Hello! Thanks for coming to my little corner in the world!

Since I'm not so new now, I thought I should update this a bit...

Currently...

I'm now a member of the 2YN 2010-2011 and will be working towards my first novel with this course. There's no title yet, but in everything I have for it, I've been referencing it as the 6 Wielders.
And if I'm not careful, I may find myself with a series on hand.

Goals

Write my novel within the next year. Even if it's only the first draft.

Genres

Generally, I will be writing in these genres and formats

Writing Style

This is how I plan to write my first novel! Once I get through the outline I'll let you know how else I prefer write.

Personal Achievements:

I have written 10 Poems
I have written 1 Short Story

Challenges:

2010 Monthly Challenges



Well, this is it for now. I'll let you know how the first novel is going!
-Melissa W


Edited April 1, 2010

Looks like you know what you want to do. If we can do anything to help, answer any questions, just let us know.

Very nice work on the poems and short story already!

-- Erin

Hi Melissa. Looks like you've got your plans down pretty solid :). I'd suggest if you haven't already, wave the flag over in newcomers as well because there's a lot of tips there to help people find their niche here at FM.

Good luck with your novel.

Hurray! The link works!

Welcome again. :smiley: I wish you success on your journey.

Hey Melissa!
That's a great start! Hope this board inspires you as much as it does me. Good luck! And thanks for sharing!

Wonderful!

Do you have a particular style of fantasy, or a favourite race?

Mine are goblins or fairies. I wrote a novella about fairies and am attempting a book about goblins. Good luck with your outline, though how you accomplish it is entirely beyond me.

I was wondering if you could give me a couple of pointers for fantasy. I used to write tonnes of it as a kid (most of it, was, admittedly, crap).

But what I was mainly thinking about when posting this was wishing you good luck, and now I do so. :)

I never really thought of having a favourite race. I guess if I were to choose, it would have to be either elf or dwarf. I like the grace of elves (of which I personally have none) and the gruff brute that tends to be dwarf.

The outline - been reading a lot about how to write lately, some of the archetypal ideas and what makes a story "good" in terms of structure. It's helping me create a plot that might keep an reader entertained for more than 2 pages... at least the ideas are forming in my head.

Pointers for fantasy - I started with Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan. BIG series... I moved next to The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind. I've read both series' more than once, and they never get old for me. These however, don't have any fairies in them; they're worlds which rely on wizards and witches of sorts, not a lot of other magic races though.

I wish you well on your book about Goblins!

Cheers

Hi Melissa, sounds like a plan. I recently found out that even though you may not use your own cover image in the final product (publishers do that), designing one while writing the book helps you pick an appropriate title. It also helps you visualize your finished product. I have the advantage of self publishing and have an artist friend paint my visualization of the cover. Sometimes I have him read my first draft and come up with his vision of what the cover art should be.

I hope this helps

Benoit Akoa

Wonderful start!

Welcome!!! I took the 2YN class a few years ago, and I'm missing it now. Not many people made it into the second year, but it was a great, supportive group of people. I had a WIP in the revision process and a life upheaval and found I couldn't do the WIP and the 2YN at the same time, but now that the WIP is almost put to bed, I'm going back to my 2YN project and loving all the groundwork that Zette had us do. You should be a few months into it? How's it going?

Thanks for the encouraging words.

I have noticed that a lot of people have already dropped off, I'm sure for various reasons, however I'm still going strong. I can see that it does require quite a bit of commitment and time, and it's very easy to let life or other projects stall the process.
It's been really exciting and challenging and has opened me up to seeing writing completely differently. The process that Zette walks us through is very detailed - I never would have gotten as concrete with the ideas that I have thus far without it.

We're just finishing Characters this week. As far as I can tell, next week begins world building. I'm very eager to get working on it.

Cheers,
Melissa

She had us pick a phobia for our characters. That helped me a lot. The character work and world building she pushed us to do was great. Even picking up the novel a few years later, I still had the characters and world intact because of the groundwork she encouraged us to do.

Good luck!