Halfway there Writers

This is Writing Quests’ Official Newsletter.

We are halfway there!! How are we feeling? Here are some quick Tips for getting through this week’s Novel Quest Goals.

Are you a pantser who often finds themselves a bit lost when writing? Before your writing session, take 5-10 minutes to think of scenes or scene developments that strike your fancy. Jot them down. Now write!

Do you respond well to rewards? Do you like dark chocolate? Reward yourself with one piece of dark chocolate IF/WHEN you manage to put together two solid hours of writing on your novel.

Try to end your writing session in the middle of a scene rather than at the end. You’ll find it much easier to dive back into the scene in your next writing session vs. just starting a new scene on a blank page.

Who are you interviewing this year?

We have a full schedule of authors we are excited for you to meet.

Margo Margan | November 9, 11am central time

Watch her interview here:

Preferred Pronouns: She/ Her

Website: https://boardgamesmargomargan.wordpress.com/

The CroXdome Fandom Community Discord https://discord.gg/u9w2JG99Da

The Game Crafter Designer Page - https://www.thegamecrafter.com/designers/margo-margan

Brief Bio: Margo Margan is a freelance copywriter and columnist. As a hobby, she produces fiction of various forms, including short stories, comics, TV scripts, and tabletop roleplay modules. However, she hopes to take her fiction writing to the next level in the near future with her soon-to-be-self-published novella IVY. She is also an indie tabletop game designer. Her most notable title is the accolade-winning CroXcards, a strategy board game mixed with trading card game elements, featuring playable characters from her vast library of creative work.

Kalen Williamson | November 16, 11am central time

Preferred Pronouns: She/ Her

killerkalen everywhere (insta, facebook, tiktok)

kalenwilliamson.com

Kalen Williamson collects Funko Pop villains and is a villain advocate. Not for the evil ones, just the gray ones who need a bit of help. She published Tumultuous Twenties, an anthology about the twists and turns of life in your twenties. She’s also been published in Campfire Stories and Dream Catchers. When she isn’t writing, she’s teaching others how to write fiction. She also runs a newsletter that offers sneak peeks of her upcoming books (two new books will be released in 2026), author interviews, and pop culture commentary. Sign up at kalenwilliamson.com.

Her live stream link:

Isaac (Pufferfish Writing) | November 19, 6pm central time

Preferred Pronouns: He/Him

Social Medias: https://www.youtube.com/@PufferfishWriting

Hello! My name is Isaac, and I am a writer based in the US. I have always been passionate about music, writing, and worldbuilding, and I hope to become a published author someday. I have been working on my current project for nearly two years, and I hope to complete it by the end of November.

His live stream link: https://youtube.com/live/NJDC7OokxwM?feature=share

Check out our next newsletter to find out more about who we are interviewing next…

We are seeking volunteers to help with the Questy development. In particular, it would be helpful to find individuals with skills/experience/interest in

• php/Symphony dev

• React web

• UI and UX

We are on a journey to create a flexible writing progress tracker (Questy) that will have some nice features, including:

• supporting common Quests (defined writing challenges)

• supporting individual projects of different formats (novels, series, plays, short stories, etc)

• supporting some community communication capabilities, beginning with buddies

• supporting community/buddy progress tracking graphs (similar to what NaNo Faces provided when it was active).

You can read more about the project at GitHub (especially see our plans on our wiki).

Congratulations! You have made it halfway through Novel Quest. No matter how close or far you are to your goal, the fact that you are still working towards it is an accomplishment. Every new page, paragraph, or sentence is progress. They are words on a page that did not exist previously.

At this point in the month, you may feel the Messy Middles or Mid-Draft Fatigue. The early excitement has likely faded. You may find that your plot is wandering. Maybe you are writing scenes that don’t connect to anything that came before. Maybe your characters stopped moving the story forward. Or scenes feel flat. This stage is normal. Many writers hit a wall during Week Three.

Keep writing. A first draft doesn’t need to be good… or even make sense. It just has to exist. One of the purposes of Novel Quest is to help you develop a consistent writing habit.

There is a famous joke: A tourist is attending a concert in New York City, but gets lost on the way. They spot someone carrying a violin case and ask, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The musician smiles and replies, “Practice, practice, practice!”

Carnegie Hall is one of the most prestigious performance venues in the world. Musicians cannot reach that level without practice. Ten minutes a day is not enough. To be world-class, they must practice with focus and discipline.

Just as musicians must practice daily, writers must build a consistent writing habit. So keep going. You have already proven that you can start. Now prove that you can continue.

Your Quest Guides