I realize that I talk a lot about tips on what you should do with your novel, and how you can improve your story, yet I never talk about my own plans for my own stories! I give brief updates here and there, like what genre it is or how much I write each day or what my current word count is, but I don’t give much info about what my hopeful outcome of it is. That is what I wanted to talk about today so settle in because this might be long.

So as many of you know, because I gave weekly updates and whatnot, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo this April of 2018. My goal was to work on my fantasy idea, inspired by Central American mythology by the way, and get about 40,000 words into it by the end of the month. I actually achieved this, and plan on continuing with it until the end of May when I hope to have my first draft fully completed. Once I have this messy first draft completed, I am going to take most of June off to let my story settle, but also because finals! I am in my grade eleven year, which is kind of important so I really need to focus on getting good grades rather than the personal lives and challenges my characters in my fictional story face…or at least that is what my mother says! But despite trying not to write in June, I do want to sit down towards the end of the month and write down all my ideas and thoughts for draft two…possibly even reading over draft one if I feel in the mood to torture myself.

Even though my dream has always been to be an author, I haven’t actually focused on writing a full novel since I was…maybe thirteen? I have been very focused on writing short stories because they are short and sweet and work well with my school schedule. It means I don’t have to commit to one story for a long time, and I don’t have to devoute any certain amount of time a day that I usually don’t have. However, since I am nearing my final years of high school, I realized there are a lot of scholarships and fellowships I can apply for if I submit twenty or so pages of my current work in progress. At the time of realizing all this, I didn’t have a work in progress, but I did have an idea, so I thought I should give it a shot. I sat down two months before Camp NaNoWriMo and started outlining and researching more in depth on my idea and then bam! It was suddenly April and I was off and writing. I am a panster, so I had a loose outline that has vigorously changed throughout the course of writing the first half of my book. Which is okay, but sometimes I end up writing myself into a deep hole, but that is the whole experience so who am I to complain, right? But yes, I plan on sending my first, hopefully very polished, twenty pages of my WIP into different scholarships and fellowships to try and see how good I am. I encourage you all to do the same because it is nice to write towards a big goal. It gives me motivation every time I don’t feel like writing.

The deadline for the main fellowship I have my eye on is Novemeber 30 of this year, so I have about seven months which may seem like a lot, but honestly it will go by so fast. A lot will be happening for me in the next seven months (finishing grade 11, finals, summer trips, starting grade 12, starting to apply to universities, etc, etc) so I need to keep writing if I want to have a good product by the end of November. I have a very tight schedule with my manuscript that I need to be hard on myself about (also because I am still writing short stories and submitting them, so I need to manage time when it comes to that as well). As soon as it is July 1 (the next session of Camp NaNoWriMo by the way, which is perfect timing), I need to be at my computer and pumping out the second draft which needs to be completed by the end of August at the very latest. After that, I will leave it for the first few weeks of the new school year so I can settle into grade twelve, and then come back and figure out what I need to focus on for draft 3 which means reading it over draft two. October, also known as “Preptober”, will be me writing the third draft and then November will be the month of polishing the first twenty pages! Honestly, any of the pages from twenty-one to two hundred can be awful, but the first twenty pages are what I need to focus on since that will be what I am submitting. They need to be clear in my overall idea, rich and different…which is a lot of pressure for only a few pages!

But yes, that is a very, very rambly update on my current writing plans and goals. Will it be easy? Nope, not even close since I am walking into one of the most important years of my school career, but where is the fun in it if it isn’t the least bit hard?

Make sure you let me know what your writing plans are, and also check out my last blog post which is linked below as well as my social media accounts 🙂

Last Blog Post: After Camp NaNoWriMo: Now What?

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