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A Beautiful Moment

/ Justin Turpen / 1 Comment

A little over a week ago my wife and I welcomed our new son to the world. The experience could not have been better and we are grateful for all the help and support from our family and friends. It’s been an adjustment for us, we have an almost 2-year-old daughter whose routine has been wrecked. The brave girl went to bed with us and woke up with her grandparents. It’s hard to imagine how it probably felt. Despite our best effort, she had no understanding of what was going on, just that mom and dad had left for a few days.

Our fears were that she might be angry or jealous of her brother. He’d be taking a lot of the attention she used to get from us. What ended up happening was beautiful. Her first reaction continues to be her attitude toward the little dude. She hugs, kisses, and tries to soothe him when he’s fussing. It’s been amazing to watch my daughter show love and care for our new son.

It has been quite some time since I’ve posted anything. My last post was way back in March of last year. Here is a brief description of what I’ve been up to.

We sold our house

We bought a house

We moved

And now we have a 2nd kid.

It’s been a whirlwind, but I’ve not given up writing. I’ve continued to meet regularly with my writing group, and while progress has been rather slow, it hasn’t stopped. I’ve outlined and am about 10k words into the first draft of my novel.

Additionally, you may have wondered how submitting Adrift went. I didn’t place, but hey, I finished the story and submitted it! Which is an achievement in and of itself.

Adrift Update #2

/ Justin Turpen / Leave a comment

Word Count: 8913

This second draft is starting to shape up. For context, my first draft was 5,814 words in total and was written in first person from the perspective of my main character. I’d never really tried to write a draft in first person and my lack of experience in it was apparent in review. I’ve now returned to a third-person limited viewpoint and am making ample progress toward finishing the draft.

I’m surprised how, even with a first draft, how much about the story has changed. Some conversations and scenes are not recognizable from the first to the second. A few parts of the first draft simply-put, did not work, and I’ve removed or replaced them since. Do this too many times and you’ve got a whole different story. Adding two new characters also contributes to this.

One of my hopes is that the reader will be able to get lost in the story – like I do when I write it. To me this is a usually a result of great characters, conflict, and beautiful prose. As I comb through what I’ve already written in the second draft, I’ve been editing sentence structure and word choice to uplift my writing. The end result, hopefully, being a polished and complete story. I’m projecting that the ending word count will hit somewhere between 15k and 17k words. This throws it up to the border between novelette and novella.

Once I am finished with edits and revisions with this draft I plan to submit it to the Writers of the Future writing contest. If I overshoot the max wordcount of the competition I may reevaluate my plan.

Thanks for reading!

Adrift Update #1

/ Justin Turpen / Leave a comment

Second Draft Word Count: 3199

My favorite part of writing this second draft is having the opportunity to expand and polish the world my characters live in. The simple way of putting it is that I get to retreat into my mind and try to describe the imaginary world I’ve made for myself. It’s so much fun.

I plan to include a few more characters. A father and a sister.

In the first draft I felt that the protagonist, Sara Emoc, needed a stronger reason for following through on her role in the plot. She had originally been motivated by “just wanting to do the right thing”. It didn’t match up with the stakes of the story. I plan to combine her motivation of wanting to do the right thing with also wanting to honor her Father.

I also felt that the first draft lacked conflict at certain times. The conflict that Sara faced in the first draft was mostly exterior and I wanted to give her more to chew on emotionally. Especially in the earlier part of the story – enter the Sister. The late parts of the story are a bit of whirlwind. I’m eager to rewrite them and expand on the climax and ending.

A crazy idea I’ve been playing with would also change the story drastically. I’m considering adding a second protagonist whose story would run parallel to Sara’s and intersect somewhere in the rising action. This would be a major change. I’ve gone back and forth on wanting to include it in this second draft. The main consequence would be doubling the word count. This would take me out of qualification for the competition I was planning to join. Choices.

That’s it for this first update. If you have any suggestions for what you’d like to know about, feel free to chime in on the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Writing as a Hobby [Almost two years later]

/ Justin Turpen / 2 Comments

20,198 words. The attempt at a novel I referenced in my last post ended with a corner. I had written an outline for the story but a few chapters in I shifted into discovery writing and discovered myself a corner. I’ve heard many authors say that writer’s block can be your subconscious letting you know there is a problem with your story. This was me.

My story was a Hero’s quest. In my mind it was a mixture of the structures found in the Odyssey and The Children of Hurin. In each of the first three chapters the story jumped years forward until it brought us to the first big conflict I had outlined. The whole of the story spanned decades.

These first three chapters I really enjoyed. I had built a world and characters I was proud of and then wrecked their lives like authors enjoy doing. I brought about solid motivation for the protagonist to propel him through the story. I also had strong reasoning and rationality behind the antagonist. But in the end I lost track of why the story gripped me.

In a last ditch effort to save the story I spent months working on, I returned to my outlines and threw out two chapters I had written – confident that I could figure a path forward. I found a path, but it did not excite me like it did when I started. Perhaps I should have pushed through the slog. I didn’t. Instead, I took a five month Hiatus from writing.

I changed careers – from High School History teacher to an Instructional Designer.

My wife gave birth to my daughter.

A pandemic in other parts of the world came to my home.

My parents got Covid.

One of my friends passed away.

An itch in the back of my mind followed me through it all. Write. write. write. I watched Hamilton for the first time when it came to Disney+. I was inspired by “My Shot” and reached out to one of my friends who wrote for a living. He too was looking for a creative outlet and we started what has become my writing group.

I’ve since written a short story and submitted it for competition – an achievement I’m proud of even though I didn’t win.

I’m now working on a longer short story. For a different competition. I’ve completed its first draft and am now working on a polished second draft. Its working title is Adrift and you’ll likely hear about it from me.

That’s the update. I’ve not given up. If you are working toward a similar goal, I hope you won’t either. Every author proceeds the very same way. One word at a time.

Thanks for reading.