May I Write a Novel Challenge…and a Confession

-

 

It’s May…and I’ve been working on trying to prioritise making words over all the other things I need to be doing, both as a publisher and a content creator. I had to find a balance after a bad co-op experience with another writer, a doubly bad experience in the last day job, and several biggish Life hits that came a little close together for easy recovery.

So, May…a writing challenge, and a confession: I have been making words, but not as many as I should be, and I’ve been having trouble producing them with the consistency needed. Sure, I could make excuses to go with circumstances: I had a lot to do in the production side of things (which I still do), and RL admin took a lot of time and precedence (and it still does), and blah, blah, blah…and maybe those things are valid and I should be cutting myself some slack, but the end result is the same—not enough words.

So, with the work schedule finally sorted eight-and-a-half months post-day-job, it’s time to focus on words—at last…maybe, and the timing of the May I Write a Novel Challenge was perfect.

What is the May I Write a Novel Challenge?

It’s a challenge put out by the Successful Indie Author, Craig Martelle – whose YouTube channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@SuccessfulIndieAuthor, wherein writers set themselves a goal of words to write, and try to meet it in May.

Note: You don’t need to actually write a novel, but you need to set yourself a goal, and you can track it on a spreadsheet the challenge provides. You can find the challenge details here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D85ujtNKqQk), and it might be the middle of May, but it is still May.

My Goal for this Challenge.

My goal was…and still remains 60,000—but I have been distracted, and Craig is right: You can produce on demand, and I have done this, consistently, before. Now, I need to get back to that point, and it starts with this month.

My ‘Novel’ for this Challenge.

Huh. Well, most of you know I work across several projects at once, so of course there’re more than one, but I do have a focus project, something started in my distant youth. Will I finish it? I will do my utmost. What is it?

Focus Project: Andromeda’s Pledge, Book 1, Book 1 of the A Lost Ship and Colony series.

Secondary Project: Dark God’s Demise, Book 3 of the Chronicles of a Dark God series.

Other Projects: Yet Another 365 Days of Poetry, Yet Another 365 Days of Flash Fiction, A Planet’s Debt, The Uncooperative

Where am I at?

Currently, my creative word total stands at 10,367/32,000, so I have a little catching up to do to reach the 60,000-word goal for the month, which will be easier now I’ve dealt with the other stuff. With 15 days to go, I can do it, RL notwithstanding…for now. Time to catch up…and get ahead, which is what I’m off to do, now.

Filling out the spreadsheet, can wait until the words are done. Let me grab my squirrelly brain and drag it back here—and while I do that, have a great day out there, wherever and whenever in the world you are.

And, if you’re a writer and wanted a challenge for May, go check out the challenge, and have some fun.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NEW RELEASE: AUTUMNAL THREAT

-
Image
An alien autumn. An unseen predator. Deadly burrowers and an oncoming winter. And bugs big enough to ride. Joaquin only wants to warn his daughter of a new danger. To keep her safe. To make her understand her mother isn’t coming back, while keeping her alive. But what if he’s wrong? What if Mariam really did survive? What if, when everything looks like it’s going wrong, it’s really going right? Autumnal Threat is Joaquin's story. It is a father's story...and the story of a husband who misses his wife, and wants to keep his daughter safe from a new threat on their frontier world. It's a story of hope, and not giving up, and of family, as well as an exploration of what an alien eco-system might look like. It was a lot of fun to write. You can find links to this newly released, stand-alone, science-fiction short story on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/mgyopK or read an earlier version in A Collection of Lost Ships and Colonies .  
Read more

Free Read: Forest Connections

-
Today, I managed to settle down and write a response to the latest flash fiction challenge on Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds blog - The Dead Body . There were only two rules: the word limit was 1,000, and the story had to open with a dead body. This is what came out: Forest Connections The body swayed in the trees rocked by storm winds and illuminated by lightning. It was naked, except for the green, leather gloves it wore on both hands—the hands from which it was suspended from the tree. It might have been an attractive body, if there hadn’t been a gaping wound where its stomach should be. Perhaps… but Garamond wasn’t looking at the body, didn’t notice the slender hips or sculpted chest, the beauty of fine-chiselled cheek bones or luxurious fall of hair. Garamond fought his breakfast back into place, swallowed bile, forced his focus to the other trees in the grove, the ground onto which he’d nearly stepped. If it hadn’t been for the crow flying out of the chest cavity...
Read more

Writing Craft: Using Tradition to Give Depth to Your World

-
It’s Australia Day, today, and that, coming so soon after Christmas got me to thinking about what significance this sort of even might have for world building. After all, every society celebrates or commemorates something, whether those events centre around a religious festival, an event rooted in history that helps define national identity, a culturally significant day, or a personal event. Each and every one of these helps to give a society structure, and to build individual identity. They are often used to cement a society of individuals into a cohesive whole, and as such are an essential part of social fabric. And this means that a variation or replica of some or all of the events below should exist in every story that is peopled by individuals and communities: Religious Festivals: Christmas, Ramadan, Passover, and Easter are the four events that come immediately to mind, and this reflects my own cultural bias and experience. Those of you from other backgrounds will come ...
Read more