Today I’m going to talk about the stuff I’ve done this year – writing-related, I mean.
NANOWRIMO 2012:
My 2012 NaNOWriMo novel, MUTUAL WEIRDNESS, is now in its 6.5th draft (how would you say that number? Six point five-th??). I’ve entered it into two competitions, and got some awesome feedback on my query, first 250 words and first 5 pages. MUTUAL WEIRDNESS partials are currently out in the agent world, but I’m going to complete another draft before I query anyone else.
Basically, MUTUAL WEIRDNESS is Jessica McDonald’s story. Her boyfriend wants her to stop being weird, but then she meets this guy Mike, who is completely insane (collects dandelions and wears oven mitts, for example) and also fairly great. And it’s about sense of self, and not fitting in the right boxes, and orange minivans, and doll shoes…and I quite like it, actually.
HOPING FOR RAIN
I started this novel when I was…like 14? Or something? Basically I’ve decided it sucks. It’s not original, and not very well-written either. I may take some elements from it and shelve it. But that means I’ve become a better writer, so I’m happy.
CAMP NANOWRIMO 2013
I wrote a story called THE DAISY LIST this year in July. This is a very personal story to me. It’s about a girl who moves from Australia to England so her mum can die in her home country. This is based on my mum’s own story. The main character, Daisy, gets this list from her mother…the daisy list, which is like a bucket list. So her mum is kind of living THROUGH her. Except there are all these family secrets and a funny Asian/British boy and Daisy actually kind of hates her family. I want to revise this WIP once I’ve finished my current first draft of…
…ANYTHING BUT SENSELESS
This is just a working title, because I don’t really like it anymore. I’m really excited about this project, enough to work on it during school hours (take THAT, maths). It’s a split-POV (which I’ve never done) from the perspectives of William, a blind boy, and Ashley, a deaf girl (who is Indian, another thing I’ve never written about before). It’s really challenging to write, because the way they communicate is VERY different to other people. And it’s harder to connect for them. But I’m having a lot of fun with it, and it’s both funny (I hope) and kind of sad? Which is nice, I guess.
NANOWRIMO 2013
This November, I plan to write the first draft of a project I’m calling GRANNY in my head. A girl (haven’t decided her name yet) gets sent to her grandparents’ place by her neglectful parents to get homeschooled. And she and her Granny have this hilarious rivalry, and challenge each other to do stuff. Like, Granny comes to a high school with MC, and MC has a match of lawn bowls with Granny. Granny also has an alligator. Also, MC’s cat talks (yeah, so it’s kind of an insane story, but I guess that says something).
*takes deep breath* so a lot’s been happening this year. What about you? What have you worked on this year?
The Loony Teen Writer 