Week two of the WIPmarathon! My goals have changed a little. While waiting on beta reader feedback on the YA novel, I’m drafting an NA novel. This is actually the novel I started working on earlier this year for the previous WIPmarathon, but it never really got anywhere and I wasn’t sure why. Having attended the NA workshop, however, I feel motivated and inspired and am now embroiled in a major rewrite/redraft of that novel.
Last Word Count: 32, 000 words I mostly hated
Current WC + CC (or SC): 7, 272 words I actually quite like
WIP Issues this week:
Getting my head out of the previous WIP and back into this one. This problem has largely been solved thanks to some great feedback from awesome people so I am no longer lacking the motivation or emotional connection to dive back into this one in earnest.
What I learnt this week in writing:
It’s okay to pants it. I have some vague ideas of where I want this story to go and what’s going to go wrong in my MC’s life, but that’s it and that’s all right for now. I trust my characters to take the lead.
What distracted me this week while writing:
Upcoming blog tour. I spent a good portion of writing time writing blog posts for my upcoming tour for my new YA release. Not a bad thing, but a distraction none the less.
Last 200 words: Not the last 200 but since the last 200 won’t have much meaning without context, I thought I’d share a different section instead.
The worst sound in the world is the dying squeal of a dog. It’s the soundtrack to my nightmares. Even after all these years, sometimes when I close my eyes, I’m ten years old again and my father’s hands are on my shoulders as he forces me to watch two pitbulls tear each other apart. Weston slips his hand into mine when Dad is too caught up in the final moments of the fight to pay us any attention. I can’t stop the tears, wanting to look away and yet unable to even blink as the smaller dog succumbs.
“Quit your balling, Raleigh.” Dad cuffs me across the back of the head. This whole expedition is meant to toughen me up, to stop me from being such a pussy and letting the other kids pick on me at school for being small. Weston loops his arm around my shoulders as they drag the dead dog away and rinse down the arena for the next round. The smell of blood makes me want to vomit, makes my head spin and my eyes water. Blood and pain, fear and hysteria. It took another five years for Dad’s Saturday night lessons at the dog fights to have an affect. Don’t think he ever expected me to turn out the way I did. Hope he’s happy now.
And that’s it. I have a crazy busy week coming up what with it being the last week of school and Christmas concerts to organise and final grades to give. My YA novel The Other Me releases Thursday so I’ll be busy with that as well. In between, I hope I can squeeze in some writing and get another chapter done.
How is your writing going?
