So I really am attempting to get better at this whole blog thing. Granted it’s been two months since I last posted, but hey, at least it hasn’t been three.
Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what to focus on in this blog. I’m having trouble with that. I figure it should be about my writing, but what about it? I’m still writing my book, so what should I tell you about that? Well, now I’m just going to tell you everything. On days that I don’t have much to say about the actual drafts or (when I get to that point) the querying, rejections, and (hopefully) requests for partials or fulls, I’m going to tell about why I write, what I write, and maybe a little about my life outside writing (yes I have one of those, and unfortunately, it often takes over). I’m going to try and start out each post with an update on where the latest draft is. Perhaps this will motivate me to write more, just so I can tell people about it. So here goes.
Draft Status: I have made it to the fifth chapter in my sixth draft. At the moment I’m adding details, something I actually find a little hard to do. My perfectionism gets in the way a lot because I constantly have to stop and figure out the exact right word to describe a color or a saddle or a dress. I keep getting bogged down, but I’m trying to get through it.
So in the another post I wrote (yeah that one two months ago. I know it was a long time, but bear with me) I talked about why I write. I think I’m going to talk about what I write now, and how I wound up choosing that, or rather how it chose me.
I write fantasy. Not just any fantasy though, I write fantasy for young adults. What on earth possessed me to do this? Did I see the market was good and just decided to jump on board? Nope. Actually, when I started writing my WIP I had no clue that the YA market was going to explode about four years later. I just knew I wanted to read a story like what I was writing.
See I read voraciously. I am almost never without a book (it’s closer to never, but the rare occasion has struck when I do lack a book. Not often, but it does). And when I was a kid I discovered this amazing little tome by a pretty famous author. I opened it and started reading and couldn’t stop. I reread that book so many times I had it memorized almost word for word. Actually I still remember most of the lines of that book, all these years later because I read it so often. It opened this incredible world to me, a world created by someone else, separate from our own. Something about that captured me and my imagination.
I spent the majority of my childhood and even some of my teen years making up my own worlds with my brother. We would weave many stories into and out of these stories. We made new cultures and races, new magics and power, places and societies, all before we were 15.
And while we did this, I kept reading. I discovered more made up worlds so different from our own. This world building and people building utterly ensnared me. But one thing always seemed to be lacking. There were no girls. All the classic books I read, and many of the science fiction and fantasy books I was allowed to read (I say allowed because there were many rules about appropriate reading material in my parents’ house) focused on boys, always boys. And I wanted to read about girls like me. So when my first story ideas (well not first, but the ones I actually began writing down) started going onto the page, I think it was only natural that I wrote fantasy, created my own worlds and made them about strong girls, like me.
I started writing when I was a teenager. It’s actually when I started my WIP. But it wasn’t until much later (third year in college) that I realized that writing and world-making were where my true passions lay.
So that’s what I write (and kind of why too). My goal is to write about adventurous girls who aren’t afraid to do hard things. Or if they are, they learn how not to be.
