I’ve started a new project!
This one I’m calling WIP “shadow man” or “shadow” for short. Basically, it’s a dark supernatural novel about the grim reaper. The idea came to me very suddenly. Usually, I like to take a few months to brainstorm and sit on the idea before I start working on it. But as soon as the picture came to me I whipped up an outline. Learning from my mistakes from my last project, I actually finished the outline before starting.
When I outlined “spring” I stopped outlining after getting to the midpoint because I couldn’t wait to start. It made finishing the project difficult.
“Spring” left me feeling very creatively burnt out and exhausted. And after a long break, I was really excited to be working on something again.
Chapter one of “Shadow man” was really difficult. I just couldn’t figure out how to introduce the characters. I rewrote and rewrote that chapter and every time it didn’t seem right. I’ve never had a hard time with the first chapters of my projects. They may get rewritten later on, but I always know exactly how I want to start them. This one was different.
After spending days rewriting the same scene over and over, I accepted that this was just one chapter that I would rewrite in the next draft. After all, the first draft is there just to tell myself the story.
After getting past those first couple of scenes, I am flying through this book! I’m on the fourth chapter and so far it’s turning out to be a dark, gory, and humorous book. Just what I had hoped for! As a pantser, I’m not in total control of the tone the book takes. I’m also not very good at writing humor, but “spring” really helped me practice writing funny dialogue.
I’m so excited about this project and I can’t wait to see where it ends up!
Goals:
I don’t have a date set for when I want to finish it, but I would like to have it done before Christmas (long before if that’s possible). But, as a short time goal, I’d like to get to 10k words by the end of the week. That would be amazing and totally achievable. I just started school, so I don’t have a lot of free time on my hands, but I would love to write 5k words every week.
How are your writing projects going? I would love to know!
Thanks a bunch!
— Sarah
The Adventures of a Nerd. 