A new perspective on writing a novel

Have you ever given any thought to how you actually write? I mean, do you know how to go about it. Do you set yourself goals or deadlines, or do you just wing it and see where you end up?

I went very structured with my first novel. I had an outline. I had written down all the characters that were going to be in there, and what was going to happen in every single chapter. With the second book I threw that all out the door, and decided I’m a creative. I can’t outline. I’ll wing it and see what happens. Personally, I now feel like I’m lost. Or should I say, that is how I used to feel.

I listened to one of Joanna Penn’s old podcasts recently, I can’t remember which one, and she mentioned that if you know the length of the novel you are aiming for, you can break that wordcount down into smaller and more manageable chunks. Also, if you break your wordcount down into smaller goals, it seems more attainable. At least for me it does. I don’t know why I never looked at it like that. I guess I just needed to change my perspective.

For book two I am aiming for 80 000 words. And if I break that 80 000 words down into 90 days (about three months), I only need to write 889 words a day. You can even make your timeline longer or shorter if you wish. Breaking it down like that made me feel so much more hopeful. It doesn’t seem like such a monumental task.

Of course there will still be the second draft and the cleaning up of the manuscript, but that first draft is the most important, because you at least have the bones of the novel.

What used to freak me out about writing is that I would go in thinking “I want at least 80 000 words,” and my heart would sink every time I sat down to write. Now I can just tell myself, “I need 889 words.” And I can even take it a step further and break that 889 words for the day down into even smaller chunks. It doesn’t mean I have to do it all in one sitting. I can take 14 hours to write that 889 words. If you don’t reach your goal, you try and make it up over the next few days. If you write more than those 889 words, great.

This just seems like such a revelation. I know many of you might think “Duh, that’s how every one does it.” But I hadn’t, so there. Though, that is how I shall be doing it from now on.

I think it’s easy for me to feel like a failure. Especially when that depression monster hits. So I need things to be simple and uncomplicated. It really makes writing, and life so much easier for me.

So, how do you write your novel? Have you known about this tactic? Do you have another you want to share?

Keeping track of words written

When my brother was recently preparing for his wedding day, he decided it was a good time to declutter. You know, get rid of things he no longer needed, especially those from his bachelor days. While he was in this excited cleaning mode, he insisted the rest of us join him in this venture. I, one who doesn’t want to seem like a hoarder, got a few business diaries I had stashed in my room. As I got ready to toss these good looking diaries in the dumpster, a little voice (inside my head), not just some random voice, told me to look inside first. In my defence I’ve been having some problems with my memory, which is why I didn’t recognize these diaries at first. Once I opened them I found that these were the diaries I had used to keep track of which days I wrote, and how many words I had written, or if or when I was hosting someone for a guest post.

At that moment I felt like I had stumbled unto a goldmine. I could put all these numbers into an excel sheet and give myself a clue as to how much I had written since 2015 up until now. This is something that I have learnt from my researcher brother whose data I had captured for 5 years while he worked towards his PhD (which he got earlier this year). So I put it all into and excel sheet and this is what I got :

Year     Words  Months when written

2015 -    46659    (March, April, May and December)

2016 -    42674    (February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October 
                               and November)

2017 -    69884    (January, February, March and May)

2018 -    5858       (January, February and June)

I did a lot better than I thought I had. If you had asked me how the writing went, I would’ve said that I didn’t get much writing done in the past few years. But apparently I got a lot written. Unfortunately, it isn’t good enough for someone who wants to be a professional writer. The words per year don’t even add up to an average of one book a year. Maybe 2017 could be a novel.

Do you know the very sad part about the data above? All those words written were  towards my second book in my Thelum series, and maybe a few blog posts. Meaning, I have clearly rewritten this book several times since 2015. In 2016 I think I had decided to start over, which I had, and apparently last year I had decided to do so again. I have a bad habit of rewriting perfectly good books. With that I mean I was happy with the story and structure. And then for some reason I can no longer fathom, I would scratch it and start over. I am very upset with myself, and I know there is nothing I can do about it now. All I know is that I am determined to finish this second book. I feel like if I don’t finish it, I will never be able to move on to other writing projects. And I have so many new ideas.

I am still writing down my wordcount and adding to the excel document. It is such a great way for me to track my progress. On Saturday I had the urge to write and I wrote 440 words. I was happy with that. Every little bit helps.

How do you track your progress? Do you keep track of your wordcount?

On the agenda today . . .

Hello my beautiful friends. How are you doing today? I hope the past few months have served you well.

I am doing better. I am back in therapy and seeing a psychiatrist again, and obviously back on antidepressants. I’ve had a terrible relapse a few months ago, that was dangerous to my health. As I said, I’m doing better, but I still have a long way to go. I have to take things easy and not stress, which I’m working hard on accomplishing. Also, I’ve developed a sensitivity to sugar and am now more prone to migraines, but oh well. Things could have been worse.

I haven’t been writing, even though my therapist keeps encouraging me to write more. To at least write about how this experience is making me feel, or just vent. It’s been harder to write than I thought. Mostly because my memory keeps abandoning me. I will know what to write the one moment, and when I go to write it down, poof, the idea is gone. I often go into a room with a purpose and once I arrive there, I can’t remember what the reason for entering the room was.

I won’t lie. It has been very hard and frustrating. But I am coping better than I expected. I have definitely learned to focus more on my health. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me and wished me well. I truly appreciate it.

On the agenda today is to do some yoga.

Taking a break

Hello Friends. How are you doing? I hope you are great. Due to health reasons I’ll be taking a break from blogging and all things “online”.

I have disabled comments, but I know many of you wish me well and a speedy recovery. Thank you for being such a supportive community, and such good friends to me. 

Happy 2018

Hello beauties! Happy 2018. I wish every one of you a fantastic year. May this be the year you make your dreams come true. I have decided that no matter what, I’m going to make this a good year for myself. I’ll finish book two once and for all, even if I don’t publish it.

I want to work on balance in my life as well. It can’t be all about writing all the time. So, I’ll be trying to find new hobbies too. I’m no longer in therapy. It just wasn’t working anymore, so I’ve decided that I’ll push on on my own. I can’t let my depression win. Certain days will be write offs, but there will be more good days than bad, and I look forward to enjoying the good days again. 2018 is the year I take my life back. 

As for hobbies, I’m a bit stumped. I’ve always wanted to learn to draw, so I’ve been tackling that. I’m terrible. But it is rather fun and soothing. I’ve been coloring too. It does calm me when I’m really stressed.

So, what are your plans for 2018?

I just have to do it my way

Today has been a pretty hectic day. I felt stressed and overwhelmed. But when I took some time to just calm down and deal with things, it struck me. Why Murees, are you stressing yourself out over a word count when clearly there is a lot of other crap you should rather be worrying about? The personal crap aside, I realized that I was putting pressure on myself to stick to a word count to make editing cheaper, and so that I didn’t have too big a book. But the truth is, this story is bigger. There’s more going on and it just won’t come in under 100 000 words as I’d hoped. It might even be closer to 110 000.

I’m the one in control of production (creation of my books), and I should give myself more freedom to write the book I want, even if it is bigger than what traditional publishing standards allow. This is my book and I can make it as long as I need to tell the story. Besides, I’m sure my readers won’t mind a bigger book. The stress and expectations were coming from myself, and nobody else. I was messing with my own head. So, I shifted focus once more and now my attention is on the story solely for now. That is why I loved writing and reading in the first place. The story is the most important thing for me. I’d forgotten that.

I had made myself a promise, that I would do things my own way. So why would that not apply to the length of my books as well? Why can’t I do this my way too? I have found that making mistakes, and taking risks is the only way I learn. Simply doing as others do or say is great for others, but it had only ever steered me wrong. So, yes, I will be going with a longer book and doing it my way, as Frank Sinatra had once sang. I have to trust my gut and follow the story.

So, do you always trust your gut and do your own thing, or do you go with the tried and trusted method? What is new with you? 

Just popping in to say what I've been up to

via GIPHY

Lately I’ve had this urge to make life as easy for myself as possible. I’ve found that I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with life and all the crap that goes with it. So, these days I actually say no if I’m asked to help, or do more than what I’m comfortable with. I always assumed others could instinctively know when I’m overwhelmed and thus, they would stop making demands. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I know my own limits, so I have to say no. No one else is going to do it for me. I’m getting more and more emails about people wanting to use my blog to post about their products or their own random motives, and I instinctively say no. Most of these people just want to use my blog to get more exposure. Not even I use it for that purpose, so no.

Aside for saying no a lot more, I’ve learned to close unnecessary accounts, or limit my involvement on social media. Social media has taken a backseat lately. I’ve unsubscribed from numerous newsletters as well. I’ve been driving myself crazy, worrying that if I didn’t keep my Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts updated that potential readers would forget about me, or won’t care if I release another book. Having worried about the above, my blogging and writing has taken a nosedive. I realized that my writing is the most important thing. If I don’t blog regularly, that’s okay. I have to focus on writing more. Though, I really wish I could get motivated to blog regularly again.

On the good side, I’ve actually been writing. I’m in the third draft of book two. It actually turned out to be more of a beast than I had initially expected. I ended up with 112 400 words after the second draft. I’ve been trying to slim it down, but ended up adding even more words. Oops! So now I’m at 113 000. I know there are certain scenes that have to go, or that the story can do without. Cutting those unnecessary scenes are the most important now. So I can see how the story reads without them. But, if the story is good and ready to be polished and I’m still at 105 000, I’ll have to accept that. I originally wanted a word count under 100 000, mostly because it would make the editing more affordable. But if the word count ends up being big, so be it. That’s what I like about indie publishing. I can make up my own rules and decide my own word count. I’ll just worry about the editing costs when I get there.

I had to send out my first dmca takedown notice  last weekend, when a few fellow bloggers alerted me that there was a site selling books without their permission. I had no idea my book was on there. But I wanted to check it out anyway, so there was my book being sold on this website for double than what I’m selling mine for on the major retailers. Once I sent the notice they were rather polite, and took my book down, but it still made me feel icky. So, my advice would be for everyone to go online and look for a dmca template and familiarize yourself with what it should look like, and have your own handy just in case you should need it one day. Most of the other writers had theirs at the ready, but I didn’t and I had to figure it all out, fast. But do you know what? This is all part of the modern writing life. Even traditionally published authors works was on that site. So if you’re an indie author or not, things like this will happen.

via GIPHY

Lately I’ve been feeling like a bad person, or writer. If you check on social media most people are telling you of how awesome their life is, and how awesome their writing is coming along. I thought for the longest time that I was doing something wrong, or that I was a failure because my writing wasn’t coming along as fast, or easily. That I was a horrible person for not being able to do as much as others. So here is what I learned the hard way. Everyone is different. Everyone works at their own pace. I suffer from depression and anxiety. So, certain days will be more productive than other days. Some days may even be a total write-off in terms of productivity. I can’t always predict when one of those days will strike where I don’t have the will or energy to get out of bed. So, I no longer compare myself to others. I do what I can, when I can, with the time I have. I respect authors who can write for 16 hours a day. I applaud them. On a good day I can’t even do that. So yay, I’m happy for them. But I am not them. I am Murees Dupé and I’m lucky if I can write for 2 hours on a good day, and that is fine by me.

As for my previous post, about my custom domain, I got everything sorted. I can renew my current domain next year, or I can even transfer my domain to a cheaper service provider. There are other options out there, so I don’t have to feel trapped. I decided to not have a website. I love my blog and how easy it is to navigate. As long as people can find my books, I’m happy.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. How are you doing?