Dear Inklings,

I hope you're having a tremendous autumn. My first month of #FirstDraftFall has also been my best writing month all year, which I'm thrilled about. I still didn't hit 35k (more on that later), but as it stands right now, my wordcount is 25,662, nearly 8,000 words more than my second best writing month this year (August, with 17,795 words). It also had my best writing day all year: over 4,000 words in a single day.

And that felt fantastic. I also had low periods this month, of course. Days where I barely got in 100 words and I berated myself for feeling so exhausted. (Who could have foreseen this when I stayed up until 3am despite having to be up at 7:30 for work?) Days where I lamented the kind of writing I used to do. But overall, I'm really happy with this month. And very excited for November.

Now, as I already mentioned, I have not hit my goal of 35,000 words for October. And I think it would be likely impossible to do so in the next hour and a half. I think there were two contributing factors to this:

First, I did not take care of myself very well when it came to sleep. I stayed up late frequently, and waking up at 7:30 in the morning is just not my natural state of being. So I often found myself exhausted by the end of the day when I had time to write. I'm proud of what I did despite being so tired. It's just one of those instances where I look back and think, "Man, if I had practiced some self-care, I would have been unstoppable."

Second, I made a hard decision this month to set aside one of my favorite works in progress, a book that I've referred to as the book of my heart on more than one occasion. I decided to temporarily shelve Fox Eyes.

The Promise Conundrum

This came after a bit of a writerly panic about the character of Promise. Promise is near and dear to my heart personally as a writer, and she's also the one who kicks off the story. If Promise doesn't go looking for a way to save her uncle, Nissa and Del don't end up on this journey and you don't get Fox Eyes. So you can imagine my distress when I started to worry, "Is Promise boring?"

Certainly, she's not as complex as Del, who has spent her life keeping at everyone at arm's length due to her firestarting sprite which she hopes to be severed from; or Nissa, the mysterious con artist who follows the two daemons along their journey for reasons all her own. In fact, she's a pretty straightforward character. She's a hunter who grew up in a woodland community. She wants to save her uncle, but also after that she'd like to save the forest. She's in love with a childhood friend, but she's convinced it's one-sided. Her biggest flaws are that she's horribly socialized and thus awkward, as well as her tendency to be impulsive. She does have other flaws - a tendency to be judgy for one thing - but I don't think they always translate to the page well. Honestly, I don't think even her awkwardness translates to the page, as well as I'd like. She's...I don't know, I love her, but I worry she feels like a pretty standard hero.

Which, honestly, is something I write often and enjoy writing. I grew up on classic fantasy and adventure cartoons. I like writing a character who wants to do great things and save the world! I did it with Celin. I'm doing it again with Auri in Luminhaven, though Auri is a much louder personality and I think her flaws are more prominent. It's just fun to me, and as someone with depression who sometimes struggles to clean my apartment, there's something very satisfying about writing a character who goes through so much and it just makes them more motivated to make things better.

With Promise, though, I started to worry that she was coming across as too...sort of the blank video game protagonist, the kind that the player is meant to project themselves onto. Especially with the only flaw that was reading very well on the page being her impulsivity. And that's not what I want, especially for that character. Now, how much of this was real and how much of it was me getting in my head? I'm not sure. But I hit a wall and realized that I wasn't going to make any forward motion on the story until I fixed it. I also realized that I wasn't going to be able to fix it while working on two other stories at the same time.

Fortunately, my goal from November on is to focus solely on one project at a time: Luminhaven until I finish draft 1, then Time's Sacrifice Book 2, then whatever comes next. So the next time I come back to Fox Eyes, I will be making some edits to a) add more character to Promise and b) present opportunities to show her flaws. One thing I think I'll be bringing back is a religious aspect. When I first made Promise as a D&D PC, she was raised at a temple to Mielikki, a nature goddess. But when I made the book, I changed it to a sort of non-religious druid grove. And while I love Melimis Grove, I do think doing so sanded down some of the things that made Promise Promise. It gave her less character. As for the rest, we'll see when we get there.

In My Luminhaven Era

The rest of this month I spent working on Luminhaven, as well as worldbuilding. I also read some of my past draft of Time's Sacrifice Book 2, but I admittedly did not finish my readthrough yet. I found a great Google Docs alternative - Fileverse - and I started a massive Ionnarah worldbuilding doc. It has five tabs so far: aeons of history; countries and continents; folk of Ionnarah; other planes of existence; and the magic system.

I also spent a significant amount of time - and writing - coming up with students to populate Luminhaven. That was...a lot of time.

I'm currently on chapter 7 of Luminhaven. There are 33 chapters and an epilogue plotted, which means I have 27 more to go by the end of the year. But I'm feeling good, especially with a dedicated focus - and a strong outline.

I also started my Kids on Brooms game set at Luminhaven! We played one session, the Entrance Trials for my three little sparks. They all passed, or there wouldn't be much of a game. I decided not to have Auri in this game. She's simply too much of an attention hog a protagonist. But Damián is still there. I mean, he's an attention hog, too, but he's five years older than the main cast, so I don't have to listen to his whining for attention as much.

The game was really refreshing, and I can already see the different directions these characters might take compared to Auri and Damián and their friends. It's also forcing me to flesh out the setting and think about it more deeply, which I think will definitely help with the book.

November and December Adjusted Goals

For November, I have more or less the same plan: draft Luminhaven to completion, or as far as I can get. But I will be aiming for 60,000 words, as opposed to 50,000. I fell 10k short of my goal this month, so I decided to carry that over to November!

Now, 60,000 words would be so far above anything I've done so far this year that I know it's a wildly lofty goal. Still, I want to try for it. And anything I miss from November will be carried over and added to December's 35k.

I will also be taking part in my friend Caitlin's blorboverse event in our writing server. Before I head to bed for the night, I will be writing up my first RP post. Blorboverse always serves as a great motivator to get more writing done.

Elsewhere in October

Really, my only other news for October is that Against the Current released their new album, Till Death and Back, and it was PERFECT. Every song on it a banger. "Fortune Favors the Brave" has become Auri's new themesong.

I'll keep you all posted on how November and the rest of #FirstDraftFall goes!

Until then,

Alex