Epic Plains

KoD stands for The Kingdom of Dragmar. KoD is the fantasy novel I am working on. While it is technically a NaNo novel (meaning the bulk of it was written during a NaNoWriMo event), I am taking the time with it that it deserves. I have actually had the story in mind for at least a couple of years and it took trying to write the bulk of it in a single month to finally get most of it on paper.

One of the reasons behind this site is to chronicle my own writing work. So I will also be updating the site with updates on how my offline writing projects are going. KoD is my biggest one at the moment, though as I mentioned in my Writing Goals for 2010 post, I am starting other projects as well.

Currently it is in what I am calling “Pre-Edit 1” phase. What that translates to is that I am planning on at least 2 rounds of editing (though as many as are needed will happen), with a peer edit/review between Edit 1 and Edit 2. “Pre-Edit 1” phase translates to being the roughest a draft can get. It is currently somewhere around 51,000 words, so still a bit shy yet of my 80,000 word goal. While it might end up with more or a little less, it currently is missing some plot elements, has consistency issues, and other fun stuff that comes out of mass producing text to meet word count goals.

The editing process is going a little rougher than I hoped, though about as well as I expected. A lot of folks say that the editing and revising process is the hardest part of writing and right now I am inclined to agree with them. However, I will never get this thing published if I don’t put in the time to get it polished up to the level I want it. (Much less a level where an agent/publisher will want it.)

I did a general post on Olorinpc.com about my goals for the new year.  Here on EP, I wanted to expand a little bit about my writing goals for the new year.  I have actually managed to lay out for myself pretty well what I want to accomplish this year with my writing.  By setting goals, it gives me a mark to aim for and a reason to keep pressing on.

One of the reasons I started this site was to help myself focus on writing in general.  Participating in NaNoWriMo this year really helped me bring that into perspective.  I discovered that I wanted to keep writing – and go further with it.  Hence the “2010 Progress Meter” I now have on the site.  I did a rough cut guess and came up with a figure of how much writing I want to accomplish in the next year: 255,000 words.  That is like doing NaNoWriMo 5 times.  Sounds crazy, but breaks down to around 700 words a day.

How the heck am I going to accomplish that???  Well to be honest, I might not.  Yet if I get anywhere close, I will be much further than I am today.  This is a totally new approach to writing for me, so I have no idea how reasonable my goals are.  However, before November I also had no idea it was possible for me to write 50,000 words in a single month.

Here is how I have broken it down:

1)  Novel writing: Finish editing my first novel, bringing up the wordcount by 30,000 to a total of 80,000.  Write my second novel and lay out a third.  (Possibly writing the third during NaNoWriMo 2010.)

2) Short Stories: I plan on writing a few of these.  Most trade publications call a short story something in the 5,000-10,000 word range.

3) Blogging: I bounce back and forth from writing a lot, to not writing much at all for months in a time.  I think I have figured out why that is.  That will be expanded on below.

To expand on #3, that is why I started Epic Plains.  If I am ever going to get my novel finished (and hopefully find an agent to get published) I need to get serious about writing.  To provide some separation for readers, and myself, I decided to have a site just for my writing endeavors.  Also with blogging, I pretty much annually get back on the horse, post a lot, then get burned out.  I have tried to structure it better, but tend to have to short of a time frame.  This year I am going to be approaching it more like a writing project – planning far longer in advance.  I am currently working on 50 posts between this blog and Olorinpc.com for publication between Jan. 1, 2010 and the end of February.  The concept being if I am working at least 1 month ahead then I shouldn’t get as rushed and behind as I have in the past.  Plus, this also gives me a platform to publicize my work.  (Hopefully being able to promote publications that have published my work beyond my own websites.)

We will see how well it works.  I also don’t want to let blogging take over and get me behind on the writing projects.  So it should be interesting to find a balance between all of those projects, work, home, and the fire department.  Even so, I am excited.  My writing projects are going better than I expected and hope to start sending out my first short story in a month or two, finishing edit 1 of my novel by the end of January, and kick off my scheduled posts during this time as well.

It is going to be an exciting next year!