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!

Why am I writing a novel anyway?

~ Prologue~

If you've taken a dive into the past of this blog, you'll see that it got started right before November 2014. You guessed it - I started blogging right before National Novel Writing Month hit last year. I was super excited and a little bit nervous to attempt writing a book for the first time in my life.

And since I'm such an organizer and planner, I thought I should "take notes" on my writing experience. What better way to do that than start a blog? Then if I actually learn something useful, perhaps I can pass it on to other first-time wrimos (<-- that's the cool term for people that write during NaNoWriMo. Ching!)

Now some time has passed and I've just finished up a smaller event that took place in April (which I totally won - booyah). Camp NaNoWriMo is just to get reconnected to writing, maybe plot out a new story buzzing in your head, or take the time to edit your November draft.

So. It's taken about six months-ish for me to realize that I never really...explained...what my novel is about, my characters, or what the heck is supposed to happen. I guess that's because I didn't really know myself. Until now that is!

"Princess of Tragedy"
Click image to find author on deviantart

Super Cool Novel Stats:

Title:          "Recreated"

Genre:         Sci-fi / Fantasy  

Audience:    Young Adult (YA)

Wordcount:   59,227
Nanowrimo profile:   theoneawaited

<---- Cover image I used for NaNoWriMo 2014

Summary:
Originally starting their quest to discover a friend's lost family, a close group of heroes soon discover a whole new realm which has existed alongside the human world for centuries. This parallel realm gives substance to things unseen, an unstable breeding ground for both darkness and power. Our group learns how to gain the help of good spirits, and battle the evil that is spreading through the world. Time is counting down as the planet breathes its last. Can our group of heroes find a way to save their world?

~ How did this story come to be? ~

So basically, I grew up wanting to develop video games, namely role-playing games. I loved getting wrapped up in the characters and virtual story-telling that I could experience through the gaming media. That led me to take some "Game Design" classes as a minor during my college years and I LOVED developing game ideas, along with the story and characters to support the game worlds. 

So while I spent all my college years learning how to design and develop video games, I never really thought I was any good at "writing" the stories. My brainstorming capabilities ARE legendary, mind you, but actually plotting and finishing a story so it made sense? I didn't think I could do that. 

Of course all things seen are subject to change :)

During my last year at Full Sail University, we needed to make a game project as our "thesis", so to speak. I worked in a team to make a game, but it also got me thinking about the ultimate RPG I wanted to make for myself. With characters I liked, a little romance on the side-lines, tons of boss fights, and an epic battle against fate itself. 

I held onto that story since 2007. 

In my own mind, I wanted to turn it into a game and that's all it was good for. I developed the story as much as I needed to in terms of gameplay. But...life takes over, you know?

Developing a game on your own takes a lot of time, effort, and cash. 

And my story just sat there. 

It was only during October 2014 that I even heard of NaNoWriMo. And the challenge of writing 50,000 words - a FIRST DRAFT OF A NOVEL - was something I instantly wanted to do. No questions were asked. I signed up for that contest and I was determined to write what used to be my dream role-playing game into a novel. 

~ Six months later and I've learned a lot ~

...and unfortunately I haven't finished my first draft yet. But I'm helluva lot closer than I used to be.

Let me tell you - changing a game document into a book is hard work. I wrote three chapters of what I thought to be cool events until I realized...I just wrote a game tutorial. Like...it made no sense to the book. It just "happened" because that's how it happens in games.

Seriously, normal people just don't pick up a sword and decide to battle monsters they've never seen before. Then afterwards they totally know three sword techniques, how to side-step and roll to the left to avoid enemy attacks.
>_>

But participating in Camp this April has really helped me to cut all the gameplay scenes in my novel and replace them with actual storytelling. I feel more in touch with my characters than I ever have before. The coolest part is that writing my story as a book has revealed more plot twists and conflict than I ever could have planned out myself. I'm so happy where the story is going.

That's about all I can ramble on today about my novel writing. The next blog I'll get into some world-building and more story-specific information.

Until then, happy Monday and write on!

An amazing end to Camp NanoWrimo

Well here are the final results for Camp NanoWriMo! It was a roller-coaster of a writing month and my entire cabin did an excellent job racing toward the finish line. I had so much fun sprinting with my cabin buddies on the weekends and sending little messages on our cabin page. Wouldn't it be cool if you could organize groups like that for November too? 

Now the month is over and a new May is upon us. Looking back at how far I've come with my novel just motivates me to keep on writing until it's done. I've learned a lot of things during this Camp:

1. Even with an outline and planning out each chapter, actually writing the scene still surprises me. And I've had good surprises - more conflict appears as my characters talk to each other, unexpected events make them learn how to survive in my world. It's becoming a real story and not a series of plot points. 
2. Info dumping in a first draft is okay. I have learned to give myself the freedom to write the scene as I see it, skip dialogue if I need to, and just do my best to move the scene forward. It gives me a great sense of progress. 
3. Writing every day is more important than the number of words that come out. This month I've kept a steady momentum of either taking hand-written notes, fleshing out my character profiles, or just simply writing a next scene. By doing so, I keep moving forward. 
4. Scrivener is awesome :D  It keeps all my scribbles organized
5. Cabin buddies are awesome!  Writing with a group also keeps me motivated to continue!

Let's do a little recap of how my novel is actually doing:

My entire manuscript to date:   55,794  words

Total scenes (instead of chapters):  85

Estimated number of words to finish the novel:  ....still around 20k

So where am I with my actual writing? 

THE MIDDLE

If I look chronologically at my novel, counting all the scenes that have been fully written, I'm right in the mid-point of my story. The point of no return, where the characters encounter a problem they can't ignore and make the decision to dedicate themselves to finding a solution.

Overall, I've planned all my scenes out, and each one that hasn't been written yet has at least 200 words of a basic outline. So I know how the rest of it goes, I have plot twists planned, an epic battle with the bad guy, and even introducing a new character towards the end (<-- which totally means I'm planning on a sequel, because this new character will be another MC).

Looking at how much I've written and the story is only "half" complete....I won't even entertain the thoughts of doubt or wondering how many words I'll have to cut. Because you know what? I've learned that THOSE things will come anyway.

I can always fix my story and edit it later - but I can't do anything with a blank page. 

Thus my novel writing will continue into the month of May. I'll reset my awesome progress bar here on my blog, making a new goal of 20,000 words this month. It was totally easy to smash through that in April, so that will be my new default writing goal. After I finish writing this blog post, I'm gonna copy/paste all the notes I took with my ipad into my manuscript. 

Yay for new word count!

I think....the next blog post I do will be about my characters. Maybe I'll post their headshot images and some character profiles. Honestly I don't know if I've really talked about what my novel is on my blog, just because I've wanted to figure that out for myself first. But now....yeah.....I think I can start showing off some novel-ly type things. We'll see what the next post will bring. 

Anyways, happy May and keep on writing!