Beautiful People: Writerly Resolutions and Goals

Hosted by http://paperfury.com

Hello, everyone! It's Beautiful People time! For those who don't know, this is a monthly link-up hosted by Cait of Paper Fury. And also, I have realized since last month, Sky of Further Up and Further In. (Sorry, Sky!) The topic for this month is Writerly Resolutions and Goals, which I talked about some earlier this month, but I'm happy to discuss it more.

1. What were your writing achievements last year?
Well, I did all three NaNo events, with 50K in April (The Way of the Pen) and November (Binding Destiny) and 20K in July (Once Upon a Dream). I finished two of the three WIPs I had at the start of the year, as well as The Way of the Pen. I also edited Once Upon a Dream and submitted it to the Five Magic Spindles contest hosted by Rooglewood Press.

2. Tell us about your top priority writing project for this year?
I . . . do not have a single top priority writing project. I have several high-priority ones, which will each take precedence at different times of the year. At the moment, finishing Monster in the Castle is the highest priority. Once that's done, editing my completed novels will be my main project.

3. List 5 areas you’d like to work the hardest to improve this year.
-Brevity. I am very good at writing long, long novels and scenes and such. I am not so good at being concise. And while long is good, there is something to be said for being able to fit a complete and cohesive plot into ten pages or less.
-Poetry. I don't exactly write poetry very much, and I feel like a lot of it (not all of it, but a lot) is pretty average. And while I'll always be primarily a novelist, I would like to get better at verse.
-Editing consistently. In some ways, editing is easier and more fun than the first draft- the plot and scenes are already there; I'm just polishing it up. However, if a story or scene needs more than just polishing, I . . . well, I tend to procrastinate. I know I shouldn't- I want to be able to edit a certain amount every day just like I write a certain amount every day. (Or, so many days a week, anyway.)
-Character voice. I feel like a lot of my characters sound really similar? I mean, there are exceptions. ( For example, Jared, Jason, and Jarek all have distinctive voices in their stories- and they're distinct from each other as well, though more subtly- and Katelyn might be recognizable simply because she's my only character to regularly make book/movie/etc. references. And Abbie Alyron has an accent that I stole from Entwined.) But a lot of my characters do sound very similar, in my opinion.
-Worldbuilding. By which I mean I want to do more of it this year, outside of thinking of things while I'm writing and saying "Hey! That sounds like a cool idea! Let's use this!" Once I finish Monster in the Castle, I'm planning to go through Storyworld First by Jill Williamson and use whatever advice and such I find in there to further develop the worlds of Berstru, Aralan, Udarean, and whatever I end up calling the world of my fairy-tale retellings. 

4. Are you participating in any writing challenges?
I'll do the Camp NaNoWriMos, and hopefully the main NaNoWriMo as well. If GTW does the 100-4-100 challenge this year, I'll do that too. If not, well, probably no. Not unless you count the occasional long-term word war with friends.

5. What’s your critique partner/beta reader situation like and do you have plans to expand this year?
 . . . I don't have a critique partner or beta reader situation? The closest I come at the moment is that I occasionally post bits of my stories (or, in the case of Berstru Tales, whole novels) on Whitehall Forums for my friends there to read. I will need to get some betas, though, once I finish some editing.

6. Do you have plans to read any writer-related books this year? Or are there specific books you want to read for research?
I got Storyworld First for Christmas, so I'm going to read that as soon as I finish Monster in the Castle. Other than that . . . nope.

7. Pick one character you want to get to know better, and how are you going to achieve this?
That's a tough one. I guess maybe Eleri from Between Two Worlds, who . . . well, she's not as vibrant in my mind as Aedon or Jarek, let alone Katelyn and Ella. How will I get to know her better? By writing about her more. And by answering questions in the Supporting Character Questionnaire on the NaNo site, which is one of my three favorite threads on that forum.

8. Do you plan to edit or query, and what’s your plan of attack?
 I plan on editing. Great deals of editing. And also researching where to query and submit so that when I'm done with a round or two of edits, I'll be ready to start querying and such.

9. Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” What are the books that you want to see more of, and what “holes” do you think need filling in the literary world?
Well, for one thing, I want to see more steampunk. For another thing, I want to see more characters- main characters- in fantasy and related genres who are pretty much average. Characters who aren't super-warriors or such, or perhaps even characters who can't fight, period. Characters who don't have special, magical powers. It's not that I don't love these characters- it's just that I'd like a few main characters who are a bit more like me. (That's one of the many, many reasons why I love the Goldstone Wood books- the vast majority of the main characters are not particularly skilled or powerful or anything of that sort, not in the traditional Heroic ways.)

10. What do you hope to have achieved by the end of 2016?
By the end of 2016, I want to have all my current draft-WIPs finished. I want to have finished editing at least one, preferably two or three, of the novels I have in queue to be edited. I want to have entered the next Rooglewood Press contest, and I want to have taken steps towards publishing- preferably have something ready to submit for publishing. I want to have written a host of short stories and poetry that I can share on here and on Whitehall. And, most importantly, I want to have grown as a writer and a person.

Well, there you have it. My goals for 2016. Will I accomplish all of them? Any of them?

We'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading!
 -Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

Beautiful Books December 2015: The Editing Process

Hey'a, everyone! I'm excited to announce that I'm joining in the Beautiful Books linkup for the first time ever! For those of you who don't know, Beautiful Books is a writerly blog linkup hosted by Cait of Paper Fury (which I have finally followed and y'all should go check out because Cait's super fun). Anyway. I've seen other people doing this a lot and it looks awesome so I'm really looking forward to doing it myself.

http://paperfury.com/beautiful-books-3/

1. On a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best), how did the book turn out? Did anything defy your expectations?

Maybe a 7-ish? It wasn't my best novel by any means . . . but I don't think it turned out terribly either. A lot of character relationships and plot didn't go like I expected them to . . . and my villain was harder to write than I thought she'd be. It's not finished yet, though, so there's hope.

2. Comparative title time: what published books, movies, or TV shows are like your book? (Ex: Inkheart meets X-Men.)

Um. Storms, I'm bad at this. It's not that there's nothing like my story . . . it's that there's a lot that are sort-of-similar, but none that are super similar . . . that I can think of. Which I guess is a good thing? It feels like a bad thing, though. I don't know.

3. Do you enjoy working with deadlines and pressure (aka NaNoWriMo)? Or do you prefer to write-as-you’re-inspired?

Both! I love NaNoWriMo- it's great for getting first drafts down and making sure I finish and don't get bogged down by darn-it-where-do-I-go-with-this now? 'Cause there's a daily quota to make and a challenge to overcome and if I don't know what I'm doing, I'd better make something up and I'd better do it fast- and as a result, I usually get through. But I honestly couldn't deal with that year-round, so I like having months where as long as I'm doing some writing every day (or most days), I'm good.

4. How do you go about editing? Give us an insight into your editing process.

My editing process is very simple: I sit down with my notebook and a Word document and I type up what I've written, page by page, making modifications as needed. These modifications can be anything from fixing typos and rewording sentences to entirely reworking or adding scenes. Occasionally I'll delete a scene, but that's rare. After that first rewrite, if I like the way the story's turned out, I'll do another run-through, making any further changes that I feel are necessary, and then I share the story either with my friends on the Underground or with my parents, depending on whether or not I want to submit the story to something.

5. What aspect of your story needs the most work?

Um. Pretty much everything, I feel like? But I guess probably pacing and character development, especially for Mikkel and Ireen.

6. What aspect of your story did you love the most?

Taika and her character arc and her friendship with Katelyn. Their friendship especially is really fun to write because they get each other pretty well (plus Taika gets about seventy-five percent of Katelyn's references, so yay!)

7. Give us a brief run down on your main characters and how you think they turned out. Do you think they’ll need changes in edits?

Mikkel- the apprentice Hero of Rushire. He was supposed to be a fairly similar character type to Prince Hayden from my fairy tale retelling series, but he ended up being . . . not. He's less hard on himself than I thought, and also less inclined to challenge the Way It Is- though the last is an oversight on my part. His entire job and future is based on tradition, after all. So, he and Taika don't even start to get along until more than halfway through the novel, and he's still very uncertain of her.

Taika- the last heir of the Coradin line, traditionally foes of Rushire. Taika turned out closer to what I expected her to be than Mikkel did. She's very devoted to her adoptive father, but less enthusiastic about the whole Coradin legacy than I expected. She's also less sure of herself than I expected- but just as willing to do something she's uncertain about if it seems like the best option. The one big thing that did change a lot was that she was supposed to be into gadgets and inventing and such, and that didn't end up happening. Oh well. Her aforementioned friendship with Katelyn (which was originally going to be a really minor thing) makes up for it.

Ireen- technically not a main character, but a major one, and worth mentioning. She's basically Mikkel's girlfriend, and also basically a spy/Ranger/tracker/etc. apprentice. She ended up being a lot more, I guess you could say pragmatic and hot-headed. And also more stubborn. She has good intentions, generally. But that doesn't change the fact that she grabs onto bad ideas- ideas specifically forbidden by her superiors- and holds onto them long after she should've let go. She's also a lot less mischievous and a lot more hostile towards Taika than I planned.

8. 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?

Depends when I finish writing it and how it turns out after edits. At the moment, the most likely route is "more edits." Or else hiding it in a tub under my bed for a year until I feel like facing it again.

9. Share a favourite snippet!

I'm indecisive, so you get too. First, a rare scene (though growing less rare) in which Mikkel and Taika are actually- wonder of wonders- being nice to each other:

"I'm sorry," Taika said again.

Mikkel glanced at her, surprised by her tone. "You meant that."

Taika shrugged. "They were my enemies by tradition only. I didn't hate them, and I have no reason to be glad that they're dead and their families mourn."

And an equally astounding scene in which Taika and Ireen are being civil to each other:

Ireen scowled. "Stormbeast. It's too high. I can't reach the edge." She peered down. "Don't suppose you carry a rope and grappling hook with you as a matter of course, since you probably have to make daring and dastardly escapes fairly often?"
 "The tallest buildings in the city are griffin aeries. I'd rather just fly off, not bother with ropes and grapnels," Taika retorted. "What about you? You climb buildings and trees and cliff faces to spy on people; why don't you carry some kind of rope and hook?"
"Because trees and cliffs generally have branches and crevices and things to grab onto, and I've never had to climb any buildings higher than one story."  

10. What are your writing goals and plans for 2016?

Finish Binding Destiny and Monster in the Castle, if I don't before December comes to an end. Finish editing Destinies and Decisions and Between Two World. Edit The Way of the Pen. Write lots of short stories, both original and fanfiction, as well as a fair bit of poetry. Write Berstru Tales #5 for one of the Camp NaNos. Be seized with indecision next October about whether or not to do NaNoWriMo. That about sums it up.

Well, there you have it. My novel and my editing plans. Such as they are. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!

 -Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)