So I did get time to work on the outline, at least a very high level outline. I’ve got the first nine chapters and the main plot points resolved and have almost all of the tenth completed. I ran into a bit of a road block trying to determine how two characters end up at a location. Didn’t quite figure that out last night, but I decided about ten minutes ago that the point was to get the plot outlined not the details. So, as of now, the characters arrive. With the how to be determined when I’m actually writing the events. Initially I was expecting roughly around twenty-seven chapters in addition to the prologue and the epilogue. I’m still thinking this is a pretty close estimate but I think if anything the total number will shrink a bit. I’ll just have to work out the details a bit more. Like I’ve said the middle portion of the novel is the troublesome part. But I have three key events that happen, and I know when they happen chronologically. It’s just linking them together that needs work. Regardless, I’m going to get back to work on it tonight and I’m hoping to have a completed outline finished before the weekend. With luck I’ll actually achieve that goal, and depending what I need to get done on the weekend I might get started with rewriting the prologue.
I think I’ve settled into a nice routine at this point, with my week days at least. I used to watch some podcasts on my bus ride to work in the morning, but I’ve replaced that with reading some of my purchases off Kobo (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo currently). My lunch hours are set aside to eating and writing posts. And depending on how much time I have after doing both, I tend to browse through the recent posts under the Writing tag. I have yet to be unable to find at least one post that was interesting to me on some level. I don’t really leave many comments but I should, perhaps, change that. My ride home is also now devoted to browsing through other users’ posts. I’ve found myself drifting more to posts either detailing the technical or theory behind writing. Though I often end up going over other’s posts on updates to their writing progress. I also try to keep up with blogs that I follow but my bus ride is only twelve minutes long.
I have been noticing that I’ve wanted to write. Not because my phone reminds me at the same time every night to get my ass in gear, but because I’m having fun doing it. I used to write a lot more; several years ago. But there was never any fun in it. It was a compulsion, an almost clinical need to put the words on paper. I think it was partially to try to get some relief from the depression I suffered through, and even then it didn’t help. But now? This reminds me of being back in kindergarten. Writing that first story with stick figure illustrations to go along with it. It reminds me of those horrible short stories I wrote in Grade 3, with demons ghosts and vampires. It’s a feeling like I’m back where I was meant to be despite having lost my way so long ago.
Writing Wasteland 