October has been good to me. Writing has become an almost daily practice. I have not written this regularly for years. Maybe ever. There is definitely a good feeling behind the words I am putting out. I’m unsure if they’re good words, but they do give me a good feeling. So, what’s happened this month?
I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF OSCAR THE APPRENTICE!
See that? Set goals. Kick goals (I can do sports).
It’s come in just over 10k which I think will expand to about 13k or 14k in rewrites and drafting. I can be a little thin with my writing sometimes and I will go over it to flesh it out more. Put some meat on those bones! Maybe, one day, I will learn to do that on the first draft… but I doubt.
I have the terrible habit of not finishing things. I have hundreds of word docs with a few hundred or a few thousand words (or just one sentence) of a story. They just sit there and may never be completed. But Oscar the Apprentice is done. At least this story.
Oscar was one of those word documents that sat in my dropbox for about 7 years. I would poke and prod at it occasionally. Sometimes even write some words but it was not really going anywhere. Now it’s done 😊
What’s next?
I’m going to let the draft sit for a while. I want to detach myself from it for about a month. I get very close to the writing and then I don’t see my errors in spelling and grammar (which is why my blog posts often have errors, sorry). So, I’ll myself a month away from it before I dive into the first read-through. I don’t know what I will find. It might be a mess. It probably will be a mess. I’m ok with that. I want to get this book out there so I will get my hands dirty to get it finished.
I think I have found an artist too… More on that later.
To distract myself I will be attempting NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a month-long writing challenge where you aim to write 50k words in 30 days. I have attempted several times before and never really gotten anywhere with it. But it was fun. Two of those years I was at uni and in the middle of assignments. Last year I started the podcast. Regardless of the position I was in, I didn’t really have a strong writing routine to get it done. Or a drive to complete something. But now I do.
I am going to start my next book in November.
I have had this idea for a while too. It is a collection of short stories set in different locations around Ammaryn. I want each story to give the reader a feel for each location, be it a town, city, or wilderness area. I’m excited about it. I have a bunch of ideas already down on paper.
Look at all those places to go adventuring?
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| This is made with Inkarnate, but I think I want to be recreated by an artist. Any takers? |
The podcast is going strong too. I have completely edited three episodes. We will record and bank them until there are about 12 or so before we start releasing them. I was very stressed and under the pump last season. This season I want to take my time to prepare and edit and get it all right. I have learned a lot about editing audio since I started. It’s starting to sound really good. Volume 2 is on the way!
Oh, and The Conjurer’s Table was a hit! And check out this logo designed by Flame Dork.
We have another meet up tonight and will be focusing on creating non-player characters. The idea is that we will have a collection of characters for people to throw into their games when they need to. They are going to be compiled into a single document that can be shared online, keep your eyes peeled!
So, October was good. Writing is fun. Maybe one day I’ll make a living from it. On that note, you can show your support on Ko-Fi 😊
Thanks for reading folks.
