Back to Square One

I have some huge crazy good news. I finished The Curse of Betrayal yesterday. I wrote the book during Camp NaNoWriMo and although it is nowhere near done I'm ecstatic. I wrote this novel differently than I did the first one-the main reason being the outline was set and I didn't have much leeway. 

What changed?

My first book I was able to write just based of my stream of consciousness. What I thought I wrote and I didn't care plot holes or if the story went in different directions because it was the first book and all the others could follow.

This novel, I had to start at a certain point and end at a certain point since it's the middle child in the series. I faced some problems when I really wasn't feeling a scene but couldn't skip or change it. It was frustrating at times because I wanted to write and write and write like I did with the first one.

I had to change up my style, my pace and basically everything. Instead of writing on one document and splitting it up later, I wrote by scenes. I kept my writing short yet long enough to get my point across. The finished novel is around 55,000 words but my target word count is about 80,000-90,000 like my first book. 

Where to now?

BACK TO SQUARE ONE. Chapter one, word one, sentence one and all of that. I have to go back in, read through, make the scenes cohesive and blend it all together. I also want to add in some fun scenes and character building parts. 

I'm dreading doing this all over again but at the same time, I've learned a lot from my first mistakes. I've learned the best editing techniques, I have a great editor that I already know is a match for me. I really hope this is a breeze. 

News update: Avery Hutchings, my designer and I sat down on Thursday to work on my cover and we've decided to go a completely different route for the books. She's drawing them instead of using pictures. To be honest, I'm tired of looking at books with a guy's abs or a beautiful girl. I want my book to stand out and our cover is definitely going to ROCK!

Don't forget tomorrow is Writing Wednesday! Subscribe to the site to get the latest posts.

Visit my website and check out Ryder's playlist! www.taylorlavati.com :)