I've got the sand!

It's been quite the while since I last blogged. I could come up with all kinds of excuses, but truth is there isn't one. I've been neglectful.

In all honestly, I didn't blog because their wasn't much in the way of updates going on. The final semester of university was pretty full-on. I was so up to my eyeballs in essays and scripts that there was just no time to work on my own creative projects. I have finished now until September when it aaaallll begins again, and I've finally had chance to crack on with my writing.

So I guess the biggest news to share is....

I finally finished the first draft of Prince of Blades !!!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The draft sucks. Bigtime. The writing is terrible in some places, and the entire thing needs more work doing on it than Alicia Duvall has had done on her face - but the main thing is - it's DONE! I was watching a writing panel recently like you do, and someone (I feel awful but I can't remember who) said a quote that really stuck with me. She said:

'the first draft is just you piling sand into a bucket so you can make sandcastles with it later'.

This is SO true. Nothing you write for the first time is going to be perfect - if it is, then you've hit the jackpot BIG TIME - but the overall consensus is that first drafts suck. And they are MEANT to suck. With the first draft, you are telling yourself the story, you are getting to know your characters and your world, you are chipping away at the earth to try and find those golden nuggets underneath. A first draft needs editing - a lot - to become good, but you can't edit a blank page. You can't build sandcastles from thin air - you need the sand in the bucket to begin with.

And now that my first draft is finished:

I have the sand!

I know in my last post I said that I wanted to start working on the first draft of Joel after finishing this one, but for the time being I just want to focus on getting this book to the best that I can physically make it. I am leaving the draft to simmer for a little while, but I am beyond excited to jump into the first round of edits over the summer.  I have already decided on some MAJOR structural changes that need to be made (mainly to the beginning of the story). I have also decided to add a new side character - I clearly didn't hate myself enough so I wanted to make things harder. This first set of revisions is going to focus on implementing the really big changes that need to be made.

I have been reading the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo and I have fallen COMPLETELY in love with her writing style. I'm now reading Six of Crows by her, and the writing has taken a step up even further in that book! Her writing is flawless and reading her books has really inspired me to make my own better. If you haven't read anything by Leigh Bardugo I highly recommend her work! She has a Wonder Woman novel coming out in August that I cannot WAIT to get my hands on - I'm just eating up her books right now!

So that's all for now I think, no more updates. Like I said, this summer is going to consist of major edits to Prince of Blades while I have the time. Hopefully I can build some sandcastles and I'm sure I will check in again here soon.

:)

(all pictures taken from Google)