I knew my original goal schedule was too optimistic. Silas was supposed to be in Panama City by September 15th, he arrived there October 14th. One month behind. So, a revised schedule:
November 13th: Silas arrives in San Francisco
December 20th: First Draft complete.
I can then take a break over the Christmas holidays, prepare for my job related annual recurrent training, then get into the Great Rewrite.
With regards to Silas getting to San Francisco, I'm pretty confident of makiing the revised goal schedule because there are only a few significant events planned for that leg of the voyage. After that, though, the entire wind-up crescendo of the novel takes place as all the elements I've created come to the Gold Rush for the final conflict and conclusion.
On the one hand its going to be a big chunk of writing, on the other I'm thinking it might go pretty fast because I've been looking forward to writing it. I have an ending planned which I believe will be a good one.
We'll see.
For now, I need to get him to San Francisco.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Writing While Hunting
I'm back from a five day deer hunting trip in Eastern Washington. I threw my laptop in the camper because I figured there might be slow times in camp around mid-day.
One day another hunter suggested going to a hillside to watch the river bottom, later in the afternoon another hunter in our group would be pushing the river bottom cover and we on the hillside would be in position.
We got there pretty early, so I set up a camp chair I had brought, an Alaskan Amber, the laptop and my rifle. I then opened up the Secret Project and got in a pretty good two hour writing session while occasionally having a good look around. As it was getting close to the push time I then closed everything up, including the chair, and hunkered down to put all my attention on the deer hunting.
No deer that evening, but I got Silas to Panama City.
If I ever classify these posts this one will be under "multitasking".
One day another hunter suggested going to a hillside to watch the river bottom, later in the afternoon another hunter in our group would be pushing the river bottom cover and we on the hillside would be in position.
We got there pretty early, so I set up a camp chair I had brought, an Alaskan Amber, the laptop and my rifle. I then opened up the Secret Project and got in a pretty good two hour writing session while occasionally having a good look around. As it was getting close to the push time I then closed everything up, including the chair, and hunkered down to put all my attention on the deer hunting.
No deer that evening, but I got Silas to Panama City.
If I ever classify these posts this one will be under "multitasking".
Saturday, October 6, 2007
A Month Behind the Goal Schedule
According to my previously blogged, wildly optimistic goal schedule whereby I would complete the novel in one year I am pretty much one month behind.
Silas was supposed to arrive in Panama by September 15th, it is now October 6th and he's northbound off the coast of Peru. I'll be on a hunting trip on October 15th so my new, reality adjusted sub-goal is to get him to Panama by October 11th, the last available writing day before the hunting trip.
Silas was supposed to arrive in Panama by September 15th, it is now October 6th and he's northbound off the coast of Peru. I'll be on a hunting trip on October 15th so my new, reality adjusted sub-goal is to get him to Panama by October 11th, the last available writing day before the hunting trip.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Block Removed, Wind on the Quarter
Word count is 137,800.
Silas and the good ship Progress are around Cape Horn and sailing north for warmer, calmer seas and a port call, although the protagonist and supporting cast don't know it yet, in Panama.
I've really struggled with the sea voyage part of the book and it has forced me to so some hard thinking about what is going on. I realized, and this should be no surprise to anyone who has taken a Lit class, that the most important thing is not an endless series of really cool, highly entertaining scenes - although that doubtless helps any story that has hopes of being published.
No, the most important thing must be what happens to the character, how he reacts, learns and grows through all the different experiences that the reader watches him go through. I sat back and thought about Silas, the story, the events, the other characters, and where I was going with it all as the author. I came to a pretty good understanding of what was going on in my own novel and in the life of my own character, and once I saw that I found that I could press forward with the sea voyage. The sea voyage itself wasn't that important, its how the voyage affects Silas that is important.
Once I figured that out I could write the voyage and the words started to flow again. I'm not worried (much) about the voyage being boring (which in reality is day after day of crawling across the ocean) because things are happening to and inside the main character.
Of course, realizing these things and being able, as a writer, to put them down effectively on paper so as to make a good story are two different things. I can draw up a pretty damn good pass play on paper, but with my wrecked right arm I'd have a hell of a time trying to complete it against the Colt's defense. We'll see if I can execute the game plan.
On a somewhat different note, I was discussing the word count with my wife, SFF, my Ideal Reader. Fans of the blog (both of you or the one of you) may recall that I was concerned about it getting too long for it to have a reasonable chance of being published. SFF's previous sage advice had been to just let the story go where it wanted to, the heck with the word count, and we'd see what happens.
Anyway, in discussing the word count she made an offhand comment the other day that I found remarkably encouraging. She said, "Well, regardless of the word count it doesn't READ like its long."
That has to be a good thing, right?
My pendulum is swinging towards optimistic at the moment.
Silas and the good ship Progress are around Cape Horn and sailing north for warmer, calmer seas and a port call, although the protagonist and supporting cast don't know it yet, in Panama.
I've really struggled with the sea voyage part of the book and it has forced me to so some hard thinking about what is going on. I realized, and this should be no surprise to anyone who has taken a Lit class, that the most important thing is not an endless series of really cool, highly entertaining scenes - although that doubtless helps any story that has hopes of being published.
No, the most important thing must be what happens to the character, how he reacts, learns and grows through all the different experiences that the reader watches him go through. I sat back and thought about Silas, the story, the events, the other characters, and where I was going with it all as the author. I came to a pretty good understanding of what was going on in my own novel and in the life of my own character, and once I saw that I found that I could press forward with the sea voyage. The sea voyage itself wasn't that important, its how the voyage affects Silas that is important.
Once I figured that out I could write the voyage and the words started to flow again. I'm not worried (much) about the voyage being boring (which in reality is day after day of crawling across the ocean) because things are happening to and inside the main character.
Of course, realizing these things and being able, as a writer, to put them down effectively on paper so as to make a good story are two different things. I can draw up a pretty damn good pass play on paper, but with my wrecked right arm I'd have a hell of a time trying to complete it against the Colt's defense. We'll see if I can execute the game plan.
On a somewhat different note, I was discussing the word count with my wife, SFF, my Ideal Reader. Fans of the blog (both of you or the one of you) may recall that I was concerned about it getting too long for it to have a reasonable chance of being published. SFF's previous sage advice had been to just let the story go where it wanted to, the heck with the word count, and we'd see what happens.
Anyway, in discussing the word count she made an offhand comment the other day that I found remarkably encouraging. She said, "Well, regardless of the word count it doesn't READ like its long."
That has to be a good thing, right?
My pendulum is swinging towards optimistic at the moment.
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