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November 2024 in writing
Third Draft The third draft is going well.
I had forgotten just how much I had refactored the first POV. I ended up writing a number of completely new scenes. And I ended up throwing out and rewriting most of the words in the existing scenes because a) the structure has changed significantly, b) I’ve focused a bit more on including sensory details, and c) my prose has improved to the point that the existing words were painful to re-read.
October 2024 in writing
Ready or not There’s a lot more I want to do with pre-third-draft worldbuilding, outlining, and planning. But I’ve hit an enthusiasm gap – my productivity has fallen off drastically for a number of reasons, and I know I see a lot of this work as chores and housekeeping rather than creative work.
I decided mid-month that I’m going to get back to editing and drafting come November, whether I’m fully ready or not.
September 2024 in writing
Outlining Draft 3 I massively refactored parts of each POV: removing the first chapter, re-ordering the scenes, and/or changing the first quartile entirely. This removed repetition, resulting in more powerful scenes and a streamlined story.
I almost finished moving the detailed beats from each scene’s metadata to the main outline. This consolidates the beats of the story, allowing for a high level overview in a single file.
Plans for October Finish porting the scene beats to the main outline Add Questions/Promises/Reveals into the main outline Map side character relationships and the arcs’ tension levels as they change throughout the novel, to make sure they make sense Review the outline to make sure the arcs are clear and the beats are in the right order Get started on drafting/editing again Stats Again, the non-manuscript word count is somewhat inflated since I have multiple copies of the outline as I refactor.
August 2024 in writing
Finished Draft 2.5 A little over halfway through the month, I completed draft 2.5! Which I was pretty happy about.
On to Draft 3 I updated my scripts:
I added epub support to my conversion script. I added a script to parse all the Questions, Promises, Reveals, and Goals out of my outline, so I can: spread out the dissemination of information, and ensure I don’t unintentionally leave any questions unanswered.
Draft 2.5 COMPLETE
Just a little more than a year after completing the first draft. A few days, or a couple months, or 8+ months overdue, depending on which of my soft deadlines you go by.
As usual, I found the final climactic scenes of the third POV slower going than the middle scenes, mainly because it’s easier to tell when it’s not working. I rewrote and re-outlined a couple scenes and wrote slower than I wanted to.