30557 / 50000 words. 61% done!

I’m aiming for 2000 words a day at this point, otherwise I’m not going to catch up. And it’s a good daily workload for a part-time writer in any case, much less one with a relatively brain-eating demanding job.

One of the neatest features of Scrivener (on a Mac at least) is the Read Out Loud feature (under Edit -> Speech). This is… well… I think it’s possibly not a good idea to have a Draft Zero read back to you, the natural shittiness of such a thing would seem to make it an exercise in headdesking when what you need to do is get the words down. However, I believe it’s vital when you’re revising. I highly recommend The 10% Solution for the fine level of revision, when you’re out of the story edit jungle.

At this point I feel like I’m grinding through pure grist. But I have eked out an insight. I can toss out “what should happens” as tentpole points, but in order to fill out the story and give it depth, I always have something else happening at the same time. So for instance, Psann is getting fitted for his very first prosthetic, but at the same time the characters are having a discussion about the recent story bomb dropped on them and the shattering of reality. Suddenly an otherwise boring scene (even if it’s livened up with eventual detail about how prosthesis in general) becomes fraught with tension, and the beats of the two threads collide against each other, causing much excitement. Or at least that’s the plan! Gods know this cut is tripe, though it will get better with further revisions.

I feel like I could spin this story out forever, which is either a good sign or a bad sign. There are secondary characters I haven’t added in yet, for instance, at least not in real detail. Even the mini-baddies are getting a backstory in the mental story bible I have in my head.

In the meantime, keeping-a-keeping-up.