About My Books (2017 November Update)

And so, here we are again, 4 months since the last update. Is that enough time in between? In terms of progress, I think it is :D

So what happened after 4 months? How have things changed, or how much have things not changed?

Well, I can start by saying some stuff is now available on Wattpad, just click here and you can see :)

Although some other stuff like "Liaffon" that I talked about first the last post (such a confoozing sentence :P ) you cannot see there and the link in the last post will not work after 12/31 because FIGMENT IS GOING TO SHUT DOWN! :0

I probably spent a good few hours screen-shotting (not a word) the heck out of that writing site that I've been on for the past 7 years. It's sad to see it go but hopefully "Underlined" the new site will be just as good. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, without further ado, here's my progress report :)

The Last Chapters

Let's do a Q&A with me.

How long have you been writing Liaffon, including the times when you were suffering from writer'sblockitis?

7 years.

How long have you been editing?

7 years.

Why is it the same?

Well, I did a rewrite once of the whole story but before I could finish that, I realized I had to change the entire story dynamic and have one MC instead of two. So I had to write the story with one MC.

Then I started to write that and I finished it when I realized the story wasn't interesting. Nothing made you cheer for the character. It was just too dull and dry.

All that together within 7 years.

How's that process going now?

Well, I can successfully say I'm on the editing phase of the last few chapters.

Wait...THE LAST FEW CHAPTERS?

YEAH I KNOW RIGHT???

*******************

The reason for this freak out is not because I'm almost done (satisfied with my work so far? Yes.) but because the last few chapters are as critical as the first few chapters. Just as the first few chapters make the reader read the rest of the novel, the last few chapters make them wondering for more as well.

So, let me just sprawl out my last few chapters ideas. I have two ways this can go.

1. Eventually, there's going to be a sequel and I can talk about some things that are going to be in the sequel in the last few chapters without revealing any plots.

2. Eventually, there's going to be a sequel so I don't want to reveal anything and keep it as close to the idea of book 1 as I possibly can but still add in the one marvel of the futuristic city that the characters of book 1 are all going to see at the end.

Both will have an end that obviously leads to another beginning.

I have option 1 in there right now and I'm not satisfied with it at all.

I might try option 2 even though there are some things in option 1 I really like and might want to keep for the future. When you're a writer, you have to be open to let go of your babies a.k.a the parts in the story that you really like and want to keep.

Actually, here's another option.

3. Yes they see the marvel, but just as they are about to see more, they are captured for some reason. MC is left wondering what will happen to them and whether or not he can fulfill his promise he made with his village leader.

Maybe that's more interesting...hmm...

Happy Writing, fellow writers :)

In Defense of Made-Up Languages in Fiction: I'm Not a Linguist

Lord of the Rings. The author is a linguist. He's got experience making up a language. Elvish is awesome, I gotta say.

What about Star Trek? All those alien languages. Truly, some amazing imagination going on there.

But let's back up from all those big guys for a sec and think about people who are not linguists but who are tapping into making up a language.

About My Books (2017 July Update)

Never work on three projects at once...seems to be a common advice for writers.

Throw that garbage out the window! Not literally though.

No rule says you can't work on ten things at once if you think you can do it. But only if you think you can do it. Here's an update on the books I'm working on in order of importance.

The first one is...

What is my story (really) about? The Struggle 2

At any stage when you write your story, you need to ask yourself "What is my story about?"

I have found, through my own experience writing one story for 7 years, that if you can't explain it in one sentence, you're still lost. And if you're lost, imagine what the reader must feel like... :0

No one wants to listen to you talk like a little kid explaining their dream they had last night, right?

Example:

Details in Conversation: A Discussion

So, I'm editing like crazy these days and one thing I started to do was to add more conversation and less "Interesting Tidbits".

Here are some Writerly Jargon and I'd like to add "Interesting Tidbits" as one.

Interesting Tidbits: Those details that the Author thinks is interesting and/or creative. Those details are only there because the Author wanted to show the reader some interesting detail about the story even though that detail does not make another appearance in the story. Those details are there because the Author is boasting how creative they are.

Admit it. I do that, you do that, we all do that, we are creative writers who love to show the world how creative we can be.

Now, to get back to the topic, I have started to replace details with conversation to MAKE THEM IMPORTANT.

To give an example,

Can't Have it if it's (a) too expensive, (b) only for trade, (c) friends don't read

Writers, I am in that situation before publishing and I thought I'd let you into that world just so you know what you'll be up against if you decide to publish the traditional way.

The title to this post has three walls I'm facing.

(a) too expensive means that the editing services are too expensive. Even if it's only .75 to 2 or 3 cents per word, I have over 80,000 words. I mean...things add up and I haven't the money.

(b) only for trade means that I am on "Figment: Write Yourself In" a grand writing community site. But people will only edit your novel if you edit theirs, too. Right now aside from writing I'm also going to grad school and doing research for my thesis so a full edit of a whole novel is completely out of the question for me.

(c) friends don't read means that most of my friends don't read. And if you know about me from my other blog, "World Problems and Randomness", I live in Japan and most of my friends don't read English. Darn it.

So then why not my family? Well, my Mom said she'll read it when it's done but I don't think she'll edit it and asking your family to read is not such a good idea for two reasons: they will be soft on you and they haven't got the time.


The problem right now for me is to find some super bored person who will read my novel and edit it or at least tell me about any inconsistencies and stuff. Or, I'll just have to pay over a thousand bucks, which I ain't got and starve or somethin'.


Darn this whole thing.


But I'm gonna do it. I will, you'll see.


Happy Writing!


P.S.
If you're like me and your parents don't really approve of you writing a novel, it's hard to do anything that costs (editing services, online writing boot camp, going to literary conferences...) without them finding out because they still pay for your school.

NaNoWriMo CRUNCH: The last 5000 words

Hi there, fellow NaNoWriMo warriors! :D

How is your novel coming along? For those of you who have finished, lucky you, you can sit back and relax now. No, seriously, CONGRATS! :D

What about those of you still not there yet? Is the word count still too far away? Well, just do your absolute best. Even if you don't make it in the end, at least you tried :) And, there's always next year!

What about those of you, like me, who are down to writing the last 5000 or so words?

This is the NaNoWriMo CRUNCH. The second big one besides that time of Writer'sblockitis danger.

For me, anyway,

NaNoWriMo CRUNCH: 3 Ways to Keep Going

CRUNCH! Nope, not cereal or Captain Crunch. This is about Writer'sblockitis during, oh please no but it does happen, NaNoWriMo.

I'm doing NaNo now. Currently about 20,000 words and no, not suffering from Writer'sblockitis but I have experienced this during NaNo. But I still became a WINNER.

How did I do it???

Well, there is an important thing that I keep telling myself when I feel like I'm getting to that CRUNCH in NaNoWriMo. That is,

Care for my MC! Care for him, I say!

What is going on with me and my novel? Well, first, I'd like to say that I finished reading the "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" series and realized one thing at the end of the books, I cared about what was going to happen to the MC. Will he be okay? What about him and Emma? What will happen with them?

And as it so often happens with me since I started seriously writing my novel, many of the books that I read teach me something.

For instance, Peculiar Children books taught me that in order for a book to be read worthy, there are many things it has to have and one of them is an MC that the reader will care about.

Now, I recently read another book called "Skinned" and if you want to know what cliche looks like in its most natural form, you should read it. It's about a popular girl who lost everything after an accident and is now just a mind in a body and then she runs away from home after losing yet everything else including her family's love. It's a series but you can kind of tell that sooner or later they will start opposing the government. If you read it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

This book showed me how not to write an MC. I couldn't connect to her. She lost her popularity; that was how the book starts. The reader is taken through what her life used to be because she keeps remembering it and having flashbacks and wishing again that she was the center of attention and how everyone looked up to her and all that jazz.

But I just couldn't really feel sorry for her.

Typically, the popular girl in books is mean so...that was stuck in my head and it didn't seem like she was any different. I didn't even feel sorry for her when her boyfriend left her (spoiler). I was more like, well, she kind of deserved it! And when she started to fall in love maybe with this geek guy who is all timid but fascinated in her (robot kind of thing) and then they kiss but because she's just mind and not body, she doesn't know what to do with her lips and stuff and has to think about it, I was like,

"Oh yeah here you just throw in the romance for the sake of it. She's just gonna end up joining that weird group that enjoys their immortal lives by having fun to the extreme and for some strange reason she refuses to join them in the beginning and she is pathetically trying to get her popular life back..."

Sorry, that book just really wasn't doing any amazing ish for me :/ I don't read many bad books but the blurb made it SOUND interesting...

Let's get back on track. I didn't care about her so I didn't care what she did or what happened to her or if she contributed to the story at all.

Jacob, the MC in Peculiar Children, I cared about. What was going to happen to him?

What of my own story? My MC, Belome, I thought about him. He was supposed to be like a cowardly failure who is self-conscious of his weight yet manages to joke about it sometimes. He has friends and is genuinely a friendly guy but he can't speak up for himself. He doesn't have much confidence either.

Yet from the first chapter I have him as this semi-confident guy who gets to dance with the girl he likes and even gets to show off his own dancing skills.

Throughout the story we are suppose to see him develop into a guy who can stand up for himself and say things and maybe even save the day. Well, MAYBE.

But it wasn't believable and it wasn't dramatic enough. I had to make him miserable.

I'm not saying EVERY SINGLE MC in the world of books should be miserable so we can like them more but it is true how people seem to be nicer or feel sympathy for someone who is humble or who doesn't have much confidence.

To sum up, I had to make my MC a failure, a coward, a timid guy, unable to really stand up for himself, and one that generally tries to avoid being the center of attention when there are a whole bunch of people around him. That way the reader can feel "Oh yay! :D " when he does things out of his comfort zone driven by his genuine care for others, love for his family, kindness to friends...and then little by little he is SUPPOSED to start standing up for himself.

Yes, this is the way it should be. We have to see the change in him. I need to make sure that his confidence toward the end of the story makes sense. This is where I am, guys. Wish me luck :/ I'm trying to finish it before NaNoWriMo because I have an epic story in mind.

About My Book

Title of Book: Liaffon
Book One: East Seekers
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Place: World like our own
Age: In our century with characters living a traditional life, European/Victorian/Countryside style
Main message: Is change good or bad?

My book started out as just a bit of writing practice. I decided to continue it when I heard about "Figment: Write Yourself In" which is a community writing site that is free. On and off I continued writing it until I sort of finished writing Book One which took about three years to complete because of a six month gap. It was extremely short and could barely pass for a novella.

Through more fiction writing experience and trying out Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaNoWriMo, I decided to revise it again and again. 6 years later and into the 7th this year, I figured out what my story really was and now I am rewriting the whole thing with more complete characters living in a world that could be real.

My aim this year is to finish Book One before NaNoWriMo, which is in November. My aim for Liaffon, is to write a trilogy. It will be a trilogy and I have already wrote an extremely rough draft for Book Two, and even wrote a basic first chapter for Book Three.

My final goal is to get it published through a publishing house.

Here is a summary of the book:

Having a natural talent for it, Belome Konas of Liaffon Village is Named under the Guardians as Glass Wielder, a job traditionally for the first born of the family. His older brother is furious with him for becoming so skilled that his baby brother would be chosen instead. Not one person is aware of this horrendous incident. If they find out, the Konases may be exiled. Before the brothers can tell their father to redo the ceremony, Belome is called by the Guardians to embark on a journey to the futuristic Eastlands. A traveler from there has visited them and wishes to bring change onto the village but is it good or bad? The Eastlands have only been something of a child's tale. But now it is real and Belome suddenly must face the unknown traveling further East than any villager ever did.

Introduction to "An Authoress Experience"

Labeled "An Authoress Experience", in this series I will talk about my own experiences with my novel-in-progress, or commonly said in writerly jargon, my WIP.

Though I do make references in other articles to my own experiences with certain aspects of writing, I don't really talk about the ongoing experiences with my own novel.

My hopes is that you can walk through this with me, experience it, learn from it, and relate to it.

Some themes I hope to address are:

• Research for worldbuilding
• Hurdles I've come across and how I dealt with them
• Interesting things I've learned
• Creative ways I've had to come up with with writing my novel
• Getting feedback and dealing with it
• How I have been getting my novel known to the world

Without further ado, let's get started! (Rosana Pansino reference)