First post of the new year.
Maybe it's a good sign that it's about making progress on the current novel.
Day 13, December 30, 2008: end of day--42,699, total word count for the day--2,567.
Day 14, December 31 and Day 15, January 1: 0 words both days. My second chunk of allowed lack of writing. It was a good rest.
Day 16, January 2, 2009: (I'll have to get used to writing 2009 now) ended the day at 45,878, for a total word count for the day of 3,1979.
Day 17, January 3, 2009: o words. Saturdays are my bane.
Today is Day 18. I'm working on it now, though I am finding that it's hard to start in the morning. as in, I get little to no writing done until after noon. I do, however, make pretty good progress in the evening and night, sometimes getting 2,000 words or more done between 9/10 pm and midnight/1 am.
The past few days I've hit a bit of a rut, good word counts aside. I tend to have a very (very) general idea of where a story needs to go. Herein lies the problem with that style of organization--reaching the point of specific scenes that don't fall exactly along the line of that main arc. This one has developed a number of twists and subplots. I just introduced a new character, Detective Sam Emerson. Briefly: my protagonist was arrested for something he didn't do, but he can't really explain what really happened without looking like a loon. He's being framed by two people with otherworldly powers and thus are influencing some of the cops. Samuel Emerson already has a bit of a compulsive personality--he might not even need magic to make him obsess over a case.
The question is whether to develop his character and the police case, or keep it vague. It isn't the main conflict of the story, but it throws a wrench in the protag's plans. He's tried very hard to completely stay out of the cops' radar. Sam's interesting and already creating a voice in my head, which I'd like to explore, but then it becomes a trick of when to us a scene which furthers this arc or another.
More generally, when do I bring in one of these twist characters. Not enough and the few scenes they show up in and one wonders why they're there. Too much and there's no tension, the reader might get bored, or here isn't enough time to focus on someone else. Im a bit worried I have too much going on. Now that i think about it, though, I felt that way with another novel, too. So maybe it's just 'part of the process,' well, my process at least. I just need to keep writing and see where it goes. Afterwards, I can look at it as a whole and see if anything is off-balance.
Just keep writing. Okay, I'm off.
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