Day 156

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

06 Feb 2017

Oops, forgot to mark it, but that's he best line imho from ch5

A photo posted by KAIE | 🇨🇦 author & bookaholic (@kaie.space_author) on

I think my own targets are negatively impacting output. Apparently I’m not that motivated by a production schedule, or I am, but I have to balance the motivation with the anxiety it causes or something… my brain is weird stuff, kids. Get close at your own peril.

Still conflicted over plot and characterization; It works better now, but I need to be aware of making sure there’s more to the story than Cole’s issues, I think. After seeing how well Maggie Steifvater weaves a lot of the same issues into a much broader, more diffuse storyline, I’m inspired to try to back off of the psychological issues to ensure there’s good development and rising action. The Raven Cycle hasn’t been one of my all-time faves; I just don’t feel that connected or excited by it, but it’s extremely well done.

In social media world, I’m over 800 followers on my bookstagram account, slowly growing on my novel-specific IG account and creeping upwards on Goodreads as well. Tumblr seems to be a lost cause, but I keep flogging it anyways for no reason except that I’ve invested so much time into it it seems a shame to shut it down now. I really ought to get a FB page going, invest some time in curating my Twitter feed and refresh my website with emphasis on a mailing list. Which also means some time working on synopses, artwork and maybe giveaway investment. I’m really hesitant to spend much more than my own time on any of this at the moment, since I don’t want to divert energy to freelance work and making money that will take away from this effort, but I don’t know how hard-line to be; strategic investment is meant to generate increased sales down the road. I’m not a real gambling-type personality, so I’ll probably toe a conservative line on that front if nothing changes, but that may prove shortsighted in hindsight…

Getting into the thick of things in the plot as I round the 25%/turning point mark to the main conflict… assuming I’ve set my book map and plot up correctly. Word count seems more like around 15% of total, which is still crazy good for just a few days last week, so as long as I don’t choke and everything’s actually flowing in the right direction, this could be back on track. I’m getting the impression I won’t be able to actually reuse much text from the original draft, which is unspeakably tragic, but even though the main thrust of the plot is the same, the meaning behind everything starts to shift the scenes and reactions a little too much… but we’ll see… it looks like I can keep the ‘ghost stories’ chapters almost untouched, which is cool. I’m stressed about the intrigue setup stuff; communicating Haynfyv and Serov seems important, and also really challenging to me. I’m going to go back and try to rewrite Ravel to be more something… he should be more appealing early on, more charismatic, if I can figure out a way to convey that. And then I’ll need to take another look at Haynfyv and Serov and make that characteristically accurate as well as informative and tense/threatening.

Considering changing the wider setting a bit. What if the Tower was just a locked-down building in Vancouver? Like, contemporary, actual Vancouver? Maybe it changes too many things, but the idea has some intrigue to me… We’ll see.

Monday

Start Time: 2 pm

Location: Abbotsford; home; couch

Drinking: water

Listening: Higher Truth, Chris Cornell

Post Index