Decompressing

Rewriting the train wreck. I feel as if something has been left undone.

Reading 'how to' books again. I have to stop that.

Day 29 - Over and Out

Enjoyed Andre's grizzly death just a little too much.

Finished the word count shy of Steven and Ana's reconciliation. Steven caught up with the day-sailer he loaded with supplies, treated Timmy for shock, and set the sail North.

I might tie up the ambiguous ending and set the stage for the third book of the trilogy.

Maybe I will know how to end this by next year.

Day 28 - Sprint at the End

As advertised, the Thanksgiving Day dinner was an early lunch as the womenfolk were eager to join the fray at the mall from a extra half day of full contact shopping. The menfolk were left home to watch the children an plug themselves into online games.

I've hit the last bit of word count soundly and if I work through the night should finish.

All that's left is to main Andre and leave him to the zombie horde, with luck to aid Steven's escape, and get Steven and his in shock charge into a boat and back to the air staion. That should settle Ana's mind to Steven's humanity.

Day 27 - Down to the Wire

Tired. Be clever tomorrow.

Day 26 - Space Madness

I feel like Stimpy in Space Madness "So very tired".

I've been hyper-focused most of the day at work; the usual relaxation techniques are not working to decompress me before the writing session.

Long decompression, then I'm wired half the night after my sessions.

Wish I could take my day job bits and parts.

Day 25 - Short Game

Crushing Monday. Need a better map of the Savannah riverfront. The womenfolk are braving early Black Friday so Thanksgiving will be brief.

Day 24 - The Road Back

I was hoping to get farther this being my last solo weekend.

I think I have a big chunk of story mapped out.

The lead has to make it down the river with a traumatized nine year old boy on his hands and Andre still alive.

Day 23 - Deja Vu All Over Again

Heading down the homestretch now is not the to burn out.

Been banging away all night; commando tactics, attack and retreat.

Broke for a long brunch at my favorite diner and swung by the library for survivalist books ti recharge my apocalypse batteries and Ken Burn's Baseball for breaks.

I also picked up a Cuban sandwich from the local bodega for later.

Caveman Writing. Eat well, drink plenty of water, work like hell.

Day 22 Yakity Yak

The lead and the Dr. Smith have been jawing for two nights now. I need an easier way to show the motives and mindsets. Even the lead's jokes are too dark.

Andre: "So you are going to teach me the errors of my way?"

Steven: "This isn't Outward Bound. You're here to die."

I was hoping shorter stints would give me more control. But then control isn't the issue.

Day 21 - Out of my Mind

Nano's use of mental fatigue as a way to achieve an altered state is amazing.

I am worried though. The lead character has invoked the Code Duello, as the champion of the injured party he gets choice of weapons. He chooses the zombie infested city. why do I identify with a character who's gone over the edge?

I need to decompress and get to work.

Stay hydrated.

Day 20 - Late Start Short Session

A night for filler. I'll start the duel tomorrow.

Day 19 - Code Duello

Have Steven and Andre in the city for the duel. A few details don't fit. Fix in the re-write.

Going o hit the rack soon.

Day 18 A Matter of Trust

Fell asleep during my decompression/visualization exercise. Fun with self-hypnosis. The theme of the story seems to careen between 'how far will you go?' and 'who do you trust?'.

I wrangled Steven and Andre onto the same looting team in Savannah, a fight to the finish in a zombie ravished world.

Day 17 - On to Savannah

I left the road behind, though a path or way metaphor still applies. Two groups have joined the flotilla. That makes just at two dozen people, so the looting party headed into town along the rivers can lose a few bodies.

Good hunker. Started Friday night and was steady right up to the Walking Dead.

Day 16 - It's All Downhill from Here

Feeling better. Made my word count for today and will get a jump on tomorrow's through tonight.

I like the 'two for the road' subplot. The character dynamic is fun - they don't trust each other.

I'm still debating when to burn Andre's betrayal. I might want the group to be larger before he makes his move. No big loss, he's a Dr. Smith plot device prop. A normal plot twist can take his place.

Caught a repeat of the Mythbusters zombie special and listened to the RadioLab segment Emergence. Emergence was about Hive Mind phenomena, ant brains in action. And is that applicable to zombie hordes?

Day 15 - Asleep at the Wheel

Had to take a nap in the middle of the first session. It's going to be a long weekend.

The plot tangent is dialogue heavy, the two leads have taken the ultralight to find antibiotics at a naval hospital just north of Parrish Island.

Day 14 Cover of the Rolling Stone

Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln is on the cover of the Rolling Stone - I suppose it still means something, Biber and Miley be damned.

Long day - short sessions. I am not making the modest quota I set for weekdays. I have two weekends to hunker down.

Started a throw away side trip with the two leads, they take the shark patrol ultra-lite to find much needed antibiotics.

Day 13 - Awake All Day

Had to be wide awake at work all day.

First session is back on track.

Next session is going to be short.

Day 12 Setting Limits

I know this is supposed to be thirty days of literary abandon ... however....

Now that I daydream about the story at work I have to switch my usual notepad for a single sheet of notebook folded in quarters. This is less conspicuous when jot notes at work and I don't want to 'leave my fight in the gym' by overwriting notes.

The typing into the note apps on my phone is too slow and making sense of the jumble on the voice recorder is a job in and of itself.

I hope this pacing strategy works. I was so wrecked after work yesterday I didn't make my thousand words mark.

Day 11 - The Internal Editor Rears its Ungly Head

Just spent the first session of the night outlining revisions for the beginning of the story. I fell victim to the Classic Blunder - Second Act Sag. Just over 500 words.

Vizzini: You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"

I also have to externalize elements of the story. It reads like a Mime Narrative. Yes, Show Don't Tell - be sure to show enough. I'm inured with the atmosphere of dread but time for gore drenched action. The audience is readers, not mind readers. The beginning, for me. has context from the previous novel - so I cheated the second book.

Day 10 Caveman Writing

I'm getting a better feel for the keys - just relax.

I'm hitting 600 words per session and am taking shorter breaks. I passed 6k just after 5pm. Resting is more important than I realized.

I am writing scenes from up and down the narrative; I don't have a finish in mind, I do have an Idea where the story is going and that this story might be a trilogy. Next year "The Street Where You Live..... and Die"

Day 9 - Work/Rest

I like the hour work / hour rest schedule, although I think I can cut back on the resting time between 'work hours'. Stopping before I'm tired requires less resting and is more a metal break. I listen to music, go through mere background material, or nap. At the end of the day I'm spent not exhausted. It's like the Boy Scouts Walk/Run hikes.

My real problem is that I read The Lively Art of Writing before I started this time and am now obsessed with sentence length and paragraph structure. I recommend the book wholeheartedly - but not right now. It makes turning off my Internal Editor that much more difficult.

Day 8 - Wind-sprints

With time to burn I've been writing in sessions of only 500 to 800 words.

Lighter weight more reps. I stop writing before I lock up.

Uncle Mike, a man who wrote eloquently, spoke in cliches, sports metaphors, and profanity; his advice when I was struggling with a piece was: "Kid, bunt."

If I can hunker down for the Veteran's Day weekend, I should have my word count to where daily production down to about a 1,000.

Day 7 - 12K

Just passed 12K mostly in narrative and notes from a few days hence in the story.

Day 6 - Staycation status quo...

The Staycation stratagem didn't work as planned.

I've started Road Rage, the sequel to Highway from Hell, by overwriting a big chunk of the end of HfH, which, at the time, I rushed to finish.

With both notes and narrative I'm caught up on word count, I was hoping to be well ahead of the game by this weekend.

Day 4 and 5: Encouragement from Fate

While I'm still fumbling my way through the start Nano the History Channel ran After Armageddon, a doc about surviving a pandemic.

Day 4 was napping and writing; the bulk of the writing a travelogue/rambling outline. The novel itself is not unfolding but the word count is catching up.

Day 5 Not pushing too hard. Just finished the morning run of 863 words, hoping to get a few sessions of 300-500 words.

No word about my car and I need to go out and get water.

Day 3 -2013

Spent most of the weekend napping.

I am so far behind.

As usual, I'm averaging just shy of a thousand relevant words a night. The rest is just filler.

Day 2 - 2013

Late start yesterday and three false starts. It all goes to word count.

Didn't keep my fingers nimble; typing is slow going.

Same problem as last two years - after around a thousand words I start typing filler.


spent most of today on car troubles. No car means more transit time.

Step 2

First crisis: Wilder warlord who claims Ariel bond. Her take on the situation is best summed up by her first words to Sir Christopher: "Better your whore than his queen". With the hunting part's men leaving, it's harvest time, Aluric tracks the group
Ariel plays head games on Sir Fredrick, play off his greed and envy to move the group to the Italian Alps.

Second crisis:After an increasingly harrowing chase they find sanctuary in a monastery. Things get tense when a monk realizes Ariel is a real deal pagan the sort the Pope wants for his Dark Army. The friction is growing between Christopher and Fredrick grows. even as they hunt,

Third crisis: Fredrick's Betrayal of Christopher. Fredrick leaves Christopher to die on a hunt and kidnaps Ariel to Rome when he expects wealth nd status. Surrounded on all sides by enemies he tracks his only ally in the world to put a blade between his ribs.

Resolution: The force all converge at an isolates Abby in the Italian Alps, a clearing house for the real pagans the Pope wants. The twist is that is where Ariel sister is. and she all these people here to spring her sister, and as many of the prisoners as she can.

I need to woork out a timeline for th encroaching Winter and some of the geography.

Notes for Back Into the Woods....

A few thoughts.

Ariel can't work her wammy on Sir Christopher because of the binding spell between them. She can play head games on Sir Fredrick, she have foreseen that he betrays them.

She resists foreseeing the future, down that path lies madness... or is the future always in motion? I need to suss a better mechanic for this.

I need to work out Christopher's dire wolf abilities and a timeline for them.

A Scene has the following three parts

A Scene has the following three-part pattern:
1. Goal
2. Conflict
3. Disaster
A Sequel has the following three-part pattern:
1. Reaction
2. Dilemma
3. Decision

Three Good Scenes......

Over at Anthony Lee Collins blog I followed an idea down a rabbit hole. The traditional adage that "every scene must serve' to advance the plot - or actually the story - falls within the Hawks's quote.
http://u-town.com/collins/?p=3640

"'m always leery of the advice I read here and there to get rid of any scene in a story that doesn't advance the plot. You could very easily end up with a very efficient engine that goes straight ahead, never slowing to look at the scenery and never turning to follow any interesting side roads."

Once again someone has overshot Occam's Razor.

Back to the tangential rabbit hole.


Another way to look at the '... and no bad ones.' is the poker truism that it's not the hands you win that count; it's the hands you don't lose.

In Absence of Malice, the Sally Fields character and subplot undercut the main plot.

In Alien vs Predator: Requiem spent too much time on the Pizza Boy and His Wayward Brother teen movie subplot which stalled, then overbore, what should have been the main plot - the returning vet trying to reconnect to her daughter and a small town sheriff dealing with missing hunters and a rash of pet, then homeless persons, disappearances.

Snowflake Step 2

Step 2) Take another hour and expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel. This is the analog of the second stage of the snowflake. I like to structure a story as "three disasters plus an ending". Each of the disasters takes a quarter of the book to develop and the ending takes the final quarter. I don't know if this is the ideal structure, it's just my personal taste.


Step 2)

Into the Woods again.

I’m going to take a run at Into the Woods again. I was unhappy with the way it turned sideway during Nano.

Once I had a better understanding of the nature of the setting’s pagan magic everything changed.

And while I’m at it, I’m going to noodle the Snowflake Method and the Perfect Scene.

Step 1) Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel This is the big picture, the analog of that big starting triangle in the snowflake picture.


Step 1)

A pagan mage binds herself to Christian noble in a dangerous mission to an Inquisition stronghold.