Yesterday, a couple things went wrong.
First, the writing dragged because I didn’t know where the novel was going. I made it up to 21,843 words — so it wasn’t a complete wreck. But it was not that flowing, flying race against the timer that is so fun.
Second, I chose to get sidetracked figuring out some Amazon ads for Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood.
I did not trip. I did not fall. I made a shitty choice knowing it was a shitty choice, and spent writing time doing non-writing things, and then berated myself for the choice.
Not productive — except it pointed out to me that I absolutely have to have a Provisional Outline to stay on track with this novel.
And in starting to put that together, I found exactly where the story broke yesterday — I was focusing so much on the second conspiracy Cady and friends discovered that I forgot to follow up with the first one.
I’m only thirteen chapters into the thirty-seven I need to outline to get the book into writeable range for “short, tight chapters and 70,000 words”, but with the story summary written (the story summary is what I WANT to write, though not necessarily what I’ll end up with), and with my focus on weaving the two conspiracies and “Newsletter Guy” into the plot, this is coming together in an interesting fashion.
I’ll get back to countable words on Wishbone next Thursday.
Today I’m building the foundation that will make getting them easier.
Added at 12:39 PM — it took me hours, but I got the outline built, and I like where it goes.
I know parts of it will change when I’m writing, but for the moment at least I have figured out specific things I need to accomplish in each chapter — and if I can beat those things with better ideas as I’m getting my words, that’s all to the good.
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