I'm 30 minutes away from Midnight (official start) and I really wanted to start writing this afternoon. But it felt like cheating, so I'm restraining myself. I did, however, make more notes and fleshed out my outline a little more. I currently have 19 chapters planned. It doesn't seem like much... but if there's enough material, I may get more chapters out of it.
The amount of support and encouragement I'm already getting for this project is awesome. Some people think it's an impossible task. Others think it's an awesome challenge. And I've heard form other authors embarking on the same challenge. Not only is it nice to know that I'm not doing this alone, it's also nice to actually know some other people who will be going through this with me. Since I'm not confident that my first draft would be readable, I'm not going to share it with anyone until I get a chance to not only finish writing it, but read it once through. I will, however, post excerpts and/or passages that I'm particularly proud of.
Working Title: Phoenix Rising
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Final Preparations
I'm 22 hours, 30 minutes away from starting the novel.
So far, in my preparations, I've done:
- Created a dedicated work space to do my work
- Plotted and outlined the story. I know how I want it to begin, develop, and end.
- Outlined each chapter. According to the current online, I have 18 chapters.
- I know what I want the climax of the story to be and how I plan to resolve it.
- Developed the main characters - who they are, where they come from, their motivations and goals.
- Created the major relationships between the main characters and have an idea of how I want to develop those relationships.
- Decided who needs to die as a means of a catalyst for character development and story progression
- Decided on how magic works in my setting
- Created a short history for the setting
- Created political and religious background for the setting
I have 8 pages of copious notes to guide me in the process. I also know that as I'm writing, I'll probably come up with more ideas or change my mind about some of the development. I'm hoping that I'll just power through the need/want to make the changes and just write the original idea. The benefit of having my notes side-by-side with the manuscript on my screens is that I can easily toggle over and make potential revision notes without actually revising.
I've broken down my notes into chapters. It will give me a little more structure to work with so that I'm writing each chapter, and each page, with a specific intent and purpose. I have some chapters that need more development, but at least I know where the holes are. I'm hoping to fill in those holes as I write and perhaps add enough material to create more chapters. OR, I can just deal with some really long chapters.
So far, in my preparations, I've done:
- Created a dedicated work space to do my work
- Plotted and outlined the story. I know how I want it to begin, develop, and end.
- Outlined each chapter. According to the current online, I have 18 chapters.
- I know what I want the climax of the story to be and how I plan to resolve it.
- Developed the main characters - who they are, where they come from, their motivations and goals.
- Created the major relationships between the main characters and have an idea of how I want to develop those relationships.
- Decided who needs to die as a means of a catalyst for character development and story progression
- Decided on how magic works in my setting
- Created a short history for the setting
- Created political and religious background for the setting
I have 8 pages of copious notes to guide me in the process. I also know that as I'm writing, I'll probably come up with more ideas or change my mind about some of the development. I'm hoping that I'll just power through the need/want to make the changes and just write the original idea. The benefit of having my notes side-by-side with the manuscript on my screens is that I can easily toggle over and make potential revision notes without actually revising.
I've broken down my notes into chapters. It will give me a little more structure to work with so that I'm writing each chapter, and each page, with a specific intent and purpose. I have some chapters that need more development, but at least I know where the holes are. I'm hoping to fill in those holes as I write and perhaps add enough material to create more chapters. OR, I can just deal with some really long chapters.
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