Writing a New Novel

[David DeLee]

I've always been a big fan of NaNoWriMo and admired those who took to the challenge. I never did because November never seemed like a good time to embark on something like--the holidays and shopping and family trips and all that. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

Anyway, I'm starting work on a new novel and since tomorrow is Aug 1st I thought let's see if I can give this a go. I've got all my preliminary planning done--outlines, lists, character sketches, what have you --

So starting tomorrow I'm challenging myself to write 90k words over the next 30 day so that by Aug. 31st I will have a complete first draft done. That's an average of 3000 words per day. I will post my daily word count here at the end of the day for anyone who's interested in following and maybe I'll write a word or two about what I face as far as challenges go in trying to get this done.

Anyway, the title of the book is FATAL DECEPTION and it's the next novel in my Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter series.

For inspiration, here's a picture of the cover I've already created.

Anyway, wish me luck and please don't laugh too hard if (when) I fall on my face.

David DeLee

[David DeLee]

Day 6

Up early and walking the dog at like 5:30am. Its chilly so I check the temperature and its 49 degrees! In August.

Brrrrr.

Then I worked out, had breakfast, walked the dog again and started work around 10:30 after doing some e-mails and stuff.

Wrote 3700 words and knocked off at around 5:30.

That gives me a total of 23,500 words over 6 days.

I'm feeling pretty good about this so far.

[Don Kasparoza]

I think starting off with a cover is great. Helps you envision where you're going. Good to have a the back cover done to, at least a draft, with the product description.

PS-- just get it done. I recently published my first novel, and boy-- embarking on the 2nd is soooo much easier. lol.

Good luck!

[David DeLee]

Thanks for the comments, Chris.

I never started out with a cover first, but I found the artwork and thought it matched nicely with the first novel in the series FATAL DESTINY so I bought it and put it together. So, yeah, its kinda cool having it as incentive.

Congrats on the first novel pub. Hope it does well for you and good luck with novel number 2.

[Don Kasparoza]

Hey David, sorry for just responding to this now. Haven't been on this site, but wanted to say Thanks for the well wishes. Good luck to you too.

[David DeLee]

No worries, Chris. Thanks for the support. It is appreciated.

[David DeLee]

So its day 7

I wrote 4000 words today but after a very rocky start. In truth, I didn't think I was going to make my goal today.

By 12:30 when I broke for lunch and to walk the very insistent dog, I only had 600 words to show for two and a half hours of work. But when I got back to it, the next two scenes went easier and the writing really flowed allowing me to finish ups way better than I thought, though I did work until almost seven pm to do it.

Anyway, with these 4000 words by 7 day total is 27,500.

[David DeLee]

Day 8 (a little late)

Missed my daily goal of 3000 for the first time since I started this. Only wrote 2200 words.

I'd wanted to get at least to 2500 so that I'd have hit the 30k mark in 8 days, two days ahead of schedule but my brain turned to mush and I found myself just throwing words and the paper and that's not helping anything. So I tossed in the towel for the day and went to the movies.

OT--Saw Sandra Bullock & Melissa McCarthy in HEAT. Hilarious movie. I highly recommend it if your into the buddy-cop, action, comedy genre. Lots of fun.

As for the writing, having reached the 1st third of the project this stoppage is not unusual for me. Typically, around this point its time for me to go back and review my outline and check it against what I've written and make adjustment as necessary--typically the scenes are right and in the right order, but I need to add detail, drop clues, and clean up how and what information is being presented, including making sure the emotional on each character is evident.

so Day 9 will probably be of modest word count gain as I review and edit what's gone before and set myself up for where the stories going for the 2nd third.

[David DeLee]

Day 9

Took a more or less expected day off from writing today, so I got zero -0- words done.

I say expected because before I started this WIP I had a novella out with an editor being worked on. It came back today, so I spent about four hours going through the changes and incorporating them into the work. I'm about halfway done.

Secondly I spent several hours putting my first Grace deHaviland short story FIRST IMPRESSIONS up on advertising sites to promo the fact it is free in anticipation of driving traffic to my novella and other stories when I release it this weekend.

So by Monday at the latest A MATTER OF JUSTICE, a Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter novella will be out and available for the public to buy.

[David DeLee]

Day 12 - Monday

After three days off from writing, two so that I could review and incorporate edits and then publish a Grace deHaviland Novella called A MATER OF JUSTICE, which is available now here:

Amazon –  http://ning.it/143c6Ig

BN.com –  http://ning.it/143ctm1

Smashwords. com –  http://ning.it/19YWIE3

And one day to review what I've written and go over my plan and outline again to make sure I'm on track to get where I'm going in the story, I wrote 3500 words to bring the total writing to 33,200. That puts me basically a day behind where I need to be to complete 90k in 30 days.

[Dan L. Coleman]

You might try getting in touch with groups that re-enact Civil War battles.

[Andrew Drummond]

David, I have just downloaded "First Impressions" from the amazon uk website.  I'm looking forward to reading it and will keep you informed.  And for your herculean efforts, as documented in this topic, I raise my hat to you, sir!

[David DeLee]

Thanks, Andrew, for both your support of this endeavor and for getting FIRST IMPRESSIONS. I hop you enjoy it.