On The Road to 1,000,000 - Month 2 of 12

I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten all about my goal, didn't you? I obviously didn't. Granted, it's only the second month and I'm considerably behind, but I have the whole rest of the year to make up the deficit.

I've been working hard each day. It really helps the word count to have a few projects going at the same time, but my current novel is taking up most of my word count. It's tentatively titled "Empty Beds" and I plan on having a draft done in the next week or two, certainly before the end of the month.

That'll mean one novel down, nine to go! And one of those will be NaNoWrimo, so that barely counts. It was a novel I was planning on writing anyway.

I should mention here that Amy's been charging ahead with her own writing goals herself. A million words for her this year isn't quite in reach since she doesn't also write to pay the bills like I do, but she's working every bit as hard as I am, if not harder given her circumstances.

Her goal is to finish the second draft of her novel from last NaNoWriMo by her birthday on April 25th. She's worked her fingers to the bone on a good outline and she's been drafting her fingers off at night after work. It's good to not be alone in reaching for writing goals and she's learning a ton from the experience. Amy's boldly declared that her novel, a young adult urban fantasy, will be a best-seller when it's done. She's got a great head for story, so I know she's capable.

I've often compared learning writing to my mission for the LDS church. When I first got out in the field I was eager to improve, but I got frustrated when the methods and principles taught at our training meetings weren't translating to better results. Then one day, about eight or nine months in, I realized that I was almost unconsciously doing the things they had trained us to do. I didn't even have to think about it anymore.

With each of my novels so far I've done what I know how to do, trying to push the limits of my abilities, and have found them sorely lacking. But lately, as I've been writing this novel I've realized that my story telling skills are improving dramatically. Since this novel is based on one little idea, I'm basically letting the novel take me where it wants to go, working without a net or an outline of any kind. It's like a divining rod dragging me around the story. I guess I'll soon see where it's taking me.

For the past year or so I've had faith that my skills with fiction would improve with practice. My feelings about it didn't go any further than that, however, since I wasn't working to my potential to practice it and develop my projects. Now that I'm working hard it's a lot of fun to begin to see some results.

Maybe if I keep drafting like a mad man I'll be able to draft a book one of these days, tweak a few things and correct the spelling and I'll have a bestselling page-turner on my hands.

Meanwhile I'm still working on the discipline to keep up with my weekly word count goal of 20,000 words: no easy task, but I'm getting much better.

Thanks for your support and comments.


-Tom