Saturday 4th February 2017

Today I started a cult whilst in the gym.
Well not an actual cult… but a fictional one that will fit well into the novel.  As I was there pounding away on the treadmill I came up with the idea and saw loads of ways it could connect into not only this book but future books I have rough plans for.
I love being a writer.  I can make shit up anywhere.
Take this morning, for example.  I had a little lay in because I’ve got a swordfighting tournament tomorrow and have to be up early.  And whilst laying there… what happened?  Why, I only solved my issue with this torture scene.  If you’ve been following the last couple of days you will have read about the issue:  the torture scene I have needs two “red shirts”, I now have one (yeah I know, how careless!).  But I also worry that whilst I want the scene to be shocking I don’t really think it’s giving any real character development.
And what’s the solution?  The solution is to soften the torture scene to an experiment, have it go a bit horrific, have one villain complain about it, but then have it pointed out that their recent recovery was due to elements of the same experiment.  I know, I know, I’m vagueblogging (or perhaps we should call it VagueClimbing), but trust me when I say that in 2-3 years when you read this book (cos that’s totally going to happen!  Honest!) you’ll know exactly what scene I’m talking about.
I think is one of the things that could be really interesting about The Climb… where you see how I actually go about writing… see me worrying about one thing one day, and then come to a conclusion the next.  And come publication of books and stories I mention on here, these will act as “Bluray Extras” or “Director’s Commentary”.
As you can imagine, I was pretty pumped at having such a productive day before I’d even come to write.
The day’s been pretty busy.  Got up, did housework whilst making myself a big brunch.  Then just before midday I headed into town to meet up with some local writers.  It’s good to hear what they are up to and just talk about the craft of writing.  From there I went and got a haircut, then to H&M to get some sweatshirts (because going from a XXL to a M in the last year means I have little winter weather gear).  And finally I went to the gym where I did about an hour of cardio.  I could have probably pushed it a bit more but I didn’t want to knacker myself out before the tournament tomorrow.
I had a big ass meal this evening.  I’ve still not perfected my pre-tournament eating regime so I experimented tonight with a big meal made of a lot of vegetables.  We’ll see how that goes.
Then this evening, I did a lot of writing.  Aside from writing up The Climb, I also wrote and posted a monthly Year of the Offensive update.  I figure this will be useful for people who don’t want to read The Climb or read a summary of the month but going forward I probably have to find a way to make them distinct from each other.
Finally, I worked on the scene in the novel.  I had to go back and change some of the dynamics earlier in the chapter but I was happy that I didn’t have to go back further and add in another red shirt.  As a result, there was a lot of editing, taking things out to replace with other things (mainly dialogue).  It was slow going but given how fiddly it was and that I was taking words away as well as adding them, my net gain of about 350 words doesn’t really show how much work I put in.
Most importantly, I’m really loving what’s happening on the page.  I can probably tighten it up a lot but that’s a job for the next draft.  I’m just really, really loving that with this book there’s a lot of antagonists, each of whom are an antagonist of the others.  It’s making for a really interesting dynamic on the page and I think as a reader it’s interesting to be this far into the story and wonder just who the main antagonist is?
I worked until about 1am but needed to get to bed ahead of my tournament.  I started getting a little pumped for it yesterday in the gym but I think I’m mentally setting myself up for disappointment given lack of training.  I’ve got to change that around.  Fuckers are going down!!!
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels.  Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.
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