Last week, I was lucky enough to be part of a Google Hangout with the incredibly lovely Millicent, Mandi and Kathleen. The four of us plus a few others are part of creative group that works to support and motivate one another, and the Hangout was helping us set that up. There will be some exciting stuff happening with this later on that I can’t wait to share with you all.
Anyway, the Hangout wasn’t all business. We had some laughs
about things, and eventually we started talking about the books we were writing.
So yes, I know some sneaky facts about Millicent’s upcoming book. Millie bought
up this great point about sharing creative work and how there’s always that
fear of plagiarism nowadays. Millie’s comment started me
thinking…
I don’t share a lot about my novels, not because I’m overly
worried about someone plagiarising them but more because I’m not entirely sure
as to where most of them are going. I thought I would talk about that in this
post today, just in case any of you are in the same position or if you have any
tips.
Firstly, my main novel, the one I have talked about on here
is Tied Together. My protagonist, Coralie, has been with me since I was eleven
or twelve (I’m almost twenty) so this story has been floating around for a
while. I’m currently 51,050 words into this — it’s kind of all over the place.
I have the first fifteen chapters written in full and then after that I have
some random scenes written here and there. I’ve been holding back on this a bit
because the story is set in Denmark and I know I’ll be able to write it even
better when I’m living there. I am incredibly good at pinning things about this
though!
Secondly, I have the novel affectionately titled, Nellie,
for the main character. This will eventually be a dystopian/alternate reality
trilogy. It’s kind of a hard plot to describe, but it’s set in Budapest (yes, I
have a thing for Europe). Nellie is a seriously kickass character and it’s a
lot darker than Tied Together is. I’ve written about 3,000 of this so far and
again, my Pinterest is boss.
Another one I’ve got is currently called Arden, because I
like to name things after my main character until I come up with a title. This
is a crime/mystery novel set in New York that I started for NaNo a few years
ago. At the time, Chami really liked it despite the fact I only wrote about
2,000 words of this too. This one isn’t really YA, but I don’t know that I
could label it Adult or New Adult (the characters are in that age group)
either… I don’t really know enough about it yet. Now that I've thought about it, I'm seriously considering making this New Adult.
I’ve got another two that don’t even have plots yet, but
they Pinterest boards! Firstly, I have one that’s just been labelled as ‘1940s novel’. I know the very basics of this — Melbourne, 1940s, Polish immigrant,
orphanage, love story. I couldn’t tell you how those elements fit together yet.
The other one is actually based on a song, and it’s just called ‘Celtic Retelling’
at the moment but it’s based on Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac (my dad’s favourite
band and a new favourite of mine). I love Wales so I feel like this is necessary…
eventually.
So that’s what I’ve got at the moment. I’ve been terrible
with writing recently but I’ve been slowly getting back into it. Anyway, I’d
like to know any thoughts or opinions you might have or if you’d like to be
critique or accountability partners (I seriously need these).
Tell me about your writing below!
