No…it’s not as awesome as it appears, but still…

For those of you who read on a regular basis, you’ll notice that my word count just jumkped like 10,000 words in about a week.  Looks great, right?  And don’t get me wrong, I love seeing that little pink meter move further and further to the right.  And I did technically add that many words to the book.  However, most of it was already written.  As I’ve had ideas over the past six or so months, I’ve written them out into very rough drafts right within my outline.  So all it really took to get that 10,000 words was to transfer them from my outline to the manuscript itself.  I did do a lot of polishing — basically what was in my outline was a very very rough draft — so I guess that has to count for something, and all of it was stuff I’ve been really excited about getting in there.  The only downside, I’ve left a few holes.  There is one chapter where I’ve only included a small paragraph giving a general idea of what I want to happen.  Other chapters have an introductory paragraph that is the same.  I just wasn’t up to working out all the intricate details of political intrigue and plot.  Plus, I’m not sure I have it all figured out yet.  So, there you have it.  My amazing 10,000 words in a short space of time.

3,000 words…

In the past few days, I’ve written over 3000 words on book 2.  Even more significant, I’ve gotten past a scene that I haven’t known exactly what to do with.  I finally just knew what needed to be done.  It’s still pretty rough, but at least I know who’s feeling what and how the events got to where I wanted them.  Now I enter the section of the book I only recently decided on.  It’s going to be tricky.  I’ve always known the middle would be.  The beginning almost wrote itself.  The ending I’m actually excited to write (because it explains a lot of unanswered questions — past and present — and really sets up well for the third and final book).  But the middle…the middle is full of building tension, guesses by the main character on what he should do next, and build up to a battle.  The trickiest part is going to be making sure everything plays out in an orderly and logical way.  The characters have to respond to what’s prestened to them in a way that makes sense.  They can’t go off to battle without a good reason.  They must take risks, but only ones that are realistic.  The hero has to struggle.  The relationships between the characters have to grow.  And all that happens in the middle.  I guess I have a lot of work to do.  I’m even tempted to do a real general outline and write the ending first, but who knows…

Dilemma…

As all you regular readers know, I’m working on finishing book 2 before the end of April (when I am having a baby).  I’m finding that I’m a lot pickier doing the first draft of book 2 than I was on the first draft of book 1.  On book 1, the first draft was really really rough.  I mean no proper names, places, and most of the speech tags weren’t even there.  However, because that draft was so rough, it took a ton of revisions to get it right.  Now, with the draft of book 2, I’m trying to get a much better draft the first time.  Because of this, it’s taking longer.  I tend not to write a scene unless I have it all worked out in my head, including making sure it works with what has happened before and what I want to happen after.  This has slowed me down a lot and I’m wondering what to do.  Should I continue to do a better first draft, or should I do more of a free write like I did the first time?  On the one hand, it makes for a lot less revision work.  On the other hand, the story gets down on paper a lot quicker.

Book Review: “The Thief,” “The Queen of Attolia,” and “The King of Attolia,” by Megan Whalen Turner

I know, I know, another book review.  I’ve been enjoying myself lately by reading a lot of books, and these three were ones I really enjoyed.  You know when you finish a book or a series and you can’t stop thinking about the characters?  Well, that’s how this was for me.

The first book (a Newberry Honor book) is about Eugenides, a thief.  It starts with him in prison and where it ends is actually quite surprising and unexpected — and therefore great.  The second book is about Eugenides’ role in a war going on between his kingdom and the neighboring kingdom of Attolia.  I don’t want to say too much more for fear of ruining it for someone.

The last book, and probably my favorite, was really the one that left me thinking about the characters, their motivations, their fears, and their humanity.  It was really good, mixing political intrigue, war, and romance.  The characters acted because of who they were and not becasue Turner wanted a particular result.  Sometimes you wanted to hit them and tell them to get real, suck up, and do what they know they should.  Sometimes you hurt right along with them.  Either way, it was a good book.

Because of the way the third book ends, I assume there is going to be a fourth, and I can’t wait to read that one!