WIP, Day 5

I think I’m at 12,000. Yesterday, I started a time-honored trick. I began writing the book backwards. That is — I sat down and wrote, “Ultimate Chapter,” and put down a few paragraphs, then sketched in some things that needed to be explained/explored. Then it was onto “Penultimate Chapter,” which is more or less blank, because I don’t know what happens, just who’s present. And then it was the Penultimate Penultimate, where I discovered something interesting — I had backed right into the 32 chapters I had and the track more or less met.

More or less. I’m pretty sure that there are some scenes missiing and that the end isn’t properly ordered. And, of course, there are many, many changes to be made in this, the more-or-less third draft, to take advantage of things added during this draft. (I also decided to rewrite one chapter in order to move it to a Baltimore neighborhood that I found when I had to take a really complicated “shortcut” to get out of rush-hour traffic Wednesday.) But, dang it, Houston, we got BOOK. And I’ve got about an hour until my friends show up for our every-other-week Baltimore Sun ex-pats coffeehour, so I have to get started.

Meanwhile, you might want to read <a href=” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11855196 “_blank”>this</a>. Although I think most of you here know I am evangelical for “Sex Devil.”

7 thoughts on “WIP, Day 5”

I’m glad I’m not the only writer who “cheats” like this – a great procrastination tool that’s really not procrastination but gives you that delicious feeling of having gotten one over on yourself. Silly, but effective.

Glad to know you’ve “got BOOK,” which means we’ll all soon have another “BOOK” from you! Enjoy the almost nice Baltimore weather today!

Laura: Sigh..wish I was in Baltimore this morning. Beautiful weather here in S Florida, but hot, lemme tell ya. At least it’s Friday.

Great job on the words. This blog inspired me to sit down last night and actually stay in the chair long enough to map out the outline of the chapters after chapter 3. Thin outline, just a couple of sentences per, with titles per chapter. I take the titles off after I finish the last rewrite. The titles are just to keep me on track, so to speak.

Now to get some research done tomorrow afternoon at the library at Nova Southeastern. If I can get anything done with the noise from the Anime/comics conference .

Loved the tip and loved the story. Just reserved the book at the library. (The Clevnet system…Cleveland Public Library, plus 30 plus other libraries in northeast Ohio has only one copy.)

Am always happy to hear that another LL book is getting closer to completion.