Oh my. Well. It seems I’ve neglected my writing updates for a little while: it’s been…scrolls through my page…over a month since the last one! Whoops. I truly didn’t intend to go an entire month without posting here: between work, my thesis and working on my books, though, I’ve been busy. That, and as I think I mentioned before, this summer has been a slog for me in many ways: that’s taken a toll on my progress, although lately that’s started to turn around. More on that in a bit.
So anyway, what have I been up to over the past month? Well, I got myself good and stuck on Usi 1, though not for the usual reasons: this time, instead of having trouble with the plot, I found myself getting bogged down in setting. I’ve got Zuza in an army camp at the moment, and just making everything about that setting realistic has been a challenge. I tried to push my way through it for a couple weeks, before realizing I needed to take a break. I’m planning on doing a bit of research, once school starts up again and I’m back in the library more often, on what life is/was like for armies on the march. Once I’m armed with more information, I might be able to come back to Usi and make good progress with fresh eyes.
In the meantime, I’ve decided to go back to The 2nd Realm and finish that one. If you remember, that’s the book I was working on when I first started my blog almost a year ago. I got a bit over 100,000 words in before I decided to put it aside, as I was getting bogged down in the mushy middle. Well, after I skimmed over what I’d written, I got some fresh ideas: and while the middle has still been a slog, I’ve made steady progress. I’m now close to 135,000 words in: what’s more, I’ve been making more consistent progress in August than I’ve made since before the summer started. I’m still not quite going at the rate I’d like to, but I’m counting my blessings: I’ve got my words per day up near 2000 again, which is way better than what it was in May, June and July.
Part of the reason the middle has been so tough for The 2nd Realm is that it’s mostly setup, and involves a lot of interconnected plotlines intersecting and intertwining with one another. The 2nd Realm is basically an interdimensional heist novel: Konrad Clark (the main character) is forced to steal an object from Queen Indrigimu (who rules a continent on the second realm, one of the seven realms that make up reality), an object that’s infamous for being one of the hardest to steal across all the realms. The reason why the middle portion of this book is so difficult is that I have to show Konrad gathering information and setting up his plan in a way that makes sense, but also won’t bore the reader: breaking into Indrigimu’s palace and finding Qu’s Diadem (the object he has to steal) is an extremely difficult task, one that’ll involve a lot of complex planning to pull off. Pulling that off as a writer, though—having Konrad plan his heist in a way that makes sense while keeping the story moving—has been quite the balancing act. And, quite frankly, it’s not one I’m confident I’ve pulled off: I won’t be surprised if that middle section needs multiple complete rewrites during the editing process.
Still, though, as I said on my Instagram page recently, the most important thing for me right now is getting that bad first draft done. I can do a lot more with a bad first draft that’s actually finished than an incomplete first draft. I can re-read it, revise it, send it off to beta readers or a professional editor who can tell me what works, what doesn’t, and where I need to revise further. It’s tough to do any of that when the manuscript isn’t done.
And I have to keep remembering not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. With a plot like this, it’s easy to overthink things. Thus, when I’ve found myself stuck wondering whether a certain plot detail actually works, I’ve forced myself to write it down anyway. I’ve told myself: you can come back to this later and change it if it doesn’t work. This book doesn’t have to be perfect from the first draft.
And that’s important to keep in mind, I think. If any aspiring writers ever read this, I’d tell them, for whatever my words are worth: it’s OK for your manuscript to change. It’s OK for your first draft to be weak. It’s OK to need to re-write something over and over again. Even seasoned pros do that. I had this idea, when I was younger and more naïve, that for each book you held in your hand, that was the author’s first draft. Or maybe, maybe they’d fixed a few spelling mistakes, or changed up one or two clunky lines of dialogue, before submitting it to their publisher.
Hahaha. No. Other writers have to tear out entire subplots too. Other writers have to rewrite entire sections of their books too. Other writers stare at the blinking cursor, halfway through their 11th draft, and wonder whether they actually have any talent too.
And it’s not just the rookies. The pros feel that way too. Yes, even the pros with 25 New York Times bestsellers under their belt.
It’s all just part of the life.
So anyway, the first draft of The 2nd Realm is coming along. My hope is to have it done by the end of September, although we’ll see if that actually happens. I’ve also made a start on my rewrite of Kosan: I’m only one chapter in, but I’m already finding myself intrigued by the new direction the story’s taking. It’ll still tell the same basic story at heart…but there’ll be a lot of new beats, too, which I’m looking forward to hashing out.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you tonight. Judging by my decreasing rate of posts here, I’ll see you all again in mid-October. Until then, have fun, stay safe and keep reading.
