Another New Writing Schedule

Okay, here's an updated version of my writing schedule for the next few months--circumstances have changed, thus so does the calendar.

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November -- Write the first draft of Operation Valiant; finish editing a novel for a friend; begin a novella called Calm Tom Dawson.

December -- Finish editing The Night Phoenix; try to finish Calm Tom Dawson;

January -- Work on a query letter for The Night Phoenix; if I haven't yet, I have to finish Calm Tom Dawson; give The Night Phoenix a few last check-overs.

February -- Send the query letter for The Night Phoenix to Mr. Rothe at Black Rose Writing; edit Calm Tom Dawson.

March -- Begin work on self-publishing Calm Tom Dawson (cover art, final edits, formatting)

April -- Self-publish Calm Tom Dawson; return to Operation Valiant and edit the first draft.

May -- Take a break before I fall down dead.

Update on The Night Phoenix

So, I might have mentioned a while ago (or maybe I didn't... ah well) that I was editing The Night Phoenix. Well, I finished that a few weeks ago.

Then I turned the manuscript over to a person I met on www.holyworlds.org ; his username there is Aratrea, and that's what I'll call him to avoid confusion. I had posted a notice on the fantasy section of that website, asking if anyone would be able to do a third edit of The Night Phoenix (I had already read through it twice). Aratrea offered to do the job.

I got the revised copy back just a few hours ago. I haven't gotten the chance to read it, but it seems like he made quite a few suggestions--and all of them are very helpful.

So I'm going to go through again and make changes again. Then, depending on how I feel about it, I might ask another of my friends to edit it again. If I like how it turned out, I might just leave it and start working on a query letter to send out to some publishers.

Wish me luck!

Well, I've Finally Decided...

...to get a move-on and start working on some sort of writing. Besides poetry. Because I write that way too much and ignore the fact that I have a bunch of novels that need my attention.

I actually have enough time on my hands to do so. But the Worst Enemy of the Writer has been lurking...

The Internet.
Yeahhh. I'm a tad obsessed with the Internet. Not just as a time-waster, mind you. I have a few friends that I talk to who can get depressed from time to time, and I like to try and make them feel better. That's what takes up most of my free time, really.

Well, that being said, I'm going to try and concentrate on my writing. My mom has actually banned me from working on it after 6:30PM, because that's family time. Which I understand. But 6:30PM-8:00PM is pretty much the only time I have absolutely nothing else to do--no chores, no Internet access, no errands to go run, no school...

But family time is important, so I must find time during the day to write. However, even if I do avoid the Internet, I still get asked to do chores every few minutes (because my brother has a problem with HEARING people and never does his), and then we do have places to go. And of course there's another common Enemy of mine:

HIGH SCHOOL.
Yeah, I put that one in all caps and bolded it and all that because of one reason--I really am disliking high school. I'm in 10th grade, and some of it is actually pretty easy for me. History and Geography; English; and Bible. Mostly because I read the Bible a lot and already know most of the answers to my problems, and I'm kind of obsessed with history and other countries. And English is kind of obvious. When I was able to start reading longer books, at around age 8 or so, I was reading high school grammar books that I found in the novel-writing section of my library. *headdesk* I was an odd kid.
But the Biology and Geometry... after finishing that, I'm brain-dead. I just can't grasp the concepts of it, and I'm kind of afraid I'll fail miserably.

Anyway, I kinda got off-track there.

My new priorities are to set aside some time to work on editing The Night Phoenix, and plotting out my fantasy trilogy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm the kind of person who prefers jumping right into a book and letting it show me where to go. Unfortunately, with longer books, or more often than not, trilogies or series, you have to plan them out. Otherwise, things come up that you forgot or want to add in. And when that happens, it usually changes the whole course of events in the novel so far, which means you have to rewrite most of it, if not the whole dang thing.

So I'm planning my fantasy trilogy out, slowly but surely (okay, not so surely. So sue me). I like the characters, I like my fantasy world (Solarii is its name, though the novel takes place in Elani, one country), and I like the basic plot I've come up with for them. They just need fleshing out.

So, that's about it!

Sometimes I Need A Good Whack Upside The Head

Because I have got to be the worst procrastinator in the United States, if not the world, if not the galaxy, if not the entire universe.

As some of you probably know, I've been working on several projects, the one that is most important (or should be, but actually hasn't been on my mind that much) being the editing of my novel, The Night Phoenix. It's roughly about 85,000 words so far, and I think it has potential. Of course, I've only edited about three chapters in as many months.

I faiiiiiil.

Anyway. I also should have finished the screenplay for a short film I'm doing this summer. Well, July is almost over, and I've only written half of the screenplay. And we haven't filmed anything, because things keep coming up and delaying us. So our little Lokirim Productions film is severely behind schedule. Oops.

What else have I been doing with my time, you ask?

I have been wasting my time writing fanfiction, because I've been serously deprived of my favorite TV show. There aren't any episodes up to watch online, except for five, and I've watched those over and over and over again. So I write fanfiction to satiate myself.

Lame, I know. I waste precious time (what little time I'm not doing school or chores) writing fanfiction, or reading fanfiction, or watching movies that I've already watched at least ten times.

Oh well. I'll just have to ask my brother to knock me over the head with his sword or something and get back on track.

Update On Camp NaNo

Umm...

I quit.

Yeaaaah. It was just too hard. I mean, I love the idea I came up with for the novel, but I'm way too busy with school and life to concentrate on it. So I decided to put it aside and not do Camp NaNo. Yeah, I fail.

So instead I'm going to focus on writing poetry (which is easier for me), and editing my novel The Night Phoenix. Because my plan is still to send a query letter about it into a few publishers. And that's obviously not going to happen unless I get myself in gear and edit the bloody thing.

I'll still be doing that fantasy novel I told you about. Eventually. When I have the time. I think I'd rather finish the first book in my original fantasy trilogy anyway.

I Discovered Something!

I was editing the first chapter of The Night Phoenix today. As I did so, I was trying to think of a plausible excuse for the two shapeshifters. I mean, it's not like everyone will be completely ignorant or oblivious to the fact that a wolf or a fox shapeshifts into a mouse all of a sudden--even if they're not paying close attention.

As always, the answer was right in front of me, and had been for quite some time.

I started a roleplay with a friend of mine, Mary Hills (you can find her blog here: Writing Progress ). Rowan, who is one of my shapeshifters from The Night Phoenix, is one of my characters in the roleplay.
Well, in that roleplay, I had Rowan shift into the form of a human. My brain, I think, was telling me, "It's just a roleplay, you don't have to play by the rules of your novel."
This afternoon though, I realized--why in the world is one of the rules of my novel a rule that says the shapeshifters can only shift into the form of animals? I mean, why?

I don't quite know. Perhaps I made that rule up at 4:00 in the morning, which was when I first started writing The Night Phoenix (I got up early, since it was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and I wanted a head start on this race I was involved in).

Anyway, I'm extremely excited about this. The shapeshifters' ability to become a human could take the novel into so many different directions! So, I'm going to decide on what their human forms look like (I already have Rowan's human form mostly created, I think; not Aelfcynn's), and then decide which places in the novel they'll be human.

If anyone has any ideas what Aelfcynn's human form should look like, please let me know! ((Oh, and as a sidenote; she usually shapeshifts into the shape of a pure white wolf with green eyes.))

Thanks, guys! You rock! : )

The Night Phoenix

The Night Phoenix is, as some of you may know, a novel I finished for National Novel Writing Month, 2011.
Truth be told, I was supposed to have been finished editing it by now. The fact is, I haven't gotten very far at all. My life got insanely hectic right after National Novel Writing Month ended. Then, once I got some free time, I was feeling so depressed, I didn't feel like doing any writing at all--except for poetry.
However, as of Tuesday, I decided to continue on with my editing. My inital plan had always been to at least get the manuscript of The Night Phoenix sent to a publisher by summer of 2012; and that's still my plan. I'm simply going to have to force myself to stop procrastinating.

I've made some major changes so far, and there will most likely be more to come. One of my supporting characters had originally been called Ian Asher; I've changed it to Ethan Asher now. That's probably the biggest change I've made--so far, anyway.
Besides that, I seriously have to get back on track and do some more researching on Area 51 and the FBI; they play integral parts in the novel, and I'm afraid I slacked off on describing those two things accurately.

Anyway, after I'm finished with the inital editing processes, I'm going to send a query letter to one of two publishers: Malachite Quills or Black Rose .
If--the tiny amount of optimist in me wants to say 'when', but I'll refrain--my novel is accepted, I'm definitely going to be busy promoting it and creating a book trailer for it. Nothing too fancy; probably just artwork and maybe a few clips of scenery. I don't have very many resources to actually film a trailer with costumes and everything as of yet. Perhaps one day...