Friday, November 4, 2016

Why I Love My WIP

If you've been paying attention in my Doings! posts, you may have noticed that I've been working on the same novella, Fight Song, since July. That might not seem terrible, seeing as I worked on Monster in the Castle for about two years before finishing it, and editing it will probably take another two to four at least. But considering that Fight Song is still under 25K, while Monster was 30K after a month and ended out being at least 150K . . . yeah. It's bad. Part of the problem is that I don't have a ton of motivation for the story, and my monthly goal is only helping so much.

So, I decided that I needed another way to motivate myself- specifically, I need to remind myself of why I wanted to write this novel in the first place, of why I enjoyed writing it, of why it's not terrible and therefore worth finishing. And to do that, I'm making a list of five reasons why I love my novel, even when I'm not super motivated to write it. (I'm 99% certain I'm stealing this idea from someone, for the record. Either that or I'm modifying a piece of relationship advice which I keep hearing in discussions on Philippians 4. One of the two.)

Reasons I Love My WIP

  1. It's my first major foray into writing a solely modern-day setting in, well, years. I think the last time I wrote anything this length which was set on Earth and didn't involve portals to some degree was before I did NaNoWriMo for the first time. That's six years ago, at least. So, yeah. Kind of a long time. On a related note, Fight Song is my most culturally diverse story, since a lot of my fantasy worlds (with the exception of Udarean) tend to be fairly European-inspired. It's also my only story in which a major character is a legit coffee addict. In other stories, 75% of my characters don't know what caffeine is, let alone coffee, and of those who do know what coffee is, only about half of them like it. Callie, on the other hand, is more addicted than an Araluen Ranger- she doesn't even care if it's good coffee; as long as it tastes sort of right and contains caffeine, she'll drink it. So, on the whole, this is definitely something out of the ordinary for me.
  2. I love the concept of the story. At its heart, Fight Song is not just about a quest for justice, even if that's the main plotline. It's about my main character proving to the world that she's not crazy; that she indeed saw what no one should have to witness. It's about her proving to herself that what others say doesn't control her fate and ridding herself of her guilt over letting their disbelief silence her for so long. And it's about my character- a young college-age woman, on her own and uncertain about both present and future- starting to find her place in the world. Has this draft done justice to all those elements? Maybe not. But they're there all the same.
  3. Fandom references! I like making fandom references in stories- which is part of why I like writing about Katelyn (of Between Two Worlds), because she loves all the fandoms I do and I can throw in nods to those stories with utter abandon. Callie and Jonathan aren't anywhere near that into fandoms- but I've still managed to reference The Princess Bride, Jackaby, and Hamilton, among other things. And, as a bonus, all the characters involved get the references and can respond appropriately. Well, except the Jackaby ones. But that's life.
  4. Teenage Superhero Society crossovers! Which are kind of unavoidable, because it's set in the same version of earth as the TSS is. But it's still super fun to write. So far, at least three TSS characters- possibly all five of the heroines- know of Callie's powers. Two of them have outright saved her life. And Starlight, at least, is aware of Callie's mission. Audrey might be as well; I can't remember for sure. Though in all fairness, it's a small miracle that the entire city isn't aware of Callie's mission. She tries, but she's not very good at things like, you know, being subtle. (This fact is going to be pointed out to her fairly soon, once she and Jonathan get back on speaking terms.)
  5. On that note, there's girl-guy friendship without any romance. I know this isn't totally unheard of (actually, in my stories, it might be more the norm than the exception), but it's still sort of rare, and it makes me happy. By the end of Fight Song, I plan that Callie and Jonathan will be fairly firm friends, with no interest in romance. And getting them there should be interesting, I think- particularly as some miscommunication and more than a bit of lost sleep means that, as I mentioned, they're currently not talking to each other. So, yeah. That's interesting.
Did this work? I think it did- I do feel slightly more cheerful about my novel now. So now I'm off to write a bit and then go to bed and hope that I won't keep myself up this late again tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

What are some things you love about your WIP? Tell me in the comments, or even feel free to make your own post on this theme! I'd love to hear what you've got to say.
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

4 comments:

  1. That's the spirit!
    I love point #3. I've had times when I would have loved to slip in a reference, but it wouldn't work due to the story world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! And yes, having characters who can reference things is the best. :D

      Delete
  2. Sounds fantastic. I can't wait to read it!

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to hear your thoughts! But remember: it pays to be polite to dragons.