#lockdowngoals

Wrote a book at 21, and now it’s lost (not before a publisher rejected it)...

Always thought if I wrote one, I’d definitely write another, but the years went by and I got more involved in film and music, which I also love. 

And now, in Ireland we’re in our third lockdown. During the first, I got frustrated with my lack of effort to try and write another book (the reason being, if I couldn’t write one during a lockdown, would I EVER write one again?), and I did have an idea for story, fairly Gothic in nature, but with a thriller angle. 

I started plotting it out, but I don’t think I actually wrote anything of the actual novel.

So, during the third lockdown, I decided I HAD to!

I’ve been working on an album on the musical side of things, but I’m setting it slightly aside for now...

I recently watched a documentary series on Netflix, recommended to me by a friend. It freaked the shit out of me. Truly have never been as freaked out as I was halfway through that series.  What actually happened in the event the series was based on ended up just being very tragic. 

It gave me an idea - why not reconstruct elements of that real story with my own twist? 

I started writing it a week ago, and am now 58 pages in...almost at the end of the first act. Aiming for fifty pages a week, and to have the first draft finished by April 16th. I’ve actually ended up incorporating the storyline of a screenplay I wrote last year into it, with a few changes. I ended up not really being completely in love with the script, but I think it’s actually working out really well now that it’s married to the novel’s initial ideas. 

I’ve decided to go about this one differently to the last novel I wrote (which, again, possibly no longer exists) - I outlined the events of each chapter of that one before writing it (and that DID help make the writing process smooth, if I remember correctly). 

With this one, just for the sake of trying, I’ve just kind of jumped right in, feeling my way around as I go (having said that I do have the screenplay to use as a blueprint). It’s a bit like making a film by using words instead of actors, camera angles and lighting. 

Got through 8 pages this evening, and I’m HOPING for another 10 tomorrow (remember, 50 a week!!). Not sure how smooth it’ll be though, given that there’s one part of the story I haven’t fully worked out yet (not part of the main plot, but it needs to be strong enough to explain a turn of events in a character’s life), and in order to keep writing the next scene, I kind of have to figure it out at some point tomorrow! I’m not letting myself let a day go by before April 16th without writing at least either one scene or one page.