Yes, I have made some progress since my last progress report. I’ll admit though, it’s been slow going. Here’s a tweet from last week that captures my feelings nicely:

I'm starting to think that thrashing around with the plot for two months in the middle of a first draft is JUST THE WAY IT'S DONE THESE DAYS.
It's become all too familiar.
Sigh.

— Linda Nagata (@LindaNagata) June 2, 2018

As of today, I’m around 62,000 words into the initial draft of book 2 in a duology of novels. I’m hoping that this means I’m around 2/3 done with it. Over the past few weeks, a lot of time has gone into visualizing the next section, trying to figure out how to present it while giving all the characters their proper time on the page as well as meaningful roles within the plot.

An interesting breakthrough came a few nights ago, I woke up at 1am and lay awake for a while thinking about things. I ended up jotting down a few new approaches that have proved to be quite helpful. Implementing these ideas meant dropping back in the manuscript and adding new scenes and sections. I’m still working on that, but I hope to be moving into new territory again in another day or two. And then maybe a sprint to the end? I hope so!

Some writers love first drafts and hate revising. Other writers, like me, are much happier once we have a solid draft down. I’m looking forward to the revision stage.

Posted on: Sunday, June 10th, 2018 at 2:58 pm
Categories: Writing.
Tags: progress report