Epilogue

Writing Journal 40 7-13 March 2022

This is the end. I actually have 1 chapter and THEN the epilogue to write for the coming week. But I am finally at the end. I would have finished the last chapter before writing this blog, but today (the day I write this not the day it goes live on my site) is my mom’s birthday. Ergo, not much writing getting done.

It was hard enough cutting out the time to write this blog.

But this post is about LAST week and what I accomplished and how the story is progressing.

The Words

I fell slightly short of my 6000 words a week goal. But I also only had 2 writing sessions instead of my normal three.

Chapter 44 and 45 have gone into the manuscript, for a total of 5133 new words. The manuscript sits at 187,219 total words.

I wrote the final fight scenes. I don’t know if I treated them as epically as I used to. Back in college with my thesis I got a lot of feedback that people wanted me to write faster, punchier fight scenes. Whereas I have written entire fights over 5000 words long in previous works. I tried to make it quicker. I don’t know if it totally works for me.

Also, I’m moving the “camera” around multiple characters, but at the same time the pov is tied directly to a singular character in each chapter. So, it gets hard for me to swing the camera around the whole of the scene. I constantly try to describe all of the other fights from the perspective of the main character. I think I’m going to fight with this for a while.

POV issues.

The struggle is all about the “camera.”

Do I tell the story where the POV character is the ONLY camera. The reader can only sense, interact, or see what the main character sees. OR… do I set the camera over the shoulder of the main character, and sweep it through the scenes. In the latter case the POV character becomes the only “head” character we get. Their thoughts, emotions, and reactions are the only ones that are relayed to the reader.

I tried to keep my book in the latter mode, but I often fall back to making the pov character the lens of the camera and sometimes this bogs down fight scenes.

This is something I will continue to work on. Perhaps I should write a couple short stories and try writing with the “camera” locked in either position and see how it feels. More practice!

The Final Two.

I have switched up the final chapter and the epilogue a couple times this week as I work toward it.

The last chapter is sort of a wrap up and move on chapter, with the main story kind of not fully resolved. Like the characters have made their goals, the main character has taken back his throne. But… his capital is under siege; his kingdom is still cut in two and trying to reunify. But his main arc is at an end. The other story now has to move on into the next book.

To clarify (and because I can’t remember the other blogs where I talked about this) each book has its own story and the entire series has an arc as well. We follow two (or more) main POVs in each book).

Ergo, the “series heroes” need to move out of this book, and this part of the world, and on to the next problem. Whereas the heroes of this book have to deal with their new status quo.

Next Week and Beyond

What will I be doing? There is nothing that should stop me from making the last two chapters next week and then I’m finally done with the third version of the rough draft.

So, what do I do?

I take a little time off. I like to let a book sit for a bit before I start to worry about revision and fixing things. I might give the thesis novel a dusting and go through it and see what I can do to cut and revise that down a little as well. I also need to start the outline of the next book. Right now, it is just a few ideas and a character list.

I have already thought about cutting the characters down in the next book. Limiting myself so that I can spend more time, with less people. In any case, I will take a few weeks to outline and work on story and relax a little.

Which means what will I do with these posts?

Writing Journal going Forward.

I will continue to report my outlining and revision works. I also need to get my desktop fixed so I can start getting my queries back out there and continue the hunt for an agent. I do feel like I’m just spinning my wheels and that opportunities are very sparse. But that could also be because I’m not as connected to things as I once was. I’m not looking at publishing every week, or talking with my other writer friends, or even staying in touch with my professors.

It’s a by-product of the pandemic and being so shut in that I feel out of touch with the industry and everyone I was once close to. It’s something I need to work on going forward.

Other things, hobbies, and games.

I’m still working on doing art again. I haven’t drawn anything but I have been painting for myself. That is going well. I might throw a couple pics up on here. Its nothing special.

I’m also working on setting up my old PS2 to play some older games, and I’m saving up money for a gaming purchase for my birthday next month.

As to other gaming, my favorite is still Table Top RPGs, and my D&D sessions have been going fairly well. I got in two sessions of Curse of Strahd over the last two weekends and it is a wholly different, but also wholly lethal game… in comparison to my once-a-month CoS game.

Comics have been fantastic lately. Moonknight continues to impress me and Jed MacKay is very quickly becoming a favorite writer. His writing on Spiderwoman is also great.

Anyway, I need to get breakfast, and then go see my mother. So, you all be nice to each other and don’t forget to let the people you love know that you love them.