What were your writing achievements last year?
Let’s see. Concerning novels, I wrote 127,963 words last year for the Silver Hood first draft, Starbloods first draft, and Red Hood extended scenes. I edited those 20K words of the extended scenes and 90K of Subsapien: Biomech.
Concerning articles, I became a staff writer at Geekdom House and I’ve written over a dozen articles for them, two published in their print magazine, one making the front cover. I also was published in Splickety: Havok for a flash fiction.
What’s on your writerly “to-do list” for 2017?
I actually wrote all of this out a week or so ago. This is the unabridged version:
January:
Edit Red Hood for Language
Read over Starbloods
February:
Edit Red Hood for Language
Read over Starbloods
March:
Start Starbloods Rewrite
April:
Rewrite Starbloods
May:
Read Over Silver Hood
June:
Edit Starbloods
July:
Edit Starbloods
August:
Edit Starbloods
September:
Edit Starbloods
Plan for NaNo
October:
Plan for NaNo
November:
NaNo
December:
Finish up NaNo
Tell us about your top-priority writing projects for this year!
Top priority are Red Hood and Starbloods. Starbloods I’m working on getting read for Realm Makers in July and Red Hood was requested by a publisher. It just needs to be revised. Red Hood is about a female werewolf huntress who has to work with a werewolf to deliver secret documents that could change her country. Starbloods is about three chosen ones, two must embrace their destinies to save the world and the last one must fight it. I’m still working on the elevator pitch for the last one. XD
 |
| Rouyn from Starbloods |
How do you hope to improve as a writer? Where do you see yourself at the end of 2017?
I’d like to get better at the legal aspects of writing. I feel like I know a lot about craft and the industry, but I’m not very good with rights and contracts yet. I’m also hoping to improve in marketing as well. I don’t know where I want to see myself at the end of 2017. There’s a lot of things I want (like having a novel published or at least accepted for publication), but they’re not in my control.
Describe your general editing process.
I read over my first draft and take notes of big things I need to fix such as research areas or scenes I want to expand. Then I totally rewrite my first draft. After that I let it rest then I microedit and focus on the minute things. Then I send it off to beta readers then go over their feedback and edit again.
On a scale of 1-10, how do you think this draft turned out?
Eh. Like a six or seven? It a lot shorter than I want it to be and I know there are a lot of rough spots, but I like the general idea.
 |
| Elasa from Starbloods |
What aspect of your draft needs the most work?
Pfft. A lot. I need to research a lot of things and it needs a crap ton more description. I omit a lot of description in first drafts. I also discovered some things I want to tweak so the novel makes more logical sense.
What do you like the most about your draft?
The characters and worldbuilding definitely. The point of views are the three chosen ones and I love their dynamics. The worldbuilding is so fun in this setting. Lots of bioluminescence!
What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever?
Finding betas which I’ll probably put a call for in April or May then I’m hoping to get it published.
What’s your top piece of advice for those just finished writing a first draft?
Don’t immediately jump into editing. Give yourself six weeks of distance before getting to it. It helps you get perspective.
 |
| Harlowe from Starbloods |
And that’s the first post for 2017! Come back tomorrow for Writing Lessons from Video Games: Skyrim on World Building! It’s going to be a fun post. ^ ^