October is swiftly coming to a close and November is beckoning. Thousands of people are putting away their ink pens and pulling out their laptops instead.
October has been very productive for me. Here’s what I’ve done:
October Results:
Finished The Kiss: 128,888 (Notes:12,678)
Inktober: 1665
Total: 44,415
Other Things:
Edits: I have printed out the first book of the series and am finally beginning edits. This is the perfect timing seeing as book 9 (goal for November) is the mirror to book 1.
Inktober: Inktober was amazing! I had so much fun and I cannot wait for next year. There will be a post all about it later this week.
November Goals
NaNoWriMo: I have a huge lofty goal of 120K, or finishing the whole novel in November, whichever goal comes first.
I’m keeping my goals for November few, since writing a whole book in a month is no easy task.
Prequels are a sticky subject. Some people enjoy them, some people can’t stand them. For the first time, I wrote one, and finished it.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
Prequels Vary:
For some prequels, the main characters are the same as in the rest of the books in a series. For this prequel, I decided to go further back, and only keep a few of the characters, mainly the villains, to explore their backstories. I could have kept the same characters, but it was fun to explore the villains.
Prequels Reveal A Lot:
In this prequel, it was fun to explore the villains before they became the villains, and the main characters that were not in the series for one reason or another. For a while, I wasn’t sure what the motivation for the villains were, but writing them out I found the perfect motivations for them, which will make every other book in the series stronger.
Prequels Can Be Complicated:
Several characters had to meet and change for the series to take place. There were certain instances where it felt like pulling teeth trying to get two characters together or even to get them to meet.
Prequels Can Be Calming:
Writing a book series can vary in ease. As a writer that enjoys writing from start to finish in a novel, it was wonderful to know where I was going and what needed to happen at the end. It was amazing to explore the twists and turns of characters and determining how they get to the end.
All said and done, it was a wonderful experience to write a prequel and see what I could do with characters I hadn’t explored yet.
The internet is full of people and ideas and social media platforms. There are hundreds and hundreds of posting challenges happening at any time.
In September, I participated in Instawrimo. Instawrimo is a thirty day posting challenge on Instagram for getting prepared for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).
Here’s what I learned over the last 30 days.
1. Be Prepared
This may seem obvious, but if I hadn’t been prepared with some ideas before the challenge started, there would be some days that didn’t get done. For most days, I had at least a general plan, but sometimes it ended up not working out.
There were some days that I had no plan at all and got to fly by the seat of my pants to post anything.
Some days, the plan changed entirely, but it all worked out. I was able to post all 30 days on time.
2. Formatting is Huge
Because the challenge is on Instagram, and they are mainly photo based, the size of the photos played a huge part in what I could post and what I couldn’t. Thanks to Google, I have every single photo I have ever taken or downloaded since about 2014. Some of them, transfering over several devices, or due to the sheer download size, wouldn’t fit in the instagram design effectively. I had to use several back ups when the picture was too big, or it didn’t post correctly.
3. Flexibility Can Save the Day
The prompt list was very open, with several days of the prompts being interpreted different by different users. There were days that I looked at the prompts and had a brief panic and had to think outside the box. I will admit, there are several days that I waited until later in the afternoon and looked up what others had done first.
4. A Healthy Dose of Fear Helps
Before I started this challenge, I probably posted original content on my instagram like once in a blue moon. The last post before the 30 day challenge was from February of 2018. I was terrified nearly every day before I posted, some days more than others, but I did it anyway. It was a huge confidence boost to just post and then to have people respond was even better.
5. Continuous Posting (the right way) Helps You Get Seen.
I have to say, what I most enjoyed about this challenge is that it was only once a day for 30 days. It was an easy 10 to 20 minutes a day for one post, but by the end of the month, I had 30 new posts and a lot more content than I had before. It helped me get more followers, helped me make new connections and even better, there was no spamming involved.
The Bottom Line:
Participating in a 30 day challenge was fun and informative and I’m looking forward to continuing to post and continue to build my social media presence.
If you’re interested in what I posted for the prompts, you can find the first one here.
Here we are at the end of another month already. September Results
September has been very interesting for writing. I haven’t really focused on all the projects I said I would be working on a few months ago, but sometimes that’s how it goes.
The Kiss: 23849
Inktober prep: 339
Blog: 1017
Total:
25205
Other things I’ve worked on that aren’t exactly writing, but are related.
Instawrimo Challenge: For the first time in a monthly challenge that isn’t NaNoWriMo, I finally managed to complete 30 days of posts over on Instagram. There will be a post on all of the fun I had with that later.
Attended a Writing Conference: At the end of September I was lucky enough to attend the Central Coast Writer’s Conference. Being the first conference I have ever been to, it was everything I hoped for and more. I would highly recommend if you are a writer and want to do something to kick your writing into gear, go to a conference near you. There is something just so inspiring about being there with other writers who have started out where I am now. Keep an eye out for several posts on that later in this upcoming month. October Goals
There is still a part of me that can’t believe that October is already here. But it is here, and ever fleeting. Before we know it the year will be up. I have some goals to smash, so here they are.
Finish The Kiss: There is still about 30% left to write and my plan is to finish in October before I start a new project in November.
Inktober (Writer Edition): This will be the third year I attempt Inktober, but this year will be a little different. Thankfully (especially since I am not an artist) someone on instagram came up with a writing edition for Inktober. So I will be writing a 50 word story and posting a doodle (Because it’s a challenge, right?)
Edits: I’ve spent so long writing over these past few years that I have a huge backlog of things to edit. With this year’s project for NaNoWriMo being the mirror to the first book of my series, and so close to the end. It’s really time to start editing it and getting it out there for publication. I got so much inspiration from the writing conference and I’m feeding off of that to push myself forward to do things that will get my work out there and published.
