Monday 26 March Progress Report (Previous Report)
Where My Word Count Should Be: 25,000 words
Where My Word Count Is: 25,024 words
- Overview
I will admit I am beginning to feel the strain of such an intensive amount of writing. I know that is not something a writer should admit, but it feels good to let others know that what I am doing is not done easily. Every word does take a toll on me but I continue to strive for that perfection.
There is no overall theme to my writing, but I like to consider myself an unbiased and all-inclusive writer. I offer no judgement on any of my characters, though other characters in the novel might. I must mention that I do not condone any form of bullying or prejudice and my novels are my way of breaking down walls in fiction.
As noted in the title, Ascension has hit the 25% completion mark. Nine weeks ago, I never imagined I could get to this point, but here I am and I am proud of every single word I have put down. I am not letting my success get to my head, because what needs to happen is I need to keep my eyes focused on achieving what I set out to do from the start.
- What I Did Today
Today took a brief respite from the insanity that was the first flight for the Avenger last week. For today, I chose to step back and focus on character building. Any experienced writer will say that good characters drive the plot and I subscribe to that theory. A sufficiently good novel relies on how the characters act to drive the story forward.
I also spent some time working on making the pagination uniform. The page was a little smaller than it needed to be, and that threw off some of the writing. I corrected a few places to better align the words (mostly to remove orphan/widow lines).
- The Best Sample From Today
The sample for today is one of the better introductions to a character I have used. While not particularly entertaining in the traditional sense, it is important to make a reader feel what a character is all about right off the bat.
“Oh, this is a grand surprise. I must say it is an utter honor to meet you at long last Lieutenant Captain Ki’in. I need to discuss more about your family history at some stage. And this must be the effervescent and inimitable Captain Kile Sa’an. It is a pleasure to serve as your staff doctor on this unique mission. My official name is Professor Ma’as, but I do not relish that title. You may refer to me as Dee. My mother bestowed that name upon me on the occasion of my birth. She is quite the character. Or, was. Please, allow me to show you around. You must be dying to know what I intend to do down here in this dark pit,’ Dee said.
The colourful language is something I don’t often indulge in. I prefer a more straightforward choice of words when I write pretty much anything, yet that would not work in this case. I wanted to show that, in such a militaristic society, there can be the eclectic and eccentric characters that people resonate with.
I will not spoil the character of Dee as that is something for the reader to find out. What the reader notices off the bat is that Dee is a lot more knowledgeable than what Kile is and is not afraid to show off that intelligence. It also subverts the cold introductions by the way that Dee reacts to the presence of Kile and Julenn.
- How Productive I Felt I Was
I continue to showcase that I do not envision Ascension as a bland Sci Fi novel by the fact I want to populate the confined space of the Avenger with a multitude of multifaceted characters. While I did not touch on the subject of Rainer much, his name is now beginning to crop up more and that is what I needed to bring to the forefront. The mention of Rainer’s name should build anticipation for the reader, since they know what he is capable of.
I went back to a single chunk of writing this week, but I did not feel pressured to do so. I like to experiment with the way I write as it is interesting to see how ideas flow with different pacing.
- What I Intend To Write Next Week
For next week, the tension aboard the Avenger will continue to rise when Kile and Julenn go to speak to the brash and arrogant Sg’ra. The reader needs to know more about why he acts the way he does and why he feels so entitled. He is not intended as the typical rich jock archetype and his background is a lot more complex than that.
The conversation with Sg’ra will help lead into the first confrontation with Rainer and I look forward to manipulating my reader’s expectations, but in a good way. I want to pull the reader’s emotions in every which way, since, though my novels have focus characters, they are not necessarily the good guys.
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