In preparation for NaNoWriMo I re-read Book One of the Academy of the Accord series and it turns out that the characters that I’m trying to name already have names.
It also turns out that the names need to be changed because they are way too long. I refuse to use names with 10 letters as main characters.
I also decided that Book One reads like a bad soap opera in places so it’s going to need another thorough going over before it’s ready for a second round of beta readers. (It’s too mushy. Seriously. It looks like a bad fan fiction romance written by a 15 year old.)
I sincerely hope that the others aren’t that bad… I don’t remember them being that bad, but then, I didn’t remember this one being that bad either.
And that is why you take a few months from finishing the first draft to doing the first round of edits – so you can come at it with fresh eyes and mind.
And before anyone jumps on my case about the “bad fan fiction romance written by a 15 year old” line:
yes, 15 year olds can write some pretty amazing stuff
yes, not all romances (gay or straight) are mushy
yes, fan fiction it not a bad thing – I’m actually highly in favor of it, especially for young writers (Maybe I should do a blog post about fan fiction.)
The important word in that phrase is “bad.”
Anyhow, that’s mostly where my weekend went. And with just over a week left until NaNoWriMo I should have spent it working on the outline. Still, the outline is in okay shape (not as detailed as I would like, but not too bad) and the refresher was good. I kinda wish I had time to read the other books between now and the first of November too.
Novel Notes 