So, how did my massive experiment with writing 50,000 words in a month go? It was, by all accounts, a great success.
I am the proud owner of a shiny certificate, but, more importantly, I am the owner of a draft which totals more than half of a my second novel.
A draft novel is a funny thing.
It’s like the awkward photo that your parents took of you as a kid, dressed in fashionable attire, covered in dirt or paint, or looking smug with your new high-tech toy. Time moved on so much, that you forgot about that picture–you became a different person, dealt with school, work, family, built success, faced trauma and loss–yet, all the while this photo sat, gathering dust. One day you find it and you are filled with shame, but also bemusement. It is not who you are, it is who you were, for a tiny snapshot, and that snapshot was a necessary component of who you became.
I have a long way to go still, but I am incredibly happy with what I’ve written to date. It will need polishing and refinement, building of scenes and exchanging of words, but the process has been easier this time. It has flowed more freely and is far more joined-up as an entity for a first draft.
I have been braver and more confident.
I am not shying away from tackling awkward topics. I am far happier delving deeper into a genre and expanding the universe I started with Metropolitan Dreams.
I still want to blend a realistic portrayal of a city and its inhabitants with elements of speculative fiction–for this is where I feel Metropolitan Dreams, was at its strongest. Those elements of speculative fiction will be far more prominent this time.
In the process of writing, my 10,000 word outline plan has barely been used. It’s like I’m flying on auto pilot, comfortable that I know where I’m going and I know how to intervene when turbulence hits.
Metropolitan Fear will deal with some challenging topics; religion, terrorism, the troubled birth of a nation and the political landscape in America today. It has themes of love, family, loss and hope.
I am excited by writing it and the odd day when I write nothing feels like severe separation anxiety.
Much of this I have my editor (Emily June Street) to thank for. While she is not sitting watching me write, her voice is in my head.
So, as I head off on the journey, excited and a lot wiser, wish me luck.
Metropolitan Dreams 