Jumping into Lake NanoWriMo

Hey everyone! Well I've been officially married for twelve days now. I've moved and been living in the United States for more than two months. That means I should finally be setting into a new routine, right?

Well, almost.

I have actually been opening my Scrivener and writing my documents for the last few days, so that's a plus in getting my "write" back on. I wrote about 4 pages of hand-written notes yesterday, and haven't typed them up yet - but you better believe I'm gonna count that up and add it to my nano word count.

My goal for this month of July, and for Camp Nanowrimo, is to work on my second draft. That means editing, cutting, adding words, and lots of delicious dialogue. However that makes it really hard to give an accurate word-count. I'm going to take my buddy's advice and count the words that I've edited from my original draft, and count that toward my overall count for July. I'm hoping that works out!

The editing has begun

Well today marks the first day in almost a month that I have gone back into my novel and started the amazing editing process. My goal for the second draft is to rearrange, cut, and fill out sections of the novel so the plot makes sense.
Also - to take out passive voice whenever I come across it.

Shiri's Office - The location of chapter one

So far so good - I read quickly through chapter one and easily identified some of the pieces that needed to be rearranged or taken out.

It introduces one of the female main characters, Shiri, and describes a mysterious "accident" that she might have had something to do with. And since everyone knows about it, they are also whispering behind her back. What's a girl to do in summer, while trying to avoid contact with everyone else?

I think though...since I'm the MOST acquainted with the beginning of my story (I've reread and rewrote and rearranged it too many times)....I think when I stared editing tomorrow I'm gonna skip around a bit. Maybe even try expanding on the ending of the book.
Ya know, the part I rushed through just to call the stupid draft completed :P

Well that's enough for now. I want to keep editing time at a minimum every day, so I can keep my "new eyes" perspective as long as I can. Till next time, write on!

My first draft is completed!

It is official!
And I totally feel comfortable with saying this in "virtual" public:  the first draft of my novel is completed! Woo-hoo! I feel pretty proud of myself right now and I'm sitting pretty at:  81,676 words!

Today also marks the day where I've left my first draft alone for two whole weeks! I have been taking notes in my notebook and re-reading the outline I made of the draft - but I've made myself stay away from writing.

And honestly it's true what people say about giving yourself space. I already have new ideas about the story and am more willing to consider alternate possibilities for how it could flow better. I've read on the NanoWriMo forums that it's best to let three weeks pass between your first draft - so I think by the time week three rolls around, I'm gonna be itching to revisit my story and start some revising. I'm excited to take the next step!

Defining the first draft of a book

After all this time writing my first novel, I'm still trying to figure out what the term "first draft" means to me. Because when I find out, then I can FINALLY brag to all my friends and strangers that I've finished one.

I really wish I could do this. Maybe even flip out dancing and record myself singing k-pop songs to show the world my excitement. 

        

So what is stopping me from having a completed first draft? 

1)  Not enough character dialogue

2)  Too much info dumping

I spent a good deal of time on my November nano making all my scenes as perfect as I could get them. I fleshed out the character interactions and made cute dialogues between them. Most of the writing I put on my blog as excerpts, because it was actually worthy of other people reading them.             

When November ended, I wrote 50k and didn't even reach the halfway point into my story. What on earth did I babble about that whole time? Most of all, I failed to get my first draft.  

        Then camp rolled around in April. 

My main goal was to get to the freaking end of the story. I didn't care any more about people's stupid conversations. I didn't care if they wanted to reveal the most important scene in the book - I just wanted it to be over. 

        So I skipped all the dialogue. I info-dumped my way to glory and just put as little "creative" effort into writing my scenes as possible. So right now, at this moment, do I have a first draft?

        Sigh. 

No. At least, I can't allow myself to think that a scene like this is worthy of the title "first draft:"

REALLY BAD

        The group is thrown into a very strange world - the sky is cloudy and constantly raining. There is no light from sun, moon, or stars.
        At first, the group appears at a very large circular train station, although it is strangely empty. Not a soul. A train approaches the station and almost flies past, until it stops and backs up, opening a door for the group members. The look around suspiciously…but step on the train anyway
       The train is filled with a few people dressed in two different outfits: suits or construction gear. They sit erect, not moving. Either holding their briefcases or construction equipment in their laps.
       At first, they group starts questioning some of the people on the train about the man they saw at the gate. At his description the people don’t say anything and just keep on with their business. Everyone is just blase. 

Like....I would call this a rough draft. I still need to go back and at least put some dialogue or description to upgrade this dump of words into a "first draft."
        Right?
A better example of a scene that I would call a first draft is more like this:

BETTER

       
         Before Jason could process what kind of question that was, the golden warrior poked him in the forehead. She wiggled her finger up and down, stretching the skin between his eyebrows. She hummed to herself and raised her eyebrows, like she was trying to figure out what species Jason was.
        “Hey what are you doing?” Jason asked and slowly moved his head out of the woman’s pointy finger. “Yeah I’m human. I hope we’re all humans. Right guys?” 
         “Totally human over here too,” Isaac offered. 
         Shiri nodded with skeptic enthusiasm. Neither one of them made an attempt to help Jason or walk a little closer to scare the weird woman away. Their amount of courage melted Jason’s heart. 
         The woman stopped poking him in the head. She removed her finger and sniffed it, hopefully satisfied with her personal inspection. Bright golden colors swirled back into her eyes, and her smile revealed a set of white and perfect teeth. 
         “Truly? I knew this day would come, but so many years have passed. I…Forgive me,” she interrupted herself and let her sword sink back into its sheath. She grasped both Jason’s hands in a warrior’s grip. “Welcome, children of men. My name is Sun, guardian of Justice. I have been sent to watch for your arrival.”
 

So right now, I'm stuck on a conundrum. I finally finished my story - every scene is labeled, outlined, in order, and has a minimum of 200 words describing what should happen in it. 

        However. 

Only half my story is composed of fleshed out scenes like the "better" example I posted above. The rest of them are info-dumped and oh boy, are they in need of some serious help. And it's gonna take a lot of motivation to go and finish a "first draft" of all those scenes, just so I can be officially done with the first draft of the entire book. 

        Let's not even talk about editing yet, shall we?

        If you can, please let me know. Am I crazy?

        

Do other people put this much thought into what constitutes a first draft? Is it always different depending on what type of story you are writing? When can I finally celebrate that the first wave of difficulty is over....?

Just let me know in the comments and that would be super helpful :D

Happy Thursday and write on!

Who are the characters in my novel?

        What a good question, you might ask! Or might not, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.
        Let's just say I have a group of three main characters who move the story along in my book, and for the longest time, I was fighting against myself on who was the number one main character. The girl? The guy? That other side-kick, comedy guy?
         Honestly I had no idea.
        But luckily for me, I'm writing a third-person POV in the past tense. I have total, absolute freedom to write from any viewpoint I want. Since I've never written anything before, I guess it's understandable that I didn't even know I could do that for the longest time. I was so caught up on all the "beginner" writing advice that I read on the internet: that you should try to write from one character's point of view in your first story. It's easy to get into and could practice learning how to write.
        Pshhh. Of course when I ignored that and just wrote a scene from whichever character I wanted, the story flowed much better and my characters could talk together in new ways.
        I'm babbling.

        The point of all this is to introduce my three main characters to you! In my novel called "Recreated" (check this last blog post if you want to read the summary), my characters start on a journey to discover a friend's lost family. That's how they get themselves trapped in a new world.

Here they are: 

Jason
Mostly main character. At least he
was for about 6 years :P

Shirina
Our beautiful female lead

Isaac
Loyal friend and has a hard crush
<-- on our lovely lady here

Jason

Like the picture says, Jason was the main character I've always had in my head since this story began way back when. Basically he's a mechanic for futuristic machines and he has a knack for just being plain curious. He goes out to inspect the ruins of the last civilization, which suddenly disappeared without a trace. No one in the present age knows what happened to their ancestors or why they were left behind...

Shirina

The story actually starts off when Jason decides to help her find her birth parents. She was found alone in the woods as a child. Completely alone. She can't remember how she got there and to this day, wants more than anything to know where she came from and who her parents really are. 

Isaac

Best friend of Jason, and has a huge crush on Shiri. The three of them hang out a lot and have a lot of fun. Isaac is the oldest and has a sense of loyalty to protect his friends. He considers himself "the strong guy" and wants people to depend on him...where really he's just afraid of being alone. 

Technical art rights shennanigins

Aren't they just lovely? 

But for technical purposes I gotta say this: Jason was a character design I paid for and is copyrighted to my company Arc Interactive. If you use him, I'll hunt you down :/

The other two images of Shirina and Isaac I found on deviantart and claim no rights to them - however I didn't save the links, so I can't link you to the artist pages. Sorree.

I hope you like this rambling of my characters and the next blog post will describe more of the world they come from - a neo-futuristic version of our Earth about 200 years from now. Oooo, mysterious!

Happy Friday and write-on!