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

Easier done than said.

G'day dear reader

I have surprised and surpassed myself, getting half way through the first chapter in only a couple of days. For professionals my pace would be considered slow. All I can say is it suits me for the moment and as I get back into regular writing it will improve.  As it turned out starting was easier to do than talk about doing. My solution of where to start, was to invent a new enemy to confront my four principles (left at the end of Book 2) as they began their final journey. This  new character is watching them come across the border, in fact has been set to watch for them and knows their histories.  This gave me a great opportunity to fill in the story so far for readers who start with Book 3 "The Arch of Restoration" aka "Arch" 

I chose the name from a book of baby names. (I have  many but the one at left is the one used for this trilogy)  I opened it at random and looked for old English names. The original impetus for old  English came from researching my family tree, I came across a name I wanted to use.  Having started down that road I kept going, mainly for consistency. Character names are important, they come with baggage: gender, ethnicity, culture.  I wanted an homogeneous society.

The page I happened to open this time was in  the Girls section and the first old English name I came across was Lee. I then checked my spreadsheet  to ensure I hadn't already used it.  This is not an unbreakable rule (none are) but I like to keep my main characters distinct. Any 'Point Of View' (POV) character is major.  I found it used for my hero's mother's middle name. - not a problem so I added it to the sheet which records name rank and serial number (all the important details) of each character as I invent them.  

At this stage all Lee has is a first name and a title. The entry will grow with the character.Until now I have avoided using a personal pronoun for Lee. I got the name from the Girls page so I wrote her in as female. The next scene was also from a female POV and the one after that from the POV of two females in the same head. Too many female POV's for this old male to handle.  So I changed Lee to male and rewrote the scene. 

Interestingly the slice of spreadsheet above contains 4 major characters,  all sisters, two of which have been POV Characters - the baby book must not so randomly fall open at  'Girls - L' 

The story continues 

 

   

And so begins Book 3 in theTrilogy

g'day dear reader

The six words below are the culmination of 10 years work ( on and off - in reality, a fair bit off ) That, I would suggest, is part of the writing life - the life part goes on whether you write or not.

Needless to say I went out an celebrated last night and began thinking about how to start book three.

A digression  on working practice and targets.  I work from home as a part time contract web developer. My time is is mine to allocate, so I write in the mornings and, when there is work, develop in the afternoons. I write 6 days a week and have Sunday's off provided I reach my target word count.

My intention for Book 3 (given that it will be about 180,000 words and that I wish to finish in 1 year rather than 10) is to write an average of 500 words a day for 360 days of the year - about 3500 words week ( 6 days of 600 words )  Below is part of the simple spreadsheet I keep to track my progress.

This is the last two weeks i.e. weeks 32 and 33 of 2010, the green figure next to the week,  is the number of words in excess of my target  (only 1700 words a week post recovery - I'm about to double it)  Under target would be highlighted red.  Next is the daily word count and piece worked on. The words of this blog will slot into the empty hole for Saturday,  21 august 2010.   The highlighted day is the three month anniversary of my kidney transplant - this is the life part that often interrupts the intention to write - hospital visits blood test tissue samples etc - and nothing written. 

And so book 3 begins....

Like the previous volumes book 3 ( Arch / The arch of Restoration )  will be divided into two parts. I have specific climatic events planned for each, and a specific end goal but the journey, the actually events and the characters we will meet along the way are as yet a mystery. My biggest problem at the moment is how to start,  much the same problem I had finishing book 2 - in my mind the story line is continuous and yet conventional wisdom and common sense says each volume should stand alone.

Which means book 3 needs a hook and storyline that points to goal but that does not rely on the events in the preceding volumes. What I've decided to do is worry about it later. My need to write to myself imposed deadline/target is paramount and I have plenty to be going on with. What this means in practice is I'll start with  chapter 2 of  book 3 as a continuation of last events in book 2 and insert Chapter 1 and/or a prologue later when I have a grip on the new characters I develop to  populate book 3.

Next the storyline itself  - next post that is.



'ooroo