Writing Song of the Day: "Fake It" by SeetherOkay, so we blatantly stole this idea from the lovely Caroline Tung Richmond (who, by the way, you should SO follow--her blog is incredible!), who has admitted that she stole this idea from super author Kiersten White. Basically, they both gave details on their current works-in-progress. I'll tackle mine this week--but stay tuned for Quita's breakdown next Monday. And now...let's do this!
Title: Some of you may remember me mentioning Project J on the blog. Well, I had to quickly give it a title for an SCBWI novel retreat, and I settled on Faking It. Don't worry, it's only temporary.
Genre: Hopefully humorous, contemporary YA
Pages: 283. This is double-spaced with 12-point Times New Roman font.
Chapters: 28--maybe I'll lose one or two of them during the revision process (which I'm devoting the whole month of July for).
Word Count: A little over 70K. Yeah, I definitely have to ditch a few chapters.
Draft Time: Well, I technically started Project J last summer, but then I hit a roadblock so I went back to my Wants revisions. I had to ask Quita when I started writing it again, and she said she thinks either February or March. I'll take her word on that. I just know that I FINALLY finished my first draft near the end of April.
Origin: I was inspired by the 80s classic, Can't Buy Me Love. I knew that I wanted to write something a bit lighter since Wants was so dark (though it does have its light moments, too). I also still wanted to tackle "heavy" issues and underrepresented populations. I haven't read many stories with gay/lesbian parents, so I found a way to combine the ideas together.
Random Facts:
- My protagonist's name is Jonah. I recently went through another revision of Wants and noticed I had a minor character named Jonah. Wants Jonah is a douche--which is the complete opposite of my new protag.
- Jonah's mom's name is Beverly--which I also realized is the name of one of my character's moms in Wants. I really need to visit one of those baby names websites more often, huh?
- I've written three YA manuscripts so far, and basketball is featured in every one of them. I have no clue why since...well, I have NO CLUE about basketball. Which sucks because Jonah was trying out for the basketball team. Let's just say I utilized Google and my dad a lot.
- My story is set in a small city in Virginia, which is pretty much where all of my stories are set. Can you guess where I'm from?
- Jonah doesn't use a lot of profanity, which makes this one of the "cleanest" stories I've ever written. Hmm, I wonder if that's why it took me forever to complete the first draft...
- When Jonah was younger, he was in a school production of A Christmas Carol. His only line was: "Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge." I so stole that memory from my dad.
There you have it--this is what I'll be working on over the summer. I'm hoping to send it out to betas soon so that I can really dig into the heart of this story. What about you all? How's your writing going? We'd love to read about your WIPs. :)
14 comments:
WOw this is a GREAT idea. I love it. I'm SO stealing this idea.
I can't wait to read it.
I got about 22k words into my MG book when it just wasn't working for me. I took out a couple characters and a plot line and started writing/revising/cutting/pasting and got about 8k words in and it wasn't working again. So I totally set those two to the side, took a month or so to go back to another (YA contemporary) book and then came back to the WIP and started completely over. Wrote 5k in two days and hope I'm back on track now!
Good luck with yours as well!
erica
I had the same idea to do this when I finished my WIP since Kiersten had just posted her book stats. I think my answers were less interesting than yours though. Funny how you find yourself using the same names, you must like them! I like that originally you thought of tone and theme more than plot or character (well, underrepresented populations would directly inform character).
This was so fun! I'm totally stealing this idea, by the way.
Thank goodness for Google. As I write it becomes painfully clear just how little I know about a lot of subjects. At least there's YouTube for watching games.
Aw, thanks for the shout-out, Pam! Your WIP sounds incredibly awesome and I can't wait to read what Marquita has to say about her WIP!
Pam! Your WIP sounds great! I like that you're taking risks! I'm with you on the names thing. My character's mother is named Beverly in What's in the Fabric. After I named her (and Wendy) I immediately went to download a baby names app. Now I have the app right there on the phone whenever I'm trying to name characters. :)
Love this idea. Will be stealing shortly.
This is a great idea for a blog post, I may have to steal it too. :) And your novel sounds great!
Oh, this is a cool idea! I may have to do this soon. Can't wait to hear about Quita's project, too!
Hehe, I'm stealing this one too!
Love love LOVE this. I'm so totally stealing this too.
The new MS sounds like a lot of fun!
Thanks for the comments, ladies! Looking forward to reading your snapshots on your blogs. :)
Erica--we seem to have the same struggles with our WIPs. Sometimes time away is the best solution. :)
Sophia--It's so odd for me to think of a theme first instead of voice--I think that's why I struggled to finish the 1st draft. Now I'm a huge fan of Jonah.
Racquel--baby naming app?? Must. Have!
It sounds really great! Good luck with your revisions. :)
Great post! Very cool to get a glimpse of what you're working on.
Hope I get to read it one day soon!
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