Thank you to everyone who posted on the blog this week, and to everyone who read the guest posts! On Monday, author of the upcoming What Happens In Water (SHP 2015), Diana Gallagher, discussed her challenge of revising and how coaching has impacted her writing process.
On Tuesday, writer Neely Simpson talked about how writing came to her and her writing demons. On Wednesday, writer Bailey M.K. Knight wrote about the challenge of solitary confinement and personal encouragement. On Thursday, Carrie Butler, author of the Mark of Nexus series, discussed the pressure for sex in NA.
I'm closing the Writer's Challenge week with my own post. I've decided to talk about 2 challenges, briefly, with my current projects.
1- Fierce. Fierce was a new entity for me. It's a contemporary novel (as in, I made it through the entire novel without adding some kind of mythos/supernatural event/magic) and that in itself was a process. My biggest challenge, though, with Fierce was keeping it authentic and keeping it balanced.
What do I mean?
Fierce is a Sports Contemporary Novel that focuses on MMA. The books I've picked up with MMA themes or fighter characters have been painfully inaccurate and often objectify the sport and fighters. I could go on and on about this, but for this post I'm going to keep it brief.
On Tuesday, writer Neely Simpson talked about how writing came to her and her writing demons. On Wednesday, writer Bailey M.K. Knight wrote about the challenge of solitary confinement and personal encouragement. On Thursday, Carrie Butler, author of the Mark of Nexus series, discussed the pressure for sex in NA.
I'm closing the Writer's Challenge week with my own post. I've decided to talk about 2 challenges, briefly, with my current projects.
1- Fierce. Fierce was a new entity for me. It's a contemporary novel (as in, I made it through the entire novel without adding some kind of mythos/supernatural event/magic) and that in itself was a process. My biggest challenge, though, with Fierce was keeping it authentic and keeping it balanced.
What do I mean?
Fierce is a Sports Contemporary Novel that focuses on MMA. The books I've picked up with MMA themes or fighter characters have been painfully inaccurate and often objectify the sport and fighters. I could go on and on about this, but for this post I'm going to keep it brief.
For being one of the most popular spectator sports in the country, MMA is one of, if not the, most misunderstood sports.
I do MMA. There are some weeks where I pretty much eat, sleep and breath MMA and it's various components. I wrote Fierce for several reasons, one of which is that I love MMA. I knew immediately that keeping it authentic was going to be one of the most important things for me to do.
The challenge? Keeping that authenticity while still having a book that people who don't know anything about MMA or don't even care of MMA still would be interested in. As much as I wanted to portray MMA in a true light, I also wanted this book to connect to those who have nothing to do with the sport.
I think it does, hopefully. It really was finding a balance between all the pieces I wanted to write about.
2) The challenge with my current project... and by current project, I mean the one that I haven't really started yet but am about to.
I usually have a few detailed scenes in my head when I start a project. I have the intro scene and maybe another scene or two. Sometimes that's it. But those few scenes are pretty concrete in my mind. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. For Oath Heir, I had a very detailed first chapter in my head before I started writing. I may not necessarily know where it is going after, but I know the arc of that scene.
Well, for this project, I have two snippets and a feel. I know the atmosphere, the aura I want the book to have. But I don't have any detailed scene. The two pieces I see in my head really are just snippets--a solitary image.
Most writers know the feel they want their book to give at some time or another. Usually, I do know the feel I want in that scene I'm picturing. This is the first time, though, that I'm starting something going purely off the atmosphere I want to create and nothing else.
It's going to be a lot of writing, scraping and rewriting. Nailing the atmosphere, at least this one, is going to take me awhile. I know that if I can get it right, then this project has potential. In someways, that makes it feel even more challenging.
Thank you again for stopping by. If you have any challenges you want to share, please do!
I do MMA. There are some weeks where I pretty much eat, sleep and breath MMA and it's various components. I wrote Fierce for several reasons, one of which is that I love MMA. I knew immediately that keeping it authentic was going to be one of the most important things for me to do.
The challenge? Keeping that authenticity while still having a book that people who don't know anything about MMA or don't even care of MMA still would be interested in. As much as I wanted to portray MMA in a true light, I also wanted this book to connect to those who have nothing to do with the sport.
I think it does, hopefully. It really was finding a balance between all the pieces I wanted to write about.
2) The challenge with my current project... and by current project, I mean the one that I haven't really started yet but am about to.
I usually have a few detailed scenes in my head when I start a project. I have the intro scene and maybe another scene or two. Sometimes that's it. But those few scenes are pretty concrete in my mind. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. For Oath Heir, I had a very detailed first chapter in my head before I started writing. I may not necessarily know where it is going after, but I know the arc of that scene.
Well, for this project, I have two snippets and a feel. I know the atmosphere, the aura I want the book to have. But I don't have any detailed scene. The two pieces I see in my head really are just snippets--a solitary image.
Most writers know the feel they want their book to give at some time or another. Usually, I do know the feel I want in that scene I'm picturing. This is the first time, though, that I'm starting something going purely off the atmosphere I want to create and nothing else.
It's going to be a lot of writing, scraping and rewriting. Nailing the atmosphere, at least this one, is going to take me awhile. I know that if I can get it right, then this project has potential. In someways, that makes it feel even more challenging.
Thank you again for stopping by. If you have any challenges you want to share, please do!
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