At 9:46 AM this morning I felt like I was chronically running behind schedule from a much needed lie in this morning. I was up and eager to get plotting. My first step to finalizing and tweaking my plot was to read through what I’d already written. I knew any of my official word count today would come from this and I had to walk to the fine line of only fleshing out what was necessary to connect the beginning to the plot that was to come.
What I accomplished today:
What I learned from Bane and Lee is that quitting smoking changed the way I write and plot. I now divide my plots into 3 sections. (Yep. The 3 Act Formula). Today I finalized the plot for the first 3rd of the book. This means there will be more days of plotting in my future, but I think overall it saves me time on tweaking a million times throughout the process.
Snags Along the Way:
My biggest snag was that I was breaking my normal schedule of writing and rest. I usually write for 3 or 4 days and then take a day off. It was day 5 of working straight and my brain was ready for a day of reading and just not thinking about the book. In the spirit of camp and with the promise of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon tomorrow (Well, today by the time you read this and if you’re reading this why not participate? Reading is a great way to spend a Saturday!)
The other snag was simply having too many ideas of how to take Blake and Jonah from point A to point B. Before I ever sit down to write a book I know two things: Where my characters start and where I want them to end up. The middle is a riddle until the first few chapters are written and I finalize a plot. I also had this problem with Bane and Lee in Healer’s Oath.
Bane and Lee taught me a few things, though. There are many roads to travel and as a writer plotting I should take the most direct path that also has the most interesting sights to see. Yesterday I wrote a scene where Bane interacts with Blake and Jonah and I missed him so much. He was one of my favorite Alphas to write. Maybe I need to read this blog post again myself. As evidenced below of what I caught myself typing. It was meant to be Blake, but I typed Lee. lol
How today went:
Starting Word Count: 11,053
Total Words Written: 143
Ending Word Count: 11186
After thoughts:
I’m enjoying camp so far, but I am so ready for the break tomorrow brings! I’m ready to shove my nose in the book and refill my fingers with some words!
Happy writing fellow campers!
Maggie Hemlock Books 