Protector

Daily Writing Check-in: June 4, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 33 minutes working on pre-writing for Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy.

I started to outline the story, thinking I’d make it a broad outline. That turned into more like my normal type of outline though, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s going. However, I have now become aware that I have a sub-plot that isn’t related enough to the main plot. I figured it fit in there simply because the book that precedes it, “Protector,” had both of these plots too. But in that book, the sub-plot tied very well into the main plot. Now that sub-plot is the main plot of the next book, and the main plot of “Protector” goes a whole other direction, and isn’t a very connected sub-plot. So I am going to have to decide if I can make that work or need to scrap this sub-plot.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 1, 2019

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Words/Time:  58 minutes working on pre-writing for Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy.

I continued the character interview that I started yesterday with 6 of the most prominent characters that will be in that book. We mostly discussed where each of them left off in “Protector,” which has so far also included the next action each of them will take, which will lead into the book that I’m planning.

Daily Writing Check-in: May 31, 2019

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Words/Time:  39 minutes working on goal #1 in my new short-list of writing goals.

1. Plan Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy – Though I have always thought of this conclusion book as being something I’d hold off on working on until much later, the ideas for what should be in this book have just been flowing in the last several weeks. So I’m going to start with some broad planning, and either come up with an outline, or at least a solid list of plot points for now

2. Final revision of “Pithea” – All of my writing goals this year have been for one final goal: to know what, if any changes, future book drafts may force in “Pithea,” so I can get those things changed now, before attempting to publish this book again. I want to make sure it’s exactly what it needs to be, as book 1 in this series of books. I do have a list of things that I want to change–nothing huge–and goal #1 in this list could prompt more. So after that book has a semi-solid plan, I will do what will hopefully be a final revision to “Pithea”, at least regarding changes prompted by me, rather than by someone else like an editor, and look into publishing options.

I started on #1 today, which first entailed writing out broad strokes of ideas I have for this book. Then I decided that it was time for the mother of all character interviews. I’m bringing in all of the characters that will have the largest roles in this book to discuss where they left off in the previous book (“Protector”) and then where they’ll go from there.

goal tracker 19-5-31

After a very light March and barely managing to win Camp NaNoWriMo in April with a goal of 30 minutes average per day, surpassing my goal of an average of 1 hour writing work per day in May was really nice. Here’s to an equally productive June!

Daily Writing Check-in: May 30, 2019

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Words/Time:  2 hours, 6 minutes finishing the outline of “Protector.”

As it turns out, there is a place for the formal outline style in my life. Though it didn’t work out for me in the past when outlining a story, it worked quite well for this one. Though I have outlined the story in Scrivener as well, that’s mostly because I already have a draft written, and will keep maybe 2/3 of it, so the already-written text can be sorted by scene there. But over the last couple of days, I started making a formal outline of this story as I tried to understand how the scenes would flow best, and it worked wonders.

I spent a lot of time getting this just right today, and marking the places that will need a new scene, or will need a lot added to an existing scene. There are still many other scenes that will need some revision (well, probably all of them to some degree), but that’s a job for another day.

For now, I have finished #5 on my list of writing goals that I put forth on Feb. 4th!

1. Outline “Outcast” – Time spent: 12 days (total of 8 hours, 32 minutes worked)

2. Outline “Unexpectedly” – Time spent: 7 days (total of 7 hours, 36 minutes worked)

3. Re-outline “The Seeger Book” – Time spent: 26 days (total of 20 hours, 39 minutes worked)

4. Re-outline “Vin” – Time spent: 16 days (total of 18 hours, 3 minutes worked)

5. Re-outline “Protector” – Time spent: 14 days (total of 13 hours, 56 minutes worked)

I already know what my next 2 goals will be, and I’ll re-evaluate after that. I’ll post those tomorrow though.

(I went through and added approximately how many actual hours I put into each goal, because I knew that some days I worked longer than others, and was curious about how much time was actually spent on each task. Most interesting to me is that the work on “The Seeger Book” was only about 2 1/2 hours longer than the work on “Vin,” but it took 10 more days.)

Daily Writing Check-in: May 29, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 27 minutes doing preliminary work for the new outline of “Protector.”

After posting about how uncertain I was about the way this work was going yesterday, I thought about what I said near the end of the post. I then came to the decision that I did have the wrong plot as the main plot. So I’ve changed some things up in my mind, and while the climax for the book that I have so far is not for the main plot, I think I can add another climax that will be for the main plot. And I even think I can downplay the climax I have so that it doesn’t overshadow the climax for the main plot that I will still need to write. I think.

Today’s time was spent continuing to sort through the scenes, adding in new ones that will need written, and moving some around so that they flow better. I’m still doing a lot of staring and thinking, but I feel like I’m understanding better as I go now. I’m really looking forward to the revision of this book, but I know it will be far down on a list of goals after I finish the current list.

I also started to put events into my timeline for all of the Pithea books, because I realized that some things were really skewed. I am considering cutting out about 2 years of time in this book.

Daily Writing Check-in: May 28, 2019

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Words/Time:  59 minutes doing preliminary work for the new outline of “Protector.”

I anticipated it being difficult to try to sort through the scenes in the first draft and decide what was extemporaneous to what the story became and needed to be cut. But I had no idea how difficult it would be. I did a lot of staring and thinking today, and trying to come up with how to even sort through the scenes and figure out how to make the story flow without some scenes that I think might need cut. I fear I’m losing too much, but that if I keep some of this just to make it flow better, it will make the real purpose of the story drag.

So I guess I need to decide how important it is for the plot thread that continues from “Pursuit of Power” into this book to be the main plot. But if it’s not, then the climax is not actually related to the main plot…which I’m sure is a literary no-no.

Today’s post is probably more rambly and confusing than normal. That’s because I’m so confused.

Daily Writing Check-in: May 27, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 30 minutes doing preliminary work for the new outline of “Protector.”

I finished reading the first draft, making a few small changes along the way. Then I had to analyze the best way to proceed with sorting out which scenes can be kept and which are not related to the main plot, or an important-enough sub-plot and have to be cut. The way this story is laid out makes it difficult to wrap my head around some of this, so I decided the next step is to actually put the scenes into chronological order. That will help me a lot later anyway, because I’ll need to put this story into my timeline of all of the Pithea books at some point anyway (probably before I’m done re-outlining it).

The scenes are now in chronological order, so tomorrow I’ll start color-coding them by plot/sub-plot.

A Monday Moment: Explosion

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Monday Moment

The door was slightly open when he reached it, so he slowed his approach. It had been two weeks since he’d last been to the apartment, and he really hoped he hadn’t left it unlocked and open for two weeks. What sort of creatures might have ventured into the warm environment?

As he touched the door handle, he had a thought—why had no one going by seen the open door and decided to close it? That was exactly the kind of community he—

A ball of fire erupted from the doorway as soon as he pulled on the handle. He was sent flying back and landed on the other side of the dirt road.

He heard shouting and running. The building was on fire! It would spread to the other buildings if they didn’t put it out. He tried to get up to help. He felt a pair of hands on him, keeping him down.

He tried to speak—to insist that he be allowed up.

“You need to stay still,” the familiar voice of one of his neighbors said.

As he lay there, unable to move or speak, and not able to narrow down where the pain was actually originating, he saw a man. The man was not running around or shouting like those around him. He was staring at Nathan. He looked angry.

“There, that man, someone needs to apprehend him,” Nathan attempted to say. He only managed to cough, which sent new waves of pain through his body.

“Nathan, stop moving,” his neighbor instructed. “A medic is on the way.”

When Nathan looked again, the man was walking away. He noted the insignia on the man’s sleeve—the mark of Grouca. The king would not be pleased.

Prompt used: Your house explodes just as you were about to enter the door.

Daily Writing Check-in: May 26, 2019

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Words/Time:  52 minutes doing preliminary work for the new outline of “Protector” and 239 words of writing practice with a prompt.

I continued reading the first draft, making a few small changes along the way. I’m on page 154 out of 170 of this read-through. I’ve also been writing down notes of things that will need revised later, when I get to that point. But first, I’ll have to decide what to keep and what needs to go…and before that, I just need to get through the first draft.

Daily Writing Check-in: May 25, 2019

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Words/Time:  2 hours doing preliminary work for the new outline of “Protector”.

I continued reading the first draft, making a few small changes along the way. I’m on page 127 out of 171 of this read-through. I feel like the reading of this first draft is taking me longer than it did on the other goals in my current list. I don’t know if that’s true, or just how it feels. If it is true, the only reason I can think might be causing it is that I’m moving text around as I go, to put it in the order that I decided scenes should go (I wrote a lot of them out of order), and in the process, still deciding the order. That’s slowing me down, but I didn’t think it was that much.