Encouragement and More

I've got a few more days until the next blogfest. There will be one on the 10th and another on the 11th for this blog, so be ready for much more reading. The last blogfest gave me plenty to think about and the result was even greater than I could have imagined. Had about 15 comments from others (I responded twice myself to everyone with thanks) and went from having 8 followers to 19. The encouragement I received for my first page is the reason I'm posting this. It's not a character from my book, scene or even idea, but I feel it should be said here.

I am beyond appreciative for the feedback. Even when I'm uncertain about my writing and have so many different genres to keep track of, this book in particular has always been well received.  This book gives me high hopes and is looking to be the best one to send out first, and it's also the farthest along since it's the first one to receive a rewrite.

The book started in 2007. It was my second attempt at nanowrimo and I only managed about 14,000 words that month. Spent the next two years writing off and on until the first draft ended with less than 24,000 words. I started the novel in first person after doing samples of both first and third. First seemed the better choice at the time because it was more experiential and I like the idea of being in one characters head. The first nine chapters were written in past tense and then I decided on either chapter 9 or chapter 10 that it sounded better in present tense. So, I did a minor rewrite on the already written chapters and moved them to present tense.

I took a novel writing class one year in college. Had to submit a couple chapters of a novel and I submitted this one (called Ephram's Defiance at that time) even though the teacher claimed to be against genre writing and prefered general lit. She loved the chapters and her only complaint at the time was the chapters seemed too polished for the class. (Yeah. One minor rewrite and a tiny edit = too polished.)

After figuring out the epicness of the series, and the others that intertwine in the world, I decided that first person would not work. It's okay with single main characters and on the occasion more than one. Truth is, I don't feel confident in first person writing enough to do the later books with multiple main characters in first person.

So, I'm rewriting the novel in third person, attempting to more than double the word count. At the moment I have two chapters done so far, and both are at least double in length from the orginal. To me, this proves the pov change was the right decision. The present tense is staying, though the first edit will be to fix all the tense errors, as I know there are some.

It still feels odd, writing in YA. Not my original goal, and in fact the series will go beyond YA as they get older and meet up with the characters from the book I just finished writing. (Yep, Noah and Ephram meet.)

Even so, I have high hopes for the book and the series. Who knows where it will go, but it's going somewhere.