My first novel is out!

There's something amazing about holding the first copy of your novel in your hands. Flipping through the pages. Smelling the glossy cover. I was able to do that. My first Young Adult, Fantasy (with some Sci-fi elements), novel is out. And I feel extremely blessed. Jesus has taken me on this journey of self discovery. Showed me my true purpose. Gave me the tools to make my dream come true. And this is just the beginning. The Blue Key: Quest for Peace is part one of a series. Part two has already been outlined and I will commence writing it this July. FULL TIME! Thank you to my family and friends who made this novel possible. My proof copy of The Blue Key: Quest for Peace, sits on my bookshelf next to the first bible I bought when I was saved. It's in the right place. Do I have any regrets about this novel? I regret that I spent years sending it to agents and getting it rejected, instead of listening to people (including young adults), who loved it and begged me to publish it so they could finish reading the entire novel. LISTEN TO YOUR AUDIENCE. THEY KNOW BETTER! My second novel is also a series. This one is 100% Sci-fi. I'm almost done with revisions on it. Then it will sit for a few weeks while I work on final edits to a suicide screenplay I'm putting finishing touches on. Then that novel will hopefully be ready to publish in August of this year. Thank you again for all those who believed in me and cheered me on. You guys are amazing!

I love being a writer.

Every year I participate in nanowrimo. The goal is to complete a novel in 30 days. This is the first year in awhile that I've completed a novel via nanowrimo. Check them out for next year nanowrimo.org. It's my third completed novel, if you don't count the novel I wrote in high school (horror), or the novel I started, but didn't finish in college (scifi). Yeah, that scifi novel still has some potential. Writing a novel makes you reflect on your life. I've always been a writer. Always. Elementary, middle, high school, college--always a writer. People get writer's block, I don't. People write strictly for the money, I don't. To me, writing is pure and utter joy. There's a spring in Florida where you can see all the way to the bottom. You can, and many people do, float on it via inner tube--for hours. It's relaxing, tranquil; it's perfection. That's what writing is like to me. It's like floating down that spring and never getting out of the water. Or, if you're not into the whole nature thing (I love the outdoors), imagine a full day at a spa and someone else paying the bill for it. Facial, mani-pedi, massage with weird scrubbing sugars, champagne, lunch, the works. That's how writing feels to me. As part of nanowrimo, I wrote a YA, scifi novel. YA means young adult. The heroine of the book is sixteen. She is not "the one", or "the hero destined to save the world". She's not even "she's pretty but doesn't know it". She's a girl who believes strongly in the bond of family and sees that bond tested in some pretty horrible ways, that I won't give away on this platform. The novel is a rough draft at this stage. I will continue to work on it until it sings, while I work on my next YA novel. I love being a writer.

Update

101.5. That was my temperature as my body waged its battle against the flu. Never mind that I got the flu shot in October. Well, actually it did lessen the severity of the flu. And now I'm back.
The screenplay that was halfway done on January 10th I finished on January 11th. I decided to sit myself down and not get up until it was done. Something was driving me to finish it. Phew. Two screenplays in less than thirty days? Talk about mentally draining. Serious adrenaline rush though.
So what is the writer up to now?

February 4th is the deadline for Gotham Writer's to announce the winner of their YA novel contest.
February 18th is the start of the CS Open. What is that you say? Well, it's a contest with industry recognition and filming of the winning scene. You write a short scene, 3-5 pages, based on the premise they give you on the 18th. If you win, you advance to round two and do it again. The final winner gets the aforementioned prize.

The remainder of this month I am finishing what I like to call my final steak edit of my YA fantasy novel. What is a steak edit? I've been going through and adding more meat to certain chapters, and in places adding whole new chapters. I'm about forty pages from the end of the book.

After the steak edit comes the dessert edit. That's where I print out my novel (again), and do a spelling and grammar check. (Special shout out to Office Depot and Hp for having Hp ink on sale for 40% off this month).
Goal for my novel is to have it ready to submit to a publisher/agent
by February 14th.

February is also time for me to edit the last two screenplays I wrote (still haven't decided which one I'm submitting to the Nichols fellowship-The Oscars), and to work on the second novel that is already in progress.
What I have learned is that you cannot blaze through the rough draft of a novel the way you can a screenplay. The format of a screenplay allows you to write it much quicker than a novel.

Screenplays are a visual medium and novels a mental medium. It could take me six more months to finish the second novel and by that time I will have written at least five more screenplays. Then again it could take me one month to finish the novel.

I don't believe in writer's block. There was a time that I did, but then I realized, writer's block is actually a choice to not do what I love to do. Why would I deliberately block myself from that? Sure I may not like the first five minutes of what I'm writing, but after that I am in the zone.

I may write five pages or twenty one in an hour, either way I am doing what I love. And let's face it. If your not doing what you love, what are you doing?