Hello! I hope this finds y’all well!
This past week went fairly well. I managed to type up about a third of the hand-written portion of my side story (aka- my NaNo novel from 2012), and I did get a chance to read a bit, in addition to spending the weekend visiting with family.
I’m pleased with how typing up the side story is going. There are definitely certain things I’m editing as I go (like fixing spots with missing words or unclear phrasing). That kind of editing only works for things I can fix in ten seconds of less. For the most part, however, I am typing up what’s on the page. I figure I will be editing it at some point, so slowing things down now is not ideal… particularly since the goal of looking up this specific story is research, of sorts, for some worldbuilding I have done so I can apply that info to Book 9. (I have to say, for the number of times I have pulled up the internet to do a search about some element of my books only to realize (a) it’s not on the internet, and (b) I haven’t written that detail yet, it’s nice that in this case, I actually do have some answers available in a mostly searchable form.)
That said, it is really interesting seeing how my writing style has changed in the last eight years. I can see what I was trying to do with the side story, even if it sometimes seems a bit over-the-top. I have gotten some good laughs out of this process. One of the interesting feelings I’ve had is that I know I wrote this story, but it seems fairly clear that I hadn’t really found my voice yet. I’m sure that even now my voice is being refined, but I can safely say I have worked out a few things between 2012 and 2021. As a side note, it seems useful to mention that I’ve actually refined a bit of the worldbuilding as well, and it’s been interesting to see the little elements that have changed.
As for reading, I have read a bit of the final book of DK Holmberg’s Elemental Academy series, The Elements Bond. I’m definitely liking that we see more of the elementals now (especially since the entire series has been hinting at the elementals having a major role without actually having the elementals appear much, relatively speaking). There are other things that are frustrating with the way the books are being presented, but I have my elementals, so I suppose I can’t complain too much…
As for additional reading, I made some good progress on Brian Jacques’ Redwall… I definitely thought this was more of a kid-friendly book (possibly due to the whole mouse-run Abbey, and whatnot), but I’m a little surprised with just how cruel the primary antagonist (Cluny the Scourge) is and just how many assorted characters are getting killed off (or down-right murdered) in assorted plays for power and the like. To be fair, it’s not exactly graphic, but I can’t help but think about the deeper implications of what is actually written. Still a good read, overall.
The plan for this week is to hopefully finish typing up the remaining section of my side story. I also plan to read through as much of the story as I can in order to make sure I know where I’m trying to go in Book 9. I suspect I will be able to get some good info from the side story even though I know there are a lot of things that were probably left vague. I’m also going to continue working my way through Redwall and The Elements Bond. Beyond that, I’m going to see if I can find something crafty to work on this week. I’ve got a few different projects I can start, so I’ll have to see how things turn out… At the very least, I am still trying to find the best bind off for my latest scarf, so perhaps I’ll see if I can research that a bit more.
I think that’s about all I’ve got for this update. Thanks for reading!
~ Theresa
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