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Writing Update and the Importance of Themes

So, I've moved past my writer's block and burnout but now I'm feeling blocked when it comes to ideas for what to write on this blog... I guess right now I just don't have anything super pressing to talk about or that I'm very passionate about at the moment. Since I'm fresh out of ideas but still wanted to get something out there today, here is an update on my writing!

I finished a major draft in Second Star to the Right (still brainstorming a new name for it cuz I feel like this one has already been taken) yesterday. It was pretty awesome. I haven't felt so into a story and so motivated and just having the mental energy to complete so much in one day in a long time. I wrote three new chapters, deleted whole chapters (killing your darlings is hard!) and I feel like the story is really coming together. I'm pretty proud of the way its turning out. It'll still need to go through lots of more drafts, but that one was the biggest one and required the most work so it felt good to get that out of the way and done with. This book has really challenged me of the past few months since I wrote the first draft and realized how heavy in theme I wanted it to be. It's gone through three different variations (this one being the third) and there is a plot and a physical opposition, a physical "bad guy" but the story focuses more on the internal conflict within my characters and Wendy's emotions. It focuses a lot on self-forgiveness and the forgiveness of others. On finding where she truly belongs. That's the meat of the story and though my other books have had themes, they haven't been as prominent as the ones within this one. Second Star has really challenged me as a writer to view plot in a new way. To find the layers and how to balance external and internal, theme and action.

It's been a good learning experience and I feel like I'm taking some of what I learned while writing this book and putting it into my Alice in Wonderland retelling/continuation. It's about Badger Red, the son of the Queen of Hearts and you can imagine the sort of baggage he has. This one is also heavy in theme and emotion, though I'm still working through which themes are most prominent. Alice is in it of course, but she isn't the main character. Badger has been in my head for a long time, I've wanted to write his story for a year or two now but never felt like it was the right time. I didn't know him well enough and I didn't know what kind of story he needed to tell until just last month. Inspiration struck and there he was.

While writing these two books I realized how important themes are. I don't know if this makes sense but themes in stories has been a theme in my writing/reading. The first book I read this year was Fawkes which was heavy in emotions, themes and depth. There was a lot of focus on internal and personal growth and I learned a lot about character growth, theme and character emotions while reading that. The next book was The Wicked King, which has a less than hopeful theme in it, but there is a theme nonetheless and though it holds lots of action, there's still a lot of internal conflict that goes on in Jude.

I don't know if this happens to a lot of writers, but theme has always been kind of hard for me. It surprises me that it's not second nature to me because themes and internal conflict is one of my favorite parts of any good book. And yet it's taken me a long time to grasp them and learn how to weave those elements into my own writing. I feel like I'm just starting to learn how to use those two tools in my writing.

Creating meaningful stories is something that I realized I wanted to do in November. Maybe even September when I was writing the first version of Second Star. Writing Wendy's story and then reading Fawkes amongst other things has made me realize that I want my writing to have meaning. I want my stories to resonate with others on a deep, personal level. I want to speak to the people who read my book. I know I'm going on and on about Fawkes, but it had a big impact on me. Knowing that Nadine Brandes is a Christian and seeing how she wove the personal relationship between a person and the Holy Spirit by using Thomas and White Light was amazing. It blew my mind and inspired me and solidified my decision to put more thought into my books. To put more emotional depth into them, make my themes more prominent and maybe even get to explore and show my relationship with God in creative and interesting ways just like Nadine Brandes did in Fawkes.

So what I'm saying is, theme is important. I've always known that but it didn't really sink in until now I think. I'm excited to continue to teach myself how to get better at this new side of writing this year. In the beginning of 2018, I was big into character arcs and how to flesh out casts of characters. I've had a hard time with that too over the years and it really clicked for me in 2018. Last year was a year for figuring out character growth, arcs and flesh out three dimensional side characters and antagonists without just putting all my effort into only the protagonist. This year is going to be me going one step further and giving my character's stories meaning and purpose. To make them more personal.

I've wanted to use my gift of writing to share my faith and themes like forgiveness, sacrifice, and love for a long time but I've always had a hard time with that for some reason. I've felt like if I'm not writing explicit Christian fiction, like that is totally Christian, then I'm not using my gift to further the Kingdom or to share my faith. But as I wrote Second Star, am writing Badger's story and read Fawkes, I realized (and I've been slowly realizing and processing this for most of last year) that I don't need to write in the Christian genre for my books to bring hope and light to others. My fantasy and science fiction books can share my faith and my hope without them being explicitly Christian. I just have to be more creative about how to weave it into my stories and I think that'll be a fun challenge to figure out how to do that this year.

So yeah, that's kind of what's been on my mind a lot. Also, if you haven't noticed already, I am in love with Fawkes! It is definitely deserves all the hype its getting so you should totally go and read it. You won't be disappointed.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!

(I also didn't post two chapters of Hunter's Heritage on Wattpad last Saturday because of family stuff, but I will this Saturday. Promise!).

(Also, I have a new Facebook page that you should check out and like too: Facebook )

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