Get Back up on the Horse

Update 15 13-19, 2021

Yeah, sometimes my titles suck… sorry about that.

But it’s supposed to be a play on the old phrase “when the horse bucks you off, you gotta get back up on there.”

This is in reference to last week’s post wherein I talked about gutting and re-outlining my novel. And then staring at the page and being very hesitant to start writing again.

Well, I broke that hesitation this week.

Words on the Page

I kicked off the new version of the novel and basically, I was retreading ground I’d already covered twice before. As such, it was a very easy writing session last week. In just two days I managed over 13,000 words, and almost reached the end of chapter 3.

I’ll be working on chapter three as soon as I’m done with this blog, usually I would have finished the chapter first so that I could log the word count and crow about it here. But this morning (when I write this, not when it goes live on the site) has been a mix of issues. So, I wanted to get the blog in the can and loaded onto the site, just in case I have to cut the write session short.

Back to the word count. The 3.0 manuscript is almost 17,000 words long between the prologue and 3 chapters. The lift of the strict pov and the use of epigraphs has been really good.

At least I enjoy them.

Epigraphs

So, I have been having a lot of trouble with some of my chapters in the 2.0 manuscript were really long. I spent a lot of time “showing” world building and having characters talk about how/why certain events happened.

“Why were these assassins here? How did they know to be here?”—Lets spend three or four paragraphs of characters arguing the hows and whys and putting forth theories. Just because I don’t want my readers asking the same questions, and because I want to showcase that I am aware of the extreme coincidence of certain scenes.

But with the use of an epigraph, I can just TELL certain scenes. Telling is much shorter than showing. I can drop 200-300 words to give a bit of history and background to the setting. Boom. I can drop 500 words and tell you about the assassins and how they were given their mission and told to search in an area that is close enough that they end up ambushing our heroes.

I can slip all sorts of villain motivations, history lessons, theories, religion, customs, social commentary, etc. into a single page of text. And then write the damn chapter without trying to feed all of that information into the chapter. Or worry that my subtle hints might not come across to some of my readers. Now I have the subtle hints for those who skip the epigraph, but I also have the epigraph that clearly gives you all the clues as a backup.

Chapter Focus

As it is, the titles of my chapters usually have meaning to focus me on the goal of that chapter. Or at the least they are a joke. By adding in the epigraph, I have both the focus and the foundation on the first page of the chapter and I can now just explore my characters.

I’m a character driven story-teller with an extreme depth of world-building. I kind of like to show off the latter a LOT, but I spend a lot of time in my characters heads/emotional core and pushing them through hellish experiences and seeing how they bounce back, and keep going.

The story now focuses better on the main story and isn’t two stories fighting side by side. Though the other stories are still happening, they are just given a place a little further in the background.

Rest of the Week

The rest of my week was filled with working on the podcast.

We have mapped out the entire rest of the season. Worked out all of our topics and other background work we need to do. And even created a recording schedule that is not just us checking each week to see who is available and making plans only a day in advance.

I also need to put in a bunch of work on my working maps. I keep making little sketches for each chapter but a lot of things are not lining up. Since I rewrote the whole outline and made the fresh start, I really need to take the time to get the maps all together and make them just as good as the new manuscript.

And I watched a bunch of really good movies and shows.

The Uncanny Counter

I watched this Korean fantasy/crime show on Netflix. The show is SO good. I really loved it. Its about these characters who are kind of like grim reapers. They were all in a coma, or near death, and a spirit offered to heal them in return for hunting down evil spirits that possess killers and eat souls.

The Counters (as they are called) have to hunt down and defeat the possessed, excise the evil spirit, and then ferry all of the devoured souls to the afterlife. It is a LOT of fun. And I will admit there is a level of catharsis in the story as the main character is a high school kid who uses his powers to put all the bullies in their place and also help everyone.

Made me feel really good. Had truly lovable characters. Funny moments. Badass moments. And a really good ending. I kind of hope for a second season, though I’d be fine with it being a singular story as well.

I’m currently watching a second Korean Horror show called Sweet Home, its really messed up and the beginning is kind of confusing as we get multiple flashbacks to the main characters life but they don’t make sense. I think it kind of glosses over a bunch of details. But the rest of the show is really good with crazy creature designs and over the top action. Also, really compelling and interesting characters. (Even if some characters you start out liking and then they slowly become bastards that you don’t like).

New Social Media: Letterboxd

I keep track of every movie and tv show I watch each month, and I used to post them to my Facebook. But sometimes the list ss long that Facebook just crashes while I’m typing it and it gets annoying so I stopped posting them. But I still keep the notebook.

Well, I just found a social media platform called Letterboxd that tracks all the movies you’ve ever watched and allows you to rate them and follow your friends and all of that.

So, I am including a link here, to my profile and if anyone wants to check it out or come and join up, please do.

OUTRO

I am spending way too much time loading movies into my profile… in three days I have reached over 2600 movies logged, and I’m still going… so yeah. It is a time sync at first.

I need to get back to the novel and the mapping.

Thank you all for reading and next week we’ll have more of the same.