As you are aware, Project V has been giving me no end of trouble and refuses to be written, so I decided to work on another story, hoping it might get me back into the swing of the thing. I pondered a few options and started a few promising stories, but it wasn't until late last week that I found The Story.
And so, I am announcing the new and exciting Project P!
If you must know (because, of course, you must, right? ;), I am currently describing Project P as "The Hunger Games meets Legend (by Marie Lu) meets In Time." It is a stand-alone YA dystopian novel with a female protagonist in 1st Person Present Tense.
After much personal debate, I decided to devote the next two months to write it. To insure I don't aggravate my already bad health, the word count schedule is: 500 words on work days, 1,000 on off-work days, and 1,500 on weekend days. At this slow but daily pace I will have 56,500 words on June 30th. I do not consider this a novel length, though, and plan to write as many words as I can each day to be sure and make at least 60k in the end. But I need an attainable daily goal to strive for, lest I write nothing at all.
So why this story, you wonder? Well, there were two very important and very striking factors right from the start that indicated Project P was The Story:
(1) Before I could even wrap my head around it, my mind started writing a query blurb. I have yet to write a query letter, let alone a blurb for one, and yet there it was, pouring out of my pen onto the page. It was like another, more structured writer had taken over, which was both fascinating and freaky at the same time.
(2) And then, after several sentences of blurb, came The Outline. I am a hard-core discovery writer. I DO NOT outline. And yet I am now the proud owner of a currently 3-page and growing, honest-to-goodness outline. I don't normally outline because, once I get even the gist of the story written down, I lose interest. But so far, it has only increased my excitement to get this book written! Again, fascinating, yet totally freaky.
Needless to say I have no idea what happened, but I saw it as the writing on the wall - to write this novel, and NOW. Strike while the story iron is hot!
I begin tomorrow with a 1k day (although I'm hoping for 2k). I've had less than a week to get my main characters figured out, do some extensive research (of which I've only scratched the surface and will have to do as-needed from now on), draft an outline (currently only one-fourth done), and get some very important rules in order. But writing on the fly is what I do best, and I am all aquiver with excitement. I don't think I've been this excited to write a novel since perhaps my first Nanowrimo. Wish me luck!
Yay! Good luck!
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