It's That Time Again...

It's July! Time for another Camp NaNoWriMo. Once again, my word count will be made up of a mixture of projects: this blog, my children's books and my novel. Might even sling a bit of poetry in there for good measure. The goal is a good deal smaller than last time because I am no longer on furlough and have to take that into account. I want it to be a challenge, but an achievable one, so my target is 10000 words.

I'm conscious that I haven't been blogging a great deal lately. That's mainly because I've been hitting the editing pretty hard, leaving little time for blog posts. I want to continue the momentum, so if you're a regular reader, please bear with me. Trust me, it's going to be worth it. I'll make sure it is because all the lost sleep and many, many hours of work on this book has to mean something.

So far, I have cut over 14000 words from the text, which can be be made up again with additions that will be useful to the plot and character building. I have two characters in particular who don't get anywhere near enough of a buildup as things stand. As a "pantster" I found that one of these characters sneaked up on me  by accident and proved to have so much potential she's going to be the star of book two. She definitely needs a worthy development.

When I wrote the last post, I hadn't yet conquered my writer's block on the children's book I was working on. In a sense, I still haven't because I had to give up on making it rhyme in order to just get the story written. I was quite keen for my children's books to all rhyme, but whatever I tried just felt forced and sounded cringeworthy. My first children's book rhymed. Do all children's books by the same author have to be written in the same style? I don't know. Answers on a postcard, please.

In any case, I'm relatively pleased with how the story has come out, even if it doesn't fucking rhyme, so it's onward and upward to the next one, which will centre around the slightly trickier subject of gender dysphoria. I am keen to do some research into this area first, particularly regarding what transgender people would have found helpful as children, as well as any pitfalls to avoid. It's really important to me that I put this across in a sensitive and helpful way. That's the only way it will stand a chance of achieving my aim of fostering understanding and inclusivity of transgender people.

If anyone with first-hand experience of this would like to message me with any thoughts I would be eternally grateful. My social media accounts are a good way to get in touch by private message. Of course, I would respect your privacy and keep specific details confidential.

I have bought a book along the same lines as what I plan to write called 'I Am Jazz' by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. That's the first part of my research. That book has the advantage of having a trans woman collaborate, so I can be reasonably sure that they haven't unintentionally offended the target audience.

I'll keep you updated on this project, as well as my others.

If any of you are participating in July's Camp NaNoWriMo, I'd love to hear what you're working on. Please drop me a message. Best of luck with it. Let's smash those targets!

V.