The Writing Comes First

G'day dear reader,

       My time, thought and energy is divided equally among the three things I most value in life, my relationship with my wife, my health and my writing. My health took top billing recently (to be the subject of my other blog - if time permits)  and put a dent in the writing, the real writing, the novel; blogging is a luxury.

My self-imposed target was to  finish book 3: Arch, a 180,000 novel,  in one year. That's 3500 words a week.  two weeks ago I spent 3 days in hospital and though I wrote on my laptop,  I end up 1100 words short that week - no time to blog the process.  Last week - catch-up - I'm now 200 words short of  where I should be over all,  now I can blog it.

So where am I, 12,000 words into Arch and all over the place. 

keeping track

Chapter one - done.  Half of the prologue and  a third of chapter 3 and  I'm working on chapter 2.  It should be obvious that the numbers at the end are the chapter's word count - I aim for around 5000 words per chapter - it suits my modus operandi.

The part of chapter three that got done was  because a scene involving POV character (Hyatt - a villain in the sense that he opposes the aims of heroine Rowena) got way too long and was split.

The Jorgena of chapter one is the mother, lover, mother-in-law or grandmother of almost all the important characters (nothing like keeping it in the family)  At the start of Break, she is a mysterious figure but never with a  POV, she almost disappears in Face but will play a pivotal role in Arch; time she spoke up for herself.

Lee (now Lee Proctor and upgraded from acolyte to Server) who I introduced as a  villain to kick off Arch is changing sides.

The process is difficult to describe. I was writing Lee's second scene where he reports to his superior  and was looking for a nifty ending.  A sudden thought had me hitching him to one of  Jorgena's twin daughters who have also been waiting since Break to play a part. Jorgena in chapter 1 mentioned them as traveling so I put them in Lee's home town.

 I had no idea I would do this until it was done.  This is what I mean by a difficult to describe process - as Forrest Gump would say - it happens.  It happens as I write it, arising spontaneously from a restless mind in tune with the created world  and its characters - I think? 

However the twins are Sarah and Lisa and I paired him with Sarah. So now I have a couple called Sarah and Lee which is no better than Lisa and Lee (I did Roden and Rowena in Face, another same first letter double act  is one too many)  Methinks Lee needs a new first name - principle of  last on first off.

I have also give Sarah a POV (I have in my sketchy overall plan a sacrificial role for one of the twins - which is as yet undecided).

Who knows what will have happened by my next blog?  I don't - yet.

Ooroo