Yesh, it's about time I gave you guys an update on the progress of my novel, "SPIKE".
I've gotten a lot of notes and comments asking when the book will be finished, how far I've come in the writing process, or how many chapters there are so far, and so forth... And I love getting questions like that, because that means people are interested in my work, many of which say they even love my work, and.. just wow, I mean, I'm completely honest when I say that it means a whole lot to me. And I'm serious when I say that without the support from you guys (you all know who you are <3 ), I would never have bothered continuing the SPIKE story. I would probably just have posted chapter 0, deleted it, and stuffed it all in a drawer and possibly even given up on the whole story-teller dream. Feedback is very important to me, which sounds very selfish, I know, but I used to be incredibly insecure of myself and everything I did. I had this dream of becoming a cartoonist to have my stories told, and be read by people, and hopefully one person would love it. But seriously, if it hadn't been from all the support from you guys, I really don't think I would've been so determined to tell that story as I am now.
So thank you guys. Thanks to every single one of you!
About the novel:
I've done some changes, like how I mentioned earlier that I'll be giving Sam his own chapters alongside Spike's chapters. So that's settled, I'm not changing that back. So as far as writing goes, I've written more chapters about Sam. I've also made many notes and done some changes to the mid part of the story, with what Spike and Ray are up to, inspired by an idea
JuliePig gave me a good while ago. It's a little brutal, but I figure it needs to be, for some important character developement to happen, sort of..
But one other thing I've changed about the story, was something I realized needed to happen when I told you guys about the SPIKE story taking place in the 80's, and everyone was like "really?? I'd no idea!"
I realized the story was sort of timeless, and it needed to have a proper timeline, so the final change I've done is letting the story take place in the late 90's.. ish... somewhere in the 90's, I haven't settled on a specific year yet.. But they start out rather young, right? Spike and Sam, I mean. And they age throughout the novel, and I don't want it to end in our current year, and I don't want it to happen at some point where most of my readers are too young to relate to it, so I figured the mid 90's might be a good place to start.. Which means that yes, there might be cellphones involved, which I was hoping to avoid but am starting to see the necesarrity of, but at the same time, cellphones didn't really get hyper-popular and a necessity until later, so if someone has a cellphone in the SPIKE story, they won't be addicted to it, you know?
So, yes, some digital stuff will be there, but they won't interrupt with the story. There won't be a lot of focus on them. Because, hey, if both Spike and Sam had cellphones, and Spike ran off, then of course Sam could just call him or text him and be all "hey, where you at, bro? D: " and things might have been solved easily. Or Sam could use Spike's GPS location and come get him, right? Boring! XD
So I don't want the digital equipment to be too advanced for it do be a disadvantage for the story. Right?
so, yeah... babbling, sorry. But I've written a bit more, not much because I've been rather drained of inspiration, which shows in my lack of deviations lately, but it's slowly getting back
And I've spoken to a friend/colleague about the issue of finding time to write, and other things. She's a published author, and she told me she "forces" herself to write one hour each day. She uses a stop-watch, shuts down the Wi-Fi, sits alone in a room in front of her computer, and prepares to write. With no disturbances, no internet, all she can really do is just write something, or else she'd just be sitting there doing nothing for an hour. I thought that was a brilliant idea, so I'm gonna try doing the same, adding one writing hour permanently every single day. Hopefully it'll help me write more
She also told me about this Norwegian lady, who wrote a fantasy book in English, sent it to an agent abroad who helped her get it published in English, and then it was a big hit, got translated to several languages and it's recently been translated back to Norwegian...! So there is hope!
Because, I gotta admit, I lost hope of ever getting my book published abroad, because I feel my English writing skills are too poor... Therefore, I started writing SPIKE all over again in Norwegian. Which, I'll admit, was easier..! But the story felt.... different. The characters felt a littel different. But it helped writing it in Norwegian, because the story got sort of elongated, or... let me put it this way, I was able to say what I wanted to say in a much better way, and sometimes long English sentences could be said with a few Norwegian words, and sometimes what I was trying to explain in English with a few words would get a whole paragraph in Norwegian and even sound better..! So currently, I'm switching between English and Norwegian when I write chapters...
But hey, I know both languages, so why not make two versions of SPIKE? One in Norwegian and one in English, which should sort of double my chance of getting published, I guess?
I dunno, but it would be fun to write it in both languages, or finish it in one language and translate it to the other afterwards.
Can you tell I'm motivated to finish this novel?
I'm very determined to finish SPIKE and try getting it published, but how long it will take is beyond me... I really have no idea. And I don't want to rush it, still, at the same time I really want to complete it as fast as possible, so I can get on with the editing.
So... I'm sorry that I can't give you a date for when it's done, but I'll keep you guys updated
Thank you all so much for the support!
And if you read this giant wall of text, have a cookie!
