History

To Looking Forward

/ JoHawkTheWriter
Photo credit: Cali2Okie (April) via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Photo credit: Cali2Okie (April) via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to the fast-approaching new year.

Here, the joy of Christmas was made more poignant due to a death in the family. My uncle’s passing served as a powerful reminder of the need to recognize what is truly important in life. Perhaps it was just me, but this season’s gatherings seemed to have more meaning for everyone. From the Christmas card that conveyed an expression of thanks for including their family in the festivities, to the way people lingered at the door, reluctant to leave as the time neared for the gathering to come to an end. All of this and more reinforced my belief that these celebrations need to happen all through the year.

While I have spent the last two weeks fully engaged with other priorities, the importance of getting the first draft of my book completed has skyrocketed to the top of the list. Speaking of lists, it is also that time of the year as well. Time to plot out the journey for the coming year. Time to dream of all the things that we want to accomplish. Time to figure out what mark we want to leave on 2017. Time when endless possibilities lie before us. We can take the best from the past to build on to make the new year unforgettable.

I have dusted off the crystal ball and am preparing to…

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

NaNoWriMo Day 3

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 4 Comments

I love historical fiction when it is well written and historically accurate. To my mind it must be historically accurate, otherwise shouldn’t you have to call it “fictional history”?

Photo credit: bjornmeansbear via VisualHunt / CC BY-SA

Photo credit: bjornmeansbear via VisualHunt / CC BY-SA

Writing historical fiction, I am finding is a slow process. Especially in these early stages. Everything has to be accurate. Even though I had done a lot of research before I started, I am realizing that I don’t know it cold. (Somehow I am getting the feeling that my characters know the history better than I do.) As a result, I am having to fact check and validate.

The thought had occurred to me to skip the fact checking until the edit process. But I quickly threw that out the window when I realized that one fact meant that I had to adjust the age of my main character. That would have resulted in chaos in the edit phase.

So it doesn’t look like I will be posting any huge word counts… yet.

Word Count for November 3, is:

1,800 words. Three-day total 4,800.

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer