Friday, March 6, 2015

A New Commitment

So, here's the deal. I have a 50,000 some odd word novel in the revision stage, and I know me, if I don't make a firm commitment to working on it, I'll find some reason to let it slide. I've already made this firm commitment to my writer's group for local accountability, but it's finally dawned on me that I can make that same commitment to you all and have even more accountability. Oy!

Therefore, I officially (and publically) commit to a completed, readable 75,000-word second draft by June 1 - of this year. Really needed to add that otherwise it could be June 1 of any year, right?

I am currently taking an online novel writing course through UDEMY, which I have found to be an excellent learning experience. I've taken writing courses before, read tons of books on the craft, but this course has already taught me more in the first two sections than I ever learned elsewhere.

The course is taught by Steve Alcorn, author of the book How to Fix Your Novel. He uses his book as the basis for the lessons. This course has gotten me to think about things that I've never considered before. I really recommend his course. You can find UDEMY here. It's free to sign up then you can browse all of the courses they have to offer. I also highly recommend Mr. Alcorn's book. It's written in an easily readable way, and he does a good job of explaining the concepts.

I'm using this first draft as the work in progress for this course. I've also signed up for Camp NANOWRIMO for April. I'm planning to have that 75,000-word second draft done by the end of it or if not done, very close to being done. There will be some accountability there, too.

Basically, I'm really putting myself out there to get this thing done by June 1.

Oh, another author I recommend highly for writing advice and instruction is James Scott Bell. I've read two of his books so far:  Write Your Novel From The Middle and How To Make A Living As A Writer. Both good books for learning about the craft, as well as what happens behind the scenes of getting published. In How To Make A Living As A Writer, Mr. Bell goes into detail about the choice every writer must make between traditional publishing and self-publishing, as well as finding an agent.

I'm using his Knockout Novel program on Hiveword as another way of reviewing this first draft for plot holes, scenes that need work, etc. This program has also gotten me thinking in different directions from what I'm used to.

That's it. My commitment to you, my readers, to have that second draft completed by June 1, 2015. I will try to remember to do weekly update posts. I won't be following a daily word count for this one since I'm doing revisions and not much in the way of additional scene writing. Instead, I'm making a weekly time commitment of 10 hours beginning on Monday. I have other courses I'm taking for copywriting and those need equal time, if not more time since copywriting will be my bread and butter until, you know, I make it big.

Yeah.

I'll be copywriting for a while.




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