Last post I mentioned a big project I am working on and
promised to give more details in another post. Well, friends, this is that post.
I will be attempting (again) to write and finish my first
novel/novella. Right now the plan
is to aim for a novella, but depending on how things progress I might get a
little more ambitious with the project.
I’ve started two different novels and have gotten lost, and I have
outlined and brainstormed many, many more stories. However, I have never been able to put everything together
and actually get a large project finished. This was actually very discouraging and I allowed that
feeling of disappointment to fuel excuses for why I haven’t written much in the
last couple years. There
were other personal and professional reasons (both positive and negative) that
also got in the way to a small degree, but ultimately it was the fact that I
allowed myself to believe I wouldn’t finish a project to prevent me from
pursuing any over the last couple years.
Well, I’ve told those silly negative voices that they are no
longer needed, and the enthusiasm for writing was happy to return to the
forefront of my creative mindset.
Now that I got the attitude and enthusiasm back, I needed to sit down
and think about ways to set myself up for a more successful outcome. That is where my favorite author
Brandon Sanderson comes in.
If you have read through some of the earlier posts here, you
probably noticed that I am a big Brandon Sanderson fan. Whether it’s his writing or his
lectures that are posted on YouTube, I tend to fan-boy out where he’s
concerned. A few weeks ago I
noticed his newest semester of writing lectures have started to be posted. I’ve noticed that each semester his
class differs slightly with some new info being presented each time. I have used incredible will power to
keep from diving into that series of lectures. The plan is to write my novel/novella along with his
lectures as if I were a student in his class.
His classes tend to be about an hour’s worth of lecture that
he posts online and then workshops with writing groups that are done off
camera. I’ll work on keeping up
with his class and meeting the word count requirements that he requires for
each lecture. The plan is to watch
the lecture on my Mondays off (every other Monday) and work toward the word
count and focus on the content he covers in that lecture.
That gives me two weeks to hit a very reasonable word count
requirement before each new lecture.
Early on in the process that will give me time to get flustered and then
recover, gather my thoughts, and power through. Starting is always a little intimidating, so having time to
build up momentum will help a lot.
As I progress with the book and get into a groove, that extra time can
be used to go back and work on some revisions or to blaze ahead toward the
final word count goal.
I’m planning on writing at least one blog per lecture period
about how things go with the writing process. I’ll give a brief synopsis of the lecture and list a few
goals I hope to achieve over the next couple weeks. The next blog will include the same info plus whether or not
I was able to accomplish what I wanted to the previous couple weeks.
I’m excited for this plan. By following along an actual class and by posting about it,
I feel like I can keep myself accountable and also keep with the project all
the way through without getting frustrated and stopping to plan a new
project. That typically is where I
run into trouble.
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