It got in the way, did real life.
Work on my story or visit with family I see infrequently? Work on my story or attend (and help prep for) my closest friends’ annual thanksgiving before thanksgiving? Gee, I wonder.
I gave myself permission to not think about my story for a couple of days last week. Breaks are good. I spent time on the internet one evening looking up ingredients in modern soap vs. “true” soap. Funny thing is that was actually a bit of research. I need to know more about natural ingredients and plants for my MC. I’m also now using castile soap and my skin seems to like it.
The research got away with me. I made my own hand lotion. It’s research folks!
Eek, is this the 20th? 33,340 would be the goal for today, but I am content to end the day at 20,222, what with hunting the internet for Levi’s 513 that don’t look all pre-worn (looks like it’s e-bay for me). And oh look, it’s past dinner time and I haven’t made anything…
At the last moment this evening I split off some backstory into a separate, but intertwining tale. Oops. Not sure how that is going to effect the whole thing and BOY do I need to do some plotting out now! It's probably better for me to tell backstory from someone's POV anyway and hey, most everything that happens to all the characters is this guy's fault - I shoudl give him a chance to either defend his actions or become a nasty bad guy.
I do feel like things are getting away from me a bit, but I won't complain - this is certainly keeping me entertained!
]]>Words written Tuesday = 0. Corset patterns contemplated = 2.
Wednesday I remembered a fragment of an idea I had written down somewhere and my brain insisted that I find it before writing a single word in my story. I ended up reading several short pieces I had written before. They are pretty good. They made me remember that I can indeed write well. What I am doing now is crap. The only problem is that I don’t think I can write to the quality of the short pieces at the volume I’ve been writing my story. I need to remember that things take effort to turn out well.
I need to think about maps: old maps, treasure maps, maps of hidden things. Who makes these maps? What are they made out of? Why do people hide things in the first place? Why make a map to something that you don’t want anyone to find? I’m at a point where a couple things need to tie in together and I’m going to have to actually WORK it out; it’s not something that is just going to come.
Today (Thurs) I thought up a way to connect a bunch of things (and in doing so discovered somethingelse I need to research - Alchemy - and will probably mean a new, fairly important character). I also discovered a second new character who just walked onto my page and made himself at home. He happens to provide part of the reason my MC will choose a certain path later, and I didn’t even know it until I met him.
I’m at 13,742 (so only one day behind now) and have at least another 1000 words or so in my notes doc that will probably get pasted in the story once I figure out where they go.
]]>I'm at 7361, so I'm about a thousand words behind. I never thought that for someone who always has something to say about almost everything, I'd have a hard time getting it out. I'm not pleased with the story yet. I like the idea of it and the direction, but I don't know the characters anywhere near well enough. I know there aren't any "wow" moments (yet).
So far I'm pretty much writing down the bare bones. First I wrote out a rough outline; I can see that in the end it will be about a third or so of the true outline. Then I started the story pretty much in line. Now I've started jumping around a little, then adding important bits to the outline. I can already feel where I'll go back and flesh out certain areas. I'm pretty sure that there's about a third of the story that I still need to discover. I know there is one character that I have no idea how to write. The direction and end are going to depend largely on how much of her I put directly into the tale. I haven't backed myself into anything yet.
Instead of doing a lot of actual writing today (though I did get about 2000 words in) I did a bunch of research. I've highlighted several places in the text where I need to include some more accurate details and I know basically what I'm looking for. Now that I have a more firm idea of place in my mind I really need to get the names worked out.
Onward!
]]>