Brought to you by Cait from Paper Fury and Sky of Further Up and Further In. The topic is 2017 Writing Goals. We’re already into the 2nd week of 2017, and I have done no writing for The Matchmakers whatsoever (shields face from being pelted with rotten tomatoes and eggs). I know, I know—I’m a bad author. I’ve been busy finishing work for an internship, sleeping as much as I can, and preparing to start over at a new school (no biggie) in the middle of the school year (what was I thinking?!). In addition to being late on resuming writing on that, I’m also late on joining this link up, but my philosophy is “better late than never”!
Anyway, read the questions and answers below & feel free to comment some of your own answers, or make your own blog post & join the link up.
- What were your writing achievements last year? I revised, edited, and published The Belgrave Legacy, and fully outlined and wrote more of The Matchmakers.
- What’s on your
writerly “to-do list” for 2017? Finish and publish The Matchmakers, finish at least one draft of Shattered Glass (Fearful Fairytales, 1). - Tell us about your top-priority writing projects for this year! The Matchmakers is a YA Dystopian romance set in an apocalyptic world after WW4 (which may soon be our future in America) where knowledge rules above all (I take it back, this will not be the USA’s future with the incoming government) and Matches are arranged to keep the peace. Shattered Glass is my Cinderella retelling, the first in a series of contemporary non-magical fairytale retelling series: Fearful Fairytales.
- How do you hope to improve as a writer? Where do you see yourself at the end of 2017? I want to learn to not rush through things. A lot of my reviews for The Belgrave Legacy talk about how certain aspects (plot or character, depending on the person) felt rushed—something likely due to my collapsing 3 books into 1 cohesive story. With The Matchmakers, when I started writing it in my creative writing workshop during my senior year of high school, I worked very hard on fleshing out the settings & that’s something I need to continue improving on. By the end of 2017, I hope to be as comfortable with pacing and writing setting as I am writing character and dialogue.
- Describe your general editing process. In 2 words: a mess. More in-depth… once I start editing, I go to where I know changes need to be made, make them, and then go back to the start to read the whole thing, making new notes as I go along. Then I make those, flip back to page 1 (and repeat). It’s long, slow, and probably could be more efficient, but it works for me.
- On a scale of 1-10, how do you think this draft turned out? I think the first draft of The Matchmakers started out great, and then due to all the delays, the plot became more and more filler so that when I was writing, I could say I wrote words (although I don’t think many of them are good). The people on Wattpad seem to disagree, but I know that once I finish the draft, I’ll be eviscerating most of the middle and changing stuff in the beginning… basically, a reboot will be the first thing to happen. So, I’m predicting I’ll say a 3 (only because Wattpaders seem to like it). Otherwise, I’d say 2.
- What aspect of your draft needs the most work? The sagging middle (which is really a pacing problem more than anything else.
- What do you like the most about your draft? The opening (even though I’m going to change some things) and the characters.
- What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever? More edits, then probably more
edits , then finding beta readers, editing/revising again (repeat as necessary), and eventually self-publishing - What’s your top piece of advice for those just finished writing
a first draft? Take a break (if you read/sing this in Phillipa Soo’s voice as Eliza from Hamilton like I did, I like how you think). You deserve it. But don’t let your work rest so long that you find yourself dragging your feet when the time comes to return to your WIP. You did a lot of work, and it’d suck if you did all that work just to never finish it because you got too lazy to reach the finish line.
What about you? Like I said above, feel free to comment about any of my answers (or provide your own answers) below, and consider making your own blog post to add to the link up.