As the saying goes, “Better late than never.”
After putting off any progress related to my later works, i.e., Novels 2 & 3, I finally got around to printing out the first draft manuscript of Dark Prayer’s Song aka Novel 2. I’m currently in the midst of reading the entire manuscript to refresh my memory on what the novel is about. It’s been hard trying not to let my Inner Editor come out and say “Man, this piece is not so great.” It took me roughly 10 months to finish that novel, mainly because I went through a big block during the middle of 2008 (I began writing the novel last January). There were a lot of tumultuous things going on in my personal life at that point anyway; once NaNoWriMo 2008 rolled around, though, I re-gained my inspiration again to finish up that novel. Writing “The End” to a manuscript is always a big accomplishment.
Speaking of NaNoWriMo: although it’s still four months away, I’m already feeling excited for this year’s event. It’ll be my fifth novel to write, and, well, who knows where this one will take me? With all my novel projects so far, I have been trying to dive into different genres to feel out my writing voice. They’re all experiments, as beautiful (and sometimes ugly) they may be. In the end, there’s no real regret for any of the projects; they’ve all been good learning experiences. I’ll write on-the-fly again this year with NaNoWriMo; it’s better that way for me anyway. Although I’m usually known to be one who makes lists/plans a lot, when it comes to writing, I just want to write and let it flow instead of pre-judging/overanalyzing how I’m going to go about it.
Really, just write; that’s all there is to it.