Ok, so maybe I was a bit over ambitious expecting the time and energy to write every single day going into the holidays. Even so, I’m still honestly impressed with myself that I went the first 16 to 17 days. Granted, some nights I only wrote a sentence or two, which explains the meager 3,500 words this month. Sitting at 47,000 with Chapter 9 finished, though, feels pretty good. But the fact that I went to my first Dragonsteel Con, followed closely by Thanksgiving, which resulted in needing to catch up a bit at work the week after, meant I fizzled halfway through. Maybe next year.
Writing chapter 9 was interesting. As I mentioned last month, I was a couple thousand words deep in the chapter already. Throughout November, I saw my writing drifting more and more away from my chapter outline. That’s actually relatively normal for me and is a natural part of my writing process to explore what feels best in the moment and is most true to the characters that have taken shape so far in the story. However, it can be a little daunting when this happens as I feel like I have to outline on the fly to make sure the beats of the story I need still get in there. It often means finishing up that chapter can take longer (which it sort of did), and is more intimidating to pick back up after not writing for a decent stretch (which it was). All in all, the story still began and ended in relatively the same place that I was expecting, though the introduction of a particular character was changed drastically. At this point in the story, things take a bit of a crazy turn and don’t really slow back down all that much. To be honest, in the moment it can feel a bit nerve-racking to track the changes to the outline and make sure it all makes sense, but looking back it feels immensely satisfying to see what felt the most natural be put to paper.
Finally, I wanted to mention something interesting I heard in a panel at Dragonsteel Con. Someone asked a question about how to maintain writing and to keep interest there. One bit of advice (I don’t remember if it was Brandon himself who said it, or someone else) that I really liked was a method of planning writing sessions. One way to keep interest up and make sure you continue writing without falling off is to make sure your writing session at the end of a chapter bleeds over into starting the next chapter. The natural inclination after finishing a chapter is to sigh, congratulate yourself, and put it down. But the feeling of beginning something is much more daunting than continuing onward with something already in the process. It makes sense. Starting a new chapter can psychologically feel like starting a new story or a new project which is hard to do.
So, this month I did that. When I finished chapter 9, I kept writing another page to make sure it didn’t seem like I was starting fresh. We’ll have to see if that does anything for December (especially since there’s yet another major holiday or two between now and the next update). We’ll just have to see what happens next. I’m unfortunately nowhere near where I wanted to be one year into writing this story, but I’m still proud of what I’ve done so far.
Until next time!