Tuesday 20 March Progress Report (Previous Report)
Where My Word Count Should Be: 25,000 words
Where My Word Count Is: 25,012 words
- Overview
It is really weird how each week of my writing challenge is different for every novel. I don’t understand why it is, but I believe a lot of it has to do with how vast this challenge is. It’s something I have never tried to do with my writing before. Sure, Sea Spray was something I worked on with a clear plan in mind a couple of years ago, but that was because I needed to finish it so I could move on to other projects.
The Writing Challenge is something for me to build up a subconscious pattern of writing so that every day I can wake up, do what I need to do, then pump out part of a book every day of the week. So far, it is proving a rousing success and it certainly exceeds all my expectations, but I don’t do this challenge for me. I do this challenge for YOU.
You, the reader, are the reason I do this sort of thing. You are the reason I write. Everything I do over the course of this challenge is fueled by your dedication and recognition of what I am doing. It brings me to a tear every time I see that people LIKE what I am doing.
- What I Did Today
Today was filling in a very specific blank from the start of Isabelle’s last chapter. In particular, it concerns Ashley Hudson realising how dire things are getting for her in such a short period of time. It is confusing writing almost identical stories from two different points of view, but that is how much of the first half of Reality works. I feel it produces work of a significantly higher quality as the issue I find with a lot of stories is we only get one side of it. That is a risk I take with a lot of my novels as I want to show the effects of the decisions of some characters on others.
- The Best Sample From Today
The best paragraph for today is one of the rare times I can showcase how intelligent (and arrogant) Ashley Hudson is. The sequence is also a Sherlock Holmes shout-out due to the the deduction involved.
“You make that sound like a challenge, Elisabetta. How many people do you have here? I counted seven cars, all of them SUVs capable of carrying six people. From memory, I know that the best places for them are at crucial choke points away from the main group. There’s two dozen of them on this block. There goes twenty-four of your men. Four are in our apartment. I can see them peek out the window every so often. You’re down to fourteen. You’d keep one in the cars at all times. That leaves seven. Two to watch the pile and five to roam around the area. All I need to do is deal with a couple of them and my path is clear. Is that about right, Elisabetta?” I hissed.
I want the paragraph to highlight Ashley’s smug attitude towards someone she does not perceive as much of a threat. The goal is to make the reader feel some sort of apathy and anger toward Ashley and hope something happens to her. Whether I am successful or not is a different story altogether.
I feel that the paragraph is one of the finest examples of what to expect from Crow. There is no wasted motion in the dialogue and it helps to build more layers onto Ashley’s character. What it also does, since Ashley is an Alabama-born American, is it breaks the dumb redneck stereotype a lot of people would expect her to have.
- How Productive I Felt I Was
Crow continues to amaze me. It was not a novel idea I really enjoyed before I started the Writing Challenge, but as the weeks go by, I find myself doing better and better with it. This week was an impressive achievement as I finished all my writing (except this report) before I even finished dinner! Granted, I had dinner at 8:30PM, but it’s still an achievement nonetheless.
The biggest achievement I find this week is that I surpassed the 25,000 word mark, and that is something big for me. It might not seem like it, but I am someone who would be lucky to make a story reach 10,000 words. What I discover from that is that when I take my time and think between sessions, I can write in an unstoppable fashion. That gives me great pride.
- What I Intend To Write Next Week
Next week will be the sequence that Isabelle did not see from Ashley in her chapter. It will be another case of Ashley learning more about Crow Enterprises and the reader learning more about why Ashley is the way she is, much like they did this week. It looks to be an exciting build up as the story moves along.
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