The book project I started this summer has been coming alone nicely. There have been days where I haven’t written and days when I’ve written my ass off, but for the most part I’ve been trying to write about 1,000 words every day. Thanks to the #1000wordsofsummer event on Twitter I discovered that this was a habit I could keep up with, and it yielded fast results.

The event that got me thinking that I had a novel series in me, National Novel Writing Month, holds a summer event in July called Camp NaNoWriMo. It’s mostly for people to make progress on a manuscript or some work that is unfinished, as opposed to literally writing an entire novel in one month’s time. I put in what I had written so far in June as my starting point, made 75,000 words my goal for the end of July, and then I was off to the races. Their website keeps track of my progress and gave me these stats as of my writing today.

I am aiming for 100K words total on my first draft, but if I keep writing like I have been (and not the 2250 words per day as suggested by NaNoWriMo), I’ll be sitting at between 65K and 70K (at least!) by the time I go back to school on August 6th for teacher planning week.

Guys, I am really proud of myself. I am enjoying writing this story and I hope that someday people will enjoy reading it. I have never written this much in this short of a time span, even when I was writing parts of my dissertation during my doctoral work. My manuscript is sitting at 93 Microsoft Word pages, and I make that distinction because I have learned that Microsoft Word pages and book pages aren’t the same thing (e.g. 100K words = 400 book pages). The point I am making here though, is over the past 48 days I have written 93 pages of something. NINETY-THREE.

I can’t wait to finish this draft and then go to Staples to have them print and spiral-bind it so I can start revising and re-writing. I want to read about outlining and editing and take time to read books I think would be comparable titles to get inspiration. I’ve already started rereading Six of Crows because I couldn’t wait. I’ve ordered some writing how-to books that will help me strengthen my characters and enhance my storytelling. I’m so excited that I’m already thinking about the next step. I’m acting like this first draft is already finished, because I know that it will be, because I will finish it.

I hope you are enjoying seeing these updates. I am excited to share just a little of my progress with you, my readers, because without you I wouldn’t have this blog, and without this blog I wouldn’t be reading nearly as much as I do, and without all this reading I may never have become inspired to write my own book. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting me. Have a great weekend.

Oh angels, it is summer and I am living it up – if living it up is sitting for long periods of time, playing too many hours of video games, and still going to bed at 8:30pm because you can’t be hungry if you’re sleeping. Oh, and also going to the gym because I WILL GET MICHELLE OBAMA-LEVEL ARMS. Please clap.

The husband was in Utah from June 2nd through June 10th grading AP World History exam essays, so I had a whole week to just do whatever I wanted, so I met Joe Biden.

But that was only Monday night from 7:30-9:30 so I had another 6 days to fill. Some of that time was spent writing THE BOOK.

Things I have discovered writing THE BOOK.

1. I write about 1300-1700 words each time I sit down to write. I could do more.
2. I can see this story beginning to end and that makes it easier to write. It’s like I’m watching the characters do stuff and I’m just describing what I see to you via THE BOOK.
3. I skipped some days last week and so I feel a little behind now.

Things I want to try to do now that I’ve eased into summer:

1. Write twice a day. Once in the morning and once some other time in the day. I’d like to up that word count and stick to it.
2. Write more about the world/setting and not be afraid to describe things more. Since I am so often putting books down because I get bored with them, I am afraid of having that affect on readers myself.
3. Think more about the magic system. Every fantasy book has a pretty clear idea about how magic works (although if we’re being honest “I was born with it so just hand me a wand” was kind of vague in HP but I still love it so much) so I want to be sure to give clear information about how magic works in this world.

As of today I have 10,000 words into this novel. It’s the 12th of June so mathematically that averages out to less than 1,000 words a day, which isn’t what I was aiming for, but it’s more than I was doing. This weekend I am leaving the husband at home and taking a few nights in a hotel just for me. I’m planning to sleep a lot since I won’t have to worry about taking the dogs out, reading, and writing, hopefully enough to catch up to where I would be by the 17th (about 25,000 words) since I won’t have anything to distract me except myself and the entire internet. What could go wrong?

This book is happening. I’m really excited and proud about it. Thank you all for supporting this effort. New book review is up tomorrow. See you then!

If you’ve been a member of my Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/angryangelbooks/) or followed me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/angryangelbooks) you’ve noticed a fair amount of writing content in addition to my usual book reviews and essays. Since NaNoWriMo in November 2017 and attending the AWP writer’s conference in March of this year, I’ve been exploring writing/author Twitter and researching the worlds of agents and publishing, mostly because I’m discovering that I have a story in my head and I wanted to know how I might get it out into the world.

The summer of 2018 will be the first summer since 1997 that I will be free to do what I wish. I mean, I have a 4 day AP Statistics training to attend in July, and the husband and I are taking an anniversary weekend in St. Augustine just before that, but that’s like 7 days out of 65 total days between this school year and the next.

It’s not a lot of time. A fiction novel meant for adults tends to be around 100,000 words, and a first draft must be edited, read by trusted friends and colleagues, revised, and sent out to agents once it feels “done” to me. As a first time author, I would probably have to pitch with a complete manuscript because I am a higher risk and an unknown.

The mathematician in me says that 100,000 divided by 65 is about 1540 words per day. My depression says “ha, bitch, I’d like to see you try!” The teacher in me says, “a little each day means success in the end.” The failure says, “one more thing to start and never finish.” The reader, “I can do this.” The writer, “You only need a pen and paper, and you have computers too – you have everything you need to put words down, in order, many times over.”

There are a lot of internal voices that have opinions about this new endeavor. The loudest is the logical side of my brain that insists that I have the time, I have the resources, and I have friends that will help me. I have nothing to lose. The husband supports my efforts. It shouldn’t cost me anything. So, logically, as long as I can set that daily word count and stick to it, I can at least write my first draft. Everyone says that’s the hardest part. If I can do that, then I can handle the rest.

Starting tomorrow I will be writing a novel. The first in a series. Wish me luck. It seems as though it is a required element of the process. Posting here may reduce for the summer, but I will give occasional updates and a couple of reviews a week since I will, of course, still be reading.

And you should be too. Check out my summer reading list suggestions right here tomorrow!

Read. Be brave. Stay angry. Have a great summer, angels.