Hi there, and welcome to my Noveljutsu blog! My name is Raelyn. I'm a certifiable nerd, an artist who's dabbled in webcomics, and a practitioner of ninjutsu—the martial art of the ninja. More importantly, as far as this blog is concerned, I also write novels—particularly fantasy and science fiction novels.
It's always been a dream of mine to be a published author, and though I've written several books, attended writing conventions, and voraciously absorbed writing advice from my favourite authors, I've never properly taken the next step toward publication. But now I've decided it's finally time to get involved in the writing community and reach out to other writers, which is why I've created Noveljutsu. I hope to share a few of the things I've learned about writing. And a few things I'm still learning along the way.
There are a lot of AuthorTube channels, blogs, and podcasts that teach writing craft, but what I've noticed of many of them is one week they might teach how Stephen King handles one aspect of writing and then the next week dive into worldbuilding with J. R. R. Tokien. There's nothing wrong with learning from the works of highly successful, competent authors, in fact I'd recommend it, but if you're newer to writing, sometimes having completely different authors and genres thrown at you with no single thread to tie them all together can feel like you're trying to build a puzzle with pieces that are all of different colours. Those pieces might still fit together, but it can take a lot of effort to figure out how.
This is why I'll not only be pointing out and discussing other writers I think handle certain parts of the craft well, but, post by post, I'll also show you how I put together one of my own novels. You'll get to watch as my story develops from a tiny embryo of an idea; to a rebellious, teenage first draft, and finally matures into a respectable member of Novel Society.
Hopefully, if I've done it right, the pieces of that puzzle will start to look like they were meant to go together.
As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy martial arts. I have spent years studying it, so I thought it would be fun to use a ranking system here, much like the belting system found in many martial arts. Instead of belts, you can earn pens and work your way up to the coveted black Noveljutsu pen.
These pens are totally imaginary, don't count for anything in the real world, and I can't stop you from claiming you've earned more pens than you have. Don't overthink it. Just have fun with it!
And finally: challenges. I want you to get excited about your own writing and get involved in the community. That means that sometimes I'll issue writing challenges or prompts. You don't have to do the challenges if you don't want to, but participating in these exercises should give your writing muscles a workout.
If you want to share your responses to the challenges, I'd love to see them! If you're feeling brave, you can post them under my YouTube videos, but I know YouTube isn't always the gentlest community for sensitive souls. That’s why I'll also post the transcript for each episode here on my website. Anyone who has a question or wants to share their writing but is wary of posting it on YouTube can comment here instead, and I will try to keep the comments more regulated. I'd love to see this build into a safe, supportive community of writers working together.
For now I plan on updating every other Friday. I'll introduce the topic for the day, discuss some possible ways to approach it in your writing, and when the topic is applicable, I'll show you how I implement that topic in my own novel. I don't plan to hold back with this. I will be offering you specific examples from my own work, spoilers and all. So I hope you're as excited as I am.
Also terrified. I’m very terrified.
If you have any questions, comments, or topics you'd like to suggest for discussion, go ahead and leave them below or on my YouTube videos.
That's it for this post! If you check out my YouTube videos and can stand the sound of my voice, consider subscribing and sharing. See you next time!
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