Energy and Enthusiasm

I think my friends and family are growing weary of my obsession with the upcoming 3-day Novel Contest. I brought a folder of magazine clippings to work that had photos of people I thought looked like the characters I was outlining, and showed them to everyone. I pulled out my 3x5 cards that had the characters and their physical descriptions on them. I also showed them the 3x5 cards with world concepts and general knowledge listed on them. I have a 'coupon organizer' with these cards and other random informative and inspirational information neatly organized. Every conversation eventually directs back to the world I'm working on, the story I'm detailing, and the contest in which I'm immensely eager to compete.

Becoming super-excited about a new project is by far not new to me. I tend to obsess and burn out with just about everything I do. I only hope this fire burns steady for the next few weeks and caries me through the marathon weekend. That being said, I wanted to share some thoughts I posted on the 3-day novel forum about the upcoming event.

My biggest concern is how distracting my location of choice will be, but I have no better options unless my sister manages to get air conditioning upstairs within the next few weeks. The problem: she would have to rearrange the furniture upstairs and find an air conditioner that would fit in their tiny, weird windows.

I keep thinking that come September 7th, I could be the 'newb' who spent a ton of time preparing and planning only to end up with 2000 words. I hope that's not the case. I type fast and have had little difficulty staying up all night before to reach a writing goal. I hope that my past experiences of writing draft#1 of "Quietus" in two months and draft #1 of "The Fallen Shadow" in 3.5 will help me. I went by an outline on those, though.

This is writing blind and seeing where it goes. I may not even reach the ending I imagine, but wind up somewhere completely different. I've never really done anything like this before. Usually I know where I'm going and have a mostly clear idea of how to get there. The story evolves on it's own, but there is a guideline I stick to. Here, I have a very clear starting point, characters I want to introduce along the way, and a vague idea of where they're going... but with no real plan to stick to that if it deviates.

Three days straight of writing WHATEVER comes to mind WHEN it comes to mind. It's an interesting and inspiring concept. I suppose that's why I'm looking forward to this so much... I'm breaking out of my mold a little.

My level of enthusiasm toward this contest is impossible to describe. I am giddy and hyper, talking incessantly about my plans to anyone who will listen. I hope fervently that I do not let myself down and fall short of my marathon goal.

Wish me luck!

In The Beginning

I have decided to compete in this year's 3-Day Novel Contest! The idea for the novel I will write was inspired by a dream, had after a week of vexing myself about what book to write. I hadn't even nailed down the genre yet when I had this dream, but I knew right away that this was the inspiration I had been looking for.

So I thought about the dream and the background and the characters for a few weeks and came up with a decent 'idea' of a plot. That started the ball rolling. I knew I couldn't possibly make a reliable outline and expect to stick to it over the 3-day marathon writing, so I contented myself with developing the world's background, people, and monarchies. In the past few days, I've been gathering data, making lists, and assigning even the most finite detail to the setting of the world, Corante. By the time I was finished creating the ranks of divine guardians and the structure of the nobility, I knew this was going to be more than a simple 3-day exercise. The backstory and plot made for the beginnings of an interesting and exciting series. Thus, the Divine Guardian Chronicles was born... today.

The first book, Divine Guardian Chronicles: Voices in the Dark will be written during the 3-Day Novel Contest, on Labor Day weekend. In the meantime, come back often to this blog to read up on the world, royalty, and progress of this project!