It’s currently 29 degrees celsius (about 84.2 F) in my apartment and worse in the computer room. Those puppies do crank out the heat! I’ve told myself I won’t turn on the air conditioning until it hits 30 to conserve hydro. Since the heat has both myself and the cat doing nothing except lounging uncomfortably I thought I might use my indolence to bust out a blog post. I have several more planned for the near future once I can stand to be in the office again. (AC is confined to the bedroom unfortunately)
It’s been pretty solid since my last post. I finished my Nano Novel first draft (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!) at the end of June and took a week off… mostly. I then started what I’m calling the July Novel. The plan is to write a full novel while I let the Nano Novel simmer in the back brain. Ideally I will finish a first draft by the end of July. Realistically… I won’t beat myself up if it takes me through August, especially now that I’m bogged down in character sketches.
The July Novel is a YA adventure fantasy with steampunk and sci-fi elements. It’s also something of a murder mystery. Honestly the more I delve into the plot the more I realize that my “relaxing break novel” is going to be just as complex and difficult as everything else I write. It’s not helping that I have ten characters to develop not all of whom will make it to the last page. I thought this would make it easier because they’re expendable. What I have learned is that expendable characters can be the most demanding. They only get a short time and they want that time to matter to the reader. For the death to be moving the reader has to care and that means I need to know as much about the characters I kill as the ones who survive.
Characters are the backbone of this book. Aside from the initial set up there is little in the way of outside forces moving events; so only through characters making decisions and taking action is the story, well, a story. Otherwise it would be ten people on an airship having a nice leisurely flight. Boring!
So that’s what I’m up to.
Coming soon:
- A book review of Remedy by Heidi C. Vlach.
- A few thoughts on plot and other writing related ruminations.
- More personal stories!
Eclectophilia 