Wednesday, April 14, 2010

My W.I.P.


(no that's not me lol)

So, I thought it was a bit unfair that I always ask where you guys are at with your WIPs and never fully detail what I'm up to, so here's your chance to catch up on my WIP.

As some of you know, I'd been working on a novel called Trueborn, off and on for the last 2 or so years. Since I have such a busy schedule, it's been tough to sit down and knock out large chunks of writing, but I'd manage to get a page or two done every to often. After a review and some major changes, I was brought back down to about 40,000 word count. Unfortunately, for me anyway, the big vampire boom hit the shelves (thanks to Twilight) and many authors jumped on board the success-train by writing TONS of vampire novels. Since I started this blog, I found that editors and publishers were getting soooooo sick and tired of seeing vampire novels and the market just seemed overrun with them. I decided to put that novel on hold, since it had a vampire element and I was stuck in a re-write plot rut.

Since setting aside Trueborn, I took up another novel as my current WIP, that I'm tentatively calling "The Watchers: Awakening." It falls under the YA Paranormal genre, which I know is already saturated anyway, but at least it's not vampire or werewolf themed. (for the record, I LOVE vamps and were-creatures, but I do agree that it is getting ridiculous)

I'm just about 10,000 words in and have some pretty solid characters I'm working with. The theme is a set in the spirit world, revolving around spirits who deal in prevention and facilitation of death in the human world. The main character is a teenage boy who questions the system as he is forced to make the hardest decision of his spirit-life. In his trail of choices, he not only struggles with the morality of his role, but also struggles with his spirit enemies, called drifters, who forcefully intervene in his situation and struggles.

The novel has such a fun element to it and really hits home with me on the 'entertainment of reading' factor. Whether or not it ends up being publishable material is yet to be seen, but in the end, I'm learning as a writer and enjoying the ride.

6 comments:

Joshua McCune said...

Sounds like an interesting premise and definitely a bit outside the box (but not too far -- b/c as much as agents/editors etc. hate the inundation trend of something like vampires, they hate the too far from the box pieces more, IMO).

Tori said...

Like Bane of Anubis said it DOES sound like an interesting premise.

And I would have to agree that the market is saturated with vampire stuff right now. Not saying that it is impossible to sell that kind of stuff, you can, it just has to be DIFFERENT, or at least not like everything else out there.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Hang on to Trueborn, as it will be hot again in a few years!

Unknown said...

Sounds cool. It's sad that the market has been over-run with vamps. You'd think the world was being taken over by them. It will be good to hold on to for future publishing though.

I'm like you Void. I can only work every so often on mine. But, I did just quit my job and it's really hard to schedule time between running kids here and there. But, I've done better this week than last at getting a move on.

dolorah said...

I swear every time I sit down to open my first novel, I start blogging instead. But I've also got a new novel to research, and I don't mind research. It's fun.

You new work sounds interesting. I like how you describe it as fun. That in itself is bound to make it a success.

......dhole

Charles Gramlich said...

I was chair of my department when I wrote Cold in the light, and was teaching every summer. It took me almost four years to finish that book because I was only able to do a scene here and there.