Yes I wrote on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I worte in my paper journal and in all cases did better than nothing and in all but one case did not too bad. On Saturday I thanked the gentleman who gave me the grammar book I use to keep me honest.
I’ve gotten a little off the mark on this plotting thing and I need to get back on, but I’m not going to do that tonight except to brainstorm some thoughts on how I ought to organize those efforts. Maybe it’s too early to start creating a process for my writing style but I’d like to at least consider some guidelines for getting from here to there.
I know I need to limit my time, but I don’t know what amount of time is too little or too great. I don’t have a definitive list of tasks required. Let’s start with that list. Then push on to at least percentages. And then maybe talk overall amounts.
Plot Point Plotting – this is the 4 act structure overview of the story I’ve embraced.
Storyline Plotting – this is the next step of driving a needle through the eyehole of all the beads to get them aligned and positioned. It includes filling in the gaps of the above.
Character Maquettes – I’ve been doing these at 1000 Days for some time now. The idea here is to create a stand alone character description which models his or her traits and emotions. It’s not an inventory of quirks per se.
Writing – Selecting the scenes from the Storyline Plotting phase and writing them bitches up. I expect the bulk of the work to occur here. This is the work I am dreading and have been avoiding with meta like this.
Editing – I’ve got a sense that I ought to anticipate two rounds of editing. I don’t know where I developed this sense. It pays heed to my neophyte skills but doesn’t drag me too far down any ratholes of churn and despair—at least not for too long or too far. More worrisome than the number of edits is the technique of editing. I’m thinking I’ll need a macro effort devoted to whole chapter rewrites and that sort of thing and a micro edit focusing on word choice, sentence flow, and grammar.
Along the way I’d like to use tools like Scrivener, but I’d like to avoid getting used by them. I’d like to avoid getting caught up in the tool and not doing the writing.
424 words on day 701