I didn't write much at all over the weekend and yet I know I was busy the whole time. Well most of it anyway. Time seems to fly by at the moment. At this rate I won't even get my outline finished before NaNoWriMo.

That's not entirely true as the main story is outlined, but the subplots and extras have yet to be added. I might try to get the scenes worked out too, but that might be a step too far. I don't want to end up in the same situation as last year. I hope it goes better this time.

more writing

So now I'm halfway through writing chapter seven outline. I'm trying to do at least one chapter outline per evening and so far it's working out. It would be wonderful to manage ten a week, but that might be pushing it. I get quite tired from just doing a little over one chapter outline as it is.

Still at one a night and six completed, it should take me another 24 nights. That is assuming I end up with thirty chapters. Which means I will be finished before NaNoWriMo starts. Hopefully I'll be able to write about 3000 words per chapter, so the final draft will be about 90000 words.

Also by writing this detailed outline, I should only have to correct for spelling and grammar with perhaps the occasional re-write of a scene or two. But there won't be any problems with changing storylines or characters changing sex at random. At least that's the idea...

Today

I wrote about 1000 words today. Not much and nowhere near my goal, but more than I have written in a while. I have also split my file up into scenes. So that each scene has its own file.

Tonight or tomorrow, I will print out those files and then mix and match the scenes. I know that the story doesn't flow at the moment and due to the changes in the storyline, the timeline is dodgy at best. And I'm still either contradicting myself or still leaving in references to now removed encounters.

It's all a bit confused. I need to sit down and reorder the scenes. Mark out which parts need to be removed or altered that still remain and work out where there still needs new scenes/information added. None of the remaining scenes need to be completely deleted, but the may need a complete re-write.

Some of the conversations still need annotating. Currently that's all there is, talk. No action, no interruptions, just talking heads. Time to add more substance.

So on the writing side, didn't make my goal of 2500 words in a day, but I'm more organized now. Whether that is a good thing (which I think it is) or a bad thing, is still to be seen.

Progress and Posts

I am making progress, but it is very slow at the moment. The upshot of this is that I will not be writing a new post every day. Instead I will update my blog 2-3 times a week, more if I happen to be doing well and when I am in a writing frenzy, then I'll update everyday.

But for the next two weeks or so, things will be quieter. I'm working on my outline and refining my characters, including either renaming or simply naming a couple of them. They aren't actually changing, just getting a cosmetic makeover. A bit like the outline.

Hopefully just before Christmas I will start writing in earnest again.

Writing update

OK, so I'm not very good at actually keeping up with the blog. I have actually been writing, just not writing for here. I think, from now on, I will try to update my blog every Monday at the very least. Whether this happens, is a completely separate matter.

So a writing update...

My one line is done. I don't think much of it, but I'll update as and when I can think of something better. I've managed to write an outline. It's not complete, but it does cover more than half the book. The last section isn't covered yet and I'm not sure at this point if I will cover it at this time. The reason for this is obvious and simple - at least to me - I'm not sure which ending to use.

One option would be to outline all the possible endings. Another, and the one I prefer, is to see how the characters really work out as a group and decide later on which is the best way to go. Then once I have an ending, update my outline and see how it all looks. I'll use the outline to create the synopsis once the book is finished. If that ever happens of course.

So I'm just starting on some character bios and once they are done, I'm just about ready for NaNoWriMo in just under 3 weeks. At least the 1st November falls on a Sunday this year, which means I should get a good number of words in on the first day for a change. I'm hoping for 10,000 words, but anything over the 1,667 will be a bonus.

I've done NaNoWriMo several times already and each time I've won, I wrote my 50,000 words in ten days each time. Once I started on November 20th and still finished well before the midnight deadline on the 30th. This year, however, I'm hoping to take it a bit more seriously and not have 5,000 word descriptions of making a sandwich, which was included in my very first attempt.

This year I really want to have something that I can edit and manipulate into a novel that can be submitted to agents and may even get published. That's my aim.

One other point, I've never been ready this early before. OK I probably just jinxed myself and now I won't actually finished the bios before November, but usually I only start preparing on October 31st. So what I've already done is more than I've ever done before.

"May you live in interesting times"