Writing Act II of my Book: The Struggle is Real

I am in my fourth year of college and soon to go into my fifth year because I have a lot of Senior projects going on. I thought that it would make sense to take an extra year to just focus on my Senior projects as opposed to running myself ragged to graduate Spring 2018. One of those projects is writing the first book in an African-inspired fantasy series. I have had the idea for this story since I was in middle school and now 22 year-old me is writing in hopes of publishing. However, I am starting to get to the point where I am doubting if I can do this and one of the biggest culprits behind that is the dreaded ACT II of my book.

I had a loose plot for my book before and my very first draft was horrible. How do I know?

1. All first drafts are horrible.
2. I started the first draft in middle school and finished it 1 or 2 years ago, meaning that my writing style went on a roller coaster ride.

I knew I needed help, but as much of a multipontentialite that I am,  I did not have time to shove a third major or second minor onto my academic plate. Still, I needed help, so I scoured different blog posts with tips and tricks on how to format your novel, do worldbuilding, and all that jazz. However, I hadn’t found anything that was cohesive enough for me. Don’t get me wrong. I found a lot of great tips and articles. I have a board on Pinterest specifically for writing help and encouragement.

However, I still needed some kind of guide and that’s when I came across Tomi Adeyemi. This girl became a fast hero of mine in fall 2017 when I found her writing course. She was offering a free pre-course on plotting a book that you recieve links to via email. Then, you make a decisison to buy the whole class or not and I am so glad that I decided to purchase the whole class. I would not have gotten as far as I did if I did not take Tomi’s class. If you don’t have time to fit writing courses into you current studies and you really want to invest in your plotting skills, I would recommend that you take her course. It’s a go at your own pace type of thing and you purchase it with one payment. You also have access to the course forever with no recurring fees and there’s a Facebook group of people that are also signed up for the course that feel your plotting pain!😅

Zooming back to the present, I am at the beginning of Act II and trying to build a convincing world. One thing I have been doing is studying other people’s fictional worlds. Some of these include the worlds of Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses series and most recently Tomi Adayemi’s Children of Blood and Bone. I also found this free wonderful worldbuilding guide from Sara Ridley who runs the website Life of A Storyteller. As I’m writing, I’m answering all the questions so that I have a thorough sense of how my world functions. I’m still writing Act II and am trying to remind myself that I am shoveling sand into a pile and that I can build castles later or I could say that this story is geode that I haven’t cracked open yet. Even if you don’t end up signing up for Page Turning Plot from Tomi Adayemi–which I REALLY recommend–, I recommed that you invest in your writing, whether that means purchasing a seat for an online course, checking out a book in the library, or scouring Pinterest boards for links to helpful articles and blog posts. The struggle is real and I have to keep telling you and I that we can do this! (Also, it doesn’t matter  if you’re writing high fantasy or a research paper for second period, we all need a little encouragment!) 😁 Happy writing!