Deadlines & Novels Unfinished

My plan, at the end of November, was to have my NaNoWriMo novel finished by the end of December. In January, I would write a rush draft of the second book in the series, and on the first day of February, I would send out query letters pertaining to the first novel, entitled deAngelis: Genesis.

Image via Wikipedia

It seems my body, and my work ethic, conspired against me. I got the first ten chapters of the novel edited within a week, but within two days of coming home for Christmas break, I came down with my fifth case of the twenty-four-hour stomach flu, which kept me in bed for a total of four days, the longest yet, with no appetite and only strength enough to crochet my sisters' Christmas presents and watch thirty episodes of Bleach on Hulu.

When I finally did sit down to get through chapter eleven, I realized that I had skipped the entire first half of the chapter when originally writing, because let's face it, I hate writing fight scenes. I just don't feel like I do them well. To write a good fight scene, you have to give enough information so that the reader knows what the hell is going on... but little enough that the reader doesn't skip the one or two or three pages of action. Also, you don't want him to figure out that you're making shit up and have no idea what you're talking about to begin with.

So, not even halfway through my novel, I procrastinated myself right past my deadline of December 31st, and only just today decided to grit my teeth and get through it. The alternative was my continuing mission to de-Christmasing the house. I shoveled the driveway and took down the tree yesterday, all of which took me about six hours total. What do you think I wanted to do today?

Once more, I'm going to try to start doing two or three chapters a day, like I did that first week. Hopefully, the time that I spent away from the novel will pay off. They say that you want to step back from a first draft for a while, so that you can distance yourself a little bit and be able to approach it more objectively when you sit down to start the writing process. I actually agree with this viewpoint, and I'd probably do that, except for the part where I would like to have something published before I graduate from college. Also, I'm just too freaking excited that the story is actually working.

deAngelis: Genesis follows a main character by the name of Jenna Palmer, a female half-angel who was orphaned at the age of four and apprenticed to a middle-aged man by the name of Leonard, who later adopted her. When she was seventeen, she made a horrible mistake that ended up killing Leonard and alienating her from her guardian angel. Although she had been trained to be the steward of the district, essentially a supernatural cop, she abandons the life she had out of grief and self-loathing. Genesis is about how she comes to take up the mantle of steward and start to get her life (a little bit) back on track.

It's going to be a three, maybe four-book series, with possibly a spin-off series later (we'll see how this one goes, first). I've found it fairly impossible to write stand-alone novels; my ideas are just too large (dare I say epic?) and I honestly just can't cram it all into one novel.

A friend of mine, Charlie, the son of blues artist Dave Morgan, is going to be drawing the comic version of the novel for me, starting this fall. I really want to reach out to as many fandoms as possible, although its no secret that I would love to get into film. All I gotta say is, David Tennant as Michael the Archangel? Now you're talkin'.

So, probably I should stop procrastinating and get on that chapter twelve, hmm?