Matthew Supert

Work on my book from last year's Nanowrimo is still moving along and in some respects I have finally found a sort of groove. I am not working on the book everyday, but I am trying to get some editing in at least once a week. Most of the characters and places in the book now have names and I think I have successfully put in a first edit for the first couple of chapters. The books is still incredibly rough around the edges, but I think it is at least comprehensible in those sections now. I am going to continue to chip away at the book. 

I won't be doing Nanowrimo this year, but I am again hoping to have some form of a draft of this book finished before the end of this year.  

Read more »

So writing on my book sort of ground to a halt the past couple of months. I am literally on the edge of completing the book from a technical perspective, but as I get closer and closer to the proverbial finish line, each step gets heavier and harder. It is like the gravity of the whole thing is weighing me down and preventing me from finishing the book. What I think really is happening is that the lack of preparation for the end is really dragging me down and I don't have an internalized feeling for exactly how the book should conclude. For all intents and purposes though the book is finished in its first pass, so I think I am going to refocus my efforts here and go back to the beginning to work on fleshing out the story elements. God, knows that all sorts of things like character names need to be created and I need to established a more grounded foundation for the religious context in my world. 

Well, it has been a while since a book check in. Progress is still moving along slowly, but I think at this point I am getting to the conclusion point in this point of my story arc. I am working through the climax point in the book and I am approaching the final plot point. I really hope I can knock that out over the next week or two and then begin the process of my first round of edits. As I have mentioned before, the book at this point is little more than a collection of words. Most of the characters still do not have names, and I still need to do some major editing to reincorporate the religious aspect of the book that I haven't done thus far. 

I was struggling for a long while on how to incorporate some of the religious tones that I wanted to do, but I have found some great inspiration actually from a book I just recently read. Nightbringer from the Warhammer 40,000 universe has really laid out an interesting world where the religion in the universe is the guiding point around the social and military structure. There are some interesting points in that world that I think I will borrow upon to bring in to my book.  

So, Nanowrimo is long gone, but I am still slowly chipping away on my book. I have absolutely slowed down over the past month, a lot more than I had initially planned, but it was probably good to step back from everything for a bit of time to catch my breath. Nanowrimo was a mad sprint in November and nothing I have ever done before. It was exciting, but it wasn't really something I could keep on doing since I was basically neglecting other parts of my life. 

That being said I hope to get back into the writing part a bit more through the month of January. I am amazed at how much of this story I am discovering myself as I write this book. I am sort of just making things up as I go along and writing what feels like what would naturally happen in a scenario. I have found myself and my characters going to places I never imagined, wondering why we were all here and acting upon motives they never would have at the beginning of this adventure. 

I had to write my first love scene, which I admit was a bit awkward because all I could think about was if people reading this would just think it was my own sexual desires coming out. I had one of my characters commit a horrific crime out of pure impulse upon the moment. Everything is just sort of falling around me in this story, but I think I will get to where I need to be in the end. Ideas about solidifying the world seem to be coming together around me. I hope to keep plugging along with this. Eventually I may even allow people to read it. 

Ok, 

So day one is done. Man was it hard to get this started. I probably started and rewrote this beginning sequence a half dozen times. I have ended the day with 1724 words though which I feel is not to bad of a start. I basically made my way through the introduction of my characters. 

I am toying with the idea of posting up my content as I write to get feedback from people who may have thoughts or ideas I could explore. I assume that my writing is going to be pretty atrocious since I am basically mashing at the keyboard to just get words on the page. We will see if that may be some thing I want to do. 

So here it is. November 1st is the start of Nanowrimo 2013. I have told myself I am doing this. Writing a novel in a month. Am I prepared? I have no idea. I tried to do some real planning and outlining the past couple of months and I have a solid idea. I suppose we will just sort of see how this all plays out. 

As I have mentioned before, I have never done anything like this before. Am I nervous? Heck ya. 

So one of the things I wanted to accomplish this year was a successfully participation in Nanowrimo. Nanowrimo is a national novel writing month that takes place in November and encourages people to write 30,000 words in 30 days. It is difficult for sure, but a fun project to shoot for. I attempted this a few years ago, but started the night before and was not very successful. This year I have decided to map out my novel idea several months in advance and I think I have a pretty decent idea. 

Tied in this with is also a concept for a board game that I am working on. Yes, a board game. I am experimenting with developing a board game mechanic. This weekend I began cutting out some prototype pieces to begin testing. There is a lot of work still here, but I think I can possibly get something decent this winter.