Day 30

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

29 Sep 2015

So yeah, my timelines are not linking up; glad I got on that earlier rather than later! It makes sense to have some overlap between the different storylines to help tie things together a bit earlier on, so I made a point of Cole and Serov with Morris2 in tow running into each other in the elevator, Serov and the Inspector encountering each other in the course of their days, which makes a bit more sense really.

Unfortunately, given the time of death for the Bell Case, in conjunction with Cole’s escape from work and nighttime adventures, puts their relative story times at completely opposite times of day. Morris2 would be completely out of the picture by the time Cole skips work (not sure dead or just incapacitated, but certainly not flitting around in public).

Also, I really need to map out at the very least Tower3, if not the Tower complexes and surrounding neighbourhoods, sooner than later. Elevators and stairs up and down are getting a bit tricky, as I keep forgetting what floor I (more or less arbitrarily) have assigned to whom/which activity. I know there’s probably some fact checking on the copy edit end of publishing, but these mistakes mean some major rewriting, since they impact settings!

I’ve started in on a really tight timeline (think minute-by-minute) to try to ground activity in the real world, but it is a slow process, so I’ve only made it a few hours into the story, roughly corresponding to maybe three simultaneously-occuring chapters. It’s been great for really thinking out not only plot, but background information and the mechanics of Tower life. For instance, what time do workers get up, when do they actually go to work, etc? Are there different ‘shifts’ or schedules for different workers? How does the uniqueness of each person impact their response to the standard schedule?

But I’m also tempted to get caught up in these details and put myself back weeks or months again by planning instead of writing. I’ve been mildly horrified (ok, majorly horrified) to find out there are at least two second-degree connections that have written novels in about a month. Sure, one of them was only 50,000 words, but even so, I’m holding at 15K words in up to 4+ months. Yikes.

In other news, I’ve been obsessed with getting an electric guitar, and have narrowed down my tastes to the (thankfully) budget Squire Strats. So now I’m trying to shove my desire to make arrangements with Craigslisters in order to actually get any work done. Haven’t done any freelancing in… three weeks now? Give or take. Bleagh.

Also, reading Holly Black’s The Darkest Part of the Forest . I’m not all that comfortable with some of the elements she brings in (seems a little populist, for one thing), but man does she write well, and the most natural teen/youth culture writing I’ve ever seen. Not a hint of text-speak. Jealousy… Also, darkness, romance, supernatural… all done exceptionally well.

Go Holly!

Tuesday

Start Time: 11:00 am

Location: couch/living room

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