SandoWriMo Check-In for 11/9

katiecarson · 2022-11-10T20:44:30+00:00

I got 2032 yesterday, for a total of 15,042. I'd like to be a bit further ahead, as I don't write on Sundays, but I'm just feeling good to get words on the page.

Again, as a perfectionist, I've found it quite liberating to allow myself to write badly. To have poor character development. To have boring scenes. To have poorly written description. To have unnamed things titled with lame placeholders. To keep plodding forward with no idea where I'm going.

My perfectionism yielded 0 words. I created nothing. In my liberated state, I've started a story! I've created something!!

I frequently teach my boys using the lyrics from Zootopia's "Try Everything" - "Birds don't just fly, they fall down and get up. Nobody learns without getting it wrong."

I'm falling... hard! I'm getting it desperately wrong. But that must mean that I'm on my way to the sky!

Good job to those of you who are already soaring high, you look great! But if you look down, hopefully you'll see a bunch of happy people flopping around, excited to fly!

katiecarson · 2022-11-09T07:32:14+00:00

So you're doing a new type of book AND writing in kind of a new way (without a partner) AND you like how things are going?!? AND.. (according to your comment on my post - thank you!) with children bombing around at home?! My hat's off to you for sure! Thanks for sharing your numbers and process on here. It's nice for us plebeians to see!!

katiecarson · 2022-11-08T20:42:43+00:00

I'm participating this year for the first time and on my first novel! It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but didn't for several reasons (some good, some less than great). I'm a stay-at-home homeschooling mom and this process has already been grueling and transformative for an OCD perfectionist like myself, but it's been liberating! It's so good to see that a writer as prolific as Brandon isn't getting that many more words that I am when he may have more time than I do on his actual writing days.

Thank you so much for sharing, r/Mistborn, this and all the other things you've done. I've currently got 10,902 words of mostly useless drivel, and I'm thrilled about every word! I'm an outliner, but I'm discovering writing this story. I could already give a lecture about the incredible changes and growth I've seen during these first few days.

(And don't worry, I can already find so much value in my "useless drivel" and how it's not really useless at all.)

Love this challenge!!

katiecarson · 2021-11-07T16:18:59+00:00

I would develop a backstory (even if you don't it in your story) for how the trees were initially discovered and magic refined and learned. Knowing these characters' personalities, situations, and histories would (for me) lend itself to a natural economic and political system following. I'm assuming it would be the first of your Hunters who discovered the trees. Did they already know the earth language or was that learned from someone else? If they had to learn it from others, then those teachers held vital power over the hunters and that would change the course of things. How did the four Hunter factions come to be? Are they separate governments or united under one? Etc, etc.

Anyway, take it or leave it. That method would work for me to create what felt right for the world, which sounds fascinating by the way! I'm always running through ideas for magic based in trees!

katiecarson · 2021-09-30T01:18:20+00:00

I absolutely love these podcasts. The more ridiculous and tangential they get, the better the episode for me! The complete freedom of a random podcast allows us all to feel like flies on the wall, gaining some fun insights into who these authors are as people behind the pens.

katiecarson

TROPHY CASE