Writing Update #5

Hello, and welcome to day 7 of Birthday Blog Bash 2018. The entire month of January I will be posting every single day.

Writing Update # 3

I have a confession to make I failed Camp NaNoWriMo and I really wanted to make it work, but July wasn't a good month for writing or anything really. I did read 7 books in the month of July which was great. I do have some updates on my writing life that I would like to share with my lovely readers.

First, I came up with some new ideas. Is there other people who always have ideas flowing in their head? Because I can come up with ideas out of the blue and it's really hard to focus on what I want to write. Sometimes I wish that Alexander Hamilton could teach me how to write like I'm running out time, but I'm okay with taking my time on the my WIP because I don't want the manuscript to feel like I'm rushing it.

Second, is that I'm rewriting the beginning of my story because it feels like it was rushed and I didn't have my main character voice developed enough. Now that I rewritten the first chapter everything else seems to flow a lot better, though I still have four more chapters to fix. The reason this even became an issue was that I wrote the first chapter when I didn't know how I wanted it to go, so I pushed through it. Don't get me wrong pushing through that writer's block really works, but it threw the whole story off. I'm happy that I caught this problem now because now rather than later. I'm also fixing my issue of being an underwriter. Another thing that I'm really working on is showing instead of telling. I noticed that I'm horrible at telling rather than showing. To add on to the list of my improvements is editing. In real life my grammar sucks and sometimes my brain works faster than what I say and or write, to fix this I been trying to crack down on editing my posts before I post them.

The next thing I wanted to update everyone on is I started doing a brain dump on a different idea. My main goal of this is try to find a way that works for me when it comes to planning out a novel. I have tablet that has all the basics of the story in it. I will be also adding things as I go long, like having character profiles and everything else in this high fantasy world that needs to make this world just as believable as real one. I'm love with creating this whole new world from scratch and I think its a lot of fun.

How's everyone WIP doing? I hope everyone's writing life is doing good and that you all are making progress on your novels. Stay in tune for mor writing posts in the future. Remember keep looking for your Once Upon A Time.

Writing Update #2

    Camp NaNoWriMo starts today!!!!!!! I will be working on my WIP Goddess Warefare. I'm hoping that Camp NaNoWriMo will give me that extra push of motivation to really start working on it. This is my first time participating in something like NaNoWriMo so I'm excited about that. I do have tons of things to update you on about it so lets jump into the post.


  I started the month off with 4,322 words, well I about to reach 14,000 words and that's really great. I really didn't want to redo the beginning until I was finished with the whole draft, but I felt that everything was getting off track and going off the deep end, most of the stuff I wrote out of writers blocked. I sent the first five chapters to a twitter buddy unedited, it wasn't until I was writing the sixth chapter that I realized how unfocused and off paced it is. I restarted the beginning and I'm following the outline to a t now. Originally, I thought the outline was stretching it too much and making it way too detailed, but that I can handle. I can't have the beginning off paced and then a huge chunk on pace, this was making it really hard for me to write.

 Now that I'm working out the confusion of the beginning, everything seems to be fitting in perfectly together and I'm really happy about that. My word count goal for Camp NaNoWriMo is 100,000 words if I don't make it to that in the month of July then I'm fine with that. My main goal is just to trying to finish as much as possible before school starts at the end of August. I really want my first draft to be done by the end of 2016. This will end in me getting started on my first round of edits and to a second draft.

Before I start a second draft I'm sending out two copies of the edited first draft to two of my greatest friends. I know people say family and friends wouldn't want to hurt my feelings, but trust me when I say they are harsh and they wouldn't let me not know, if it is horrible. I'm currently thinking on when to start the beta reader process, I'm trying to get as much research done on it before I get there. I was thinking after I'm done editing the second draft, but then I know some people have betas right along side you as your editing so they can help point out things too.  I would love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments.

I think of my biggest tips is to type in comments as you go long. I'm currently using Word 2016 and I can just add in a comments, but if don't have that tool add comments in a different font or color. Adding comments of different ideas or issues you are seeing as you go long will help you tons when your done with your first draft or even when you are trying to finish your first draft. For example, I notice I don't have any character depth in my characters, this note is leading me to work on character profiles. Another I thing I notice is that I'm doing more telling then showing, I made a note of that and I'm quickly trying to fix that. Everything that I'm learning now is going to help me in the future with other ideas of mine.

What are you guys working on for Camp NaNoWriMo? Is there any tips you would like to shout to me? Remember keep looking for your Once Upon A Time.

In My Once Upon Time

     In My Once Upon A Time is going to be a monthly post, that will be a wrap up for my blog. I will be posting it on the fourth of every month. So in the month of May I read a total of three books. I been slumped with homework and my anxiety levels are through the roof, but despite all of this I manage to make a break through on blogging and writing. Both are which crucial to helping me relax and unwind from my hectic life. I have been watching Netflix instead of reading. Also when the post goes up I will be out of school until next year.

     My reading life hasn't existed at all for months. Though I'm proud to say I read Night by Elie Wiesel. This is a short memoir about young Jewish boy's life in concentration camps. I do plan on doing a review on it and that should be up in a couple days.  After Night I picked up The Duff and Seven Ways we Lie. Reviews for all three books will be coming your way. I do have the books that I want to read for this month already to go. These are the books that I will be for sure reading, but I will be probably reading more.

• Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
• The Start-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
• Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
• Storm Siren by Mary Weber
• Sanctuary Bay by Laura J. Burns a& Melinda Metz

  Writing has been becoming a major part of my everyday life. I'm took a Creative Writing course in where I wrote numerous things including a one act play and a narrative. My poetry skills have improved dramatically. Also if you haven't read my Writing Update post you will be proud to know that I should have 6,000 words in my first draft of my book!!! I'm so excited about making lead way with this draft. My major goal is to have it down before the end of the year. If you would like see some my poems let me know if that is something that would be enjoyed.

  Besides homework, the wonderful technology of Netflix has been taking up most of my life. I'm almost done Gilmore Girls and review of that show will be coming soon. I will also include my thoughts and hopes for the revival. I also want to do a Glee Review sometime soon. I re-started Supernatural and I also started watching Merlin which wasn't even on my Netflix Bucket list. I'm not really sure when reviews will come out for either of those shows considering that's a lot of tv, but I'm pretty good at binge watching. You should be looking out for a Deadpool and Fuller House review. I might do post of my favorite movies on Netflix or my most anticipated movies, comment below if that interests you. Orange of the New Black fans season 4 drops June 17th.

  I'm currently obsessed with the artists Melanie Martinez and Twenty-One Piolets. I also been listening to a lot of classic rock such as the Beatles. If you guys want a post dedicated to my current favorite songs or a song recommendation post then let me know in the comments below.

 What are you current favorites for the month of May? Did you read any great books last month? What have you been watching on Netflix or t.v? Don't forget I am doing a Q+A and I would love to hear some questions so I can put together that post. As always if there is anything you want to see me do let me know in the comments or go to my Contact page and message me there. Remember keep looking for your Once Upon A Time.

-Cheyenne

Writing Update

    I started a writing blog last year, but I found it hard to run two blogs at the same time. Since I'm redoing my book blog I decided to combine the two together. I will be doing writing updates and tips throughout the month. Eventually I might settle on a certain day of the week. As the title states, this is a writing update.

    If you don't know, I'm writing the first draft to the book that I been meaning to write for two years now. I have started it multiple different times, but always ended up restarting this. I recently started to actually write the book, using the outline I made in December of last year. I'm so excited to be sitting down and writing an idea that has been in my brain for so long. It makes me feel so accomplished, and once I type those last few words I will be so proud of myself. Despite having more steps to complete after that, I can say that I wrote a book.

  I haven't come up with a title for the book yet. I do know that I want it to be a trilogy and I have been calling it The Goddess Warfare Series. It is a mythology based, but I'm putting my own twist on everything. I think that is all I'm going to say about the book right now. I'm currently at 4,200 words, but when this post goes live I'm hoping to be at 6,000 words. My plan is to be finished with the first draft by the end of this year and I hope this goal comes true and then go from there.

  The biggest thing I learned so far is that you need to push through writers block. The first chapter of my book is horrible, but I pushed through it. At the end of the first chapter, was when the ideas really started pumping out. I figured out on how I want to approach things in the coming chapters. If you have any questions or want to request me to do something please comment below. Remember always keep looking for your Once Upon A Time.

-Cheyenne