Tags
book expo, book expo of america, divergent series, editing, goal, Mary Pope Osborne, Rick Riordan, Snoopy, story arc, structure problems, Veronica Roth, WIP, Writing, YA
I spent a lot of yesterday nerding out on watching videos from the Book Expo of America. Primarily, because I came across a speech that Veronica Roth gave on falling out of love with reading the moment she lost her reading humility. The speech was sweet and poignant and left me thinking about my reading and writing habits. I love Veronica Roth and if you haven’t read her Divergent series, go out and read it!
There was something about watching other authors talk about books that made me sit down for several hours and write. There was something inspirational about watching other writers talk about their motivation and the rewards that have been heaped on them. At the very same children’s book and author breakfast, Mary Pope Osborne and Rick Riordan shared some fantastic anecdotes about their young fans that just reinforced why I read and write YA.
I am almost finished with my WIP. I have realized that, yes, this story will be more than one book and am starting to become aware of the structure problems I am going to have to fix. More than anything, I would like it to work as a stand alone book within a series. There really is nothing that bothers me more than reading a book from a series and be left hanging on the final sentence. And I am not talking about a cliffhanger, but more in the sense that there was not natural conclusion to the book, and I am left feeling that the author should have just edited the work so that it all fit in one book.
I guess you need to really know your story arc well in order to have great flow within a series. Which as you know from reading here, often gives me trouble because my story tends to go on tangents that I never expected.
I have made the executive decision that all editing, plot restructuring and colourful story-boarding will happen only AFTER I am finished. Because lets face it what is the point of editing if you never finish.
So here is my plan/goal: finish by the end of June, first week of July at the latest. No excuses. Just get it done. I am so ready to start editing this bad boy it isn’t even funny.
So back to my work I go. Hopefully, I won’t get too distracted by the sunshine outside.