First and foremost, I am excited to say that my short story, A Taste, has been published in the December issue of an awesome magazine called Under the Bed magazine. You can download it to your Kindle, Nook or directly from the magazine's website. No matter what your source, please be kind and leave a review!
In my drunken state of euphoria, I'm giving away The Death Bump, another short story of mine. You can download it here. If you like what you read, I definitely encourage you to buy the December issue of Under the Bed magazine.
In other news... NaNoWriMo went very well. I managed to get over 60k worth of words done in The Sorcerer's Paragon: Book 2. My goal was to write 2k words a day, and I made sure that I stuck to it. I think outlining the entire book beforehand helped a great deal. I used the snowflake method, a method that I described in an earlier post.
As I mentioned in that post, I followed the snowflake method to the letter. While it had its positives, I have to admit that in the long run (in my case anyway), the negatives piled up higher. I got the point where I was so concerned with hitting each part of the outline that my character's own voice got a bit muted in the process. I ignored his input. I didn't let him lead the dance, which was stupid on my part because it is, after all, his dance. The poor guy is little more than a marionette on a string, a cardboard cutout going through the motions instead of being a living, breathing entity. The whole damn thing discouraged me enough to put the WIP aside for the time being.
But that's okay. It's only temporary. I'll fix it sooner than later. And besides, it gave me incentive to begin something that has been thickening in my mind for quite some time, something that I'm really excited about. I began drafting another story that I'm calling Air for the time being. Eventually, I'll go back to Book 2 and complete the first draft, but I feel like I need to get some of Air on virtual paper. This one will be done in the pantser mentality. I have an idea of where I want it to go and a very rough idea of how the characters might get there. I have some of their back story figured out, but I'm looking forward to being surprised by them.
Ok. Back to NaNoWriMo and lessons learned. I learned the importance of sticking to a schedule. Even when my muse decided to leave me by the wayside, even when I was feeling as creative as a freakin' rock, I forced myself to sit at my desk and simply put one word after another until I reached my daily goal. Sometimes the tap refused to loosen, and I struggled for each and every drop. Other times the words poured out like a flood onto the paper. No matter what, I didn't call it a day until I got my 2k words down.
I think I can sum up the importance of keeping to a writing schedule by leaving you with two very good quotes from two very good authors.
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
- Stephen King
“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.”
― W. Somerset Maugham
Good stuff, right? That's all for now!
Thanks for reading!
-- Tim
