The Story My Father Told Me
Hazel Marion
This blog post is a bit delayed because I did not make as much progress as I hoped I would in Week 1. Right now, I am in Week 2 of Genius Hour and I will make a recap post for this week this coming Sunday. I want to start posting weekly on Sundays, recapping my progress for the previous week. During Week 1, I began the outlining process of the novel. This process will be crucial to my success in actually writing the novel, because I need to know what I am writing about. My dad's handwriting in his journal is not easy to read, and I would waste a lot of time trying to write by just reading out of the journal. In short, the outlining process consists of reading through my dad's journal and copying down important events that happen in each chapter. That way, I can skim my dad's journal for specific details, but I also know the major events that happen in each chapter and I won't have to waste time reading the journal. Right now, I am still figuring out a lot of details about this project. I haven't started my goal of 500-1000 words per day yet, because I haven't finished the outlining process. During this week, I did begin writing chapter 1, but I will talk about that more in the Week 2 blog post. With outlining, I am planning on what details to put in each chapter, so I can have a more organized version of the plot. However, the details could definitely change, depending on how long the chapters end up being. Reading my dad's journal and diving back into the story is really exciting for me! I've been feeling lots of nostalgia for my childhood and the great memories that this story brings back. I didn't remember everything that happened in the story when my dad told me and my brother, but reading the journal is like an oh! moment, when I remember something I've forgotten for a long time. So far, I haven't lost any motivation to work on this project yet. I'm actually spending a lot more time on it than I probably should, since working on it is so enjoyable. The biggest issue I've run into with time management is that I wait to work on my novel until after I've finished all of my other work for the day. Because of this, I end up staying up very late at night, and running out of time to do what I want. I think I need to work on the novel during different times throughout the week to see what works best for me and when I can get the max amount of work done. This week, I don't have any sketches because I haven't posted a chapter yet, but here are two pictures of my dad's journal and a page with his handwriting. As you can see, my dad's handwriting is very hard to read! Finally, I have come up with a temporary name for my novel: Prism. The name is based on the main goal of the protagonists in the story, which will be revealed throughout the novel. Stay tuned for Sunday when I post the first chapter of Prism!
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![]() Over the course of 12 weeks, I will be working to write a novel. My novel will be based off of a story my father told me as a child and I will be using his notes to complete it. For the first two weeks of my project, I am going to use his journal to outline the plot of the novel and specific events that I want to happen in different chapters. After the outline is done, I am going to begin writing. I am planning on writing at least 500 words a day, but hopefully more. This story is quite complex and long, so I am not planning on finishing the story in 12 weeks. However, I want to build my motivation and drive to complete this project, since it is something I have been wanting to do for several years now. After the 12 weeks are over, I hope to continue writing until the novel is finished. Each week, I want to update my blog with excerpts from the story that my classmates and teacher can read. The link to the google doc with the final copy of the story will be embedded in the "The Story" page. I will update this google doc weekly for your reading purposes. For now, I have completed the prologue to the story, which gives a short history of one of the characters in the story. With this project, I also want to include drawings my father has done that go along with the story. For each blog post, I will upload a new picture that corresponds to what is happening in the story that week. The first picture that I will be sharing is a map my father drew of the fantasy world where the story takes place. All of the images will be saved to the "media" tab for easy access. Lastly, my dad and I have not come up with a good name for the actual story, or the fantasy land. Right now, the island is known as "Midland," which we think is too close to Middle Earth, from The Lord of the Rings. If anyone can think of any good ideas for the name of the book, or the island, please feel free to share them in the comments!! Thanks for reading! This is so exciting for me and my dad, and I am very happy to be able to share a part of my writing process with this class!!! |
Hazel MarionI am a sophomore at Davie High School, participating in the Genius Hour Project for Mr. Barker's English class. Archives
November 2020
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