[kaplods]

Some of you may remember me posting a while back (maybe a year or so ago) that I lost most of the novel I had been working on (foolishly neglecting to make backups).

So for the past year, I've been rewriting the novel, and today, what do I find?

Yep, an old backup copy of the novel that was lost. It's an earlier draft, so only part of what I lost.

I don't yet know how much of it will be useful (I've rewritten and changed so much in the reconstruction process) but it's still an exciting find.

[alaskanlaughter]

wow thats awesome!! i love to write and spent most of my college time taking writing courses....my DH also lost alot of his Tlingit poetry that he only knows from memory now too...that's way cool that some of your novel turned up again!!

[RavenWolf]

How awesome is that! Is this your first novel? What is the genre? I love to read! And love to promote my "author" friends!

[belovedspirit]

That's fantastic!!

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by RavenWolf

How awesome is that! Is this your first novel? What is the genre? I love to read! And love to promote my "author" friends!

It will be my first finished novel, though I've started probably a dozen or more in the last 22 years (ever since I had a short story published in 1991).

This is only the second for which I outlined the entire plot (and therefore know how it ends).

The genre is paranormal/urban fantasy (although suburban fantasy may be a better description as the cities in which the story takes place are only medium sized).

The main character, an adolescent werewolf, raised in the human world is reunited with the werewolf father she thought dead. She discovers that being a werewolf isn't at all what her mother raised her to believe. She has to learn to fit into her new found family and community.

The other novel I outlined takes place in the same universe, but with a werewolf protagonist who is a little older and leaves her werewolf community to find a childhood friend in the human world.

[alaskanlaughter]

those sound like such cool novels!!!

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by alaskanlaughter

those sound like such cool novels!!!

I'm really proud of what I've accomplished so far. In the past, I'd get frustrated and abandon the project long before it resembled anything readable. At best, I'd produce a great 1-3 great chapters and I couldn't get much past that point.

I was beginning to think I could only write a decent beginning. The outline really helped (even in the places I didn't follow it).

Hubby is my biggest supporter and worst critic. He's a sci-fi/fantasy junkie like me, but his standards in reading material are much higher and loftier than mine. He can find logic and plot inconsistencies faster than a pet ferret can steal your car keys.

I have a bad habit of abandoning projects when a "better" (or at least new, which seems better) idea comes along. I've started writing the basic idea on an index card and filing it in a "future projects" box.

Today I came up with a new novel idea, a sci fi plot: Aliens have stolen Mars and a great deal of human, animal and plant life, as well as other significant minerals and materials from Earth. Who are these aliens and what are their plans?

[Buffinlovin]

I love dreaming up those "what happens?" scenarios! One of my favorite writing exercises is simply take an everyday thing (like going to the refrigerator) and making it an adventure (instead of seeing leftover chinese food, you see a bottle labeled 'drink me', or a mysterious appendage, or whatever). It literally starts with one small action, and can branch out in so many ways (how did that bottle get there? why was that severed head in the crisper drawer? etc). I also like to take my characters "out to lunch", and put them in an everyday scene, and see how they would react. Would they be outgoing, introverted, if they overheard a conversation, how would they react, etc.

I'm happy to hear that you found an older version of your novel Even if you may not use everything, you can always use it as a reference point for possible other stories, as well, since you mentioned having two stories set in the same universe. I love paranormal/sci-fi/fantasy based fiction, so those novels are right up my alley! When you get it published (because I have no doubt they will with how well you write ), definitely let us know! i know I probably wouldn't be the only one waiting at the bookstore for my very own copy

My favorite part about writing is creating everything...the characters, the world (even if the world is our own, there is always some world-building to be done!), even writing down reactions and idiosyncrasies that particular characters may have. My big problem is once I create this lush and beautiful world with characters I absolutely love, I freeze....I've put so much time and effort into creating something that when it comes to writing the actual story, it doesn't seem to do it justice. I know first drafts are going to be pretty bad, but I look at a paragraph I just wrote and itch to use the delete key because I think it is truly terrible. This has forced me to go the route of pen & paper for a lot of things (outlining, notecards, smaller scenes), and that gets rather cluttered around, which then turns the things I love into things thar are annoying me and messing up my desk space. It's a vicious cycle

Sorry I'm rambling lol!! Trying to stay distracted from the apple spice donuts the fiance left home from Dunkin Donuts.....it wasn't very nice of him to leave it out in the open where I can see it >.<

[kaplods]

Buffinlovin, I can SO relate. World building (especially culture and society building) is my favorite part of writing (and I also do most of it by hand). I use a "cultural universals" worksheet that was passed out in an undergraduate Sociology course I took.

My degrees (BA and MA) are in, and reflect my interest in psychology, so I always start there. I tried very hard to make all of my werewolf characters distinctly and uniquely of a very different culture. They're not simply typical midwesterners who occasionally sprout fur (although in a sense, they are that too).

I find world-building and character-building extremely fun and exciting. I find plot-building, outlining, revising and editing less enjoyable, but still somewhere in the tolerable to pleasant range.

What I absolutely, HATE is the middle process, laying down the first draft. Knowing that parts will "suck" and be incomplete (and being ok with that) is the hardest part for me.

[RavenWolf]

Originally Posted by kaplods

It will be my first finished novel, though I've started probably a dozen or more in the last 22 years (ever since I had a short story published in 1991).

This is only the second for which I outlined the entire plot (and therefore know how it ends).

The genre is paranormal/urban fantasy (although suburban fantasy may be a better description as the cities in which the story takes place are only medium sized).

The main character, an adolescent werewolf, raised in the human world is reunited with the werewolf father she thought dead. She discovers that being a werewolf isn't at all what her mother raised her to believe. She has to learn to fit into her new found family and community.

The other novel I outlined takes place in the same universe, but with a werewolf protagonist who is a little older and leaves her werewolf community to find a childhood friend in the human world.

Please let me know when it is published! I would very much love to read it!

[kaplods]

When it's published, you'll all be sick of me posting about it. I'll be shouting it from the rooftops.

If I can make the whole novel as good as it's beginning, I do think I will be able to find a publisher.

Hubby's trying to convince me to go straight to kindle, but I'd rather use that as a last resort. There's still far more respect given to books published by mainstream publishers.

[kelijpa]

Best of luck, Kaplods, hope to be reading your novels someday. Sounds like my kind of novel already.

[EagleRiverDee]

Very cool, Kaplods!