Every so often, you have to take a long, hard look in the mirror and assess, “Who I am now.” Granted, this is always going to be a loaded question. We’re going to dig into it a little today, though, as far as where I stand and how much more I have learned about myself as a writer.
Drawing from the Well
I finally finished one of the extra chapters for Arc I this past week. It felt good to put a bow on that one. I’m diving into the next one, but it’s going to take some off-page world-building to get together so stay tuned.
Pages 321
181,917 Words
Filling the Well
This week, I finished A Duel with the Vampire Lord, third book in the Married to Magic series. This book was my favorite in the series so far, but I’ve already devoured the first quarter of the fourth and it’s on track to surpass its predecessors. I can’t wait to see where it goes. Now, that’s the only book I got read this week, but some weeks are like that.
34/105 for #ProjectBookworm2024
The final patch of World of Warcraft Dragonflight launched today. I look forward to getting into it soon. For once, Blizzard is using a final patch as the epilogue to one expansion and the prologue of the next. Usually, expansion launches are rather abrupt from a story perspective. I’m excited to see how they do this.
Well Chat
For my final Revisited post, I want to touch on who I am now as a writer and as a person. On June 10, 2022, I covered this topic here. It was right before my triumph in launching my website and the new home for the blog, right where you’re reading it now. This revisitation has also been a reflection on how much I’ve grown and who I’ve become. It seems only fitting to look back to the last time I looked in the mirror.
How I defined myself then, almost two full years ago, was as a writer who:
- is a plotter
- loves climaxes
- struggles with descriptions and settings
- WILL knuckle down and work through the hard parts
That’s a pretty good picture, but there’s more to it than that. I think about my writing a lot. These days, that has led to me being a bit of a ponderous writer. When I’m drafting, I can still bust out some words quickly, but it takes a lot of thought to get to that point. I’m also big on how the story feels. If it feels sparse, empty, too quick or too slow, pocked like Swiss cheese, or just overall off, I take notice. I sit down and look at what I’ve written from every angle I can devise and figure out what needs to change. That’s why I have a massive editing document, spreadsheets for balancing things by word count, and a big honking in-universe calendar. There’s even more beyond that if we get into world-building.
One thing I won’t let get in my way anymore, though, is fear. Fear slowed me down a lot with Book III. Now that I’m to the editing phase of things, that fear has obviously been dealt with. I don’t like that I let it hold me up for so long, though. I’m not going to submit to it again. To do that, I’m going to embody the idea that I am a brave writer from now on. It’s the opposite of afraid. I might be slow, but I intend to be relentless.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG