It began quietly. With a few ideas, then more, until finally I wrote The Office Catgirl. Here are few things I learned during my month-and-two-week-long journey.
- Outlining took way longer than I expected it to be. Much of what I wrote in it, I ended up discarding for better ideas that came up in my scenes. I'm a discovery writer by heart and very little tolerance for writing out a scene whose outcome I've predetermined by the time I committed to writing the draft out, I threw away everything I had. Obviously, new writers shouldn't do this. The culprit, I believe, was outlining like a planner and not like a discovery writer. I'm fairly new at taking the craft seriously, so I'm still research ways that outlining works best for me.
- Magic the Gathering is a fun game and soaks up free time like a sponge.
- Never, never, never write past 2:00am. My brain doesn't work after that time. I have to heavily change or cut what I wrote past that time anyway. Forcing myself just that little bit forward will only make me less likely to return to my draft the next day.
- Breaking the story down into scenes helped with both pacing and moving the narrative along, Scrivener is really helpful with that. It really helped with questions like: "When do I stop writing?" and "Does this scene convey the information I need to keep the story moving?"
- Waiting until the last minute to come up with a goofy light novel title might not have been the best idea...
- Waiting for inspiration to strike to close the light novel might not have been the best idea...
- Waiting until the last day before submissions were due to write that conclusion might not have been the best idea either...