Slow But Steady Progress – The Climb #889

Friday 30th July 2021

I had a meeting today, that whilst nothing unusual in the big scheme of things, ended up with me spending a lot of time prepping and then following up on actions afterwards. As a result, it ate into my day and I didn’t get a lot else done.

This week has been an odd one. Whilst I’ve been pretty good about moving the novel along this past week and done a healthy wordcount each day… it’s lacked those super-productive days where I do a crazy amount. As a result, my weekly word count is probably going to be one of the worst in weeks.

I find the novel goes in ebbs and flows. When I’m writing key events, then the writing is copious as, even if the scenes look very different to what I originally imagined, they are structurally the same in terms of plot. In short, I know what to write. But between those big scenes, where the idea is to have characters react to what’s happened, decide new actions and then move towards the next big scene… then those scenes are not so clear and my writing slows down.

I’m OK with this. Novels aren’t supposed to be easy, and this one has a lot of characters with a lot of viewpoints. It’s also far more discovery than I originally planned. That’s possibly a result of jumping into it very soon after conception. I’ve stuck to the plot, but I’ve definitely seen characters develop as I write. It’s a messier first draft than I’ve written in a long time.

But, and this is the most important thing, it IS moving forwards. Even if I’m not exactly sure what to say in a scene, I know the direction it needs to go in. And certainly the characters all seem very driven at the moment.

I very much expect that on a scene level, lots will be changed in the next draft. I’ll merge scenes so they don’t sometimes feel like an event followed by five scenes as five different characters react. I may change the POV character to do this. But overall, this novel does feel… meaty. There’s a lot going on and it feels very much driven by character agency.

The first task though is to get it done, and whilst I’m 105,000 words in, part of me thinks this first draft could come in at 160,000. The second draft will be considerbly less, but that’s the process of writing. Sometimes you need to write all angles before knowing which ones to take where.

Hopefully, next week I can start getting more than one session on the novel done in a day, but with all the video projects I’m working on, I’m not sure when I’ll get time. This does need to be a priority though!