So today is March 1st, and that makes it a big day all around. I may drop a couple entries focusing on fiction that’s being released by Brigid and me, but this one is made to talk about the “Soft Dare” that we’ve decided to undertake.
A Full Dare is one in which we endeavor to write a book in a month.
That might happen here, too. One never knows. But in an effort to make sure we didn’t over-stress, we decided to fiddle with the programming, and give ourselves two months. That’s probably more important for her than me because my books in this series tend to be more in the 50-60K range rather than the 80K hers run. It’s also going to be “easier” on me because I’ve attempted to write this book before, so I have a couple thousand words of exploratory stuff already created. Regardless, that’s the deal—one book, two months.
If other writers want to join us, that’s peachy. Let me know and I’ll link to you here, too.
TODAY’s PROGRESS:
Well, I’m doing this early, so I’ll not have a final daily word count until tomorrow. Maybe I’ll come back later and fill in for posterity’s sake.
Instead, I wanted to talk about how I’m working. Usually I’ll either outline or pants. This time I’m kind of doing a middle-ground. This is book eight in a series, and I know two important things: (1) where book six and seven left of, and (2) where book nine is going to land. That means my goal in this book is to tell compelling story lines that deliver me from the end of point (1) above to the beginning of point (2) above.
So, what I’m doing is laying out chapters.
I’m dropping a chapter head, then writing a paragraph or two of what happens and why. Sometimes character reactions get included, too. Then I’m going to the next chapter head and doing the same thing. It’s a little like the Snowflake method popularized by Randy Ingermanson a few years back.
This is going to kind of mess with my word count early in that I’ll count everything I do—because #AllWordsMatter. Then I’ll have to discount things a little as I over-write or fill in. Such are the troubles we have, right?
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Anyway, I’m about half-way through the plot of the book. When I’m done, I’ll wade in deeper.
