I haven't forgotten my book!

I just haven't posted here in awhile. *ashamed*

I finished the first draft of my novel and also did one preliminary revision to it. Now I need to go through and really tear it apart. I have a few people reading it to give feedback and am thinking of joining a critique group. I also changed the title to Lineage. It's a relief to finish it but it's also daunting to think of the edits that are before me.

I also entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award and was just cut today in the first round. Ah well. I wasn't expecting much since I found out about the contest with only days to enter and wrote the pitch quickly.

I've also started on book two of the series. It's set mainly in modern-day and 1830s-1840s Ireland. Yup, I have my work cut out for me. ;) And I've already come up with basic ideas for more books in the series.

I'm hoping to finish revisions of book 1 by the summer and then I will decide if I want to try to get it published or go the self-publishing route. I'm excited and nervous about it all!

Passed 40K for the Month!

Which means I should be able to win JulNoWriMo sometime this week when I hit 50K. Yay! :)

I'm working on the big climax of the book. I'm thinking it's highly likely that I will have to make this Part IV. I'm thinking I'll be done with Part IV in the next 10K-20K words.

I'm not done with the story, though. I skipped some parts, so I'll have to go back and write them or give them more depth. I'm sure there's plenty that will have to be rewritten as well.

I was originally aiming for 100K total, because I heard most publishers are looking for 75-90K for a novel. But now I see that I work best by getting the story done first, and then going back and embellishing it more and adding more description. So I might finish my rough draft way short of 100K, but will probably get closer into the 75-90K range after editing.

Writing is going fairly well. I don't encounter too many writer's blocks. So far, when I come up to a part of the plot that I'm a bit fuzzy on, it just comes out. If I try to plan some parts ahead of time, I can't think of what should happen.

But now, I'm coming up to an important climax. I got most of it figured out, but then there will be a big confrontation at the end. I have no clue how that is going to work. I know what I want the outcome to be, but am not sure how to get to that outcome. I'm hoping it just comes out when I get that far sometime this week. I'm not sure how I'll end the story if I can't get that to work out!

So, total word count is 68,666 and it is 236 pages. I wrote 40,862 of those words in July so far.

Blog is being reconstructed...

Sorry for any frustration that it may cause. I have decided to make my excerpts and posts about plot/characters/etc private. I figured it was silly to risk someone stealing my work if I am considering publishing at some point.

So I have a separate blog that is only open to people close to me and any readers that are chosen for critiques. Let me know if you would like access and I'll consider it. ;)

No Writing Tonight...

I'm a bit sad about it, but I think it's best to just go to bed. There's no scene that's bursting out from me, so I think I can wait. ;)

There were some medical things going on with my family today. Thankfully, all is well. But I didn't get time to write and now I'm just too burned out to concentrate.

I hope to get back to writing tomorrow, otherwise I will just have to rest up so I can start JulNoWriMo on Friday with a bang. ;) Maybe I can somehow get 10,000 words to just come out and then I'd already be 1/5 the way to winning it. I can dream, right? LOL

So, good night everyone. No new word or page count tonight.