Week 2 of Weekly Blogs

Hello to all my readers and welcome!

This is my first week back from our trip to Kentucky, and can I say how nice it is to sleep in my own bed? There is nothing like the comfort of your own bed to make you sleep like a baby.

The writing is coming along. I’m nearly 4 chapters in and over my goal for last week at 10,000 words. My characters are fleshing out more, and I am beginning to know my world 10x more. Surprisingly, the ADHD hasn’t turned off from writing like it normally does, and perhaps this is because I do have the opportunity at my day job to scribble down some thoughts and ideas.

I am still unsure how long this story will be. I hope not to be as long as A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, but perhaps a trilogy or quartet will suffice. The ideas are flowing and I believe I have a title. But I am weary to share that at this early stage in writing.

I was not able to type every day this week, but I was able to write every day. My current goal of success is 50,000 words, but I am sure I will exceed this number once I hit it. Currently, the novel is roughly 1/5 of the way finished. My goal for next week is to make that 2/5.

The more I write, the more the story develops and is blossoming into something that I am enjoying.

This upcoming week, I am hoping to reach the goal of 20,000 words. I think once I hit chapter 5, I’ll start editing what I had already written. I think this will help me in the long run, but who knows.

My husband and I are trying desperately to catch up on House of the Dragon. Since going to Louisville, we missed the last two episodes. This show and, of course, Game of Thrones are a slight influence for my WIP. I do enjoy George R. R. Martin’s worldbuilding. I’ve also put in a lot of hours playing Skyrim, which of course is constantly building up this immersive world for you to play in. Once my map was made, I had to build my world around it. I am making histories that coincide with my characters.

For new writers, worldbuilding is important, but the characterization is the most important. Fleshing out your characters to make them feel real is the difficult part, and I struggle with it. In my first novel, my character is an anti-hero. Truly, he is the villain of the story, but I tried to make the reader, deep down, want to root for the protagonist. My overall theme for The Runner was greed and power corrupted you to where what you want most becomes more difficult to obtain. The same goes for its sequel, When the Bough Breaks. I wanted to convey that the protagonist, who is a gray character that is someone who is seeking to do something right suddenly becomes corrupt in doing so, can not run from his past any longer. And that idea became my theme of running away from your past only made you run toward it.

I feel as if I have droned on more and more, but I am excited and ecstatic to bring this new story forth. Perhaps in my check in next week, I will have an excerpt for my readers to devour.

Take care!