Writing Away While Away
Getting away from phone calls, business, internet, and at-home reminders of everything I could (should?) do other than write was the motivation for the trip. There have been far too many issues of late I've had to deal with--one of which resulted in me asking a past client if she often worked for free since she expected me to do so--and I needed to clear my head. I needed a break. I needed to be out of touch. I needed the peace to sweep away what I want to leave behind in order to make room for what I want to do.
With all the other things happening these days, I was finding it impossible to wrap my head around how to make changes to Breath of Stone’s original outline that properly and deeply incorporated the seemingly small changes to Sand of Bone. I had trouble keeping track of the diverging and converging plotlines. And I had to figure out how to keep the character arcs I wanted while considerably shortening the action arcs.
I am happy to report it worked. I read through piles of old material--deciding what would stay and what would go and what order the "staying" parts should be in. I shuffled Magic Index Cards. I got reacquainted with storylines and characters and intentions. I got my book back.
It did help that, due to my food-forgetting, my meal preparations were no more distracting than heating a boxed soup on a Sterno stove (and that little thing is awesome!) and opening bags of peanuts and dried fruit.
The remainder of today is for a little writing followed by necessary chores and teaching. The rest of the week is for plowing ahead before I lose momentum. While it would be awesome to say I can finish the draft by the end of October, thereby clearing the deck for a possible NaNoWriMo attempt, that would require consistent 5K-word days. Since not showing up to teach and ignoring my son aren’t viable options, I’m going to say that October 31 finish date is out of the question.
One the other hand, finishing the draft by the end of November isn’t unrealistic. Let’s give that a tentative shot, hmm?
Added note: Younger me would have been affronted at the shock others had to find a woman camping alone. Current me finds it amusing. Is it really such an odd thing?