Writing War Journal, Day 30

Any way you cut it, it’s been a month.

I tried the hail mary option, trying to solicit some advice, but the more I thought about why it was a dilema, the more I realized that I just had to face the facts and admit that I’d taken the wrong track.

My original motivation for taking the path I did was that as I drew up to 50K, I was realizing that this was just the first act. It had become a much larger story in the process of extracting it. I thought that I could just write a second act and be done with it, but the reality was that the book changed tone, perspective and pacing drastically when I tried to do that. It really just lost everything that I thought was good about the first act.

So I saved a backup of my previous version, trimmed away the act two I had started for use in later iterations, and pared it down to just the first act. I’m now reworking the end of that first act to have it wrap up with an opening for a sequel. Which galls me a little. I didn’t want to write a series. I wanted a self contained story. But I think it’s the only way it would really work at this point. I imagine this is how the Song of Ice and Fire or Wheel of Time series started out. “Really, it seemed like such a simple idea when I started…”


Current Word Count: 52220
New Words: -14788

Today – Wrote at lunch. May be able to write more while the girlfriend cleans her old apartment tonight.
Tomorrow – Movers are coming to move stuff into storage. Gaming in the evening. Some writing may occur in there.
Sunday – Gaming in the afternoon. Morning will be spent cleaning the apartment.
Monday – No writing at lunch. Hoping to renew gymming if my lungs are better. May be doing more cleaning at the girlfriend’s apartment in the evening, but might get writing in.
Tuesday – Writing at lunch. Appointment in the early evening. Writing aftwards.
Wednesday – Girlfriend is out of town for work. Would like to goof off, should probably write.
Thursday – Writing at lunch. Girlfriend still out of town. Type and gripe in the evening.
Friday – Gym in the evening. Tattoo appointment that evening.
Saturday – Gaming in the afternoon. Should be able to get some writing done in the morning or evening. Also need to get some game prep done.
Sunday – Gaming in the afternoon. Cleaning the apartment beforehand I reckon.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.