Thoughts while drafting
By the end of the month, I will finish the first draft of one of my POV characters’ scenes, from the opening scene to the denouement. (One of three POVs, so the first draft will be 1/3 complete. Think writing Jules’ and Vincent’s briefcase arc, from Royale with Cheese to the final diner scene, and leaving the Marsellus Wallace’s Wife and The Gold Watch arc scenes for later. Though my book is not quite that non-linear.
April 2023 in writing
In April, I finished my outline for Book 1.
Detailed outline I weaved the rough scene list into ordered chapters and expanded the one-sentence description by specifying
location; season; the list of characters; a general summary of what happens; the ideas and questions I have for the scene; (sometimes) the scene – goal, conflict, and setback; (sometimes) the sequel – reaction, dilemma, and decision; (sometimes) the hook and cliffhanger. While writing those scene details, I identified and fixed a number of serious problems with the story.
iPhone Detox
With only a couple exceptions, my phone has been sitting on a shelf in my office for the past week, and I’m pretty happy about it.
Compared to the many hours of screen time I’d been racking up previously, I’m barely using my phone now. I’d like to see how long I can keep this up.
Background Previously, I noticed how doomscrolling news and social media coincided with my mood spiraling downward.
March 2023 in writing
In March, I realized I had been overly ambitious trying to outline all 3 books before drafting. I found myself struggling with Books 2 and 3 because my grasp of Book 1 wasn’t yet solid enough.
Rock bottom I had two problematic arcs that just weren’t working.
The Last of Us Podcast reminded me about characters needing to hit rock bottom before the climax. Not just some hardship; rock fucking bottom.
February 2023 in writing
I largely spent the first half of February continuing to garden my Obsidian project, and the second half delving into outlining books 1 and 2 of the trilogy.
I’m readjusting my time estimates: ideally I finish the scene weave of all 3 books by the end of March or early April, and I can switch to drafting.
Stats My Obsidian project now looks like:
Manuscript markdown files: 11 Manuscript words: 5875 Total markdown files: 314 Total words: 103785 I wrote a python script that discards symbol-only words (like # or ## from markdown headers or - from markdown lists) from the wordcount.