Personal Writing

Back at the end of April, 2020 I had set out to write the first draft of my book the Unintentional Calamity. Through the year I had made many leaps and bounds forward from world building to character design and plot outlining. All that preparation for three months led me to attempt to write a complete first draft by the end of December, 2020 hitting around 50,000 words. As the publishing date points out, 2020 is already gone and I still giving first draft updates. In other words, the first draft still isn’t done. Now that half a year has passed since any news was given for the status of this story, I would like to explain what the original plan was, what has changed within the six month time period, and where this project will go.

Roughly two months ago I set out to take the time and really think about the world of the Unintentional Calamity and define a plot that I could follow. With two weeks to go, I have almost accomplished every task I set for myself. Next week I will be polishing off ideas for the magic system. The week after, I will develop some of the artifacts to appear in the main plot of the story. After that I will officially begin writing the first draft (again). Before I take this deep dive into the fantasy world that I have built in my head for the past four years, I would like to reflect on the journey thus far.

Right from the start of this project four years ago, one of my main goals as a writer was to subvert expectations and create an inexplicably unfair situation for a character that had no choice but to do what was right or give up. I wanted a child to be faced with a very really situation, and explore what they might produce. In order to make this happen, a rather extreme plot had to be introduced. Over the years of developing this idea, I have realized just how hard it is to reach this goal in a believable way.

At the start of this project I was very excited to be able to jump into a new world and write up the fantasy story I always wanted to write. Luckily, I had the foresight of planning out what I wanted to do each week. Now that I am officially seven weeks into this project, that preparation was well worth it. I am finding that despite all that is changing in my life, from protests to jobs and even other personal projects, I have been able to keep on time with every single deadline. The key to all of this seems to be pacing.

Every author has their preference in how to start a book and no preference is objectively better than another. I’m sure there are many great authors who are capable of creating and keeping track of a vast, fantastical world in their head. As I mentioned when I started this project, I am not the type of author that can keep track of everything in their head. I need documentation to keep everything straight. I want to make sure make sure the logic is very solid which is why I am devoting so much time into preparing the world setting before I write in characters and a plot. Luckily, as I planned, I am starting to make the transition from world building into plot development.

It was four years ago on a overcast Thursday afternoon in November my young first-year legs were excitedly strutting into our local movie theater. The next installment in the Harry Potter series had hit theaters and no amount of homework was going to stop me from seeing what happened next in the wizarding world.