Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Marathon, day...whatever

I'm behind.  (What else is new?)

Sunday night I didn't finish chapter 22.  Monday I didn't either.  I didn't get any words on Monday at all.  But!  I was up quite late hashing some things out with DH and I discovered 2 things: A) I actually have a lot of underlying reasons/motivations for stuff that happens in the book, even if I didn't plan it that way.  So, yay!  And 2) I figured out kinda how I wanted the blank stuff in 22 to go, which was a big breakthrough 'cause I'd been massively writer's blocked on it but I couldn't really move forward without it.

Yesterday I did get 22 finished.  And I spent quite a bit of time organizing the remaining Act III chapters and I think that's pretty much set now (still have to finalize the chapters themselves, though).  I'd been moving scenes around trying to find the best division of wordcount and "cliffhangers"/breaking points.  Should this scene go at the end of 24, or the beginning of 25?  That kind of stuff.  But I think I've got that worked out now.  Only thing is, that opened up about another 1K to write for 23 - which is leading up to the "big night" - and left about 2K in the newly created chapter 27 to be filled in.  24, 25, and 26 are pretty much there, just need to be smoothed in.

I have to decide how much revision I'm going to do on the old chunks.  Some are slated for massive rewrites but I've known that for a long time.  Maybe I should do that as I go along, but it would eat up major time.  Part of me says just do what's necessary to tie it in to the overall current storyline, insert it, and move forward with the stuff I need to do to have a complete MS.  The rewrites can be done during - gasp! - rewrites.  *g*

So today I hope to finish 23 and smooth as much as I can from the remaining Act III chapters.  If I can work on 27 too, that would be great, but I don't know how that will go.

I've decided "endcapping" (getting up a little early, and staying up a little late to work in two sessions) doesn't work as well as well for me as one big session.  So depending on how much I get done during the day today, I might go to bed after Little Boy goes down and get up right at 5 am tomorrow to get a solid freshly-awake 2 hours in before work.  We'll see.  I've been skimping on sleep lately so I'm due for a catch-up night anyway.

Oh, FYI: I have closed entries for the guess-the-wordcount contest!  I want to keep updating and that would give late entries unfair advantage.  (I suppose if you had a guess and have been meaning to enter I'll give you one last chance.  E-mail me here and let me know before 5 pm EST today.)  Those of you who've entered, don't despair yet if you see me overshoot your guess.  There is stuff to be cut as well as written.  Nothing's final until it's, well...final.  *g*

2 comments:

NBB said...

Congrats on making so much progress. I bet you're feeling better now :)

And if you ask me, you can stop writing right there. 102,567 is a good number ;)

NBB said...
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