So, my blogging schedule’s a bit off. My blog posts come in at random times, but at least I’m not behind. I suppose it’s the fact that they’re getting done that counts.
Anyways. Mentoring? The only real editing/mentoring that’s happened so far was when I was able to bring in the first three pages of my work to these Blue Pencil Cafe sessions at SiWC – where you could meet up with a real author one-on-one for fifteen minutes and talk about your story. I met with Sam Sykes, because he seemed awesome and was also a fantasy writer. I considered contacting him about mentoring, but he lives in the States and so face-to-face meetings would be nigh impossible. He did, though, give me some good suggestions, which I put into my writing already.
I also emailed Alyx Dellamonica and kc dyer – authors I met at SiWC – who have both written fantasy and live near Vancouver. I sent them all about a week ago, but got nothing. However, Jordan Lapp, who was my brother’s mentor, put me in contact with Silvia Moreno-Garcia – who is now my mentor! Yay! (throws confetti)
She’s pretty awesome, and we’ve already started with a bit of prep, and asking questions to make sure we’re on the same page. I can’t wait to meet her!
So, perhaps a bit more about my story? Well. It’s sort of in the genre of “fantasy story set in a vaguely medieval England-type world involving some kind of magic and characters that think and speak like modern North Americans”. I came up with the idea for it quite a while back, and started writing it but never got very far – about 8,000 words by the time indepth started. I spent last weekend writing some more, and I now have around 14,750. I have done a lot of planning for my story so far, but I’ve planned out a lot of tiny or unimportant things, or things that will be only at the very end or that might not even enter into it ever. I hit a minor block right now, since I know where I’m going but I’m not sure how to get there. But, I am going around this by writing some scenes right from the end of the story – I had some of these planned out before I started writing. I’m sure I’ll have to edit and completely overhaul it later, once I’ve written the lead-up to the ending. I don’t even know if I’ll get there by the end of indepth, what with editing and my minor writer’s block.
I also plan to do some major editing soon – because a lot of my transitions are funky, my wording strange, and my descriptions just weird. I’m really glad I finally got a mentor, because that will be a beyond amazing help. We’ve already started working.
More to come.
