Writing!

“Just keep writing, just keep writing. Just keep writing writing writing, what do we do? We write, write!”

Can anyone guess what I’m up to?
I’ve finally started my fourth draft! :imagine squealing and flailing arms as I try to expend my pent up energy:

It’s been nearly two months since I finished my previous draft and I’ve been dying to get back into this story. I had a lot of work I needed to do first, so my time was well spent.
I didn’t realize just how much I had missed these characters and this world until I got back into my writing two days ago and was literally shaking from excitement! In these past two months I have figured out so much, added so much to my world and my characters and to my plot. I’ve only written 16,000 words so far but this is easily my favorite draft.
I’m finally getting the hang of balancing everything and pulling all of the elements together into one cohesive work.
Writing sounds fairly easy, but in reality it’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. You have to balance characters, world and plot, you have to make all of them strong but not over done and they all have to harmonize. You have to have conflict, but not too much and not in such a way that it’s annoying.
So much goes into writing! I’ve had to research so much and I’ve learned so much. While I have to do a lot of work for it, I don’t want to stop. I love doing this so much I don’t care what I have to do and really I love the research and the learning. Everyday I’m learning something new, whether it be about another element to writing or that being ignored causes the same chemical reaction in the brain as experiencing a physical injury. I will never stop learning and I feel like writing is something that helps me learn new things, because you aren’t just a writer. You have to be a soldier, a doctor, an orphan, a brilliant scientist or a wise old man. Being a writer is being whatever your characters are. I think there’s something beautifully inspiring and magical in that.

And since I like to put my photography in my posts, I came across this self portrait I took about a year ago. It’s probably one of my favorites. :)

 photo J-D-Selfie-watermarked_zps5338dac6.jpg

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