Update: Shadow Wings Chapter Three

FINALLY

An Update

After much ado over college and putting aside very small amounts of time for writing, I have 'kind of' finished Chapter Three. Okay, all of the chapters are kind of in the first draft, but I intentionally left scene gaps because I simply didn't know what to write. Another trick I learned from Go Teen Writers (you should really read that book, I learned things that now seem so sensible I don't know why I failed in not realizing that first). I'm currently working on figuring out the basic outline for chapter four as that chapter is full of loose details and no where to go.

Chapter Four, HERE I COME!

Another update: I hope to start posting a book review once a month. . . Hopefully starting in August. I'm not sure how I'll do with keeping it up afterwards, but it's a goal to aim for!

Word Count: 2,141

Total Word Count: 6,249

College is coming up. . .

And So Is My Writing Deadline. 

Sad to say, I'm going to have to push my deadline for my completed manuscript back to the end of December. I'm still going to work as fast and hard as I can on it, but by reading Go Teen Writers I've been finding out that I do not have everything organized or thought out enough. I'll be working on organizing in physical format all of my outlines in a binder, so that hopefully by next week I'll be able to start writing again.

College, I've been accepted, FAFSA is done, and there's only a few quirks to work out before I'm signed up for classes. I'll be heading over to Northland International University on August 26. I'm super excited and very scared on how I'll be paying for at the same time (the glitches I'm running into has to do with the financial aid and paying for college. . . ). I'm so excited that I'm starting to work on packing already!

Before I leave you again, I'll quickly post a poem that I wrote the day before I left the writing workshop I had gone to last month. I don't have a title for it yet:

Such sorrow when,

A brand new friend, 

Must now say farewell. 

Such tears will fall, 

Good times with all, 

Shall ring like clear bells. 

Such sorrow when, 

A brand new friend,

Must now say farewell. 

I must admit it isn't my best work (I haven't written poems in a while). . . If anyone who's reading this and has critiqued poetry before, please look at it and comment on something I can do to make it better! Thanks a million.

God Bless,
Joy

Languages & Cultures & Wars, Oh My!

I love world building. 

I love the histories I can make, the cultures and races, the architecture and religions. I can give you documents upon documents where I have spent many hours of my teen life creating different sci fi and fantasy worlds. But I had a problem. An unprescribed disease, most commonly known as the World Building Bug. I didn't even know back than that I had it! Not until very recently.

It all started with the writing workshop I went to a few weeks back. Jill Williamson, one of the speakers and a good speculative fiction author, told the story of how she began her first published novel (By Darkness Hid) which later turned into the first book of a trilogy, she had begun with the idea of a tree. That spread into a full blown map, including geography, cities, etc. That turned into other details that took up six months of her life (I have spent about two years in the past on one world. . .) . All she did was create and explore this world that she was going to write about. The key word to remember is going to. All of this helped her with her writing, it is true, but it also stalled her writing.

How do you find a cure for this disease? I don't think there is a cure. At least not for us world first novelists. The closest thing to a cure (or at least as close as I can find) is accountability. Mrs. Williamson's accountablilty turned out to be her husband pushing her to do more than work on a world. For me, it's currently my deadline for the end of July (which is really creeping up on me).

No matter what kind of novelist you are, (world first, character first, plot first) how do you handle accountability?

Sorry I haven't posted in a while!

I will really, really, really try hard to post something in the next few days. Things have been pretty crazy lately. But, seeing as I haven't posted anything in weeks, I shall quickly post something that happened to me tonight. 

Random character that I don't even know popped into my head while washing dishes tonight, and exclaimed "And THAT is how I saved the world at the age of three years. Or, at least, so I've been told." O.O

I might actually use this odd character someday. . . Whoever this is. 

Has anything like this ever happen to you? Will you possibly use this unknown person in a future writing project? 

First Writing Workshop!!!!

This last week I went to my first writing workshop, I had my first critique group, and I'm so excited!

Ever since last August I've been forcing myself  through the One Year Adventure Novel curriculum, fondly known as OYAN. I'm glad I'm doing it, because I've learned so much by it! Anyways, last week I went to their annual week long Summer Workshop. It was awesome! It was epic! There has to be a new word someone has made up that can describe it! I learned about story building, creating the illusion of reality, how my faith works into my stories via hope and redemption, plotting my stories effectively, and so much more! The speakers were Dan Schwaubauer, Jeff Gerke (aka Jefferson Scott), Jill Williamson, Mark Wilson (he's a community college professor who knows his stuff!), and Stephanie Morrill (she taught a few of the parent lectures). There is no way I'm not going next year! (Okay, only if God some how stops me, but I'm hoping that isn't likely. )

Our critique groups were named after Nebula (geek moment), mine was the Robin's Egg. My group mainly wrote science fiction (which is what I'm working on) with one time traveling story, a modern/fantasy/adventure thing (Even though we didn't know exactly how to categorize it, it was awesome! The author has a very fun and unique written voice), one fantasy, a sci fi treasure hunting story, and more that I can't remember at this time (my bedtime is really soon. . .). I got seven critiques that I'm stalling on going through (I'm holding my breath until I'm farther into my rough draft).

Writing is something that I love. I can see myself writing stories years into the future, it's just something that I do. If God doesn't lead me down any other paths, I'm about 95% certain that I'll be working on my writing skills until the day I die.

To God's Glory,
Joy

Update: Shadow Wings, Chapters One and Two

I want to dig a hole in the ground and hide. 

My second chapter is twice as long as the first chapter with over double the words. The charries all sound exactly as I thought they would, (though Akeem seems much prouder and quieter than he is in my head, go figure) and the story is running pretty smoothly. There are plenty of problems though. The tenses are off, the story is taking a completely different swing than I originally planned it too, and I'm not getting the sci fi stuff in it right! It's hard to describe and write the illusion of reality when you've never really come in contact with anything that is close to it. 

I've also edited the first chapter a lot. Tenses are right now my bane. 

First chapter word count: 998

Second chapter word count: 2,117

Total word count so far: 3,115

Update: Shadow Wings Chapter One

First draft done! 

It's bad. As in, I had my little sister read it, and she was clueless that it was even science fiction. Ouch. But I'm still going on, it's just a first draft. I'll be making lots of notes on it for what needs to be changed. Three pages long when double spaced, much shorter than I first imagined it. That too will probably be remedied when I start editing. . .

I'm not sure exactly what I expected when I first started writing this chapter. Oh, I suppose I WANTED perfection, for the words to just magically show what I saw in my mind,  but that is certainly not what happened. I'll push on, and hopefully I'll finally come up with something I'm willing to post on here.

Word count for chapter one: 923