Mind In Motion: The writing of Claire Goverts  

Writing works in progress

I'm primarily a novel writer, so this page will focus on my various novels. At some point I may have my poetry and short stories listed, but I'm not sure yet. This is more of a summary page of my novels, as I work on the site more each novel will have its own page with more information.

Some of the descriptions might seem a little boring. It's hard to write to much about novels that are being planned, or still in the first draft stage. When I write my first drafts I still leave things fairly open for character development which in turn drives the plot. So I'll do what I can for now with the descriptions. Also to, I'll update them, this section is a work in progress as I work on my novels more.

Also, the 2 year novel novels are for a class over at Forward Motion for Writers. Lazette Gifford teaches the course for free, and it runs for 2 years.

I wrote the first draft for this early in 2007 (February-May). It started with an idea of writing a romantic story from a man's point of view. For the second draft I decided that the story would be stronger with two point of view characters, and currently I'm fleshing both Jake and Kate out more.

The novel starts out with Jake being encouraged to take a vacation as he's having trouble getting over a bad relationship. He chooses a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains as his vacation spot, planning on some peace and quiet. But along comes Kate, who ends up in the cabin next door and is more friendly then Jake can deal with.

In a land where women are forbidden to use magic, one woman can't keep herself from wondering about the subject. What must it be like to cast spells? Stuck in a job chosen by her family can she find a way to pursue something that interests her?

Yes, I got an idea for a fantasy novel a few months back and it's been growing as more ideas about the world and the characters pop up. So far I've sketched out a few maps, have a general idea on the conflicts, and also the story arc. The main character is growing as all these ideas keep coming together and I'm getting really excited about this novel. Heck, I may make up a language or two for this.

My 2007 Nano (National Novel Writing Month) Novel, I wrote almost 7,000 words on this so far. I didn't do much planning for this before starting in on the draft, what I have thus far is on the rougher side. Pretty much the novel follows three women writers as they struggle with various issues in their lives. They decide to form a writing group, which they have trouble organizing as they can't agree on things.

More and more things have been breaking down on the mining platform, and FMC has to figure out why, and fix the issues. She starts to realize that the issues aren't coincidences and needs to find out who might be behind them before the mining operation is shut down completely.

This is the same general universe as the Asa SF novel and 2007 2yn, though it is a stand alone, not part of a series.

This one started out as a present day novel, with psychological thriller in mind. Then after I got to thinking I realized this would be interesting to do in a futuristic world. Nadia is a network security specialist, and for the course of the novel she's in the midst of trying to stop a hacker that's threatening her network. The network she supports is for some yet undetermined governmental body that keeps track of citizens' identities. This is the same general universe as the Asa SF novel, though it is a stand alone, not part of a series.

This one started out with a vague idea of having a female space pirate as a main character. From there I developed the character some more, and have been working on defining her world some more along with the characters in it. The novel will follow Asa's travels throughout the various planets and her schemes. I also have a law enforcement character in mind who's tracking her down.

The first draft for this one is complete at around 101,000 words. I wrote this for the 2006 National Novel Writing Month, and managed 60,000 words during the month of November. I finished the novel draft the next month and set it aside. This is my first completed novel draft, and for now I'm not sure what I want to do with it. Someday I might go back and revise it after I've had more practice, or I might take the general character ideas and start over. Or I might just never come back to it, and write it off as writing practice.