
A writing practice usually consists of: a time, a place, and a ritual. An example would be: first thing in the morning, at your writing desk, with a special playlist blaring in the background.
Sounds easy right?
When it comes to forming habits, it’s not as easy as it sounds! Staying motivated requires determination and support!
Exciting news to share: in March I started working on a new writing project!
Inspired by the writing roadmap lined out by The Novel Factory, I began the process of writing a novel in one year. The flexibility of the timeline mixed with carefully plotted deadlines really appealed to me.
I also attended a panel by Lady Geeks Unite around the same time. The panelists — ladies in tech and gaming including some from from Beamdog, Canada Learning Code, & BioWare — had lots of wisdom to share. One of the quotes that stood out to me was from developer Kris Schoneberg who credited “increasing the visibility of my accountability” with helping her reach personal and career milestones.
To that end, I started to share process on my instagram, @kjewellwrites, with the tag #amwriting and I created a code name for my WIP so I can share more about it! More on that later, right now I want to tell you about the third thing I’m doing to keep up my productivity and inspiration!
I set up a writing notebook.
Borrowing from the bullet journal system, the first part of my three section notebook is devoted to general writing inspiration. I started with an index and took category inspiration from this blog post by Shelby of The Writing Pal. I have a major issue with titling books so it’s been super helpful to have a place to scribble down title inspo!
My categories are: To be read, names, good words, plot ideas, 1st sentences, novel titles, metaphors, setting snippets, description, overheard conversation snippets, character development notes, not cliché (an exercise where you write down a cliché and try to re-write it), and lastly, my novel in a year timeline.
And here it is, my timeline! You can see I’ve been a little wishy-washy in the progress bar on the right. I tend to get distracted with details and end up jumping ahead of myself. I’m itching to start putting words on paper, but I’m also hoping that putting in the work outlining and developing my world and characters will help the writing process go more smoothly!
As mentioned, the timeline is from The Novel Factory’s ‘Novel in a Year Roadmap’ — here’s a great infographic showing the timeline breakdown.
The second section in the notebook is dedicated to my writing project! More info to come about this later, but here’s a sneak peek of what I’ve been up to.
I printed off a little character moodboard and taped it to one of the dividers for inspo. Something about the whole thing made me feel like a teenager again, collaging the cover of my school agenda.
I created another index for this section and started copying the phases of the novel roadmap into the book. I have multiple versions now of my premise and story skeleton, but writing it out on paper helps me work through the finicky bits and force myself to be concise.
The third section of my notebook will be reserved for actual writing! Sometimes it’s nice to work on paper. When I was younger I used to fill up notebooks with stories. My good friend, and an amazing self-published author, Amy and I used to pass a notebook back and forth to write a novel. She would pick it up whenever I got stuck and vise versa. Sometimes, you need paper and pen to get your brain going!
Stay tuned for more deets on this project, and let me know what other categories you would add to your own writing notebook in the comments!
Kait Petry 