Work In Progress
Posts about my current work in progress. I’m aiming for spoiler-free information to let you know about my progress.
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I found a timeline tool that’s really helped me. It’s free.
Free is best. And it’s actually really nice to actually lay out the timeline. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts (She’s being rude, but why is she being rude? Tension.) I paused forward motion for a little while to do housekeeping and worldbuilding I didn’t do enough of before starting. (See my last post about…
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Confession time. Pantsing is letting me down.
I discover the story through the writing. Or so I thought. I knew that wasn’t 100% accurate. I imagined pieces of the story – key plot points, big emotional moments, action – before I wrote it. Those are like anchors. But generally I planned to let the characters tell me what they wanted to do.…
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She’s being rude, but why is she being rude? Tension.
A minor character is unexpectedly rude to the main character. I had to figure out why, and doing that let me tie it to the overarching narrative tension.
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Big Writing Day. Huge! Also made notes for future revisions.
Big writing day today after no progress yesterday. I really got into the flow and blew past my targets. It is a great feeling!
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I Hit a Fiction Writing Podcast Today and It Spun Me in Some New Directions
I have not been a podcast listener, but since we’ve hit spring and I need to do yardwork, I’ve supplemented by usual playlist with some fiction writing podcasts. Today I listened to Savannah Gilbo‘s Fiction Writing Made Easy, Episode #240, “10 Writing Mistakes That Make Readers Put Down Your Novel.” I have to say, this…
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First you must build the world. Except I didn’t and now I need to.
Not a lot of forward progress on the draft today, but there was a lot work on the supporting infrastructure. The title isn’t strictly accurate. I have done a lot of world-building with rules and how certain things work. But I needed more. I drew a map of the local community. That’s going to help…
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Missed Yesterday, Will Be Back Today
Sorry to my reader (singular on purpose – but thanks!) but nothing got written yesterday. Today I’m doing some serious background work; I’m working on my outline and getting my timeline right. I’ve added custom metadata to Scrivener to let me identify the month and day for particular scenes. The writing has gotten to the…
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Working on the B-Plot While the A-Plot Simmers
Greetings, fam. Back with another context-free excerpt and writing update. If you tuned in yesterday you know I promised daily updates. So far, so good. I am writing a little later than usual today. It was warm, so I did the first mow of the year. I’m a middle-aged man living in the suburbs, so…
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Work In Progress, Now With 66,000 Words And An Excerpt!
It’s kind of amazing how hard it is to find time to write. I’m on vacation from my actual job right now, and my day still gets eaten up with, well, everyday life. The other day I did my taxes. (Need to change my withholding.) Shopping, picking up cars from the mechanic, everything takes a…