Now that 2018 is over and we've reached 2019, it's time to look back a bit and check what I managed to do last year. Did I manage to challenge myself enough as a writer and what are the things that I should do better this year?
The reason that I'm taking a look back at last year is that even though I managed to be fairly productive, I could perhaps have done better. There were some things that I didn't do well enough and that I should have paid more attention to those things.
Nevertheless, when it comes to 2018, by far the best thing about last year is that I managed to turn my movie screenplay (Valerie and The Girl) into a book. I wrote my first book, even though I had no previous experience in writing novels at all.
What this meant in practice is that I had to learn pretty much everything from scratch. I had to learn the basics of novel writing and write in a way that would make the characters feel believable and authentic in the book version too.
This, of course, was easier said than done and required a lot of effort on my part. I had to be thoughtful about how to write the book version, which meant that I had to write and rewrite scenes over and over again in order to get the tone right.
In practice, this also meant that I had to make some changes to the structure of the story. I had to change things like the main character's overarching storyline a bit, so that the 'arc' would be longer and that the story wouldn't be too dark.
Still, now that the book is more or less done, it looks like I managed to make correct adjustments for the book version. Based on my own thoughts and the feedback that I've received, it looks like I've written a solid children's story.
After all, my readers said that the book is not only really well written and fun to read, but also informative and educational. They said that once you give it a go and start reading it, it's hard to put it down and not finish it right away.
In that sense, based on the positive feedback, I guess I need to send the manuscript to the publishers next. I need to send the book to them so that they can decide whether they think it's as well written as we think it is at the moment.
After all, considering that there aren't really that many well written 'new' books for children at the moment, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the book published. There's certainly demand for well written stories that have universal message in them.
In the end, getting published would really be so awesome, because I've struggled for so many years trying to get my 'lucky break'. I've spent so many years writing television specs (and that movie screenplay that the book was based on) without any success.
What this meant in practice is that I had to learn pretty much everything from scratch. I had to learn the basics of novel writing and write in a way that would make the characters feel believable and authentic in the book version too.
This, of course, was easier said than done and required a lot of effort on my part. I had to be thoughtful about how to write the book version, which meant that I had to write and rewrite scenes over and over again in order to get the tone right.
In practice, this also meant that I had to make some changes to the structure of the story. I had to change things like the main character's overarching storyline a bit, so that the 'arc' would be longer and that the story wouldn't be too dark.
Still, now that the book is more or less done, it looks like I managed to make correct adjustments for the book version. Based on my own thoughts and the feedback that I've received, it looks like I've written a solid children's story.
After all, my readers said that the book is not only really well written and fun to read, but also informative and educational. They said that once you give it a go and start reading it, it's hard to put it down and not finish it right away.
In that sense, based on the positive feedback, I guess I need to send the manuscript to the publishers next. I need to send the book to them so that they can decide whether they think it's as well written as we think it is at the moment.
After all, considering that there aren't really that many well written 'new' books for children at the moment, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the book published. There's certainly demand for well written stories that have universal message in them.
In the end, getting published would really be so awesome, because I've struggled for so many years trying to get my 'lucky break'. I've spent so many years writing television specs (and that movie screenplay that the book was based on) without any success.
Although, considering that if the book is good enough to be released, I probably need to take another look at the movie script too. I should certainly make some improvements to it and use those changes that I made for the book version.
After all, let's not forget that even though the book version is good, the movie script is solid too. It's pretty solid too, so if things go well with the book's release, you never know what might later happen with the film version of the story.
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