The Writing Week (Vol. 4) part 176 - Half Way Done

I hit page 50 yesterday. That felt nice. Actually, it felt pretty great. Of course, it means the second-half of act two slump is coming up, but I'll try not to dwell on that now.

Onyx took a look at my first act while I was on vacation last week. He gave me some good feedback on it. Nothing too critical at this juncture, but all good food for thought. Still, I've decided to push forward with the draft and implement the changes later. Unless anything directly affects the structure of the pages yet to be written, I'll save myself the hassle and work of sorting out the details now, in favor of getting the full story on the page.

One thing that happened, though, was that I found myself getting slowed by a particular seven page sequence that took me two days to write. Specifically, a supporting character I had budgeted for in my outline wound up having a greater role - in terms of importance and exposition relating to the protagonist, not in terms of page count - than I intended. He demonstrated himself to be an excellent opportunity to answer some vital questions. However, I was unprepared for the dialogue that unfolded on the page, and it took me longer to sort out the needs of the scene than I planned. Perhaps it means I hadn't done sufficient character work before writing. Actually, that's exactly what it means. Lesson learned.

Anyway, I plow ahead now, 50 pages down and ideally another 45 or 50 to go. I like the pacing so far, but I'm very much in the moment and will have to take a step back to look at the piece in its entirety when it's done. Hopefully, that will be in a couple weeks.

The one other thing I began this past week was some necessary reading to help me inform my creation of the world for the horror idea I was working on a while ago. I was hitting a few big walls with that, due largely to the fact that I had not drawn enough details from the marginal research I did. I needed to know more about the time and world. I still do. The book has been a great influence so far (I've barley crested the 20 page mark - time has been short these past few days), and I know it will prove itself integral to any future progress I make on that project. First I do the draft of the medieval spec; then I'll jump back into horror land with the knowledge I'll gain from my new reading material. Busy times, but it's nice to have two projects going at once. I recommend it, if you have the time.