Thoughts about My Upcoming July Writing Project

So…tomorrow is the first day of July. My first panicked thought is: Ah! How did half of the year escape on me already? What am I doing with my life? Which is then promptly followed by my second panicked thought: Ah! Tomorrow is when my month-long writing project will start! What am I going to spend that time writing?

I can’t do anything about the first panicked thought (unless you happen to know someone who can freeze time), but I have been pondering the second one for the past week and a half.

I’ve decided that I’m going to try and write at least 1000 words a day (sum total: 31,000). It worked well for me last July, despite my delay due to world-building brainstorms. One thousand words is a nice medium – it’s not an overwhelming amount like what I do in November, but it’s not giving me an excuse to write only really short pieces.

I also have a couple of playlists lined up for me to listen to while I’m writing. Because – like many writers I know – we like to have music in the background. It’s especially useful to have when trying to get inside a particular character’s head.

As for what I’m planning on writing for the entire month? Even I don’t have an exact answer for that.

For now, I’m just going to pick and choose certain stories, write them as much as I can, and see where it leads. My biggest problem is that I’m experiencing “story idea” overload. It should be considered a good problem to have, having multiple plots/scenes in my head, but how do I choose which one to work on? Which one will unlock doors and keep me writing?

Answer: I won’t know until I actually sit down and try to form them into being onto a Word document.

Basically, my writing strategy follows my current life mantra: I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out.

Mainly, I’m just hoping that I can succeed where I failed back in the spring. I’ll let you know the outcome in thirty-one days.



P.S. Two days ago, I officially finished reading my tenth novel of the year. I need to kick my game up if I plan on reading more than nineteen books before 2018.

Anyway, A TORCH AGAINST THE NIGHT by Sabaa Tahir is now sitting in my bookshelf instead of on my dresser. I enjoyed it greatly. However, I was tricked into thinking that the series was going to end with this book. But - oh no! - there are two more novels lined up. Of course, I’ll buy them all once they are published, but I was just frustrated at how Helene’s story arc was left off. You go get your revenge, girl! Destroy the Commandant!

When Books Surprise You (But in a Good Way)

Has this ever happened to anyone? (Because I’m sure everyone has experienced this at least once in their life.) You pick up a book and - even though you don’t know much about the author or its plot - you already don’t expect too much out of it. Maybe because you’re being forced to read it or you picked it up on a sale, so you bought it cheaply on a whim. Either way, once you start reading it, you find yourself surprised by it and discover how wrong you were about it initially.

Yeah, this is what I experienced this past week.

I chose a book from my unread tower last week, picking it deliberately because I wanted to read something that I could finish quickly. (The last book took me a month to complete. I didn’t want to dedicate so much time on another novel so soon.) This new book was slightly over 400 pages, so it wasn’t small in size at all. However, the author’s name was unfamiliar to me, despite having three other books published. I also have never seen/heard of my particular book in general out in the world, so I figured that she was more of an Indie author (which she was; my knowledge on Indie authors is limited). But the plot intrigued me, hence why I had bought it back in January during one of those Barnes & Noble online sales.

As I started reading it, I quickly fell into its charm. There were all sorts of twists throughout the story that I didn’t see coming. The parents were mentioned frequently (because parents tend to be absent in many YA novels, which is weird if you’re only a teen). There wasn’t any Insta!Love when it came to the protagonist’s love interest. And just as importantly, the writing itself was well done.

It was also a stand-alone book. I commend the author for that because, usually when I’m reading something fantasy or sci-fi, it tends to be part of a duology or trilogy. But, nope, this book was a complete story arc and I was satisfied with it by its end.

My only qualm about it is that the main antagonist started to get a little too villain-y at times. But that’s just me.

Anyway…it was nice to finish a book that surpassed my expectations of it. Too often I have picked up a novel and was disappointed by it due to its mediocrity.

Now I just have to figure out which book I want to tackle next…