Ragnar & Aryk
Hello World!
Welcome to my writing blog. As I embark on writing my first novel, it seemed might be fun(?) to document some of the journey along the way. I’m sure there will be all kinds of lessons-learned, struggle, and more.
Who am I?
Let’s get the formalities out of the way: Hi, my name is Aryk. No, that’s not a pen name; my parents are just weird. I live at the base of the Rocky Mountains, where I spend a lot of time working at my day job — an aerospace software UX designer — or playing with my puppy, Ragnar.
A Notepad Full of Ideas
I have been keeping a running list of story ideas for a number of years. I’m not saying they’re all gems, but I think one of them might be. Regardless, I decided that 2021 would be the year that I try to do something with them.
I’ve gone back and forth about which of these ideas I should pick. While I have a lot of fear of failure around this particular topic, I’ll forge ahead anyway. I’ve been talked off the ledge a few times by YouTubers who have all reminded me that fear of failure is just part of the process.
My plan is to research and write my novel this year. Considering people write entire novels in November, this seems reasonable. I guess stay tuned here to see how that works out.
First Time Worries
I have a bit of a confession: I don’t write much. As you can imagine, this is a concern for me. It seems a lot of published authors started in fan fiction, college writing classes, etc. None of that is true for me.
Writing experience aside, there are some other hurdles along the way to a finished novel. As mentioned above, I have a puppy who requires quite a lot of time and attention. My day job is also pretty time-and-brain intensive. I think I can work around these, but there are more internal challenges ahead.
Editing while writing is something I do habitually. I know I shouldn’t, but I still do it. Any tips on how to break this habit are very much welcomed. I could also research and plan writing a novel for a whole year. My day job involves a lot of research and analysis, so it comes naturally to me. In the case of writing, it seems to act as an excuse to procrastinate. Expect more on these later.
So, Now What?
I plan on posting on here pretty regularly. Initially, I’ll start with weekly. I expect that I will have a lot to share as I wade into it all. Of course, if I am spending more time blogging than writing my novel, or if topics aren’t coming as easily, I will probably taper off some. My goal is to write around 500 words a day. Considering this is about the length of this blog post, I think this is a reasonable goal. But what do I know?