outlining – Page 3 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Q4 report, 2010

For those of you who don’t know, I do a report on my blog at the end of each quarter, giving a progress update on my writing. I like to think it helps me keep things professional. Whether or not it does, it’s certainly helpful to look back on how I did.

So anyhow, here’s the word count chart:

The red line represents daily word count, and the blue line is a running total for the previous seven days. The chart includes revisions as well as original material; for revisions, I just do a wordcount of the finished version, whether or not I’ve cut out significant chunks of the text or left it largely as-is. Maybe that skews the picture a bit, but it’s the best I can do with the tools I have.

At the beginning of the quarter, I was working 40+ hours per week at a seasonal job, so the writing was pretty slow, averaging a little less than 15k per week. My main project was the fourth draft of Mercenary Savior, which I was struggling to get ready for World Fantasy.

The job ended October 28th, and I didn’t do any writing during the conference, which is why you see the dip at the end of the month. But I took November off to work entirely on my writing, which is why things took off again rather quickly.

That huge peak in the middle of the quarter is from the fifth draft of Genesis Earth, which I completed in about two weeks. The draft was already pretty well polished, but one of my hard sf friends did a read through and got back with a few major science issues which I needed to rectify. Also, I figured it was in need of a language polish, since I finished the last revision almost a year ago and my writing (I hope) has improved a lot since then.

I was pretty surprised at how quickly it went. The book is definitely as good as I can make it, and any further revisions without professional editorial assistance would be a less effective use of my time.

Things dropped off rather sharply, however, because I spent all of Thanksgiving week either on the road or with family. Ah, how I love road trips…but they sure can throw a kink in the writing schedule. I also had a hard time settling on my next big project, which is why things took a while to take off again after I got back.

After starting a sequel for Mercenary Savior and toying around with a short story idea, I decided to do a major overhaul of Worlds Away from Home. Unlike GE, however, WAFH really, really sucks. It took me two weeks just to read through the rough draft and pick out all the troubled spots, after which I rewrote the outline from the ground up and decided to completely scrap half the book. I started the second draft in mid-December, but it’s taken a while for things to really build steam.

Right as I was starting WAFH 2.0, a couple of other writer friends from World Fantasy got back to me with their comments on Mercenary Savior, and pointed out a few problems that I hadn’t noticed before. I started the revision on December 21st and have been plowing through ever since. That accounts for the huge spike at the end of the quarter–like GE 5.0, the draft has a lot fewer story problems, but does need a few things fixed for consistency, as well as a language polish.

Overall, I wrote or revised through about .25 million words this past quarter–some of which were easier than others. I started a new project (Into the Nebulous Deep), polished one of my manuscripts to the very best of my abilities, and made significant headway on revising and polishing two others. In terms of publications, I had a major article published in Mormon Artist, and a short poem accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of Leading Edge.

Not a bad quarter. Now, let’s see if I can find an agent and/or publisher in 2011.

Getting back into things

So yesterday, I wrote through 4k words in WAFH 2.0 without even realizing it. I didn’t feel very productive, because I only did about 500 words at a time before something came up and I got distracted, but by the end of the day, ended up accomplishing a lot. That was a pleasant surprise.

In terms of my writing, I’ve been really out of things since Thanksgiving. I finished Genesis Earth 5.0 right before the vacation and started outlining WAFH 2.0 immediately after, but…man, the rough draft REALLY sucks. Like, sucks so bad I’ll have to completely throw out part III and start from scratch.

Fortunately, I think I’ve got a good idea what to do. I’ve outlined about eighteen complete plots and subplots, so that’ll probably help out with keeping things tight. The rough draft has a lot of shotgun writing, which means I have a lot of stuff to cut out–and now that I see where things are going, I know how to cut it.

One thing that worries me, however, is that I don’t have a strong driving reason to write this book–or maybe I do, but I just haven’t noticed it yet. I’m hoping that’s the case, but I don’t yet know, and it’s really bugging me.

For Genesis Earth, it was the first line (“Earth was a ghost that haunted me”) and the cryo scene. For Mercenary Savior, it was the ending, and the way it resonated with an old Western I saw as a kid. With both projects, I got to a point of desperation somewhere between the first and second drafts where I wanted to throw everything out and never work on it again–but with both projects, that driving reason kept me going until I made it work.

With WAFH, however, I’m not sure what it is that’s driving me to write it. For now, though, I’ll just press through until I find out. I really hope I’m not just wasting my time writing this (because the rough draft sucks REALLY bad) but past experience has told me to ignore my own self-doubts at this phase.

Which reminds me: this week’s Writing Excuses podcast is really amazing. I just listened to it an hour or two ago, and the advice this time around was exactly what I needed to hear. Brandon’s advice in particular is very good: he basically says to stop worrying and enjoy what you’re doing.

So do I enjoy all of this? In spite of all the angst I’ve spilled, I think I can say that I do. When you’ve got a good story, and you know that it’s good, and you tell it in a way that moves someone else in a personally meaningful way–man, there’s nothing that compares to that. I look back now on stuff I used to think was absolute drivel, and I’m amazed. It takes persistence and drive and a little bit of crazy, but once you can get to that point, it makes everything you did to get there worth it.

The only thing now is to find out why WAFH is worth writing, and to hang onto those reasons at all costs until the story comes into its own. Wish me luck!

Slogging through a funk

Just a quick update, since it’s 3 am and I’m kind of in a daze after playing Halo: Reach on Xbox live with my roommate. Whoa, decompressing…

This whole week, I’ve been in a weird funk. It sucks to be unemployed, especially since I can’t commit to anything long term because I’m waiting to hear back from the wilderness job. Man, I really hope I get it–but even if I do, I’ll need to raise some cash to keep me going through January until the paychecks start coming in. And if I don’t get the job, I have no idea what I’ll do.

But mostly, it has to do with my writing. I’ve been running through the rough draft of Worlds Away from Home, and…holy crap, it REALLY sucks. It sucks to the point where I’m not sure exactly how to fix it.

Part of it probably has to do with my initial ambitions for it, which I probably set too high. I originally wanted to write a science fiction romance that turned the “romance” element on its head by having the sex be the thing pushing the characters apart rather than bringing them together. I got a little too didactic in the rough draft, though, and failed to tell a story that, at it’s root, is meant to entertain.

That’s probably the most important thing–to tell a story that’s fundamentally entertaining. So I’ve been looking at that, and I’m finding that there are significantly fewer plot threads here than there were in Mercenary Savior. That, and there’s considerably less suspense. The character arcs are still sufficiently complex, I think, but there aren’t nearly as many hooks and cliffhangers as my other work.

This whole week, I’ve been vacillating between “alright, I can do this” to “this novel sucks and I should just throw it out and never work on it again.” In fact, I drew up a chart today of all the novels I’ve started, finished a first draft, and finished a polished draft–and the results are a little stark.

I only just produced a fully polished draft for Genesis Earth, so at 2010 I’ve finally gotten one novel to the point where I think it’s as good as I can make it without an editor/agent to help. One freaking novel–and that’s after two years of work. Mercenary Savior, I’m finding, isn’t quite where it needs to be, though it’s close–probably I’ll nail it down in early 2011. But other than those two? I’ve got nothing.

I started Worlds Away from Home back in 2008, and I’m wondering whether I was even good enough back then to craft a story that could carry through a complete novel. Ashes of the Starry Sea was probably a bit too ambitious, and Genesis Earth, while it ended up working out, was so small in scope that it wasn’t that hard to pull off.

Is something fundamentally flawed with Worlds Away from Home? Did I bite off more than I could chew? Is the story premise so screwed up that I should just abandon it and reuse it occasionally for scraps?

I have no idea. Maybe I’m just being too angsty–after all, I started Genesis Earth BEFORE I started Worlds Away from Home, and that one turned out great. It took two years, of course, but it worked out in the end.

So will this one work out? Probably, I suppose–but only if I can solidly get behind it. I’m trying to put together a detailed plot outline to figure out what the story needs, but if I can’t find something else–something on par with the cryo scene and the first line of Genesis Earth, which for the longest time were the only two things keeping me from trashing that project–if I can’t find something redeemable like that, I might just drop this monstrosity and let it die.

Blarg. I hate this. I might just take a break from things and write a couple short stories. This whole week, I’ve been writing nothing but outlines and revision notes–I need to do something a little more creative.

Anyhow, that’s what I’m currently slogging through. Before the end of next week, I’m hoping to find out whether I’ve got that wilderness job or not. Let’s hope…

Change in direction

Just a quick update on things before I go to bed.

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to put Into the Nebulous Deep on hold for the time being. The main reason for this is that it’s a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior, and if the first one doesn’t sell…yeah, not the best business decision.

I figure the best way to do it is to have a series of indirectly linked standalone novels set in the same world. That way, a publisher could pick up any one of them after rejecting all the others, but if you want to bundle them into a series and sell them together, you can do that too.

That’s my strategy–I like the universe I built for Mercenary Savior, and I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future, but for now, the trilogies and duologies will have to wait. In any case, I’ve written down my major ideas for ITND, so I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up where I left off if/when MS sells.

Instead, I’m going to start working through the second draft of Worlds Away from Home. It needs a ton of work, but having finished the rough draft, I know that the story has potential. At this point, I’m actually very enthusiastic about it, so hopefully that will help drive momentum.

Right now, I’m in the outlining stage. I’m taking a page from Dan Wells and using his seven point story structure to draw out all the plot lines and character arcs. When I did this for MS 4.0, I had to outline about fifteen arcs before I felt it was sufficiently tight; it will probably be the same for WAFW 2.0 as well.

Currently, I’m in the middle of outlining chapter six. If all goes well, I’ll finish outlining and start writing by the end of the week.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of submitting. Sent out another short story to Leading Edge–oh, and by the way, they accepted a poem of mine, so expect to see that in a forthcoming issue. I also submitted the latest draft (5.0) of Genesis Earth to a few agents, so hopefully that will lead to something positive.

In other news, I’m looking for a job again. Oh joy. I’m hoping things will work out with the wilderness job, but if not, I still need something to tide me over for the Christmas season. It’s stressful, but at least I’m not broke yet, which is good. If I can’t find work and have to buy gear for the wilderness training, however, I just might be.

I’m confident things will work out, however. I’ve found that they always do, even if not in the way I wanted or expected. Just keep swimming.

In the meantime, check out this AWESOME 8-bit remix of one of the tracks leaked from Daft Punk’s upcoming album for the movie Tron. Dude…this makes me so incredibly happy. And the 8-bit art! I nabbed it and turned it into my avatar for the Quark forums. In case you want to use it, here’s a copy.

8-bit Daft Punk FTW! The only thing more epic would be if Daft Punk and E.S. Posthumus joined forces–but if that happened, hosts of heavenly angels would descend upon our planet and usher in an era of global peace and universal prosperity. But dude, I would give my firstborn son to acquire that music.

You laugh, but I’m only half joking…

Crunch time

Sixty six percent! I’ve officially passed the two thirds mark in the fourth revision for Mercenary Savior–and not a moment too soon. With only a week and a half until World Fantasy 2010, it’s crunch time. I’ll probably quit my temp job a week early in order to devote the last few days of the month to finishing it.

As I’ve been working on Mercenary Savior, though, a fascinating idea for a sequel has been stewing in my head. It was sparked by an online conversation with one of my first readers:

Reader: I was never fully convinced that James felt he had closure
Me: I see
Reader: but I was satisfied with the thought that he would get it sometime after the story ends
he’s still young, so he’s still maturing
even at the close of the novel
Me: yeah
hmm
interesting

It’s true; James does have a lot of room to grow and mature after the events of Mercenary Savior. In that book, his character growth arc (without giving away spoilers) is about him learning to accept change and stop running from adulthood.

Nothing in that arc has much to do with the kind of person James grows up to be, however, or the significant other with whom he comes to share his life. In other words, there’s a whole lot of untapped potential for building James’s character and giving him a romantic interest.

The question that immediately rose to my mind was: what’s the story?

Now when it comes to sequels, I think the best ones take a long, hard look at the first installment and answer the question: therefore, what? Thus, in Star Wars IV, V, and VI (which I believe to be one of the best examples of a trilogy in any medium), the Rebels defeat the first Death Star in episode IV, but find themselves on the run in episode V because the Empire knows the location of their base. Luke uses the force to pull off a last-minute victory in episode IV, but finds in episode V that becoming a true Jedi takes a lot more discipline and self-mastery than he thought.

So I applied that principle to my own work and came up with the following overarching conflict: the Hameji occupation of Karduna is devastating the people of the Colony to the point where they collectively decide to depart en masse and establish a new community somewhere else. It’s a logical conclusion taken from the ending of Mercenary Savior; the people are well enough off to survive, but too poor and oppressed to do much of anything else.

You may not know this, but the first story I wanted to set in this fictional universe was about a group of starfaring pioneers traveling into the heart of a nebula to escape religious persecution and establish a thriving community on the fringes of settled space. That’s right–I basically wanted to set the Mormon pioneer exodus in space.

For various unrelated reasons, that never worked out, but the desire has always been there in the back of my mind. What can I say–I think that pioneers are cool, and stories about colonizing unsettled new lands just fascinate me. I’ll probably write a massive Utah pioneer epic someday.

But anyways, I started playing around with this old idea to see whether I could recycle it. Right now, I think that I can. The idea is that James becomes the leader for one of these emigrant groups, and has to see them safely through to a young planet in the heart of this nebula. They decide to fly into the nebula in order to isolate themselves from the Hameji, since the FTL tech in my universe doesn’t work within a Nebula.

And then something really crazy happened. This scene popped into my head, stronger than any other idea I’d had so far. I imagined that a group of pirates had captured the expedition and refused to let them go unless they gave the pirates three young women to keep as slaves.

Pretty standard conflict, right? But then, I thought: what if three young women of their own free will stepped forward and offered to sacrifice themselves to save the others? What would James do then?

Well, it wasn’t hard to figure that out at all. James would never let them go. He’d fight the pirates, even if it meant risking all the lives of those he’s trying to protect.

This raises some interesting questions of morality. Is it right to risk the lives of everyone in the community when three individuals have already offered to sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole? Is it right to deny someone the opportunity to give their own life to save others? Or is James just being stubborn and reckless?

At a first glance, that’s the way it looks. But then I imagined what James would say to justify himself. After what he learns from the events of Mercenary Savior, James would argue that the community needs to stick together–that in order for the whole to survive, everyone has to know with absolute certainty that no-one will be left behind. Once the leader shows that he’s willing to sign his followers over, how can any of them trust him with their lives? Under such conditions, trust breaks down and the community falls apart.

From that, a whole host of other ideas started gradually coming to mind. How does this event tie into James’s romantic interest? Does it tie in at all? What would the people’s reaction be to this decision? Coming from the background of the Colony, would they want to put the issue to a vote instead? Is it ever right to suspend democracy when facing a crisis, and if so, under what conditions?

So anyway, I won’t tell you what I have in mind, but I have a lot of really interesting ideas. It’s gotten to the point, in fact, that I may just write the sequel after I get back from World Fantasy.

In closing, let me leave with this excellent track from one of ocremix’s latest albums, a rearrangement of Donkey Kong Country 2. Believe it or not, this song could be the main theme of this novel. Listen to it and I think you’ll see why.

Good night!

Almost at four

I’ve got half a dozen things I could blog about, but it’s 2 am and cleaning checks are tomorrow, so I think I’m going to give a quick update and go to bed.

Worlds Away from Home is doing quite well–I’m only two chapters and five scenes from the end. I’d push really hard to finish it tomorrow, but I’m still waiting on some of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior and probably won’t start that project until after I go back to Massachusetts at the end of the month.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the seven point story structure Dan Wells talked about at LTUE 2010 (which I missed, but caught on youtube), and I’ve got a TON of ideas for Mercenary Savior now. I’m practically chomping at the bit to start analyzing this story and working out all the complex plot and character elements. That’s very good.

While chatting with one of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior, I had an interesting idea for a direct sequel. Basically, while James’s storyline has some closure (or should, after I finish this next revision), he’s still got a lot of growing and maturing to do. My mind is already working it out…should I make that my fifth novel? Or move on to something else first? The thing about direct sequels is you can’t sell them without the first book, and if the first book doesn’t sell…

I’m applying for Redcliff Ascent; if all goes well, I’ll be participating in the November training (since September is full). At first, I was hesitant about this (since I kind of need a job now), but looking at it now, that’s probably the best time to do it. It’s after World Fantasy, which gives me time to finish Mercenary Savior, and late enough in the year that I can still finish that article for Mormon Artist. Plus, I can easily get a schedule that allows me to attend LTUE 2011. The only disadvantage is that I won’t be able to attend all of Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 classes, but that’s not such a big deal (seeing as I’ve taken the class twice already!).

Other than that, life is good. I’m going home in a week to see my parents and get my teeth done (since my mom’s health insurance covers me until my birthday in September–why pay for a checkup when you could have it for free?), and I’m definitely looking forward to that. And now that I’m almost finished with Worlds Away, I can see that it’s got potential, and that’s encouraging. Not this draft, certainly, but once I fix all the holes, it could really go somewhere.

Either way, it’s going to be nice having four novels under my belt.

Slogging through to the bitter happy ending

Oh man. I was hoping to hit 5k words today, and even though I must have spent five or six hours writing, I only managed half of that. It’s progress, I know, but it’s not as much progress as I’d like; the words just aren’t coming, no matter what I do. Blarg.

The worst part is that I know that most of these words are just crap. I’ll get to the end of a chapter and think “oh yeah, shouldn’t these characters be doing/thinking this?” And I’ll make a couple of notes in the revision guide, or touch up what I’ve written just a little bit, but one thing compounds on another until everything’s got problems.

But you know what? I’m almost three quarters of the way through, so it’s probably better just to write on through these problems and finish the @#$! thing. At this point, I’ve got a good enough story that I can carry things through to the end, as horrible as it may be, and just fix everything in the next draft.

It’s frustrating, though, because I know that most of the changes I’m going to make will seem obvious. Why can’t I just get it right the first time?

Is it because I failed to outline things enough? I know from experience, however, that outlining too much can be fatal for me. Is it because I didn’t take the time to immerse myself in my story? But then again, I’ve been spending so much time on my writing, everything else seems to be suffering, including my social life…

BLARG.

I’m probably just missing the forest for the trees. Once I get out of these woods, though, I’m sure things will fall into place. One way or another, in two weeks this abomination will be FINISHED! …at least until the next draft.

Braving the unexpected rough spots

Right now, I’m going through this unexpected rough spot in my novel, where I know what’s supposed to happen (or at least I have enough of an idea to wing it fairly well), but the writing just isn’t coming. This happens every time I hit the two thirds mark, and it really sucks.

Currently, I’m using two methods to get through it: 1) keep a running chapter-by-scene outline of the next few scenes, and 2) use a loose adaptation of story theory models (such as the hero’s journey) to keep perspective on things. Right now, this is what my chapter-by-scene outline looks like:

Chapter 14
14.1: Jalil
Jalil meets LARS, who with Michelle shows him the ship. Jalil learns that Lars has a connection with the Farlen family and that the Stewarts are from his parents’ home.
14.2: Mira
Mira returns home an outcast. Sheila rails at her for failing to seduce Jalil, while Sathi pulls her into his quarters to tell her that he’s arranged for her speedy marriage.
14.3: Jalil
The Bridgette launches from GN-2 using a gravity whip maneuver. The ship heads out for the L2 point, using a second gravity whip around GN-2b. Jalil realizes this is goodbye.

Chapter 15
15.1: Mira
While Mira prepares herself to get ready to meet her cousin Ibrahim, Tiera approaches her in private to apologize for calling her a whore. Tiera advises her to stand up for herself.
15.2: Mira
IBRAHIM’s convoy arrives. As Sathi and Ibrahim’s father conduct negotiations, Mira meets him and is surprised to find that she’s attracted to him.
15.3: Mira
Mira, Surayya, Amina, and Tiera discuss Ibrahim in the women’s quarters. Tiera advises Mira not to pursue him, but Surayya and Amina convince her to go ahead with it.

Chapter 16
16.1: Jalil
Lars and Michelle tell Jalil about the Colony. They show him pictures, and he has flashbacks.
16.2: Jalil
While making maneuvers around GN-2a, the Bridgette receives news of Hameji movements near Karduna. Jalil learns a bit of the Hameji.
16.3: Jalil
The Bridgette arrives at the L2 station and enters the starlane. Jalil’s first experience as an adult making the jump.

Chapter 17
17.1: Mira
???

As you can see, I’ve broken down each chapter by scene, with the viewpoint character indicated as well as a short one or two line description of what happens. When a new character comes along, I mention them by name in ALL CAPS. I use the auto font color for story that I’ve already written, and the stuff that remains to be written in red. Also, I only outline a handful of scenes ahead of my current position.

That’s the method that works for me. I have no idea if it will work for you, but feel free to give it a try or let me know what methods you’re using.

I’m finding that even though I’m more of a “discovery writer,” certain methods of outlining give me much greater flexibility to discovery write than simply winging it all on the fly. In particular, I find that outlining my characters and keeping a running scene-by-scene map for the next couple days helps to keep me on track.

I ran into this problem earlier in the week: without any kind of outline, and no previously written material to fall back on, I had no idea what to do. Instead of sitting at my keyboard doing nothing, though, I plotted out the next few scenes to give me some idea what to do.

That helped me out for a while, but now…man, it’s still rough. I did 3,251 words yesterday, but today I only hit 1,555. It’s a lot, I know, but with all my free time, I should be hitting more. Much more.

I suppose the only way out of this slump is to write–and write I certainly must. I seriously need a real job, and right now I’m looking into the field staff position at Wilderness Quest. If they hire me, I’ll need to finish this novel before I start work, since I’ll be out in the wilderness for three weeks at a time and the last thing I want is to pick up a half-finished project after it’s gone cold–especially when I’ve got to rewrite Mercenary Savior for World Fantasy 2010.

So that’s what I’m looking at right now. Three weeks, inshallah, and Worlds Away from Home 1.2 will be finished. Hopefully by then, I’ll have a real job too.

To close, check out this awesome version of the Corridors of Time song (Zeal theme) from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. I’ve heard maybe twenty or thirty different arrangements of this excellent composition, and this one takes the cake. Beautiful.

Untitled

Man, I don’t write for this blog as much as I should.

Life is going well. I just recently got a part time job doing telephone surveys; hopefully, it will help tide things over until I can get something better. Between that and donating plasma, I should be able to pay the bills for the next couple of months.

I’ve also been writing quite a bit, hitting between 2k and 4k words per day. At this rate, Mercenary Savior 3.0 should be finished by the end of next week. That’s good, because I’m excited to start submitting it. I’ve already got Genesis Earth making the rounds, but the sooner I can get another project out there, the better.

For my next project after , I want to recycle Hero in Exile (ugh, it needs a new title) and turn that into a complete novel. I have a lot of ideas for it, but it will require some research, which may delay the actual start date.

For example, the main character (who I’m going to rename) has this major conflict where he’s trying to go home. As a young boy, his parents put him in an escape pod that crash landed on the planet, where he was raised by the locals. As the writer, I’m going to need to know about adoptions, know a handful o f adoption stories to pattern things off of, and maybe read a couple of essays on the meaning of “home.”

As another example, one of the major themes I want to get across is the struggle to maintain personal moral integrity in a morally corrupt world. I probably won’t have to look too far for that–being Mormon has given me lots of opportunities for research there–but I need to do a lot more to be aware of that particular conflict. When you’re slogging away, it’s very easy to focus too much on plot and no enough on the rest.

Probably the biggest preparation is going to be working through the character motivations, and that inevitably means building a background, since motivations grow out of the character’s history and background. But that’s going to involve a fair degree of pre-writing, which I may or may not be able to do before I start page one.

And that’s another scene; I’ve got to completely revamp the beginning. What I have now involves the main character staring out over the desert just before a sandstorm. Picturesque, but essentially navel gazing with little real character development. Instead, I want to show him thinking or doing something that reveals the central, most important aspect of his character, the way Brandon Sanderson did it in Elantris.

So anyways, lots of work to look forward to, in terms of writing that is. Other kinds of work…well, it’s good to have a sense of security. Even though I’ve been producing a lot, I’m sure I could have been producing more (upwards of 6k or 8k per day) if I’d had that sense of security provided.

Anyways, there is more that I could say, but I’m going to go to bed because it’s freaking 2:22 AM. Night.

Quarterly report

So I figure that since I want to write professionally, it would be a good idea to keep track of my writing and do quarterly updates on my blog. Here’s the first one for this year:

The red line shows my daily writing word count, the blue line a running seven day total. The graph starts January 1st and goes to March 31st.

For the first part of January, the seven day total was high for a week because I’d just finished Bringing Stella Home 2.0. It dropped down way low for a while because I was busy moving into the Barlow center, starting my internship, and starting a new novel at the same time. Combining all three of those things at the same time made for very little progress, until about the middle part of the month.

Things progressed at a moderate rate (about 1k words per day) from the middle of January until snowmageddon, which hit us in the second week of February. I got a lot of writing done while snowed in, and my work in progress at the time, To Search the Starry Sea 1.0, got a lot of momentum behind it.

That momentum started to taper off, as I realized that the story I was writing was different than the story I had in my head. I swear, this happens EVERY time I try to write a novel. I tried to stick with the story in my head, but the gap got wider and wider until I realized the story just wasn’t working.

At the end of February, I decided to put it on the back burner and let my ideas simmer for a while. I’ll probably pick it up again at some point in the future, but not in the short term–I need to put it away for a while. I’m sure I’ll finish it someday, though.

So then, in the beginning of March, I went through all the comments I’d received on Bringing Stella Home. The HUGE spike you see right around the middle of the month represents all the revision notes I put together for the 3.0 draft. I read through the entire manuscript in about a week and a half, made a detailed scene by scene outline, and figured out my strategy for the revision.

Things dropped off again pretty sharply the last couple weeks of March because that was right around when I was fired from my internship. That was one hell of a stressful week. They picked up pretty quick after that, though, because 1) I had a lot more free time, and 2) I’m REALLY excited about this project.

Looking ahead, I think if I push myself, I can finish Bringing Stella Home 3.0 by the end of April. It will be difficult because I’ll be looking for an apartment and a job at the same time, but after next week I won’t have to worry about schoolwork anymore (potentially for the rest of my life…whoa). Definitely, I’ll have it done in time for CONduit 2010.

One thing I need to work on a lot more is submitting. I’ve got a list of agents to submit Genesis Earth to, I just haven’t got around to sending it to them all. The responses I’ve received have been generally encouraging: all rejections, but about half form rejections, half personalized in some way. I do think this book will find it’s way in print, though it may not be my first to be published.

Even though Bringing Stella Home will probably need at least one more major revision before the full manuscript is ready to be sent out to editors/agents, I can probably polish the first three chapters enough to shop it around sometime in May. I’m not sure if that’s what I’ll do, but it’s an option. It depends on whether I jump right in to the 4.0 revision after finishing the current draft, which I probably won’t do; better to let it sit for a while.

Instead, I think I’ll jump right in to finishing that novel I started in late 2008, Hero in Exile. The title will have to change (as always), but I’ve got a lot of fresh ideas for it, plus the enthusiasm to pull it off. In many ways, Hero in Exile is a non-linear sequel to Bringing Stella Home, so if I get a deal with the one, I can always pitch the other as the next in the series. That’s a huge plus–and a major reason why I’ll be enthusiastic about the project, since the two novels build off of each other.

Anyway, that’s what things are looking like from here. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ll read a couple of friends’ novels (I haven’t forgotten about you, Jakeson and Drek!), graduate, get an apartment, get a job (inshallah), write an article for Mormon Artist, go to a con or two, and maybe even get a girlfriend and/or figure out what to do with my life.