Saturday, May 8, 2010

Day 41, May 8, 2010

Today, as I've said a few times before, I wrote five pages. Except that I really wrote eight pages. Problem was, the first three I wrote I wound up ditching. Not that the writing wasn't any good. It was clean, fast, really moved. There were some funny lines in there, too. But it was off point. Didn't advance the story one bit. It was like a musician carrying a solo too far. At that point, it's an exercise in ego. Hey, look at what I can do.

Bore the reader, turn off an editor is what I can do—if I'm not careful. But I try my best to stay true to the story. So I scrapped half-a-day's work. Which really put me behind. So I stayed late at the keyboard and got five pages done. It's important to me now to keep the momentum going.

In today's writing, I showed why a character who's under considerable pressure and will be important to the story later on didn't just blow town. It's important that characters do what they do for reasons the reader can understand and believe. In another scene, the protagonist realizes the antagonists have gotten inside his head. Seemingly innocent sights take on sinister meanings for him. Putting him off balance is exactly what the antagonists want. So will he fall or find his balance? Keep reading, reader.

Day 41 of writing my new novel is done.

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