FebNoWriMo Week 2

Day 8

Today I made some progress with Souls Unknowing. I managed to type up a couple more of the old chapters. I also re-organized the chapters for the entire story. I discovered that instead of having a prologue, 46 chapters, and an epilogue, I can reduce it to the prologue, 23 chapters, and an epilogue. So, I have 16 of the old chapters typed up, which is more like 8 chapters in the new format. I think it will make things a lot nicer.

What I found really nice about this change to the structure is that most of the big "cliffhangers" in the story are still at the ends of chapters, which makes it quite nice for me.

But I can totally see that this process is going to take a lot longer than I thought. Before I started I thought it would only take a couple days to re-type up everything and then I could move on to editing, but that really isn't the case. Because as I re-type, I am also doing a little revision at the same time. It isn't anything major like adding in more details and expanding scenes, but it is just as important.

When I originally wrote Souls Unknowing and the first 10 chapters of Souls Abandoned, I thought it would be really cool to write them in 3rd person present tense. As I look back on all of this 8 years later I realize exactly how horrible that idea was. So, my revision involves making it all 3rd person past tense, which flows a lot better, but also makes the typing a LOT slower.

And, I did a little calculating on the word count based on what I have typed up already. It is possible that my earlier estimate of 54,000 is wrong. Based on the average word count for the chapters I've typed so far multiplied by the chapters I have remaining, the word count should be more like 57,000. I'm also thinking that in the process of editing, I'll probably end up adding something like 15,000--20,000 words. So Souls Unknowing may end up being more like 72,000-80,000.

But, I guess the good thing is that I am making progress. I should also comment that I have made progress on my DVR as well. I left my TV off all weekend long through yesterday, so I was 5 days behind on my TV shows. Now, I'm almost caught up. I still have one more of my Monday shows to watch and then I have my Tuesday shows. Wednesday is a slow day so I only have one episode of Criminal Minds to watch.

All in all it has been a productive day.

Days 9 & 10

Okay, so sadly I only re-typed a couple hundred words on day 9. I kept getting pulled away from my computer by my family, and then I had to go into work early. When I got home I was surprisingly tired and ended up watching TV for a couple hours.

Day 10 I was able to re-type some more but I also spent a great deal of time thinking about this whole process and it made me realize that trying to rush myself through Souls Unknowing to use the CreateSpace coupon on time is not being fair to the story. It would have been a different matter entirely if I had a digital copy of SU somewhere, but I don't. And the re-typing alone is taking a lot longer than I originally anticipated.

So, after discussing the matter with one of my biggest supporters, I am not using the coupon for Souls Unknowing. Instead I will be using a novel that is almost completely ready to go.

Project Death: Resurrection is the first in a four book series and I have already edited it once, so now it is just a matter of going through it one more time and tidying up a few things.
This is the cover for Project Death: Resurrection, the first book in my Project Death quartet.

Of course, I assured my good friend that I would still continue to work on Souls Unknowing. It will still see the light of day, just not in summer 2012 as originally planned. Instead, I'm aiming for more like Dec 2012, which would probably be better for my friend anyway (more of a birthday/Christmas present then). I wouldn't want the cover I created to go to waste.
This is the cover for Souls Unknowing, the first in my Souls trilogy.

Days 11 & 12

 

Okay, so with the blessing of my friend, who told me that I know what my story needs and that it's okay as long as she gets a copy of Project Death: Resurrection, I have pushed SU to the side, just a little bit. I'm still going to be re-typing it but I will take my time with the editing so I can give the story the best facelift possible.

Of course, that meant that I had to pull out Resurrection again. Now, I have written the book and about a year ago I went through and edited it all. Now I am going through one more time to add in some things that I think are necessary and to clear up some parts. The great news with this story is that I do have it in a digital format. That makes things considerably easier. Also, when I finished editing it last, I printed out a copy (double-spaced and everything), so that makes editing and adding in stuff go a whole lot smoother.

I already know that I'm going to be doing some major expanding on the prologue. And naturally, since I am doing this on my hard copy first I have no exact way of knowing how many words I've added, but so far I would say that it is about 300 words, and I would guess that I have another 1,000 or so to add to the prologue.

In my first draft of Resurrection I ended up with 44,698 words (which in my mind felt just a little short). My big edit added 17,639 words so the second draft ended up with 62,337 words (better but I still feel like it needs some more). I am guessing that by the end of this third draft I will have somewhere around 80,000 words, which I think is about where it should be anyway.

I am looking forward to this project and if I'm lucky then I will be able to edit at least a chapter a day. If that is the case then I should finish editing on the hard copy by about March 19th. That works out almost perfectly since I am going on vacation March 25-29th to look at apartments in Florida. The vacation will give me a bit of a break from the story and then when I return home I can look through everything a final time before formatting it all to the standards of CreateSpace.

Day 13

I continued with my final edits of Project Death: Resurrection. It is not going as quickly as I would like it to, mostly because I always seem to be interrupted by my parents. They need me to do the laundry, or sweep and mop the house, or some other house chore. Then of course I had to go to work again. It would be so wonderful to hit the jackpot on the lottery so I can take some time off to do nothing but focus on my writing, but that's not going to happen so I just need to find myself some time to work where I won't be interrupted.

Day 14

Okay, Valentine's Day...Another year has come and gone and I am once again celebrating SAD (Singles Awareness Day). I will freely admit that I did not work on any of my writing. I curled in my bed with a stuffed animal watching movies and such until I went to work. Then after work I repeated the exact same thing, though after work I watched The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (one of my all-time favorite movies).

NaNoWriMo, a high-velocity approach to noveling

Okay, as I mentioned at the end of my last post, I discovered NaNoWriMo (that is, National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2005. I was on a site called fictionpress where people can post chapters of original fiction and then others can review it. One of the writers I particularly enjoyed started posting these nice long chapters every day and it intrigued me. After seeing an author note mentioning NaNoWriMo, I went onto the Web to learn more.

NaNoWriMo is a writing event in which writers all around the world challenge themselves to write 50,000 words on a new novel in the month of November. It sounds completely crazy but it was that chance at pure insanity that drew me in. Since I discovered it mid-month, I knew that trying in 2005 was out, so I made up my mind to participate in 2006.

The rest, I guess you could say, is history. I have participated in NaNoWriMo every year since 2006. I managed to drag at least 8 friends into doing it with me as well over the years and I have learned an incredible amount about writing from the whole experience. In 2006 I participated alone, and in 2007 I got a group of my novel-writing friends together and I became an unofficial Municipal Liaison at my university. In 2008 I officially started the region for my area, and I have been the Municipal Liaison ever since.

A Municipal Liaison (or ML for short) is a volunteer who organizes events for the region. These can be social gatherings or events for people to work on their novels. Social gatherings are fun and it is nice to unwind from the otherwise hectic month of November, but the write-ins are my favorite because it is inspiring to see a group of people either writing long hand or typing away on laptops.

Okay, so I mentioned participating in NaNoWriMo, but what I didn't mention was that I have won every year since I started in 2006. To win you just need to hit 50,000 words before the month of November has ended. Right now I have 6 NaNoWriMo wins under my belt and I'm looking forward to 2012 to make it number 7.

What I am not looking forward to in 2012 is that I will have moved. The region I started will fall solely into the hands of my co-ML from the past couple years. I trust him to keep things going, especially since he is an English professor, but I will always think of the region as MY baby. However, I can console myself with the knowledge that my new home does not have an official region...yet. I will definitely be applying for the position and starting a region. Hopefully I will have as much success in a bigger city as I did in a cute little college city.

Okay, so on Feb 15 I will be posting up details of my Week 2 FebNoWriMo experience. I'm thinking that I will also post up a blog about how I came up with my pen name, the title of my blog, and a few fun little quirks I have.

This is the point where I should probably introduce myself

Okay, well Danielle Thamasa is a pen name I created for myself around six or seven years ago. Yes, I do like the name my parents gave me, but in the past I also really liked the idea of keeping my personal life and my published life separate. However, as the years have passed I have realized that I don't have much of a life outside of my writing. One would think that I would then just start using the name my parents gave me for my writing, but I have become quite attached to Danielle Thamasa and I enjoy it when my writer friends refer to me as Dani. I just think that is cool.

So, I think I'm going to just stick with Danielle Thamasa for my writing endeavors. Perhaps someday in the future I will also decide to let the world know exactly who I am, but until then I will enjoy the anonymity of using a pen name. I guess I should probably admit one of my silly little dreams is to go to a book discussion for one of my novels to listen to what people are saying about it. The fact that I would be using the name my parents gave me while in the discussions means that no one would really expect that the author of the novel is actually there with them.

On the other hand, I have realized that not letting the world know who I am also means that I can't really do book signings or anything of the like. But, since I'm not quite published yet, that isn't exactly the worst thing in the world. Of course, I guess if my books were huge successes that I would reconsider the whole anonymity thing, because really, that would just be a little awesome.

Anyway, so more about me. I have a B.A. in English Literature and a M.L.I.S. (Master's of Library and Information Science). My degrees enable me to teach at the college level, to work in a library, museum, or archival center, and I could also work in PR, Communications, or possibly even do something with editing. While in undergrad I also worked on the school newspaper, rising up to become editor-in-chief my junior year, so I could technically work for a newspaper as well.

Basically, what most of my experiences have prepared me for is some sort of profession that revolves around books. My whole life has been that way. My mom told me that she used to read to me, even before I was born. When they would do reading comprehension tests in school I always tested way higher than the grade level I was in. To give an example, in fourth or fifth grade I had the reading comprehension level of a college graduate.

In high school I was the Library Assistant at school. I got the job when a fellow student was looking for a book that had not been put back in its proper place. Luckily I had found the book earlier that morning as I browsed for another book to read. I grabbed the book, off the shelf, handed it to the librarian, and was told "you're hired."

I guess if I had to go back to when I decided to be a writer, it would be in seventh grade, the start of junior high. I had been telling and writing silly little stories for years, but in junior high I actually started writing longer tales. Most of those stories are long gone now, thanks to computer crashes and the like. But in high school I did an incredible amount of writing. I think I started something like 200 stories. I think I finished five or so.

In the middle of November my senior year of high school I discovered this really cool writing event called NaNoWriMo, and that is probably what really set me on the path to becoming a published writer. I'll get into that more in my next post.

FebNoWriMo Week 1

Day 1

I have re-typed roughly 14,000 words of Souls Unknowing so far, and I think I will type up another 3K-5K before I go to bed. This is not going to be a NaNo like my usual ones. Typically I am aiming for 50,000 words in a novel that I haven't started. But, since this isn't an official NaNo, I feel that I can alter the expectations just a little bit.

When I originally wrote Souls Unknowing I think it was something like 54,000 words or so. I need to get all of that typed back up and then I am in full-on edit mode. I have seen a couple spots where I need to clean things up. One of the things I noticed was that I have a group of something like seven girls and I probably only really need around three since they aren't exactly major parts of the story. They are really the people my main character spends time with when she is trying to convince herself that she is not a freak and that she is going to ignore the spirit world.

What I would like to do in the editing/expanding is to add about 30,000 words or so. I'm hoping that I'll be able to do that in the month of February and then I can start from the top again and read through for any glaring errors and such. Then I have a couple people who are going to do a read-through for me and give their own feedback.

After that, I will go through one last time and fix anything my readers have pointed out. Then it will just be a matter of making sure the formatting is all good to go before I finish everything up on CreateSpace.

Day 2

Okay, so I didn't really do a lot of typing today, which kind of sucks, but at the same time I have made progress on the overall story for my Souls trilogy. After I finished Souls Unknowing in 2006 I immediately started working on the sequel Souls Abandoned. However, much like I did with the first book, I wrote several chapters and then pushed the book aside. Here it is at the start of 2012 and I still only have 10 chapters of book two written and the only thing I really have down for book three is the title: Souls Crossing.

So, instead of writing, today I spent time with one of my biggest fans for these books. She was the main reason I finished writing Souls Unknowing in the first place because she constantly asked me when I was going to get back to it and when the next chapter would be ready, etc.

Back in 2006 I knew how I wanted Souls Abandoned to go and at the time I really liked the idea, but now as I'm coming back to these stories and re-reading everything I have discovered a better path for the story and I like it much better than the original plot points. Of course, now I just have to figure out how the changes in Abandoned will affect Crossing. But that is really a problem for another day.

So...I guess what I'm saying here is that not only am I working on re-typing up Unknowing and then editing it, but I am also working on finishing Abandoned so I can start on Crossing. I have a feeling that it is going to be quite an interesting month (and probably the same can be said for the next couple months as well).

Day 3

I'll admit it: I didn't really write like at all today. But, I did think about the Souls trilogy, particularly Abandoned and I definitely have some new plot points that I didn't have when I was originally working on the story back in 2006-2008.

Also, I have the next two days off work so hopefully I'll be able to make the best of that time. Though tomorrow my family is going down to see my grandma to celebrate her 85th birthday. However, what that means is around 5 hours (round-trip) in the car...and I won't be the one driving. I can definitely work on some more of Abandoned then. I won't be able to work on Unknowing since I have to finish re-typing that first and I'm not taking my computer with me.

Instead I'll work on writing Chapter 11 and see how far I get with everything.

Day 4

I did a little writing today for Abandoned but as I suspected, more time was spent with my grandma celebrating her birthday. The trip home was basically after dark so there was no chance for writing and I couldn't really do much on the way there because I can really only tune my family out by reading.

So, not a lot of writing, but I did read 2.5 books today so at least that is something.

I plan on doing some more writing before bed and then I'm off work tomorrow so I can hopefully get quite a bit of work done then.

Days 5 & 6
I feel like a bad writer. I haven't done any writing the past couple days. So, I need to work on that. And I will work on it because I have a lot of work to get done before I can use my CreateSpace coupon. Hopefully on my next day off from work I can make some progress.

Day 7

Okay, so after work I didn't do a little work on the Souls trilogy like I planned. Instead I had this urge to do a little work on this idea I have had on the back burner for six years now. On fictionpress I run a Role Playing forum set in the 1920s and with all of the characters and the setting and the stories that I had created, I always thought it would be cool to actually write something other than just RPing. But I could never decide if I wanted to write just one novel, a series of short stories, or what.

After work I just sat there thinking about Speak Easy, and it hit me: a series of novellas. I'm just not that good with short stories. Even when I try to keep them short they typically end up with at least 15,000 words or more, so short stories wouldn't really work for this project. And the more I thought about it, the more I came to think that one novel just wouldn't do this world justice, and I don't really want to try and do a series of novels with this.

So...a compromise...longer than short stories, but shorter than novels...novellas. Depending on the final word count after I've finished the novellas, it might just be one collection of all of the stories, or maybe two. Anyway, right now I have the titles and loose ideas for 10 different novellas.

Now, that does not mean that I am throwing the Souls trilogy aside to work on Speak Easy. I just had to get it all down before I forgot about it. Perhaps working on Speak Easy will be my project for Camp NaNoWriMo or maybe NaNoWriMo. Heck, since I'm planning on 10 different novellas maybe it will take both sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo as well as NaNoWriMo to write them all.

FebNoWriMo...kind of

Okay, so I am a huge fan of C.E. Murphy, and she decided that she was going to do FebNoWriMo because of the amount of writing she needed to get finished by mid-April. Looking at all of my novels and what I would like to happen by year's end, I saw that I had a lot of writing to do as well. I said, okay, well I've never lost NaNoWriMo in the 6 years I have attempted it and I won both sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo last year...so why not do a NaNo session in February.

Thanks to NaNoWriMo I have a CreateSpace coupon to use and I only have until June 30, 2012, to utilize said coupon. I would really like to finish editing one of my novels and get it published. I asked some of my friends and fans which one they would like and finally settled on Souls Unknowing, the first book in my Souls trilogy about ghosts.

However, I ran into a big problem. My USB drive randomly decided to delete everything I had on it, which meant that I lost my only digital copy of Souls Unknowing. I was saved by the fact that I actually had a printed out copy laying around.

I started Souls Unknowing back in 2004 and finished it in 2006, right before I finished high school. I haven't really touched it since then. I've been re-typing everything and as I'm going through it I am realizing just how much I have learned about writing since then. The bones of the story (I think)  are still good but there is quite a bit of work to be done.

So, I am going to try and hold myself accountable to this re-write and publication process. I am going to try and post updates about how I'm doing with all of this and if I slack in doing that, I'm hoping that you, my good friends, will pester me and ask what's going on and if I've been working on Souls Unknowing.

Right now I have re-typed up the prologue and chapters 1-8. I still need to re-type up chapters 9-46 and the epilogue. Then I need to readjust the chapters so that I only have like 24 or so instead of 48. Then I need to actually go through everything, edit, and expand on stuff.

It's going to be a busy next few months, but hopefully it will all work out. Oh, and when I finish Souls Unknowing and release it, I'll be sure to post a link to where it can be purchased.