Mishaps in writing: Hybrid trilogy mistake

Writing is a process; no matter how long you have been writing, you will make mistakes that can feel like the biggest thing when you realize you made a mistake, but it isn't the mistake that matters. It how you go about fixing it.

In the years I have been writing, I have made both minor mistakes and major mistakes, and recently I realized I had made a mistake while working on my hybrid trilogy, tears were shed but now that I have a plan on how to fix my mistake I decided to write a blog post on how I worked out my mistake and how I plan to fix it as well as what I have learned from making this mistake. 

While I was working on my plan for making the most out of Aprils' Camp NaNoWriMo to finish the third book in the series, I noticed that I have been stuck on a certain part of the book for ages. When I started writing Project Banshee, I struggled a lot, but by the time I hit 11k words, I was officially at a standstill.

I started looking into why this had happened, and I noticed it stems into a bigger issue—the first two books. I had so poorly planned and written Tosha that I had actually made it impossible to write a whole book for her. This is probably the biggest mistake I have made to date when writing or planning one of my books. 

The first thing I realized when I made a mistake is that I need to find a way to fix it. I could start all over again and completely start from scratch with all three books, but I have the first book almost perfect, and I would hate to have to start all over again when my goal was to have the first draft of all three books done by July. 

My first thought was I need to start from scratch but not on my books but on Toshas' book plan; I then need to think of Toshas' story as a stand-alone book and completely start the first draft over once I have finished writing the book I can then go through and edit project hybrid and project choice and fix it up so that Tosha has room to grow and fix any plot holes that form.

This will make life harder on me when it comes to editing, but it's a small price to pay compared to how it could have turned out if it didn't work out. This was a plausible way to fix the issue without completely rewriting all three books and putting years of hard work down the drain.

From this is I have learned the right amount to actually plan for a character. You don't want to under plan and be stuck on developing and writing your character, but you don't want to over-plan so that you have no room for improvising. I also learned that while the book order might be different, its best to write the books in order of age. While project banshee is the last book, its also the youngest any of the characters are in the books.

Misconceptions about writing a book

A lot of people don't understand how hard it can be to write a book. when you talk about having a job as a writer/author people think it is so easy and when you try and explain to people how difficult it actually is people don't really understand so this blog post is here to educate people so that they can see how hard it can be. this isn't a full list of everything but this is just a just a look into two of the biggest things I have found people don't understand.

One of the major misconceptions I hear about is how fast it takes to write a book and get published and I think this comes from how many established authors there are with their turn around rate like Stephen King.

This definitely isn't true especially for new writers trying to get published, as an example I started writing Wrongful Love around the 24th of February 2019 and I wasn't able to publish until November 17th 2020 that's about a year and nine months between when i wrote the first ever word to when I self published the novella. this is still considered fast to some authors. I have heard of authors  still working on there first novel ten years later. There is no perfect time frame to write a book and that's okay and normal.

Another example is i started writing project hyrid in July 2019 and i am still working on it now in march 2021  which just shows some books take longer then others because each writer and book is different and works in different time frames.

Another misconception is about how easy it is to write but there is so much that goes into a book its not as easy as sitting down and writing and then publishing, you have to make sure it flows, no plotholes, make sure everything is perfect, no mistakes. 

When you start writing it is also hard to get going at times because of blocks in your brain that stop you being able to think of where to go next and other times its hard to  work out what is wrong with your work, you can sit staring at the same sentence wondering whats wrong with it and nothing is clicking in your brain saying this is how you fix it.

If you are a writer what would like you the general public to know?

Writing goals for 2021

 I always try and set goals at the end of the year for the future year, but this year instead of just doing overall goals for the year I also set just writing goals, and this is my list of what I hope to achieve with writing this year.

• Finish writing and editing my books from 2020
• Publish Three books
• Write 200k by march (June at the latest)
• write a total of 500k in the year
• get at least ten sales on Wrongful Love
• upload at least one blog post a month on writing blog
• keep twitter and writing page up to date on my work
• upload twice a month minimum on Wattpad to get more exposure.
• Make my writing blog more appealing to readers.

While some of these goals are probably far fetched and I won't achieve them, I still want to try my hardest and at the end of the year as long as I tried my best I will feel like I've accomplished a lot even if I haven't really.

What are your writing goals for 2021? 

How many words I wrote in 2020

Back in 2019, I started tracking how many words I could write in a year. I wasn't really keeping an eye on what days I was writing and how many words I was actually writing I just went off the books I had started that year to work out how many words I wrote and as you all know in 2019 I wrote 300,000 words in total.  

In 2020 I was all over the place, I went through a terrible breakup and lost all interest in writing. The world went into lockdown, and I failed all three NaNoWriMos. 

I focused a lot on editing my hybrid series as well as getting Wrongful Love ready for publishing (out now) I also moved three times in the span of fourish months, so I wasn't really writing many words. I failed almost all my writing goals, but I did write a total of 189,447. It wasn't how many words I wanted to get written, but it is better than nothing.

How many words if you were tracking did you write last year? Last year was a challenging year for everyone, so no matter how many words you wrote, it is one step closer to the end game.

If you would like to purchase Wrongful Love, the paperback is available on Lulu, and paperback and ebook are available on amazon.

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Lulu

Wrongful Love By Phoebe M.C.

I have officially Published Wrongful Love on both Amazon and lulu. for those who want to buy my book the links are

Amazon

lulu

For those who want more convincing here is the book trailer I made and my book description.

Elena is your not so average sixteen-year-old with a vast number of mental health issues but, when she meets thirty-five-year-old successful businessman, Marcus her whole life flips upside down for better or worse. Elena finds herself having to battle every obstacle thrown at her to prove her love for the man who swept her off her feet on the first meeting. While still trying to overcome her mental health issues, Marcus is incredibly supportive despite the distance that divides them. Will they live happily ever after or will it end up in flames?

How to win NaNoWriMo 2020

NaNoWriMo, 50,000 words in 30 days is it possible? yes! i wrote all 50k words in 24 days last year and you can too

the biggest thing to remember is that in November you have 30 days to write 50k words that is just over 1,666 words a day. if you only wrote on weekdays that is 22 days of writing at around 2,272 a day.

i wrote 24 days last year and won so it isn't impossible but that is about 2,083 words a day, some days i only manged fifteen words and i had to make up for all the lost words the next day which was hard. but before you start freaking out here is my tips on how to achieve this amazing goal.

winning NaNoWriMo is almost exactly the same as winning camp NaNoWriMo except you have to reach 50k and cant set your own goal.

1. Pace yourself

while it may sound like a good idea to sit down and write for five hours each day you will drain yourself a lot faster, if you plan to write every day you're goal is to hit 1,666 a day. some days you are going to be over that and other days you will be under but if you know that you have to write a certain amount of words you will soon work out how long it takes you on average to write that amount of words each day. which will make the days you are under a lot easier to catch up in the future.

2. Outline

while i myself am more of a pantser i do a brief outline of my project that i will be working on {Check out my blog post on outlining} in the post linked i talk about how i outline briefly to help get everything done without it being a full outline which makes me feel restricted.

3. Get inspired

there are many ways to do this, you could go for a walk, listen to music, go and be with nature it really depends on you. i personally search up on google "writing prompts" and look at pictures or follow links and find one best fitted for the novel you are writing. i find this really helpful and i immediately find inspiration

4. Leave it unfinished

when you know you are going to be finishing writing, for the time being, if it is for a few hours or for the day that doesn't matter, the best thing to do so you don't come back and go well what to do now start the next sentence and don't finish it. for me, i finished writing for the day and knew i wouldn't know where to start again so i finished off with 'i walked into the kitchen and saw' while you wouldn't want to finish a chapter, paragraph or bookending like that it just means you can come back and it will be super easy to get back into it, meaning fewer writers block moments.

5. Sprint

for this, all you need to do is search up NaNoWordSprints on twitter and wait for the people to come on, or you can set your own timer up on your laptop or phone. a word sprint is when you have a timer for a certain amount of time and you just flat out write, then you take a break when you are done before going straight back into it. Video on sprints with information on them

6. Accept That Your Manuscript Will Not Be Perfect

don't try and make it perfect, that will only help you not make your word goal, realize that no matter what there is going to be major editing involved so there is no point in worrying about it all being perfect now when that is the least of your concerns, the faster you realize that the easier it will for the words to flow.

7. Write

sometimes the best thing to do is just write, even if it is never going to make it into the final copy of your project, every word counts when you start writing the words should just start to flow meaning while it most likely won't make sense it still counts towards your word goal and you may make something that you can use for your book

Writing Sprints

Writing sprints are very useful things to do as a writer but when you don't know what they are you can get quite confused on how to do them so I am here to help.

First, let's talk about what a writing sprint is.

A writing sprint or a word sprint is when you have to sit down for a length of time and write as much as you can in that time without stopping. you then take a five-minute break and do it again. the sprints can be for any length of time but most writers pick somewhere between five minutes and half an hour.

The benefit of writing sprints varies from increasing how many words you can write, getting your story done faster and more.

you can do word sprints on anything. there are websites like mywriteclub where you can do your sprints with friends or by yourself that will time you or you can set up a timer on your phone. during NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo you can do writing sprints on twitter. 

if you search up @NaNoWordSprints they hold word sprints every April, July and November. AuthorTubers also randomly hold live streams where word sprints are done so just do some research and you'll find the best way for you after some experimenting.