May 2022 Writing Update

May 2022 Writing Update - Gothic Fiction

I have been working away on my (still-to-be introduced) gothic tale all month, and I'm excited to say that, though I've only reached a word count of about 11,000 words written, I am very much excited about this project in a way that I have not been excited about a project of mine in a while. 

Yup, I'm still using these old graphics.

 

I want to keep things vague, so I won't delve too deeply into the subject matter of the book, but suffice it to say that I've been doing quite a bit of research, and I've been reaching into my own people's history and culture in order to write this novel. It is a take on the gothic fiction genre that I personally have not read before, and I am quite enjoying the creative freedom that comes with that, as well as the unique elements that I get to play around with. 

So far, I've dedicated almost 24 hours into this project. I would say I am not even a thirtieth of the way done, so there are many more hours ahead of me. I have not been working as well as I wish I could - distractions abound these days - but in hopes that I can remedy that, at least for a little while, I am once again taking leave from my social media and won't be posting on there for a while. I want to cut out all the noise for a while as I work. (In fact, I'm considering leaving social media altogether.) That being said, I might still update the blog during this time. 

At first, I spent quite a lot of time simply researching gothic fiction as a genre and trying to understand what makes a piece of fiction 'gothic'. I even went so far as to do some research into the general plot or narrative structure of a gothic tale, which interestingly has quite a lot in common with the general plot embryo framework, which I've made a podcast episode about, soon to be shared. I think I have a very good grasp of it now, after several pages of copious notes and revisits to gothic fiction novels and movies that I've loved, and I'm excited to see where this story takes me.

Once I started writing and realized that I wanted to set my story in the 16th century, I was derailed by the great amount of research that needed to be done. And then, even more research as I realized that I needed to get into a little more detail about a certain family's ancestry, which I've decided will reach back to Ancient Egypt! In fact, research alone accounts for over 8 hours of the time that I've dedicated to this project so far. (How do I know this? I've been tracking my hours on this project every single day - something I've wanted to do for a while but could never remember to; now, with this project, I get to track it pretty much from the very beginning and hopefully see how long it takes me to write a full novel!) I have no doubt in my mind that I'll be completing even more research as I continue to work on this novel, though I feel that it might be quite tricky in some respects, given that some of the books I have to work with are not in English, so I may require the help of a translator. 

I took quite some time to plot the book, too, but feel quite happy with where it's at for now. I've plotted far enough into the story to know where I'm headed, and I've plotted out the end as well, so I know where it's going to finish for all the characters involved. However, there are definitely some elements in the middle of the book that are still a mystery even to me, so I'll have to go back to the plotting board at some time to figure those out.

That's really all there is for now! Not much else to share, except that I've been re-recording my podcast episodes a ridiculous number of times and at this point I'm going to put a hard stop to it and just get the episodes I have edited and uploaded before I decide not to do it at all. I may need to record a new intro segment. I want to get at least the first episode uploaded today (May 15) so we'll see if I can make that deadline. 

I would leave you with a quote, but I would rather not share any parts of this gothic tale until it's published, so in the meantime, I'll leave you with some general information about the story:

• Current word count: 11,193
• First-person POV
• Unnamed narrator/protagonist
• Epistolary elements
• Complex characters that may not be morally upright
• Explores the darkness of human nature
• All supernatural elements have a realistic and logical explanation