What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme run by Erin L Funk and Jaime Morrow and is a great way for readers and writers to catch up!
What I'm reading
I've been rereading The Raven Boys ready to finally read The Dream Thieves, which I finally managed to buy! (it involved spending the money I had saved on my Waterstones card, but was totally worth it!) I've also been continuing with Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which I'm really enjoying!
What I'm writing
I've been making steady progress with my new MG fantasy WIP. It's a lot of fun to write, but the inevitable ups-and-downs that come with a book release is making it difficult to get as much done as I'd like. Still, I reached 10,000 words yesterday, so that's 1/5 of the way through! I won't be doing NaNo 'properly' this year, but 30th November is my self-imposed deadline to finish this draft! Which means I'll have finished...FIVE first drafts this year. FIVE. o_O Holy wow.
What else I've been up to
Dealing with the aforementioned insanity, really! And hiding from the rain. I've also been doing some editing for clients (I do still have spots available, so if anyone knows someone looking for a copy-editor or proofreader, feel free to send them my way!).
What inspires me right now
One of my favourite writing tools, the Bookshelf Muse, has now been reinvented as Writers Helping Writers! This is a fantastic resource, especially if, like me, description isn't your forte. It has an excellent emotion thesaurus so you can find ways of showing character emotion, and other thesauri for setting, weather, character traits, symbolism, shapes, textures and colours...pretty much everything!
Five first drafts in a year? Wow, I'll be happy to finish the one I'm doing for NaNo! Good luck :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, they're only first drafts, though (and my books tend to be shorter than most). Good luck with NaNo, anyway! :)
DeleteI am so happy (though slightly green with envy) that you are about to read The Dream Thieves. I loved it, as you saw on my blog.Hope you do as well.
ReplyDeleteYour first draft count is very impressive. I do hope the book launch stuff is going well, and wish you the best of luck there!
I'm sure next year I'll probably be more focused on edits lol. Thank you! :)
DeleteWow, 5 drafts! I haven't done that in so long. I think I finished 2.5 novels and a novella so far. Hoping to finish the .5 novel so it'll be 3 ;)
ReplyDeleteI've added Writers Helping Writers! to my bloglovin feed yesterday.
I still need to edit all of them except one, though! My books are shorter than most, too... I have Writers Helping Writers bookmarked, so I can open it when I need to. It's so helpful!
Delete5 first drafts is amazing. I haven't been even close to that productive this year. I'm heading over to Writers Helping Writers right now. Thanks for the heads-up!
ReplyDeleteNext year will probably be mired in editing, lol. :P No problem! :)
DeleteI think NaNo's timeline can really work for setting other writing-related goals and not just starting a story and writing 50,000 words. I plan to use November to get seriously writing again and to set goals to that end. So all of the energy from NaNo should help with that.
ReplyDeleteI'm sensing a Raven Boys/Dream Thieves theme this week on WUW. ;-) I just finished up the latter last week and really enjoyed it. Can't wait for the next book!
I think I've seen that resource before but going to check it out. You are so busy and doing so very well! Congratulations on all the MSs you have completed.
ReplyDeleteLots of writing! That's great. I'm hoping to get a lot written in Nov. too:) I'm reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. He is certainly talented.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, do I hear you about having a difficult time writing around a book release! I'm on draft two of my WIP, and I finally got to sit down for a couple hours yesterday and just work. Breath of fresh air. Of course, I'm paying for it today.
ReplyDeleteFive first drafts?! Wow :O That is so impressive! Go you :D
ReplyDeleteFive drafts in a year?! That's amazing! Also, congrats on your book release!
ReplyDeleteSo excited for you to read The Dream Thieves. I looooved The Raven Boys and Dream Thieves does NOT disappoint! Also, yay for Gaiman's Sandman! I've only read random issues of it, but it is so interesting.
Holy wow, five first drafts! Go you! :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I LOVE that website.
That is a very impressive first draft count for the year! Congrats. I haven't read The Raven Boys/The Dream Thieves - so many other books on my TBR - but it's definitely a hot ticket around the blogosphere this week! Enjoy the rest of your week!
ReplyDeleteglad you're getting some writing done despite all the craziness. Thanks for the heads up on Writers Helping Writers, will be checking it out!
ReplyDelete5 drafts!! Nice!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the Writers Helping Writers link!
So happy you're getting your writing done. I really want to do NaNo this year because I need that but my mind is so wrapped in writing a synopsis that I don't know how to free myself to work on more projects.
ReplyDeleteAlso thanks for sharing the link to Writers Helping Writers