Not Quite One Third Plot-wise

I lied.

First of all, I haven’t been sticking to my writing schedule. Or at least I’m not sticking to it EXACTLY. See, I had a lot going on last week…in fact, today is my first full day of work at my office since the end of May. I ended up taking last Friday off and had HOURS that I could’ve written something.

Instead, I took a nap. Unintentionally.

See, I thought I was at “that point” in the book where I was ready to bring all the plot points together and start snowballing the whole thing. Last Friday was supposed to be the day that I began that chapter. The only problem was, I had no idea what I was going to write. It turns out that the book was nowhere near where I thought it was. I have this thing in my head, I guess you could call it a defense mechanism of sorts, where I play out a book from beginning to end. Then, when it comes time to actually write it, I don’t want to. I want to move on. I feel like I’ve already done it.

So, the second way I lied is by saying the book is a third of the way done. It’s not even close. I sat down on the couch last Friday and went over all the characters in my book (in between games of solitaire on my Kindle and actual napping), figuring out where they are now and what their destinations are by the end of the book. I realized I have some more development to do before the plotlines coalesce.

So I spent an hour outlining almost the entire book in a two-page summary.

Then, through a comical series of printer ink mishaps, eBay issues, forgetfulness, and general frustration, I ended up skipping library time and hating myself all weekend.

The good news is that I wrote yesterday, nearly 5 pages hand-written, and I’m following my new outline to the letter. I’m now writing chapter 9 and it looks like everything will come together in chapter 13…so even though I’m a third of the way through in page count (approximately), it looks like the climax of the book may actually happen at the halfway point. Seems appropriate.

And the book FEELS better now than it did before. All the foreshadowing leads somewhere. All the characters have a purpose.

It just sucks that I’m so impatient…I’ve already got the opening line to a new book in the back of my head…

 

One Third into Book #3

Book #3 is officially over 100 pages now. Finished chapter 8 yesterday. Word count is just under 23,500. That puts me one-third of the way to the finish line. More or less.

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m basing my book’s progress strictly on word count or page count, because that would be ludicrous and arbitrary. I’m only ludicrous and arbitrary in my normal day-to-day dealings (such as parenting, or driving, or mowing the lawn). Writing is much more serious to me.

No, I know I’m a third of the way through because chapter 8 was the last “set-up” chapter. I’ve established the setting and my main characters. I’ve created an introductory conflict and some inner turmoil. I’ve dropped in some background info that puts some other characters’ motives into question. The next chapter begins phase two where everything ramps up.

I’ve been playing with a new structure (new to me, at least) on this project. See, I basically have two protagonists that, so far, have been following parallel paths with their own problems. My narrative voice has alternated between the guy on odd chapters and the girl on even chapters. The narration is third person and doesn’t skew specifically to one character or another, but the story follows either the guy or the girl. It’s been an interesting experiment. I’ve noticed that the guy chapters move faster for me and have a lot more going on. The girl chapters are slower and more emotional. This has nothing to do with my ability to write female characters (which I think I’m rather capable of doing), but more about what’s going on in their lives.

With chapter 9 (or 10 at the latest), I merge the two storylines. From there, I’ll be able to focus on either (or both) of the protagonists as well as turning the narrative onto two of the supporting characters. I’d turn the narrative onto the protagonist too, but aside from a minor character who acts as a conflict catalyst, the book’s protagonist is really the setting itself and the circumstances that setting has caused for the characters. There’s also a Macguffin thrown in there that swirls everything up for the cast.

It’s all so meta, huh?

On a scheduling front, I’ve finally managed to make Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays my writing days…2-3 hours after work on each day. A bit of structure always helps and sometimes forces me to write when I don’t really want to. Poor me.

As for book #2: I’m waiting. My agents have the updated manuscript and are, hopefully, reading it now. Fingers crossed that it moves forward…