Thesis Diary Week 7

Update 7: 20-26 July 2020

What a week! So last week, I said I was going to up my word goal. Instead of 3000 words a week I wanted to hit 5000 words. I already have enough words that I’m finished with my goals for the Thesis one class, but I still need to get MUCH further in the novel for the thesis 2 and 3 classes.

Spoilers, I did really good this week.

I finished the week with 8619 words total and two chapters finished. We are calling the rough drafts of 13 and 14 done for now. The WIP is sitting at 60,732. I’m getting really excited.

ACT 2

All of my characters are finally into the Ashlands (sort of one is halfway into the desert). I have laid the ground work for where the storylines are all going. (Most of them were all together on the same course). Keegan, Slater, and Nemo are all together and the relationship issues between Keegan and Nemo are being addressed. Being thrown into captivity together might help that out, or make it worse. I can’t say that’s more than enough spoilers.

Rune is already starting to grow as a character. The image of the character in his intro chapter does not match up to the man he really is. I think he might be a fun character that people are going to like… BUT do I need to play up all of the “black sheep” “bad-boy” stuff more? I might have to go back to that attitude. Growth, yes, but the attitude needs to stay true.

Caitlyn has become rather surprising. Her chapters are all massive and they have so MUCH going on in them. Mostly because she has the most knowledge about the setting, so she can talk with authority on subjects. Whereas my other POVs are guessing and trying to figure things out. Caitlyn is starting to become MY favorite character, and I still need to go back and rewrite chap 6, which will add quite a bit of pages to the whole novel but also give us even more Caitlyn!

Plans for week 8

I have no plans. This week is when my second final is due for my thesis. I already have the words written and I’m NOT revising it. I’m only putting in the rough draft. That’s the goal to make the words, not make them better yet. The later classes are about the revision. Hence why I need to get my WIP MUCH further along.

So right now, I’m just pushing to get ahead. Meaning ANY words are good words. I will be trying to keep my goal around 5000 words. It’s also super hot this week, so I might just move into the kitchen and sit beside the air conditioner and do all my writing on my laptop. (BUT I LOVE my clanging mechanical keyboard… but I’m sick of sitting in 90 degree heat sweating as I write).

The next chapters

I actually reached the end of the chapters in my corkboard on scrivener. I decided to color code my chapters by POV, and I have to plot out and figure out the next few chapters. The outline gets very nebulous at this point. I have goals for each character, but not down to the minutiae of chapter by chapter. I’ll spend tonight trying to figure out the next 6 or so chapters and then tomorrow we start chap 16.

As to school work, I have two discussions to do and I have to work shop two essays. Luckily the essays are short and I can probably do the discussions while at work. Meaning I have LOTS of time for writing. (Even though I also need to read a bunch and do more painting).

Anyway, thank you to the five or so of you who read these posts. They’re probably be a lot cooler when I get to the revision and editing phase, I could probably do an entire post just talking about my coaching session on chapter 6 that led me to want to split it into two chapters and really rewrite the whole thing.

Sorry this is short but I just wrote 4415 words on the novel this morning and now another 800 on this post, I need to eat and do other work for a while, and also stand in front of an AC.