The Plague (or More Accurately, Working Thru Plague)

Writing Journal 49 9-15 May 2022

Well, this has been a trying week. Last week, we had Free Comic Book Day, and it was a crazy weekend in my comic book shop. However, in our hubris (and with the weather not participating), we had to scrap all of the outdoor tent stuff we normally use. Meaning that at least a thousand people went through my small store. In a state that no longer has a mask mandate.

Suffice by Tuesday morning my co-worker and myself were feeling a little under the weather. Then we learned a few people came up positive for covid. My co-worker and I got tested–negative–but by Wednesday both of us were coughing so hard that we retested. I stayed negative and my co-worker did not.

Even though I was sick as hell I still had to work as everyone else was pretty much out. The boss worked a day alone. Then I took two days alone, and we made it through for the most part.

I’m feeling better every day but my co-worker is not. I might have to give up my days off, we’ll see what happens, but as of right now. I am free to write this and jump into at least one session on the novel.

And really that’s what the bulk of you are here for, novel progress.

Words

Even sick and with my schedule up in the air I managed a couple of days of writing this week. My feelings are already getting conflicted with the story. I feel like parts need to be faster and some slower, and I’m just trying to get through it. I always second guess myself a lot in the first few chapters.

Does this happen to a lot of people? This is why finishing manuscripts can be difficult. If I listen to the misgivings NOW, I would stop and go back and re-outline. Do character arcs, sketches, map their childhood, etc. Basically, all sorts of procrastination that slow me down and make me restart the work.

Getting past the early misgivings and doubts is very important and I have to keep telling myself that I can revise the earlier work AFTER. I don’t know how it is for all of you but I would love to hear about it.

Misgivings aside, I knocked out 2 more chapters (though still thinking I might go back and revise some parts of the second one).

My goal for the week is 6000 words, 2000 per session. I only made two sessions, but got a total of 7266 words done this week. The book is sitting at 13,093 total words and I’m quite happy about that. I’m averaging 3200 words every time I sit down to write and that pleases me quite a bit. If I stay at this average, the book should only hit 130k… so I’m thinking I will be slowing down in a few places and adding in more details. No reason to rush things just yet.

What’s Happening in the Story

I’m establishing the main story issues in these chapters, though the first two chapters primarily introduce our two main characters and their lives before the incident changes everything at the end of the last chapter.

The thing with writing a series, is that you have to ask yourself if the book you’re writing might be the first one that someone is reading. What if they skipped the first book? Means I have to re-intro each character, including physical descriptions. Funny thing, I love lush physical description and setting the scene, and yet I have this “thing”—probably from bad advice—where I don’t describe my protagonist. And often gloss over the details of many of the characters.

I mean, I guess I don’t want to sit there and write:

“Erick was six foot even with broad shoulders and a deep chest, his dark hair had grown long enough to develop curls…” etc and then run through skintone, eye color, what he’s wearing. Etc. What I try to do is just sprinkle in the details in a few places, but I sometimes get caught up the dialogue or the rest of the action and things get left behind.

Further Problems…

Worse than character description in EVERY book, is how much do I need to establish of the past book? I have to very quickly throw out why these people are in the middle of a shitty situation, especially as the first chapter of this book and the last chapter of the previous book overlap. They are the same… but in the new book I had to stop and go back and pepper in the descriptors of the characters and then establish what brought them together (Thesis Novel) and what brought them to this point (The Invasion 1).

I had to do all of that in just a few pages.

Then, there is the school of thought that you write the book as if the reader HAS read the previous books. So, little descriptions used at all, and no mention of past details. You just assume they know all the information and move forward.

I feel “off” about that prospect (and yet I kind of default to that mode).

In any case, I feel good about the writing I’m getting done, even if I once again only get to the keys 1-2 days a week instead of the 3-4 that I wanted.

Hobby (Gaming, Painting, Movies, and more)

Sadly, my weekly games have not been happening and it has bothered me quite a bit. I know as a gamer I’m spoiled that I have twice a week RPGs, and I have had them for decades. My Tuesday game didn’t meet this week, nor will it meet next week. My Saturday game didn’t meet last week because of FCBD and didn’t happen this weekend because I had to stay at work late and one of the players has covid. No fun. Luckily, my once-a-month Curse of Strahd game happened, but it happened while I was in the worse part of my cold. I spent the bulk of the night muting my mic and coughing, but it was great to play again and see my Necon friends.

With my withdrawal from games, I finally came around to watching a bunch of Actual plays. In last week’s post, I listed all the links, but currently I’m working my way through Black Dice Society and their Ravenloft campaign. I’m 15 episodes into that one and let me tell you, that 15^th episode is crazy. I don’t want to give it away but the entire show takes a turn for the weird and it was a lot of fun.

Also, I’m working my way through Critical Role and I’m 18 episodes into Vox Machina… I have a LONG way to go, and I understand now why my brother kept telling me to just skip to the 20s and jump into the Whitestone storyline. But I like to take everything from the beginning.

I bought a couple new minis (even though I literally already have thousands I’m ignoring) but I got a new Outhouse Mimic… it is pretty funny. I haven’t painted for my own pleasure for a long while, so I’m going to try and squeeze in the mimic, its too cool not to paint. I also think the humor of it will help motivate me.

Toku and other TV…

Oddly enough I have been away from TV…. Ok, not so odd when you realize that I’m 18 episodes into Vox Machina, each episode at 3+ hours and I play them on YouTube on my TV… that takes up a lot of time.

I am still working my way through Toku as well, I’m 35 episodes into Maskman. The show is pretty good and I really like the villains. They did this interesting thing where they have a woman playing twins, who are brother and sister. It’s pretty progressive for Japan in 1987 to have an obvious woman (there is no makeup to make her look masculine in anyway other than the fact that she wears an armor plate over her chest) and everyone straight up talks and treats her like a man. It was a pleasant surprise, though I wish they had mentioned them being twins in the first episodes, it didn’t come out until almost 30 episodes in. I mean, you knew they were siblings, but not specifically twins.

Anyway, I have 3 series left after this and that will bring me back to the 90’s series that are available on ShoutTV. Then I get to jump to 2006 Boukenger, and then move back to finishing off the last five years of series and I will be up to date on every sentai series. It has been a long road to get here.

Outro

Anyway, I feel like I’m starting to take a long time here, feels more like procrastinating from my writing session for today. Off I go to start chapter 4 and place my main characters into the shitstorm. Be well, and thanks for reading.