It begins with an idea...

It's been exactly 2 months and 15 days since I finished my very first novel length of fiction. I met the requirement for NaNoWriMo and finished on the due date with the appropriate amount of words, although upon the finish line I didn't yet have a finished book. So after I put in my final numbers and got my groovy certificate of completion I vowed to finish it. Six days later I wrapped up the story of "The Love Immortal." I was so proud of myself that I started to cry, which is lame I know, but I am very suspect to emotional moments. Upon completion I realized that I could write a novel and that all these years at my failed attempts was because of a lack of motivation and competition. I was worried about making sure to get this idea in or that concept, never allowing myself to actually just write for the sake of writing.

I didn't believe it when I read on the NaNoWriMo website that "the story will work itself out." At times I had NO IDEA where the story was going or appeared that I ever would. Yet it was in those moments that I brought excitement to my tale. If I didn't even know where we were going on this ride how was my character going to? It was through that lack of planning that I brought out a story that kept me on my toes, even when I was reading the finished piece for the first time.

Since then I have wanted to get to editing. I want to get it somewhere near a "finished" state so that I could begin submitting it to agents to get it published. (I'll be damned if I don't get one of my books out in the world.) But every time I sat down to work on it my brain hesitated. At first I thought I was just being lazy or allowing myself to fear actually finishing something; but being an "artist" I realized that it was my mind's way of pushing me to work on the next story. Don't worry about this one just yet.

You see, when I finished "Love Immortal" I nowhere near finished the story as a whole. I brought the main plot to a tidy close but left a hole for the thread of story to continue forward.

When I thought about it I realized that I could probably wrap it up in four books, then that way when I sat down to edit and do some rewrites I would have a firmer grasp on the strory. Not to mention that it gives me a leg up on trying to sell it.

According to Writer's Digest agents and publishers are interested in a book that can be a part of a series; even better they want a finished series. And truly that is my main goal.

Thus I have decided that I am doing my own personal WriMo during four speperate months. The first being March 1st. I even downloaded an iPhone app that could keep me on track to finish the next book in the series. Then two months later I would do the next and so on... I haven't thought out the true logistics of it but I will finish four novel length works of fiction this year, or die trying.

I go into it with a shadow of an idea that may or may not have a real bearing on the plot, who knows. I like this lack of planning and I'm sure I'll write about it in future blogs.

I want to finish my protagonists story but more than anything I want him to work for me. I want to whore him out to the publishing world so that maybe, just maybe, he can help me make my mark on the world. And the characters that run around in my head can potentially make someones else life a misery, I mean joy.