Writing Report Week 5 – Crow

Crow is one of those novels that takes a lot of time and effort to work on. It requires me to be in the right zone and often I will take a long time to get even a hundred words down. I do push myself with Crow every single week and I gain more and more traction with every word I put down.

Tuesday 27 February Progress Report (Previous Report)

Word Target: 2,500

Words Written: 2,504

• Overview

Crow continues to break my common style. This week focused on setting the dynamic and the pace of the rest of the novel. Like Weekly Report – Chronicles: Ascension, I will provide a little overview of what the world of Crow is like for the characters involved.

For Crow, I played with the timeline a little. It takes place, chronologically, before Eden by a year, though there will be overlap between the two books in the future. As such, the world is set in the not too distant future so that everything is very similar to the world today.

I chose to set the novel in several places, though I use the name only and make no reference to anything inside the cities (I am utilising my creative license heavily for crow). The first portion of the novel takes place in San Diego. I chose the place because of the very minute reference to the Carmen Sandiego franchise of video games. Both forms of media are detective pieces, so I feel that San Diego is an apropos setting until the novel moves East through Texas, Alabama and ending in Florida.

Like most other pieces of Noir works, Crow’s Noire atmosphere is quite dark when compared to the rest of my catalogue. Already I have made direct implications of rape and violence perpetrated by the focus character! It is part of the reason I enjoy Crow – I can do stuff I would not dare try in my other novels.

• What I Did Today

The work for today introduced the major conflict of the novel and which two characters will be at odds throughout the course of Ashley’s investigation. Today I presented the event that drove a wedge between the two characters and set the rest of the novel into motion, while also finalising Ashley’s sidekick/romantic interest/agent of change.

• The Best Sample From Today

The best sequence from today is, like last week, full of subtleties involved in the world Ashley sees around her. It gives the reader a sense of how serious she can be about her work, while also giving a glimpse into what she used to be.

I snaked my way through the dense crowd. In the two and a half hours since I arrived, there seemed to be twice as many people. I had no choice but to squeeze past some people. The responses varied from mild annoyance in the case of entitled daddy’s girls to full on lust from horny males and obvious lesbians. To the latter of those I gave flirtatious looks and walked with a little sexual energy. Several tailed me to get my number or return my flirtations. None of them walked away with anything, but I did leave them with a smile and a heightened heart rate. Maybe I would indulge myself later. For now, I had one task to attend.

The first notable thing is how Ashley says she snakes through a crowd. It serves a double purpose – it examines how she perceives herself and sets up that she is most dangerous when cornered, which helps pay off near the end of the chapter.

How she sees people around her is also quite important. While she might seem arrogant, Ashley feels she earned the right to act in that manner. I want to paint Ashley as both an expert at reading people, while also not understanding that the world does not revolve around her and her wants are not the most important thing.

The second to last sentence shows a reader the slimy nature of Ashley and how she perceives the idea that debauchery is not an evil thing. She seems to relish in sex above all else. She might be Christian, but she sees nothing wrong with committing sin. She’s already an out and out lesbian: What’s the worst that can happen to her? That is her mindset.

• How Productive I Felt I Was

I am happy that I have managed to introduce the Main Dramatic Question fully and am able to progress and advance the story from there. It really signifies that I am past the second major hurdle of novel writing and that is getting the story set out. The first hurdle is starting the story.

Crow is my most intense novel in terms of how much brainpower I need to write it. I will be honest that I was not feeling at the top of my game today and lost my train of thought several times in the afternoon, but I maintained focused and pushed myself to match my daily goal with high quality writing – perhaps the highest quality writing in Crow.

• What I Intend To Write Next Week

Next week I focus on how Ashley will react and adapt to the changes in the world. Next week also signifies the point where I will reach the 20% completion mark of Crow. It speaks volumes to how effective my schedule is that I have almost quadrupled the length of Crow by dedication alone in a month. I look forward to my work next week and having my brain tested further.