What's New or Where I Talk about what I've been Writing Lately

So I thought I'd tell y'all how the writing is going. Ya know, since that's kind of what this blog is supposed to be about.

For the past few months, I've been slowly writing up drafts of each scene in First Sight, my second novel length project. I made myself a promise last October that I would finish some kind of draft of it before I went back and starting editing the latest draft of Alana. I thought I'd get done a bit quicker than I did (clearly I was wrong). But the good news is that I finally finished up the first draft of all of the scenes. Well, all of the scenes that I thought of at this moment. I already know that I need to go back and add in a few more scenes exploring the development of the relationship between my two main characters. And between my main character and her family. And I may need to rework some of the events because the plot points may need some tweaking. But the point is, I finished drafting the first draft of the novel. I at least have the skeleton worked out and an idea of how most of the major scenes are going to work. At this point I need to go back and actually write out the action and description and dialogue, but I know the framework that all has to fall around.

And the best part is, I actually have an ending for the silly thing. See, for a really long time, I had no idea exactly how the story would end. I had vague musings about where I wanted it to end up, but I had no clue what the actual events of the climax and resolution were going be or how they'd work or how I was going to maybe set up for another book, just in case this isn't a one off idea after all (that's how it started. I really have no idea what I would do with the characters next, but maybe that'll come to me later).

Not having an ending was actually kind of a complete switch from Alana's story (my first, and still title-less, novel). With Alana's story, even way back when I first got the idea, I knew how it had to end. I knew that two big things had to happen and I knew pretty much how they were going to happen. It was just the way the story was set up even at the premise stage. The hard part with Alana's story was the middle, the events that got her from the beginning to the end. I only had a vague notion of what those would be. Well, the beginning was also tricky just because getting someone to another world from our world takes a bit of setting up and finessing to make work. But the end, the end was always solid.

Not so with First Sight. I had a really good handle on the beginning of First Sight. It was some of the middle and all of the end that gave me the trouble with that one.

But now I have the end figured out. Which means I may actually be able to put together a coherent story with this idea after all.

The other thing finishing the scene drafts mean is that I get to start making edits to Alana again. I haven't worked on Alana since last August when I did BIAM and rewrote the entire story in first person and moved several major plot points around. Now, after getting feedback from a few critique partners, I get to start tearing into it and hopefully improving it. I'm actually really excited about it because I got really good feedback from the people who read it for me. Good feedback is the best. :)

So that's what's been up with my writing lately. Good things all around.