December 29, 2020
Day 85, Week 12
- Words: 40,049
- Chapters: 22
- Point in Book: Just on One Side of the MidPoint
- Ego Size: Gigantic Lima Bean
I’ve decided to write a journal on the writing process: My trials and tribulations, my struggles, my quandaries, my wins. It will keep track of word count, which may increase or decrease depending on where I am in the process (dreading revisions). Total Chapters – same theme as word count. The status of where my characters are in their journey, using Save the Cat! Writes a Novel beats as the timeline. And my ego size that particular day, which could sometimes be so tiny as to be invisible, other times as big as a walnut. Either way, easily crushed. I’m keeping track of my ego size by using various different food items to reflect where it is at on any given day I write a journal entry.
Today is a good day. A giant lima bean is a decent size for an easily crushed ego and I’m feeling particularly good about my latest chapters. All of this will end, of course, once my editor, who is currently right now editing a pivotal chapter, finishes her review and provides the glancing and crushing blows of feedback. To be fair, she always includes positive notes and what went well, what I improved on, etc. But do we really see any of that? No. No, we don’t.
I digress. My ego = squirrel! sometimes. Okay, most times.
This is day 85 on my journey to be a novelist. Not the first 85 days I’ve ever written, but the first 85 I’ve written with an editor looking over my shoulder and pointing out my obvious, glaring, horrific errors. Well, technically, my editor didn’t come into the picture until November 11th, so it’s only been 7 weeks, or 49 days of having someone looking over my shoulder, but does that really matter?! The main point here is that I started this journey 12 weeks ago and it has been harrowing.
Not only have I gone back and forth as to what the midpoint of my book is – and I’m right up on it, people, I should know by now! – but I’ve also determined that I write a lot of schlock, my emotional connection to my character could possibly be further away only if she lived in Antartica, and what I think I know about writing (I actually know a lot) amounts to a hill of beans (Ha! See what I did there? Schlock) when I’m the one authoring the content.
But today, today I feel good about my story. I’ve created a spreadsheet (I LOVE spreadsheets – who doesn’t, right?!) that tracks the character’s goal, path to goal, obstacle to goal and crisis/climax of goal for each of the chapters I’ve either written and need to revise or am writing. This has helped to cut down on a lot of the important-to-me-but-not-to-the-readers dialogue and A to B stage directions the readers (and my editor) really don’t want to slog through. It has also helped me plan the next chapters, except when I start to question my overall outline and where the big climatic fall should be.
I think I’m in a good spot. I hope I’m in a good spot. Am I in a good spot? Who knows. But tomorrow I will continue pounding away at the keyboard (I’m on an old Mac, so it’s actually light tapping) on the next action scenes and we’ll see whether I change the midpoint. I’ve already added a character not appearing anywhere else in the book except in my mind, so who cares if I radically change my book outline?!
I do. My editor maybe does, but only if what I’ve written so far becomes useless and a time waste for her.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. It’s a good day and I’m celebrating.