While I keep a pretty active Progress Journal on a website within a writing community, I've been letting this one slip. Actually, I haven't been doing a really good job of updating my writing progress on here from the beginning. So here we go, my first real update: TL;DR:
I’ll try to be brief with each point (no guarantees)! The Plan
Our friendship was the basis for The Plan: two inseparable childhood friends that find themselves losing touch with each other over the years when they take different paths in life. What was only supposed to be written as a collection of memories to help me grieve, morphed into a short story with nameless characters, which then morphed into a novella with a small cast of fictional characters and events. After 3 years and many layers, became a novel of two friends, so dependent on each other for survival, realizing after graduating high school that maybe they’d had feelings for each other all along. They try to be the family and support they wished they’d had, and try to begin the rest of their lives together. (Aside from little details of our childhood friendship sprinkled in there, the characters, their families, and story are completely fictional.) Since querying, I’ve had a partial manuscript request as well as a Full manuscript request. Fingers crossed! The Path of the Cave Stars |
My first baby and the one that started it all. I kid you not, this novel has been almost 8 years in the making! I’d created this mars-like planet with its “alien” people back in college, writing about their city and culture and human colonization disrupting | What happens when your family tells you that, in order to save the rest of your clan, they will be sacrificing you to the Goddess of Death? |
But, my issue was that I bounced around to so many different ideas and projects that I never finished anything, including the ideas above. I joined a writing community back on 2018, though, and started a Progress Journal. I gave myself the goal of finishing this "prequel" novel and tracking its progress.
I finished the first draft in 2021.
What if, as you lay dying at the alter, you are rescued by a far away clan and made their priestess? | It has gone through dozens of iterations since then. At first Olun was supposed to be a bride in an arranged marriage, not a sacrifice to a deity. The “romance” was supposed to be “enemies-to-lovers” as she falls- |
I realized that Olun was a very passive character who let things happen to her. She was not a very strong character at all. I won't bore you with the details (I could devote a whole blog post to the process of how this novel is what it is). After much stress, many flipped-desk gifs, critique, feedback, and support from my beloved writing community, I am quite happy with Cave Stars’s trajectory of my current revisions.
My characters have come a long way since its first draft. Olun is a more active character and giving her more agency. She is not an observer and does not play second fiddle to Didan (she learns to make her own decisions, rebels against authority, questioning the Gods).
I changed her love interest as well. I wanted them to be together because she chooses him, not because she was forced into choosing him. I also wanted her to be his savior and protector. This isn't to say Didan has become the passive character. He's becomes an outsider, one who is not entirely accepted in his community and one who harbors immense fear, anger, and hatred for the Gods and village tradition. It's with him that Olun can be rebellious, and in their secret rendezvous is where we see the pair grow closer.
Olun must contend with curses, vengeful spirits, love, and duty to a misunderstood Goddess in this science fantasy novel that I'm super excited to finish!
Photoshop/Gimp
I’ve learned a couple of things:
- I could lose myself for hours doing this!
- I need better equipment (my hand isn't steady enough to use a mouse)
- If I decided to self publish, I have the skills to make MY OWN covers
Honestly, the hard part was trying to find the right images and then the right concept.
Chapter Leader
As you know from my previous blog post, I am a stutterer, and I have struggled with lingering negative feelings regarding it. I have never looked at my speech with love, but loathing and embarrassment over the years. It was something I wanted to hide and hide from. However, in recent years, I’ve learned to be ok with my speech. I’m not at the point where I “love” it, but I am well passed “loath” and “embarrassment.” I'm at a place of acceptance and peace. For these reasons, I have applied to become a chapter leader for the National Stuttering Association and have attended virtual meetings each month. There is no NSA chapter in my area. Stuttering can feel like a lonely and isolating thing and its easy to hide when you feel like you are alone. That is why I wanted to start a chapter, and have been approved to start one! My first meeting is the end of the month! |
I needed that positivity and encouragement, and I recommend this book to those who stutter and for those who want to know more about the mental and emotional toll that stuttering has on a child.
So… how does one actually start writing a novel?
That question— and the concept of not knowing— really surprises me. My first thought after seeing it pop up so many times was “easy…. Just write!” and, though there were a few similar responses to mine, the more technical replies made me turn inward and examine my own writing process.
Master Class: How to Write A Novel in 10 steps:
| Reedsy: How To Write A Novel in 13 steps
| ChatGPT: How To Write A Novel
|
What's my process?
I was an Art Therapy major before I pursued English Literature and writing during my time in Under Grad.
Writing is like a lump of clay. Its already there, shapeless and blob like. There is a vague vision. Sometimes no vision at all. You work the clay, playing around with it, feeling a shape take form beneath your fingers.
When your done moving the lump around, it begins to resemble something. The more you work the clay, the more of that something you have until the sculpture at the very end. Its not perfect, but its there. All that's left is to define it, fire it, polish it, check for any imperfections. Display it.
I finish my draft of The Path of the Cave Stars (I have no idea which draft this is... I lost count somewhere after the 4th revision). I am now refining it-- running it through a Text To Speech Reader so that I can hear my words out loud and make further edits as I follow along. Once that process is over, I’ll seek 3-4 Beta readers and shift gears to another project while that's being read.
I am a part of multiple writing groups and forums, and my answers to these remain the same: Progress Journal.
I began my Progress Journal in 2019. Until then, I'd never done one. I didn't even know what one was (I thought it was a blog, to be honest). There were various Progress Journals posted, and they were created in various ways. But for mine, I bullet pointed all of my projects at the time (projects, to me, were documents that had more than twenty pages to them). For each of those, I listed the word count thus far, a summary of the plot and how far I'd gotten into the story. I had 10 projects!
Eventually, I narrowed it to 3 (some make Progress Journals for each project. I used 1 journal to track my 3)
From there, I collected my notes on those three projects, tracked any questions that came up while writing. Any problems I had and how I worked them out. I tracked mile stones like finishing my first draft, edits, and Beta reading troubles. I can see how I solved a problem and problems I've yet to find solutions for. I can look at the information I've collected and find a use for them or scenes I've scrapped but are suddenly relevant again. I've even set goals for myself (you know how much I love goals).
Its kept me focused and accountable.
With my Project Journal, I was able to finish the first drafts of two out three manuscripts!
So, how do you make a Progress Journal?
Just as there are various ways to organize one, there are multiple ways to create one.
- Blogging (Wordpress, Weebly, Tumblr, Twitter/Threads, etc.). My initial vision for this blog was to be an extravigeant Progress Journal.
- Notebook/Document (Google Docs or a good old fashion Composition Notebook, for examples)
If you are having trouble getting started on a Progress Journal or just don't know how to structure it, check out the WIP journal on Etsy. I was gifted this journal, and I must say, it is very detailed! I am not a linear notetaker, so a lot of the detail in it pulled me out of my focus. I would say this journal is great for those who plot/outline their projects.
However you organize your Journal, I hope you stick with it!
I am 2 chapters away from being done with the edits to The Path of the Cave Stars, the first draft of which I completed in 2021. I'll be taking some time off from blogging so that I can focus on the final chapters.
Stay tuned for my next blog post on "Next Steps!"
*WIP= Work In Progress
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