#WIPMarathon Update #4

Last report wordcount and chapter count/scene count: I was 39,000 words into my YA post-apocalyptic sequel.
 
Current report WC + CC/SC: I finished my draft at 70K! :D

I also finished last revisions on Indestructible. Whee!

And I decided my MG Fantasy (which I wrote last year) needed to undergo a major revision. So I cut it into scenes in Scrivener and more or less rewrote it from scratch. And in the process, I fell in love with the story again! ^_^ Now, it's finished and beta-ready, and I'm in a weird hopeful-scared paradox because it's made me re-evaluate my entire game plan for project submission.

I'm also writing another draft, a YA contemporary fantasy. I'm currently at 20K words (thanks to a week without Internet and a ton of inspiration!)

And I wrote most of an outline (and a ton of worldbuilding) for another YA high fantasy project. I may have had a slight case of Project ADD this month...

WIP Issues this month: Being distracted by other projects and shiny new ideas. At one point, I was juggling four at once. Oops.

Four things I learned this month in writing:

• This fantastic series on character arcs has been so helpful when writing my revision plan for my MG Fantasy. I have two main characters, and I completely lost track of their stories (one of the reasons I decided to rewrite it!). This helped me keep everything on track!
• On days when I'm inspired, I need to write as much as possible. This might seem obvious, but I've been using 1000 words a day as my target for a while and it's possible to get lazy with it and end up in a never-ending guilt spiral when I get a stretch of days where it's hard to get any words down at all. Now, I'm going to make more of an effort to get as many words down as possible on those days when the words are flowing, so I feel less guilty on the non-inspired days!
• I read this amazing book by Rachel Aaron about how she went from writing 2K in a day to over 10K. There are some great tips, such as making a list of the things that excite you about each scene before you write them. I'm making the effort to do this, because if I'm excited about every scene, hopefully the reader will be, too!
• Rewriting can be inspiring! I tend to find drafting more fun than editing, although I've really come to appreciate both stages of the writing process. But rewriting a book from scratch has made me appreciate the bits I got RIGHT, as opposed to the many things I got wrong. It's rewarding! ^_^

What distracted me this month when writing: Plague (boo!) and holiday (yay!).

Goal for next month: I'm hoping to make more progress with my YA contemporary fantasy draft, now it's my main project. :) And I'm hoping to do more plotting/outlining on my next project.

I'm also going to be sending my MG fantasy out to beta readers! I hesitate to say this in case I'm completely deluding myself, but I have a really good feeling about this one... well, part of me is thinking that if any project is the "one", it's this one. If that makes sense? (It does in my head!) As I said in my What's Up Wednesday post, it's a very "me" kind of book, which means it's completely bonkers. I started out writing children's books, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is. :D

Last 200 words: (This is a very rough excerpt from my YA contemporary fantasy WIP, which has the working title of Dark Art. You'll see why...)

The paintings on the walls had a life of their own, soaring angels and fantastical creatures changing shape and form so fast it was like watching a video clip in fast-forward. She looked at Dorian instead, the only steady, solid object in the room, and swallowed hard.

‘This is mental,’ she said, her voice tiny in the huge room.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s a mental trick. You have to find your focus.’

‘My what? How the hell are you so calm about…’ She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a migraine pushing at her temples.

‘Find one point to focus on. Don’t take your eyes off it. Everything else will stop moving if you do that. It’s in your head. This place might be crazy-making, but you’re sane and you can do this.’ He took her hand and squeezed it, and she didn’t pull away.

‘Thanks.’ She forced her eyes open. Almost instantly, the swirling colours dragged her in again, but she found one spot, the wing of a tropical-coloured bird, and focused on that. The other paintings tried to draw her eyes away, flickering from one colour and image to the next, but she narrowed her eyes and concentrated on that one image.

Everything else fell away, seeming muted, like someone had paused the video. She breathed out, and turned back to Dorian.

‘You did great, Saffron,’ he said.

‘Wait,’ she said, frowning. ‘We just went down a slide, but we were on the ground floor, right? So is this underground?’

‘Don’t think about dimensions in this place, it’ll give you a headache,’ said Dorian. ‘Trust me. Forget everything you know about the laws of nature.’